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27-642: The Italian nusach has been considered an offspring of the ancient Land of Israel minhag and it has similarities with the nusach of the Romaniote Jews of Greece and the Balkans. However, the documents discovered in Cairo Geniza reveal that the influence of Minhag Eretz Israel on Benè Romì is less extensive than believed. Italian Jews have their own unique prayer rite that is neither Sephardic nusach , Nusach Ashkenaz , nor Nusach Sefard , and to

54-579: A certain extent is not subject to Kabbalistic influence. In Italy, there were also communities of Spanish origin who prayed in the Sephardic rite and communities of German origin who prayed in the Western Ashkenazic rite, which were mainly in northern Italy. The Italian rite, therefore, is not the rite of all Jews in Italy, but the rite of the veteran Italian Jews, called "Loazim". Despite being

81-598: A dominant prayer rite among Italian Jews, the Italian rite rarely spread beyond its borders, unlike other prayer rites such as the Sephardic rite, which Spanish exiles brought to many places, or the Ashkenazic rite, which also reached new regions starting from the 19th century. The Italian rite hardly left the borders of Italy, except for a few cases where it reached other communities in the Middle East. For example, in

108-530: Is noteworthy as the time when Zunz made his first acquaintance with Johann Christoph Wolf 's Bibliotheca Hebræa , which, together with David Gans 's Tzemach David , gave him his first introduction to Jewish literature and the first impulse to think of the "Science of Judaism." He settled in Berlin in 1815, studying at the University of Berlin and obtaining a doctorate from the University of Halle . He

135-580: The Babylonian minhag , refers to the minhag (rite and ritual) of medieval Palestinian Jews concerning the siddur (traditional order and form of the prayers). A complete collection has not been preserved from antiquity, but several passages of it are scattered in both the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds , in the Midrashim , in the Pesiktot , in minor tractate Soferim , and in some responsa of

162-699: The Palestinian Gaonate . Some excerpts have been preserved in the Siddur of Saadia Gaon and the Cairo Geniza yielded some important texts, such as the Amidah . One fragment of a Palestinian siddur discovered in the genizah was written in Hebrew with various introductions and explanations in Judeo-Arabic dialects . The Geniza fragments mostly date from the 12th century, and reflect the usages of

189-533: The 19th century." This was Zunz's Gottesdienstliche Vorträge der Juden , i.e. a history of the Sermon . It lays down principles for the investigation of the Rabbinic exegesis ( Midrash ) and of the siddur (prayer-book of the synagogue). This book raised Zunz to the supreme position among Jewish scholars. In 1845 appeared his Zur Geschichte und Literatur , in which he threw light on the literary and social history of

216-759: The Culture and Science of the Jews) alongside Joel Abraham List , Isaac Marcus Jost , and Eduard Gans in Berlin in 1819. In 1823, Zunz became the editor of the Zeitschrift für die Wissenschaft des Judenthums (Journal for the Science of Judaism). The ideals of this Verein were not destined to bear religious fruit, but the "Science of Judaism" survived. Zunz "took no large share in Jewish reform ", but never lost faith in

243-781: The Detmold community. The year following his birth his family moved to Hamburg , where, as a young boy, he began learning Hebrew grammar, the Pentateuch , and the Talmud. His father, who was his first teacher, died in July 1802, when Zunz was not quite eight years old. He subsequently gained admission to the Jewish "free school" (Freischule) founded by Philipp Samson, in Wolfenbüttel . Departing from home in July 1803, he saw his mother for

270-486: The Jewish ritual practises, he understood them as symbols (see among others his meditation on tefillin, reprinted in "Gesammelte Schriften," ii. 172-176). This contrasts with the traditional view of the validity of divine ordinances according to which the faithful are bound to observe without inquiry into their meaning. His position accordingly approached that of the symbolists among the reformers who insisted that symbols had their function, provided their suggestive significance

297-583: The Jews can challenge the aristocracy of every land; if a literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic tragedies—what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen hundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?" In 1840 he became director of the Berlin Jewish Teachers' Seminary. He was friendly with the traditional Enlightenment figure Nachman Krochmal whose Moreh Nebuke ha-Zeman (Lemberg, 1851),

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324-510: The Jews. He had visited the British Museum in 1846, and this confirmed him in his plan for his third book, Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters (1855). It was from this book that George Eliot translated the following opening of a chapter of Daniel Deronda : "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations...". After its publication Zunz again visited England, and in 1859 issued his Ritus . In this he gives

351-894: The Palestinian-rite synagogue in Cairo, which was founded by refugees from the Crusades. Though the Jerusalem Talmud never became authoritative against the Babylonian, some elements of the Palestinian liturgy were destined to be accepted in Italy, Greece, Germany and France, even in Egypt, against the Babylonian, owing to the enthusiasm of the scholars of Rome. The Babylonian rite was accepted mainly in Spain, Portugal and

378-555: The Sephardi rite was derived from that of Babylon while the Ashkenazi rite reflects that of Palestine, goes back to Leopold Zunz , and was largely based on the fact that the Ashkenazi rite contains many piyyutim of Palestinian origin which are absent from the Babylonian and Sephardi rites. However, the correspondence is not complete. First, a few Sephardi usages in fact reflect Palestinian as against Babylonian influence, for example

405-524: The Teachers' Seminary, and was awarded a pension. Throughout his early and married life he was the champion of Jewish rights, and he did not withdraw from public affairs until 1874, the year of the death of his wife Adelheid Beermann, whom he had married in 1822. Together with other young men, among them the poet Heinrich Heine , Zunz founded the Verein für Kultur und Wissenschaft der Juden (The Society for

432-462: The Wissenschaft des Judentums which he intended to serve as a medium for presenting, preserving, and transmitting the corpus of Jewish literary works. Zunz believed that only an academic approach to Jewish texts and a comprehensive and interdisciplinary academic framework would allow for the adequate study of Jewish themes and Judaism. In 1832 appeared "the most important Jewish book published in

459-474: The cities of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, several Italian synagogues operated until World War II, as well as in the city of Safed in the 16th and 17th centuries. Today, communities using the Italian rite are active in Jerusalem and Netanya, the main one being in the main Italian synagogue on Hillel Steet in downtown Jerusalem. These synagogues in Jerusalem and Netanya are the only Italian rite synagogues in

486-682: The last time (she died in 1809 during his years in Wolfenbüttel). A turning point in Zunz's development came in 1807, when Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg  [ de ] , a reform-minded educator, took over the directorship of the Samson School. Ehrenberg reorganized the curriculum, introducing, alongside traditional learning, new subjects such as religion, history, geography, French, and German; he became Zunz's mentor, and they remained friends until Ehrenberg's death in 1853. The summer of 1811

513-574: The regenerating power of " science " as applied to the traditions and literary legacies of the ages. He influenced Judaism from the study rather than from the pulpit . Although affiliated with the Reform movement, Zunz appeared to show little sympathy for it, though this has been attributed to his disdain for ecclesiastical ambition and fears that rabbinical autocracy would result from the Reform crusade. Further, Isidore Singer and Emil Hirsch have stated that "the point of (Geiger's) protest against Reform

540-444: The southern countries. Liturgies incorporating some elements of the Palestinian minhag fall into three distinct groupings. It has been argued that Saadia Gaon 's siddur reflects at least some features of the Palestinian minhag and that this was one source of the liturgy of German Jewry. Another historic liturgy containing Palestinian elements is the old Aleppo rite (published Venice, 1527 and 1560). This traditional view, that

567-527: The use of the words morid ha-tal in the Amidah in summer months; and Moses Gaster maintained that the correspondence is the other way round (i.e. Ashkenazi=Babylonian, Sephardi=Palestinian). Secondly, Palestinian influence on any of the current Jewish rites extends only to isolated features, and none of them substantially follows the historic Palestinian rite. Leopold Zunz Leopold Zunz ( Hebrew : יום טוב צונץ — Yom Tov Tzuntz , Yiddish : ליפמן צונץ — Lipmann Zunz ; 10 August 1794 – 17 March 1886)

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594-484: The world outside of Italy. Due to waves of immigration of Jews from Libya to Italy, after the establishment of the State of Israel until the end of the 1960s, the Sephardic rite became the dominant rite in southern and central Italy. Palestinian minhag The Eretz Israel minhag , ( Hebrew : נוסח ארץ ישראל , translit: Nusach Eretz Yisrael translation: "Rite or Prayer Service of The Land of Israel") as opposed to

621-561: Was ordained by the Hungarian rabbi Aaron Chorin , an early supporter of religious reform, and served for two years teaching and giving sermons in the Beer reformed synagogue in Berlin. He found the career uncongenial, and in 1840 he was appointed director of a Lehrerseminar, a post which relieved him from pecuniary troubles. Zunz was always interested in politics, and in 1848 addressed many public meetings. In 1850 he resigned his headship of

648-501: Was directed against Samuel Holdheim and the position maintained by this leader as an autonomous rabbi." Later in life Zunz went so far as to refer to rabbis as soothsayers and quacks . The violent outcry raised against the Talmud by some of the principal spirits of the Reform party was repugnant to Zunz's historic sense. Zunz himself was temperamentally inclined to assign a determinative potency to sentiment, this explaining his tender reverence for ceremonial usages. Although Zunz kept to

675-461: Was edited, according to the author's last will, by his friend Leopold Zunz. Zunz died in Berlin in 1886. Zunz’ famous article “Etwas über die rabbinische Litteratur” (“On Rabbinical Literature”), published in 1818, established the intellectual agenda of the Wissenschaft des Judentums (“Science of Judaism”), while adumbrating the main themes of his own future work as well. Even at this early stage of his academic career, Zunz mapped out his concept of

702-439: Was spontaneously comprehensible. He emphasized most strongly the need of a moral regeneration of the Jews. He wrote precise philological studies but also impassioned speeches on the Jewish nation and history that had an influence on later Jewish historians. Zunz wrote in 1855: "If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the nations; if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they are borne ennoble,

729-446: Was the founder of academic Judaic Studies ( Wissenschaft des Judentums ), the critical investigation of Jewish literature , hymnology and ritual. Zunz's historical investigations and contemporary writings had an important influence on contemporary Judaism. Leopold Zunz was born at Detmold , the son of Talmud scholar Immanuel Menachem Zunz (1759–1802) and Hendel Behrens (1773–1809), the daughter of Dov Beer, an assistant cantor of

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