A Jew and a Christian Walk into a Cafe: Jewish Life in a Mediterranean Port
Har Zion Temple
1500 Hagys Ford Rd
Penn Valley, PA 19072
Dr. Francesca Bregoli will discuss Jewish life in the important Italian port city of Livorno during the eighteenth century, highlighting the complexity of Jewish life in a city where Jews enjoyed extensive liberties, and where both the Jewish leadership and Christian authorities struggled to maintain a social separation between Jews and non-Jews. The example of the coffeehouse - a place patronized by Jews and non-Jews alike - will illuminate both ideal expectations and the realities of the Jewish experience.
Featuring
Francesca Bregoli
Queens College, CUNY
Francesca Bregoli is Assistant Professor of History at Queens College/CUNY. She also holds the Joseph and Oro Halegua Chair in Greek and Sephardic Jewish Studies. Her first book, Mediterranean Enlightenment: Livornese Jews, Tuscan Culture, and Eighteenth-Century Reform, is forthcoming in 2014 with Stanford University Press.