Buon Purim: proselytizing, professing Jews and the Papal Inquisition in Modena

摘要

This essay focuses on an Inquisitorial trial in which a Jewish banker, Moise de Modena, well respected in the Modenese community (Christian as well as Jewish), decided in 1625 to make a stand against two constables and refuse them the customary ‘protection money’ which they demanded during the festival of Purim. The event provided a shaky foundation for their charge of proselytizing. De Modena faced persistent Inquisitorial prosecution but chose also to hire Christian legal counsel to defend him. The trial raises questions about Jews who were able to work behind the scenes during Inquisitorial prosecution in early modern Italy to ensure their acquittal. It also examines gift-giving as a specific social practice between Jews and Christians during he Jews’ ‘carnivalesque’ Purim, which in this particular year fell during Holy Week.