The Jews in Sicily, Volume 2, 1302-1391 (review)

The volume under review is the sixteenth in the author’s Documentary History of the Jews in Italy, and the second of four volumes on the Jews of Sicily, covering most of the fourteenth century. The first volume covers epigraphic records from 383 to 1300, and the remaining volumes are planned to cover the last century of Jewish presence on the largest island in the Mediterranean until the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. Simonsohn, Professor Emeritus of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University, charts known and not so known references and sources from state archives of Barcelona, Trapani, Venice, and particularly Palermo as well as state, local authorities, and notaries. What emerges is an impressive annotated record in Latin on the Jewish economic life in Sicily in the first century of Aragonese rule.

The documents suggest that the Jews were well adjusted in Sicilian life. They were indistinguishable from non-Jews in business dealings, and hundreds of notarial deeds suggest equity in taxes, debts, and fines. Records show that Jews were involved in all facets of economic life: blacksmiths, agriculture, merchants, real estate, saddlers, shoemakers, shipping, tanning, trade and business, and the medicinal profession, druggists, doctors, and surgeons. For the most part Jews succeeded economically, but there were special Jew taxes pertaining to Jewish religious rituals or events; e.g., meat tax, wine tax, entertainment tax at rites of passage (birth, wedding), etc. The relationship between the Jews and the Crown and the Church reflect mixed fortune. For example, on 12 March 1321, King Peter II ordered the officials in Marsala to prevent church authorities from exercising jurisdiction over the Jews in Mazara, and nine months later he rescinded his declaration. Also portrayed are examples of Jewish communal self- government and synagogue life. The entries are indexed and organized, and demon strate mastery of the vast documentation involved, with careful attention to primary sources.

As mentioned, this volume is part of a work in progress. Consequently, there is no narrative or introductory matter (this is promised in the last volume) to aid in understanding the documents as part of the whole picture. The brief remarks that place each entry in situ help, but they are not sufficient for a generalist. Nonetheless, an important source of sources for researchers of Sicilian Jewry.