Un’altra fede. Le Case dei catecumeni nei territori estensi (1583–1938) by Matteo Al Kalak and Ilaria Pavan (review)

Case dei catecumeni, or Houses for Catechumens, were a prominent feature in the social and religious life of early-modern Italy. They provided places of support and isolation for Jews who sought Christian baptism. Such houses operated in many Italian cities and reflected both the generally chauvinistic attitude of the Catholic Church and of gentiles toward Jews and the particular political and social realities of their immediate locations. Matteo al Kalak and Ilaria Pavan have collaborated in the publication of a study of such works in the cities of Modena and Reggio under the government of the Este family and the later postrevolutionary governments of those areas down to 1938. This volume is composed, in fact, of two studies. Al Kalak has provided a careful analysis of the operations of these works in the early-modern period prior to the Napoleonic revolutions in Italy, whereas Pavan sheds valuable light on those operations under the governments of modern Italy.

The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century history of Christian work with Jewish catechumens and neophytes, those preparing for or recently baptized, in Modena and Reggio holds much in common with the experience of other Italian cities. Al Kalak examines the houses of catechumens in a broader context of charitable foundations that provided material support to those in need. In this case, assistance was offered to Jews who, by their acceptance of Christianity, separated themselves from their communities of origin. That support also constituted a means of forced isolation by which church leaders prevented any contact between catechumens and their families or community leaders. Although forced baptisms were customarily forbidden, the indigence of many of the converts suggests something other than a free religious choice on their part. The number of conversions in these two cities was never very large and never threatened to undermine the Jewish community in any substantial way. The Este rulers were known for their relatively benign attitude to their Jewish subjects. By the seventeenth century, the Este provided for the opportunity for Jewish family members of the catechumens and other leaders of the Jewish communities to question catechumens directly on the validity and justice of their conversions. The Church, meanwhile, used conversions as an opportunity to celebrate ritually what it saw as a Christian triumph over Jewish religion. Jews that were to be baptized were splendidly appareled as they walked in procession from their residence to the cathedral, where they were initiated into the Church. The audience for these triumphs was as much Christian as Jewish.

The revolutions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries did not end the work of the Case dei catecumeni. These houses continued to operate. During the 1796–1814 revolutionary period, the Jewish communities enjoyed greater legal protections while still facing traditional hostility from gentiles. Pavan demonstrates how the civil authorities played a significant role supervising the entrance of Jews into the catechumenate and Jewish families and community leaders played a more prominent role in the examinations of candidates to protect Jews and the Jewish communities. With the restoration on the Este family in 1814, the pendulum swung back and older practices that favored traditional Christian attitudes toward the Jews reappeared. Pavan recounts several chilling examples of the government upholding canon law on the forced separation from their families of Jewish children baptized without parental consent. The Case dei catecumeni faced both political and economic challenges after the establishment of the Kingdom of Italy that led to their closure.

The broad chronological sweep of this volume will make it of interest to students of early modern and modern Italy, scholars of Christianity, and historians of the Jews.