Another Modernity: Elia Benamozegh’s Jewish Universalism

330 Pages·2020·2.29 MB·English

by  Clémence Boulouque

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Another Modernity
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Stanford Studies in Jewish History and Culture
A N O T H ER
M O D ER N I T Y
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Elia Benamozegh’s Jewish Universalism
CLÉMENCE BOULOUQUE
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 2020 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by
any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written
permission of Stanford University Press.
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free, archival-quality paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available on request.
LCCN 2020937846 | ISBN 9781503612006 (cloth)
Cover design by Rob Ehle
Typeset by Kevin Barrett Kane in 10.25/15 Adobe Caslon Pro
To my parents
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Abbreviations xiii
Introduction 1
Part I. Benamozegh’s Texts and Contexts:
Morocco, the Risorgimento,
and the Disputed Manuscript 15
1 The Moroccan World of a Livornese Jew 17
2 An Italian Jewish Patriot in the Risorgimento 27
3 The Banned Author and the Oriental Publisher 37
4 Expanding His Readership: Benamozegh’s Turn to French 46
5 The Afterlives of a Manuscript 53
Part II. Universalism as an Index
of Jewish Modernity 63
6 Situating Benamozegh in the Debate on Jewish Universalism 65
7 Normativity and Inclusivity in Modernity: The Role and
Limits of the Noahide Laws 83
8 Cosmopolitanism and Universalism: The Political Value of
Judaism in an Age of Nations 93
vii
viii CONTENTS
9 Universalism in Particularism: Benamozegh’s Legacies, between
Levinas and Religious Zionism 102
Part III. Beyond Binaries: Kabbalah as
a Tool for Modernity 107
10 Kabbalah: Reason and the Power of Myth 109
11 Beyond Dualism: Kabbalah and the Coincidence of Opposites 122
12 Kabbalah as Politics 133
Part IV. Past Enmity: Modes of Interreligious
Engagement and Jewish Self-Affirmation 149
13 Religious Enmity and Tolerance Reconsidered 151
14 “The Iron Crucible” and Loci of Religious Contact 162
15 Self-Assertion and a Jewish Theology of Religions 173
16 Modes of Interreligious Engagement: From Theory to
Social Practices 183
Epilogue 193
Notes 197
Bibliography 261
Index 295
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is a daunting task to turn my immense gratitude into an exercise in brevity.
It all started when the Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New
York University gave a chance to an unorthodox applicant for their PhD
program. My adviser in the Hebrew and Judaic Studies Department, Elliot
Wolfson, gave me both guidance and space to grow. The sheer magnitude of
his scholarship, his enduring presence, and his dedication have been an inspi-
ration. I also thank Zvi Ben Dor Benite, David Engel, Stefanos Geroulanos,
and Elli Stern on my committee, whose judicious observations helped me
make sense of Benamozegh’s voices and to start thinking of the book that
could emerge from the abundance of Benamozegh materials. I am grateful to
Marion Kaplan and Dan Fleming who morphed from teachers into friends,
as well as Larry Wolff, Michah Gottlieb, Hasia Diner, and Adam Becker.
Joseph Weiler invited me to become a fellow at what was then the
Tikvah Institute at NYU, an autonomous republic in Washington Square
Park that he codirected with Moshe Halbertal and where all senior scholars
found the time to nurture their junior fellows. Pierre Birnbaum, Jonathan
Garb, Marc Hirshman, Lawrence Kaplan, James Kugel, Benjamin Sommer,
and Yehoyada Amir among others have broadened my perspectives in so
many ways, as has Suzanne Stone and the seminars on legal theory at the
Center for Jewish Law and Contemporary Civilization. Allan Amanik, Ruth
Kara-Ivanov, Yehuda and Michelle Sarna have been the best constellation of