The Universalism of Judaism: An Italian Sephardic Perspective

Traditionalist rabbi and liberal scholar Elijah Benamozegh expressed an unlikely combination of traditional beliefs and modernizing practices in his theological and philosophical works. A lifelong inhabitant of Livorno, Italy, he received a Jewish education from his uncle, a Moroccan kabbalist. Benamozegh was a member of the rabbinic court and a professor at Livorno’s modern rabbinical seminary. He published works in Hebrew, Italian, and French that were notable for their highly idiosyncratic theology. In addition to expounding a balance among religious traditions, modern scholarship, and science, Benamozegh’s works displayed a highly unusual openness to harmonizing Judaism with pagan and even Christian religious traditions. With equal idiosyncrasy, they reimagined Judaism’s kabbalistic tradition as a theory of God’s manifestation in all realms of human culture and the natural world—and as a vehicle of religious universalism. Benamozegh combined this commitment to finding universalism within Judaism’s kabbalistic tradition with an intense Italian patriotism, itself kabbalistically inflected.