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- Title
Prospero Moisè Loria: A Case Study of Jewish Secularism in Liberal Italy.
- Authors
Levi D’Ancona Modena, Luisa
- Abstract
In his will, Prospero Moisè Loria (1814-92) requested an autopsy and cremation and left his large inheritance to the municipality of Milan to establish a secular philanthropic institution, the Società umanitaria, “to enable all the disenfranchised poor, without distinction.” Loria and other Italian Jews were at the heart of secularist activity in Italy’s culture wars, as demonstrated by their engagement with secular philanthropy, battles for cremation, and Freemason activity. By exploring Loria as the most generous nineteenth-century Italian Jewish philanthropist, along with his affiliation with the Alliance israélite universelle as a secular Jewish institution in the Mediterranean, this essay shows how forms of secularism and Jewishness could coexist for Italian Jews and how secularism in Italy could include a commitment to a Jewish collective, and thus seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the composite mixture of secular Italians and to a discussion of Jewish secularism in an international context.
- Subjects
ITALIAN Jews; PHILANTHROPISTS; JEWISH history; FREEMASONRY -- History; ALLIANCE israelite universelle; CHARITIES -- History; CHARITABLE bequests; HISTORY
- Publication
Jewish History, 2018, Vol 31, Issue 3/4, p263
- ISSN
0334-701X
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10835-018-9285-5