An Unexpected Epistolary Discovery and the Shared Medical Journeys of Tuviya HaRofe and Gabriel Felix (late 17^th– early 18^th centuries)

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

On January 26, 2024, I received an e-mail from an independent Italian Hebraica scholar[1] with references[2] and a bibliographical correction regarding a Seforim Blog article I had written about Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-1740), a prominent medical graduate of Padua.[3] In the correspondence, he refers to a manuscript housed in the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) Library that not only contains a record of the original semikha granted by Rabbi Yehuda Briel (c.1643-1722) to Shimshon Morpurgo, it also contains a second issuance of semikha from Briel to Morpurgo some years later, after the latter had lost the original document. I clicked on the provided link to peruse the manuscript. The semikha text is not an autograph, but is part of a 380-page miscellany, dating from the late eighteenth century, of the writings of select Italian rabbis of the period from places including Venice, Ferrara, Florence, Mantua and Ancona. It includes responsa, legal contracts, and correspondence. The entire manuscript is in one anonymous hand. 

 While the JTS catalogue does not describe the details of the manuscript, the National library of Israel (NLI) catalogue entry includes an expansive itemization of the contents.[4] Here we find, for example, reference to the two Morpurgo ordinations, though nothing else seemingly of Jewish medical historical interest. Turning to the ordinations in the body of the manuscript, I see the section contains other correspondence of Rabbi Yehuda Briel. Skimming just a few folios ahead, my eye catches an addressee with a familiar name, Tuviya HaRofe. Could this possibly be the famous Tuviya HaRofe, graduate of Padua and author of Ma’aseh Tuviya? I had never read or heard of any direct correspondence between Briel and Tuviya. A careful analysis revealed the answer to be in the affirmative. As I continued browsing, I wondered if there would there be any other surprises. Behold, a few folios later, I find a letter from Rabbi Briel to one Gavriel ben heHaver R’ Moshe. This is most certainly Gabriel Felix, the longtime friend and fellow classmate of Tuviya. These letters are not mentioned in the expansive catalogue description and would thus escape any word search on the NLI site. They can only be found upon inspection of the manuscript itself. Furthermore, to my knowledge, historians, while certainly aware of this manuscript, have not previously noted either of these specific letters. Discovering letters by Rabbi Briel to these two famous figures in Jewish medical history, appearing mere pages apart from each other, who were in their lifetimes “ki’ahim ne’emanim” (like faithful brothers),⁵ inspired this brief contribution chronicling their shared trailblazing journey of medical training in the late seventeenth century.

Tuviya HaRofe (Tobias Cohen/Cohn/Katz) (1652-1729), author of the Renaissance work Ma’ase Tuviya, is one of the most famous personalities in Jewish medical history.[6] Tuviya and his close friend Gabriel Felix [7] were inseparable from their early years of medical training and beyond. Here is how Tuviya, at around the age of 55, describes his dear friend:[8]

These two Polish students began their medical journey together in 1678 in Frankfurt as the first Jewish students ever accepted to a German medical school. However, for reasons suggested below, they soon transferred to Padua, where they both completed their studies in 1683. Here we present some remarkable rarely seen archival records of their travails, after which we introduce historically overlooked correspondence they maintained with Rabbi Yehudah Briel.

Tuviya and Gabriel- The Frankfurt Years

While the University of Padua had allowed Jews into the medical faculty since the fifteenth century, Germany continued to restrict their acceptance for centuries. Tuviya and Gabriel were the very first Jewish students allowed to attend a medical school in Germany, the University of Frankfurt on Odor. This was only possible through the intercession of Friedrich Wilhelm, the Grand Elector of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia, who ruled from 1640-1688. Part of the arrangement in exchange for Tuviya and Gabriel’s matriculation, as explicitly stated by the Duke, was for them to provide instruction in Hebrew language and grammar to the German university students. Tuviya and Gabriel happened to be particularly proficient in this area. Another transparent intent was for these young impressionable Jews to become “enlightened” and ultimately convert to Christianity.[9]

Tuviya’s medical application took the form of a poem he wrote for the Grand Duke.[10] Though referenced and transcribed in previous historical literature, the rarely seen image of the poem is presented here.[11] The choice of Hebrew as the language of the sonnet betrays the Duke’s linguistic interests in Tuviya’s matriculation. Note the acrostic, which includes not only reference to the Duke, but to his wife Dorothea as well.

Indeed, Tuviya explicitly states that he will be happy to instruct the university students in the Hebrew language:

There is a Latin version of the poem/petition as well, though the acrostics are literally lost in translation.

The university was not interested in altering its age-old policy in order to admit Jews, concerned that the Jews would pose a religious danger to the Christian students. The Grand Duke nonetheless approved their admission on April 29, 1678, over the university’s objections.[12]

English Translation[13]

Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector, etc.
Highly learned and well-learned scholars, dear faithful subjects, Gabriel Moschowitz and Tobias Moschowitz, both Jews from Poland, having approached us and tendered individual submissions in which they declare that they wish to set forth the study of medicine at our university and to learn German as well and, in return, are willing to teach Hebrew to those who desire to learn it and, at the same time, requested that they may enjoy privileges here like the other students, we have most graciously acceded to their request. We therefore hereby command you to admit both of them and to let them enjoy all the privileges of the other students freely and without hindrance.
We remain . . .

April 29, 1678

To the University of Frankfurt, His Electoral Grace of Brandenburg, Our Gracious Lord, hereby
graciously commands his Councilor and Treasurer Haydekampfen to dispense twenty Thalers to the two Jews Gabriel Moschowitz and Tobias Moschowitz, who desire to move to Frankfurt to study medicine.

April 29, 1678

On June 10, 1678, the Grand Duke reiterated his order, perhaps in response to the university’s continued opposition:

He added that the university should carefully observe whether Jewish students, in conversation with their fellow students, “might have the effrontery to persuade some to join their Jewish faith. In this case, you must report to us expediently so that we may issue further orders.” The Grand Duke hoped for the Jews’ conversion, for “when they interact for extended periods with Christians, they will acquire that much better an opinion of Christianity and perhaps, by the grace of God, they may be converted.”[14]

Tuviya and Gabriel matriculated at the University of Frankfurt on Odor on June 17, 1678.

In gratitude for their historical acceptance as Jews to a German university, Tuviya and Gabriel composed a special grammar tree[15] containing the totality of Hebrew grammar rules in a concise chart form. Though it might seem odd to gift a German ruler a work on Hebrew grammar as a token of appreciation, the historical context deems it perfectly appropriate. This document, as Tuviya’s poem, has been rarely seen[16] and is pictured below. It is likewise housed in Berlin, though at a different institution.[17]

In the circumferential text bordering the document, the authors[18] explain the impetus for its creation. Since the people of Israel have been spread geographically across the world, there evolved inconsistencies in the understanding of Hebrew grammar. The authors lament this fact with literary allusion to the Book of Esther, “How can I (stand by and) observe this tragic loss of knowledge in this field that has befallen my people!” This document therefore sets out to rectify the dire state of knowledge of Hebrew grammar.

In addition to the grammatical aspect, which is beyond the scope of this study, this document is perhaps even more remarkable for the inscription that it bears. The document, created in 1678, contains an inscription at both the header and footer. The texts are similar, though not identical, with the top in Latin and the bottom in Hebrew.

Latin Inscription

serenissimo ac potentionissimo Domino Fridricio Wilhelmo Electori Brandenburgico
Domino nobis Clementissimo, hoc schema arboris quod representat Epitomen
Gramatices Hebraicae sacraficamus, atque electorales ipsius sedes humillime
dependimus servi subjectissimi
Gabriel Felix Moschides
Tobias Moschides

Hebrew Inscription

טבלה זאת מחזקת בתוכה קצור דקדוק לשון הקודש ודוגמת אילן עשייה. אותה הקרבנו לאדונינו הדוכס הגדול המהולל
פרידריך וילהעלם יר“ה להיות לזכרון עולם תוך ביבליאהטעקא שלו המהוללה מעבדיו הנמוכים וצעירים לימים כה דברי
גבריאל רופא מבראדא וטוביה רופא כץ מזלקווי אשר היו שוקדים על שערי חכמי רופאים ופלוסופים בעיר פרנקפורט

English Translation (of the Hebrew)

This chart contains an abridged Hebrew (Lashon HaKodesh) grammar in the schematic form of a tree. This we present before our Master the Grand Duke
Friedrich Wilhelm as a constant reminder (memorial) to be placed in his magnificent library (bibliotek). From his humble and young servants
Gavriel the physician of Brody And Tuviya the physician Katz of Zolkiew. Who prostrate on the doorsteps (gates) of sage physicians and philosophers in the city of Frankfurt

In the Latin version their names appear as Gabriel Felix Moschides and Tobias Moschides, as both of their fathers were named Moshe (Moses). This grammar tree was gifted to Duke Friedrich Wilhelm. The Hebrew inscription mentions specifically that the grammar tree should be placed in Wilhelm’s magnificent library. Wilhelm built a massive personal book collection, which in the course of time ultimately became the German Imperial Library in Berlin,[19] wherein this item sits to this very day. Tuviya’s poem is also found in Berlin, though in a different library, where it has resided since gifted by him to the Grand Duke in the 1670s.

Tuviya and Gabriel achieved the near-impossible and, as Jews, attended the Frankfurt Medical School. Unfortunately, the social experiment was a resounding failure. Not only did the young Jewish students soon transfer to the University of Padua; it would also be some years till another Jewish medical student set foot on campus.[20] Perhaps the not so subtle directive of the Grand Duke to engage the Jewish students in dialogue and proselytize may have led to an uncomfortable or untenable environment for Tuviya and Gabriel. In the introduction to his Ma’aseh Tuviah, Tuviya recalls the extensive and incessant debates with students and faculty in Frankfurt, though he does not explicitly attribute his departure to this experience.

Tuviya and Gabriel- The Padua Years

Upon their transfer from Frankfurt, Tuviya and Gabriel’s matriculation at Padua was uneventful, with no need for political (or Papal) intervention, nor poetic applications or grammar trees. Suffice it say, the University of Padua was more receptive to Jews than Frankfurt. The experience of the Jewish medical student in Padua, a thriving center of Jewish life, Torah, medicine, and intellectual activity, was life altering not only from an educational perspective, but also in terms of the relationships formed with some of the greatest intellectuals[21] and rabbinic personalities of the day.

In a previous post, we documented the Torah learning of numerous medical graduates of the University of Padua in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as reflected in their acquisition of a Ḥaver degree.[22] In addition to students who opted for programmatic learning, others maintained relationships with rabbinic leaders, who served as both informal educators and mentors.

Italy, and in particular Padua, was home to rabbis of great renown in the Early Modern period, as documented by the likes of Hananel Neppi and Mordechai Ghirondi,[23] Marco Mortara,[24] and more recently by Asher Salah.[25] A number of these rabbis, especially from Padua and nearby Venice, maintained relationships with the local medical students, establishing bonds that often endured throughout the students’ lives.

Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen (1482-1565), known as Maharam miPadua, served as leader of the Padua community for many decades. We have testimony of at least one young scholar, Avtalyon miModena, shuttling between Maharam’s yeshiva and the medical school, and presumably he was not alone.[26]

Rabbi Yehudah Aryeh de Modena (1571-1648) was a well-known personality of the Italian Renaissance, involved in halakhic discourse, dialogue with non-Jews, choral music performance in his synagogue, and discussions about the propriety of gambling, amongst other endeavors.[27] Though he lived in Venice, the close proximity to Padua facilitated much cross-pollination between these two cities. He maintained a close connection with a number of the medical students at the University of Padua. He not only wrote poems for some of the medical graduates, but in one case he collected and published an entire volume of letters and poems dedicated to his prized student Joseph Hamitz, who graduated in 1623.[28] Perhaps his most famous student from Padua’s medical school was Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo.[29]

One of the more colorful and controversial Jewish figures in Paduan history was Rabbi Moshe Haim Luzzatto (1707-1746), author of the well-known ethical work Mesillat Yesharim. While his works are part of the contemporary cannon of Jewish literature, he was controversial during his brief lifetime for his radical mystical and kabbalistic beliefs. Not only did a number of his family members graduate the medical school of Padua,[30] Ramḥal himself matriculated at the medical school for at least three terms, though we have no record of his graduation.[33] He maintained relationships with numerous Padua medical students[32] and wrote congratulatory poems in honor of their graduations as well.[33] Medical students attended his regular study group, an informal way of continuing their Jewish education, and two in particular, Moshe David Valle and Yekutiel Gordon, went on to become Luzzatto’s staunch advocates and supporters.

Here we draw particular attention to Rabbi Yehudah Briel (1643-1722),[34] another prominent Italian rabbinic figure who was involved in many of the day’s political issues (Shabtai Tzvi/Neḥemia Hayon controversy, Jewish-Christian debates) and whose responsa appeared, among other places, in Lampronti’s Paḥad Yitzḥak and Morpurgo’s Shemesh Tzedakah. Like his rabbinic colleagues, he likewise befriended, mentored and taught the medical students of Padua, and it is in this area that the JTS manuscript sheds new light. While living in Padua, Briel developed connections with medical students which he continued well beyond their years of training, when he served as Chief Rabbi of Mantua.

Rabbi Dr. Yitzḥak Lampronti corresponded with Briel regarding the interpretation of a Talmudic passage referring to spontaneous generation. This now famous exchange is recorded in Lampronti’s magnum opus, Paḥad Yitsḥak and is a focal point of discussions on the relationship of Torah and science.[35] As mentioned above, Briel also granted rabbinic ordination (twice) to Shimshon Morpurgo years after he graduated from Padua. Rabbi Dr. Yitzchak Cantarini, one of the more prominent medical graduates of Padua, penned a magnificent eulogy upon the death of his mentor, Rabbi Briel.[36]

Rabbi Brill and Gabriel Felix

Briel was also known to have had a relationship with Gabriel Felix, though the archival evidence is scant. In 1896, the scholar David Kaufmann published an article in French reproducing a single letter Felix wrote to Rabbi Briel on September 9, 1682.[37]

The depth of their relationship is evident from both the style and content of the letter. Gabriel bemoans the lack of Rabbi Briel’s response to his multiple attempts at communication. Though he anticipates the completion of his medical studies, he shares concerns about graduation due to his financial constraints. He reports a recent serious illness, though it appears that he recovered to the extent that he was able to recite the Hagomel blessing in synagogue. There is no mention by Kaufmann of additional extant correspondence between them.

In the JTS manuscript we find a letter from Briel to Gabriel.[38]

זה האיש מהר“ר גבריאל בן מע‘ החבר ר‘ משה יושב בסתר סדרי התלמוד ויודע מהלכם ושבילם, גדול העצה בפסקי דינים לעקר שרשי דברי ריבות ולכרות זלזלם, רב העליליה לו עשר ידות במעלות המדות בשקל הקדש משקלם, דורש טוב לעמו במאמרים טובים וערבים להועילם, אשר עיניו פקוחות על כל נדחי נתחי בני אדם מקטנם ועד גדולם, מימינם ומשמאלם, מכיר את מקומם וטיבם מכשירם ופוסלם ולו בינה לו גבורה להעמידם על תלם, ולהחזירם לאיתנם בעת נפלם מורשי לבבו בחכמות הטבע נתנו חילם, נראה אלי (?) היום והנה בידו מגִלה מגַלה סתרי עולם, קטון וגדול שם הוא במצודת שכלו העלם, מנבכי ים המזימות העמוקות והוציאם לאור מתוך ערפלם, הליכות עולם לו לנוכח עיני הציבם להשכילם, האירו קצת פרקיו ברקיו ולפידיו אופל אדמתי בהלם, וכדברי דבר הלמד מעניינו יתנו עדיהם ויצדקו על כל חלקי החבור כלם, כי לא יטה לארץ מנלם(?) אין על עפר משלם, ולכן כאשר ענותו הרבתני להסכים עמו להרחיב גבולם, בהתחקקם בעט עופרת לדורות עולם, אמרתי מה טוב ומה נעים להראות על פני חוץ יפי מכלולם, כחם ואילם להגלות גלת(?) זהבם ואדרת מהללם הנשלם ובלתי נשלם, אשו(ר) הייא אשור הייא^39[ להרים ניסם ולהקים דגלם אל כל צמאי בינה להנחילם, הבא במשפט על כל נעלם ולהסתופף בצלם יומם ולילם כה דברי הצעיר יהודה בכמ‘ אליעזר בריאל ז“ל בעיר מנטובה בס‘ ישמעו ולמדו ליראה את ה‘ שנת תמ“ד לפ“ק

It is signed only with the year, 5444 (1683/1684), which postdates the above correspondence by some one to two years. By this time, Gabriel had graduated from medical school.[40]

A section of the archival graduation record of Gabriel Felix (1683)[41]

While Briel does not explicitly refer to Gabriel as a “rofe” (physician), the following description of Gabriel’s capabilities certainly refers to his medical expertise:

אשר עניו פקוחות על כל נדחי נתחי בני אדם מקטנם ועד גדולם, מימינם ומשמאלם, מכיר את מקומם וטיבם מכשירם ופוסלם ולו בינה לו גבורה להעמידם על תלם, ולהחזירם לאיתנם בעת נפלם מורשי לבבו בחכמות הטבע נתנו חילם

In addition to the other references to Gabriel’s thorough scientific knowledge and powers of health restoration, the play on words “nitchei bnei adam” is likely a reference to anatomical dissection and his understanding of human anatomy.

This missive appears to be a request to provide an approbation for a work Gabriel had completed. Gabriel presented him with a scroll (i.e., manuscript) that “reveals the secrets of the world” (מגִלה מגַלה סתרי עולם). Briel responds with very positive review.

Rabbi Brill and Tuviya HaRofe

The JTS manuscript also contains a missive written by Rabbi Briel in response to Tuviya HaRofe.[42]

 

טובינא דחכימי, דלית ליה טימי, כרב אסי וכרב אמי, הר“ר טוביה הרופא שלום
וישע רב
רבתי צררוני צרות צרורות ומרורות דמר מורי נר“ו, אשר השמיעני
בספירי ספורי שפירי ספרו, עד כי בביתי לקשה יום עגמה נפשי –
במשנה קצף על משנה שברו, ונוסף עצבוני באשר לא ידעתי היום נתיבות
פתחי נדיבים ואנה אפנה לעזרו, למצוא מעט צרי לצירו, כי ספו תמו מן בלהות
המתנדבים בעם והמשכילים אל דל לאשרו, ורבים מתעשרים ואין כל כי אם קול
ועמו שוברו, האמנם הגאון זכות המצדיק רבים בפועל כפיו ובמאמרו, ואתו עמש
אנכי הצעיר כל א‘(?) אצל יודעו ומכירו, שפכנו שיח וזה הכמוספה(?) פריו ניבו וקצירו
הלא מזער הוא cross out לתמוך ידי קצין עם שרו וטפסרו, הודו והדרו, וידענו אדו‘ ידענו
כי לא הגיע לפרק השואל והמקבל יחיד ומיוחד בדורו ואף אנו אמרנו מה נוביל
שיכלא (?) חשיב למחוסר צידה מעיקרו, והכתוב צווח די מחסורו, הלא כלמה תכסה פנינו
ונמצא קולו חומרו ואיסורו, אך מה נעשה אם המסים העודפים, תמידים ומוספים,
אכלו כל יגיענו ולא יניחו לב טוב להוציא חפצו לאורו, האלקים ירחם וינחם וירצה
המרבה והממעיט כפי יכלתו ויתרו ויקים סכת אדו‘ הנופלת ויבנה גדרו ויחבוש
מזורו (?) יחזירהו לאיתנו, ויעטרהו רצונו, ויחכהו הון ועושר וגדולה כשברו, ויהי חמשה
ואלף שירו כעתירתי הקשור בעבותות אהבתו קשר של קיימא עבדו המוכן
לשמוע בקול דברו, יהודה בכמ‘ אליעזר באריאל ז“ל הכותב(?) במנטובה בשנת ת“גיל
בה‘ לפ“ק כ“ז כסלו

This letter is dated December 27, 1682, prior to Tuviya’s graduation from Padua. Tuviya is nonetheless identified as “HaRofe.” In fact, Tuviya similarly self-identified as “HaRofe” even before he attended the University of Frankfurt. It is assumed that he received some medical education through apprenticeship in Poland and thus identified as a physician even before his medical school application. University graduates were often called “rofe mumḥeh.”

The substance of this correspondence appears to be a response to a request for financial support, the nature and extent of which is assumedly found in Tuviya’s initial letter, not part of the manuscript. Was Tuviya, like his friend Gabriel unable to meet the tuition burden and was requesting assistance from Rabbi Briel? This would not be unprecedented. Carpi records the request of Hayyim Polacco for financial assistance from the Padua Jewish community in 1658 to complete the payments of his Padua medical school tuition, though Carpi believes this to be the only such case.[43] I procured the original request from the archives:[44]

As you can see from the bottom line, the committee voted to approve Polacco’s request by a vote of 16 in favor with 6 opposed. Tuviya was unfortunately not as lucky, and his appeal was met with rejection. What is clear however is the admiration and love Rabbi Briel expresses for Tuviya, reflecting a meaningful relationship between them.

Tuviya would go on to graduate just a few months later, on June 25, 1683.

A section of the archival graduation record of Tuviya HaRofe (1683)[45]

The previously published extant archival record reveals a rich and adventurous shared life of Tuviya and Gabriel, in particular with respect to their medical training. With the light shed by our epistolary discovery, it appears that they shared a common rabbinic mentor during their training as well.

The Physician-Ḥaver in Early Modern Italy: A Reunion of Long Forgotten “Friends”[1]
[2]לפרסומי מילתא ולזכר עולם כתבתי

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

Introduction

The Italian Early Modern Period is fertile ground for Jewish medical historical study. Its appeal lies partially in the rich lives and interests of the Jewish physicians beyond the practice of medicine alone. For example, historians have written about physician-poets[3] and physician-philosophers,[4] as well as physician-rabbis. Here I introduce a new category of hyphenated physicians that has escaped notice.

Throughout the millennia, Jewish physicians, in varying degrees, have attempted to maintain their connection to Torah learning and Jewish heritage.[5] This tradition continues to this day. Some advanced to higher levels of Torah study, with a select few even obtaining rabbinic ordination in addition to their medical degrees. These physician-rabbis have garnered the attention of scholars the likes of Holub,[6] Sergei[7]  Epstein,[8] Margalit,[9] Salah,[10] and Steinberg.[11]

Early Modern Italy seems to have provided particularly fertile soil for the nurturing and growth of the physician-rabbi, with a high percentage of members represented. This unique geographic and chronological synthesis of medicine and Torah learning is also reflected in an under-recognized phenomenon. There is yet another group of physicians from Early Modern Italy whose commitment to Torah study, albeit less advanced than rabbinic ordination, was formally recognized by the Jewish community. These physicians, or in some cases, soon-to-be physicians, obtained the prestigious degree of Ḥaver, a lower form of rabbinic ordination.[12]

Little attention has been paid to this not insignificant group of Jewish physicians in Italy who procured a Ḥaver certificate. During this period, the University of Padua was, with few exceptions, the primary place of attendance for university-trained Jewish physicians. Indeed, Modena and Morpurgo, who compiled a comprehensive biobibliography of all the Jewish medical graduates of Padua from 1617-1816, omit any reference whatsoever to graduates who obtained a Ḥaver degree.[13] They do however mention students who later obtained rabbinic ordination, such as Samson Morpurgo or Isaac Lampronti. I assume that they were simply unaware of these achievements rather than considering them too insignificant to include.

Here we bring together the Physician-Ḥaver alumni spanning over a century for a virtual reunion, in celebration of their accomplishments, which seem to have been insufficiently appreciated, if not forgotten, with the passage of time. Unsurprisingly, all our Physician Ḥaverim are also alumni of the University of Padua.

The Origin, Requirements and Benefits of a Ḥaver Degree

The term Ḥaver traces itself back to at least Mishnaic times, referring to one versed and punctilious in the observance of the Torah laws, such as tithing (trumah and ma’aser).[14] Later in history the Ḥaver title became associated with a lower form of rabbinic ordination for those capable of independent Torah study. This title was popular in Europe in the Early Modern Period, including Germany, Austria, Moravia, Poland, Lithuania and Italy.

We learn a number of aspects of the Ḥaver degree in various European cities from the local community archives. For example. certain aliyot, as well as designated haftarot for the Torah reading for both Shabbat and Yom Tov were reserved exclusively for those bearing the Ḥaver title. Age limits for obtaining the Ḥaver title were instituted by different communities. For example, in the Moravian city of Mehrin, the Ḥaver title could only be bestowed upon one who was married for at least two years. In Frankfurt on Main completion of the Yeshiva curriculum was required. In 1651, the community of Padua, where many of our Ḥaver degrees were issued, set specific age requirements for both the Ḥaver and Rabbinic degrees.[15] For unmarried men, the age requirement for Havrut was twenty-five and above, while for married men it was age twenty and above. Rabbinic ordination was restricted to those thirty and above irrespective of marital status.

As opposed to rabbinic ordination, for which there are requirements to master specific areas of practical Jewish law, including a large section of Shulhan Arukh, there does not appear to have been a uniform curriculum for the Ḥaver degree.[16] Each location designed its own program. The student would spend a period of time dedicated to Torah study and display basic competency, as well as character traits consistent with Torah values. Those deemed worthy would receive the title Ḥaver, typically bestowed by local rabbinic authorities, often in the presence of communal leaders (parnasim). While the title was intended as an honorific for religious purposes, such as when being called up to the Torah, it could be used at the bearer’s discretion. Some communities required maintenance of daily Torah learning upon receipt of the Ḥaver title.[17]

Our Ḥaverim

Below are the attendees at our first ever physician-Ḥaver alumni reunion. The participants span from the early 17^th to the mid 18^th centuries. We begin our event with a tribute to our Guest of Honor, Solomon Lustro, who received his Ḥaver degree on August 13, 1697. Lustro was an obvious choice for this distinction. Not only does he possess a well-preserved and most attractive Ḥaver certificate, but the day of his Ḥaver ceremony was momentous for other reasons and reflects the very nature of the physician-Ḥaver relationship. Moreover, the additional archival evidence related to his Ḥaver title represents a major source for identifying our alumni.

Guest of Honor
HeḤaver Shlomo ben Yitzhak ben Shimon Lustro (Solomon Lustro)
Below is the Ḥaver diploma for Solomon Lustro, dated 26 Av 5457.[18]

 

Solomon Lustro was a member of a prominent Italian family, a physician and graduate of the University of Padua Medical School, and an accomplished poet.[19] In an essay by the twentieth-century scholar Meir Benayahu on Avraham HaKohen of Zante and his famed circle of physician-poets in Padua (“lahakat ha-rofim ha-meshorerim be-Padova”) in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Lustro is identified as one of the three core members, along with the leader, HaKohen, and Shabtai Marini,[20] both of whom also grace this list of physicians who obtained a Ḥaver degree.

Examples of Lustro’s poetry can be found in the National Library of Israel. There are also numerous congratulatory poems written by others in honor of Lustro’s medical graduation from Padua, as was the custom during this period.[20] We will have occasion to refer to them below.1

We possess the full record of the Ḥaver diploma issued to Solomon Lustro in neatly written and spaced cursive Hebrew, accompanied by decorative flourishes and interspersed with larger block letters for names or important terms. Would it not be for the fact that this document is bound along with the community archives of Padua, I would assume this was the presentation copy for Lustro himself. It does appear however that while many of the archive entries are written in informal cursive, some, including a number of our Ḥaver degrees, are written by professional scribes.

The Ḥaver diploma of Solomon Lustro contains an element not found in any other known Ḥaver certificate. While it is not the only one to include personal details of the recipient, it is nonetheless a unicum. Attention to the date provides a clue. In addition to the Hebrew calendar date, the Ḥaver diploma includes the secular date- August 13, 1697. The significance of this date is reflected in another archival document related to Lustro:

This document is also dated Tuesday August 13, 1697, though no Hebrew correlate is included. This is Solomon Lustro’s medical graduation record found in the archives of the University of Padua.[22] Lustro’s Ḥaver degree was granted on the very same day.

While an astute historian might possibly have noticed this from the concordance of dates on the two diplomas, the author of the Ḥaver text chose not to leave this to chance and seized the opportunity to explicitly and expansively note the co-incidence of events. The Ḥaver text includes direct mention of Lustro’s medical graduation and gives details of the ceremonial nature of the event. It appears that the Ḥaver was the earlier of “graduations” on that day.[23]

The text reads: We have heard with our ears that on this very day specifically he is to receive from the sages who are not from our nation

הלווריאה הגדולה

I believe this refers to the great Laurea, or graduation ceremony of the University of Padua. The author then speaks of the fanfare with trumpets and flutes and other instruments, with music filling every corner of the city and the ground trembling with excitement. He adds, “And they will shout long live the scholar Shlomo, long live the scholar Shlomo.”[24] I understand this to refer to the medical graduation festivities, as I do not believe this was customary for the Ḥaver ceremony.

Furthermore, the graduation day is referred to as:

ביום זה שהוא יום חתונתו ויום שמחת לבו דהוה ליה ביומא טבא דידיה

The medical graduation is compared to a wedding day, the day of rejoicing of his heart, akin to a holiday (yom tov). This wedding metaphor for the graduation is not unique to this document and (?as we will see) is found in the congratulatory poetry for Jewish medical graduates of Padua.

COMPARE text to Marini and others much of the text is standard

Lustro’s Ḥaver degree was bestowed by three of the prominent rabbinic figures in Padua- Rabbi Shimon Heilpron, Rabbi Dr. Yitzhak Hayyim Cantarini, himself a medical graduate of Padua (1664), and Rabbi Shmuel David Ottolenghi. Lay leaders of the community (parnasim) were also in attendance.[25]

We have additional archival documents corroborating Lustro’s Ḥaver degree. They come from an untapped source which we use for a number of our Physician-Ḥaver alumni in this contribution. Upon graduation from the University of Padua, it was not uncommon for students to receive congratulatory poems from fellow students, physicians, family members, rabbis, or mentors.[26] This practice spanned from at least the early seventeenth century into the early nineteenth century. While I have yet to do a comprehensive review of the extant congratulatory poems, I have thus far identified several poems wherein the graduate is referred to by the honorific, “heḤaver.”

Two of the congratulatory poems penned for Lustro refer to him as a Ḥaver. One was written by Avraham Paltiel Macchioro,[27] where the word Ḥaver is even bolded. The only extant copy of this poem is found in the British Library.[28]

It is perhaps no coincidence that the author who acknowledged Lustro’s Ḥaver degree, who was also a Padua medical graduate, was himself the recipient of a Ḥaver degree some years earlier (see below). Macchioro certainly appreciated the effort required to obtain such a distinction and intentionally chose to acknowledge it in the text of his poem.

A Congratulatory Poem for Two Graduations- The Only One of its Kind

The other poem for Lustro which mentions his Ḥaver degree is found only in manuscript,[29] and the author is tentatively identified as Moshe Heilpron.[30]

Similar to the text of Lustro’s Ḥaver diploma, we find here the wedding-related expressions about the graduation: the day of his wedding (יום חתונתו) and the day of the gladdening of his heart (יום שמחת לבו). [31] We find these expressions in other congratulatory poems for Jewish medical graduates as well.[32] However, there is something unique in this poem that appears in no other medical congratulatory poem. The author adds:

בחתונת בשמחת התורה

Heilpron refers to the wedding (and the associated happiness) with the Torah. Could this be a reference to Lustro’s receiving of his Ḥaver degree? While I have not come across any congratulatory poems written for one who received a Ḥaver degree, it is certainly conceivable that they exist, though likely uncommon. A congratulatory poem for both a medical and Ḥaver graduation which occurred on the same day would constitute a rarity to the extreme.

One poem for Lustro was authored by Shmuel David Ottolenghi, one the rabbinic signatories of his Ḥaver degree. It is housed in the British Library.[33]

While the letters חבר appear in the poem, the word does not bear the meaning of the rabbinic degree.

Perhaps it is a veiled allusion.

I have identified six other congratulatory poems for Lustro,[34] none of which use the Ḥaver honorific. I suggest that since Lustro received his Ḥaver degree literally on the day of his graduation, it is possible that either the poems were written earlier, prior to the day of graduation, and the day the Ḥaver ceremony, or that the authors were simply unaware of this other event in Lustro’s life.

Our Reunion Attendees

Lustro’s experience and archival records set the stage for the remainder of our reunion. Below we discuss the remaining Physician-Ḥaver alumni in attendance, arranged in chronological order by the date of their graduation from the University of Padua Medical School, as the date of the conferral of the Ḥaver degree is unknown for a number of our alumni. For each alumnus we list the date of their medical graduation from Padua (if known); the date of their Ḥaver degree (if known); the historical source confirming their receipt of a Ḥaver title; a copy of the archival record of their Ḥaver degree (if available); and brief biographical notes (if known).

1) HeḤaver Yehuda (family name unknown)
University of Padua Medical Degree: date unknown, circa early 1600’s
Date of Ḥaver Degree: date unknown
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: transcription found in miscellaneous manuscript of Solomon Marini[35]

This medical and Ḥaver graduate is identified only by his first name, Yehuda. Though we have no date for either Yehuda’s medical or Ḥaver graduation, he is likely the oldest of our alumni. Furthermore, we have Yehuda to thank for our Physician-Ḥaver reunion. It was through serendipity that I discovered a transcription of Yehuda’s Ḥaver diploma in a manuscript of the works of Rabbi Solomon Marini of Padua (1594-1670). In the text of the certificate only the recipient’s first name, Yehuda, appears, and the rabbinic granters of the degree are omitted. Yehuda is identified as a physician having trained at the University of Padua. I have more fully explored Yehuda’s identity elsewhere,[36] and have tentatively concluded it to be Yehuda de Lima, a scion of the de Lima medical dynasty in Poland. As the transcription is found in a manuscript attributed to Rabbi Solomon Marini, it is likely, though by no means certain, that the latter was the rabbi who bestowed the honor. It is this discovery of Yehuda’s Ḥaver transcription that led me to a closer look at the Physician-Ḥaver combination during this historical period.

2) HeḤaver David Morpurg
University of Padua Medical Degree: March 9, 1623[37]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: unknown
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: cited in contemporary scholarly literature.[38]

Morpurg graduated from Padua in 1623 and received the title of Ḥaver from Rabbi Leon da Modena. Da Modena had a significant relationship with a number of Padua medical students.[39] Though a resident of Padua during the plague of 1631, we have no record of Morpurg’s medical practice during these times.[40] His father Shemarya was a rabbi, and distributed funds to the poor during the plague, from which he succumbed. After the death of his father, Morpurg moved to Krakow, where he lived the rest of his life, practicing medicine and serving as a head of the Jewish community. In Krakow, Morpurg was engaged in regulating the work of the paramedical personnel in the Jewish district as well, including determining which practitioners were competent to perform enemas and bloodletting.[41] His son Shimon became a physician,[42] and the physician Aron Morpurg, another relative, graduated from Padua in 1671.[43]

3) HeḤaver Shabtai Hayyim Marini[44]
University of Padua Medical Degree: October 10, 1685
Date of Ḥaver Degree: 18 Kislev 5447- December 4, 1686
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[45]

Shabtai Hayyim Marini received the title of Ḥaver at the age of 24,[46] one year after his medical school graduation from Padua. It was granted by Rabbi Shimon Heilpron. Marini was one of few who went on to obtain his rabbinic ordination and was one the most prominent Italian personalities of his time.

Below is the record of his rabbinic ordination, also from the Padua Jewish community archives, from January 3, 1700.

Marini was one of the circle of physician-poets in Padua and translated Ovid’s Metamorphosis into Hebrew.[47] A number of Marinis graduated the University of Padua medical school.[48] As the names Solomon, Shabtai and Isaac repeat themselves across the generations of the Marini family, there remains confusion regarding precise familial relationships.

4) HeḤaver Avraham HaKohen miZante (Abram di Sabbato Sacerdote)
University of Padua Medical Degree: August 21, 1693[49]
Date of Ḥaver Degree- before 1693
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: congratulatory poem written in honor of his medical graduation.

Abram Sacerdote, also known as Avraham HaKohen, or Avraham miZante, was the first physician in his family and the first student from Zante to attend the medical school of Padua.[50] He was a prolific poet and a prominent figure and leader of the “lehakat harofim-hemeshorerim,” a group of physician-poets in Italy.[51] The other key members of this circle, Solomon Lustro and Shabtai Marini, both received Ḥaver degrees as well. HaKohen authored a volume of poetry on the Book of Psalms (Tehillim) entitled Kehunat Avraham (Venice, 1719) which contains his portrait on the title page.[52]

The source for his Ḥaver degree is gleaned from the congratulatory poem[53] authored by his medical and literary colleague, and our Guest of Honor, Solomon Lustro.[54] Therein, Lustro refers to HaKohen as ha-Ḥaver ha-Rofeh.

5) HeḤaver Rafael Rabeni[55]
University of Padua Medical Degree: May 10, 1696[56]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: November 19, 1698
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[57]

In addition to being a practicing physician, Rabeni was the secretary or scribe (sofer) of the Jewish community of Padua. He apparently ran a school for young men studying medicine, possibly similar to the that of Solomon Conegliano, which was designed to facilitate the transition of foreign Jews into the world of a major Italian university.[58] Rabeni learned medicine with Isaac Cantarini, the renowned rabbi-physician, and was acquainted as well as with Antonio Vallisneri, Professor of Medicine at the University of Padua. He engaged in a prolonged polemic with Biagio Garofalo on the nature of Biblical poetry[59] and the Protestant Hebraist Theophil Unger penned a letter of inquiry to him, though Rabeni died before receiving it.[60]

There is an erroneous mention of Rabeni obtaining rabbinic ordination at age 15,[61] but no mention by historians of his genuine Ḥaver degree, obtained at the age of forty-one, and published here for the first time. Rabeni’s degree, although granted the same day as two other physicians, Yosef Foah and Eliezer de Mordo, is entered into the archives as a postscript in a different and less formal hand.

The text of the entry explains why:

בליל הנ”ל ובועד הנ”ל הסכמנו לתת סמיכת החברות להחכם הרופא ר” רפאל רבינו דורש ברבים נודע בשערים שמו וסופר הקק”י ומרוב ענותנותו לא כתב שמו ולכן לפרסומי מילתא ולזכר עולם כתבתי אני שמו ויקרא מעלת החכם הרופא החבר ר” רפאל, בראש הקרואים= שמעון היילפרון

Rafael Rabeni was the scribe of the community and wrote some of the archive entries.[62] He himself received his Ḥaver degree on November 19, 1698, along with Foa and De Mordo (see below). Out of great humility, when he entered the proceedings of the Ḥaver ceremony into the community archives, he omitted his own name from among those who received a Ḥaver degree that day. The author of the postscript, Rabbi Shimon Heilpron, one of the rabbis who granted the degree, chose to rectify this omission and to include Rabeni’s name along with the other Ḥaver recipients to publicize, and as an “eternal memory,” that Rabeni also received a Ḥaver degree that day. As there are no entries by Rabeni in the archives in the following days, I wonder if he was even aware of Heilpron’s addition. Our inclusion of Rabeni in our reunion is due to Rabbi Heilpron, whose efforts over three hundred years ago are bearing fruits.

6) HeḤaver Yosef Foa
University of Padua Medical Degree: May 14, 1696[63]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: November 19, 1698
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[64]

There are many from the Foa family listed in Asher Salah’s comprehensive biobibliography, but alas, no Yosef.[65] Modena and Morpurgo spell the name Fua.

Foa’s ceremony was held together with de Mordo and Rabeni and the presiding rabbis were Rabbis Shimon Heipron, Rabbi Dr. Isaac Hayyim Cantarini and Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ottolenghi, the same rabbis who bestowed Solomon Lustro’s Ḥaver degree.

7) HeḤaver Azriel Cantarini (Azriel ben Moshe Hayyim (ben Azriel) Katz min HaHazanim (Cantarini)
University of Padua Medical Degree: November 11, 1697[66]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: April 22, 1701
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[67]

Cantarini received his Ḥaver degree together with Cervo Marini.

Below is a reproduction of a congratulatory poem for Cantarini. The work is anonymous, and the author may possibly bear the acronym HaTORaH.[68] Cantarini is the author of a book on surgery dedicated to the famous scientist/physician, Antonio Vallisnieri.[69] Azriel’s relative, Isaac Cantarini, was close with Vallisnieri and consulted with him on a number of medical cases.[70]

This poem uses the expression “beyom simhat libo” (the day of the gladdening of his heart) to refer to graduation day, similar to the expression used in Lustro’s Ḥaver diploma and in other congratulatory poems.

8) HeḤaver Avraham Paltiel Macchioro
University of Padua Medical Degree: September 4, 1698[71]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: February 18, 1693
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[72]

A full record of Macchioro’s Ḥaver degree is found in the Padua Jewish Community Archives. He received his Ḥaver distinction years before the completion of his medical training.

9) HeḤaver Naftali (Cervo) Marini
University of Padua Medical Degree: September 4, 1698[73]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: April 22, 1701
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[74]

Naftali (Cervo) Marini is the brother of Shabtai Hayyim Marini and the son of the Ḥaver Yitzhak Marini. He received his Ḥaver degree in a ceremony along with Azriel Cantarini.

There is a congratulatory poem written for both for Marini and Isaac Pangalli,[75] who graduated Padua on the same day (September 4, 1698).[76] This is a rare example of one poem written for two graduates. The poem was authored by Shmuel David Ottolenghi. Ottolenghi granted the Ḥaver degree for a number of our alumni, and while the presiding rabbis are not listed for Marini’s Ḥaver degree (or for Cantarini), it is quite possible that he bestowed his degree as well. As the Ḥaver was granted a few years after Marini’s medical training, it would not have been mentioned by Ottolenghi in the text of the poem.

10) HeḤaver Maso di Michele (Della) Bella (Meir, son of Mikhael Alatrini)
University of Padua Medical Degree: December 30, 1698[77]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: April 23, 1701
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[78]

The Alatrini were called Della Bella in Italian. Michelin Della Bella (grandfather of Meir) was the one who rented the place used for the Sephardi synagogue in Padua, first in 1617 and again in 1629 after it was burnt down by a fire.[79]

11) HeḤaver Eliezer (Lazarus) de Mordo
University of Padua Medical Degree: May 21, 1699[80]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: November 19, 1698
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[81]

De Mordo received his Ḥaver degree along with Yosef Foah. Eliezer was the first of several members of the De Mordis (Mordo, De Mordio) family, hailing from the Island of Corfu, who would graduate from Padua’s medical school.[82] He has been confused with a later family member of the same name, Lazarus (the son of Shabtai) de Mordis (1744–1823), who was also a Padua medical graduate. There is a brief biography of Eliezer (Lazarus) de Mordo[83] which identifies him as a rabbi and physician in Corfu who authored poetry and prayers.[84] The approximate date given correlates with our graduate. De Mordo’s poems appear in the Harrison Miscellany (Corfu, Ca. 1720), which, in addition to its sixty full-page illustrations from the book of Genesis, consists of prayers, blessings, and poems for a wedding ceremony according to the custom of the Jews of Corfu.[85]

There is also reference to a Rabbi Eliezer de Mordo of Corfu, called a zaken ha-musmakh (learned elder), in a discussion published in 1755 about the propriety of singing the Shema prayer with a musical melody if it may lead to confusing the words of the sacred prayer. This is likely our graduate. As De Mordis was a poet and author of prayers for the liturgy, it follows that he would be consulted specifically on an issue related to music in the synagogue.[86] Eliezer De Mordis was also the signatory to a letter in 1751 attesting to the character of a Jew who appeared in Corfu and claimed to have repented from his former evil ways.[87]

Mordo’s medical diploma is extant and part of the Friedenwald Collection at the National Library of Israel.

Isaac Lustro, possibly Solomon’s father, served as a witness on Mordo’s diploma.

12) Shimshon Morpurgo
University of Padua Medical Degree: August 24, 1700[88]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: January 3, 1700
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[89]

The reference to Morpurgo’s Ḥaver degree is a postscript appended to the mention of the rabbinic ordination of Shabtai Marini (Padua, 1685) and occupies the last two lines of the section above.

Morpurgo’s Ḥaver was granted, like a number of his predecessors, by Rabbis Shimon Heipron, Rabbi Dr. Isaac Hayyim Cantarini and Rabbi Shmuel Dovid Ottolenghi. Morpurgo later received his rabbinic ordination from Rabbi Yehuda Briel and served as rabbi of Ancona for the latter part of his life. His responsa Shemesh Tzedakah were published posthumously by his son.

Morpurgo’s medical diploma is presently housed in the Italian Jewish Museum in Jerusalem.[90]

13) HeḤaver Moshe David Valle
University of Padua Medical Degree: October 22, 1713[91]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: September 20, 1725
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: Padua Jewish Community Archives[92]

Valle received his Ḥaver degree along with the young Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto and Isaiah Romanin, in 1725. One of the rabbis who granted this Ḥaver certificate to Valle was Shabtai Hayyim Marini, a Padua medical graduate (1685) and earlier recipient of a Ḥaver degree (see above), who later became a rabbi.

While Luzzatto matriculated at the University of Padua Medical School for three terms,[93] we have no record of his graduation as a physician. Valle was both a teacher and student of Luzzatto and was a great Torah scholar and prolific author in his own rite.

14) HeḤaver Mandolin Navarra (Menachem di Isacco)[94]
University of Padua Medical Degree: April 29, 1740[95]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: Before April 29, 1740
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: referred to as Ḥaver is congratulatory poetry written in honor of his medical graduation.

Navarra went on to become a rabbi as well as a mohel (ritual circumciser). Among those for whom he performed the rite were the children of Jacob Grassin Basilea and Raffael Ferrarese, both Padua medical graduates.[96]

The evidence for Navarra’s Ḥaver degree, like for Avraham haKohen miZante, is found in the text of the congratulatory poems written in honor of his Padua medical graduation. In Navarra’s case, I am aware of three such poems. As opposed to Lustro, where the title Ḥaver is found in only two of his nine known congratulatory poems, for Navarra, the title Ḥaver appears in all three of the known congratulatory poems in his honor. Two are reproduced below and one, mentioned by Roth, appears to be no longer extant.

15) HeḤaver Yitzhak Consigli
University of Padua Medical Degree: February 17, 1757[97]
Date of Ḥaver degree: unknown
Historical Record of the Ḥaver Degree: In a letter from Jerusalem dated 1782 there is mention of he-Ḥaver ha-Rofeh Ha-Muvhak Yitzhak Consigli.[98]

The title “muvhak,” loosely translated as “expert,” was likely reserved for those physicians who were university graduates.

There are three extant congratulatory poems written in honor of Consigli’s graduation, none of which mention his Ḥaver title. Perhaps he obtained the title after his graduation. One was authored by Moshe b. Yuda Ḥay Romanin, which was auctioned in Paris in 2006;[99] one in Italian, by an author with the initials M. D. L. R.;[100] one in manuscript of anonymous authorship.[101]

16) HeḤaver Menahem (Mandolin) Azzar
University of Padua Medical Degree: Surgical Degree 1764, Medical Degree 1778[102]
Date of Ḥaver Degree: unknown

In the synagogue of Corfu is a list held of piyyutim authored by different members of the community which were recited on a rotational basis. One of the authors is he-Ḥaver ha-Rofeh ha-Muvhak Menahem Azzar.[103] The title “muvhak,” loosely translated as “expert,” was likely reserved for those physicians who were university graduates.

The Columbia University Library possesses two documents for Azzar.[104] One appears to be an affirmation of his credentials in surgery from Corfu in 1761, along with a transfer letter addressed to the University of Padua. The second (pictured below) is a medical diploma from Padua dated 1778.

The University of Padua archives contains a record for a surgery license dated August 8, 1764:

Conclusion

This concludes our inaugural Physician-Ḥaver reunion. Thank you for joining. We boast seventeen alumni, a respectable showing for our first event, nine of whom graduated medical school between 1696-1700, roughly half the Jewish graduates from this period. Without the efforts of Rabbi Shimon Heiplron, we would not have even known to invite Rafael Rabeni.

As to the timing of the Ḥaver degrees and their relationship to the student’s medical training, it is possible that the students’ marital status played a factor. The typical student graduated medical school around the ages of twenty to twenty-two. If a student were married, he could obtain his Ḥaver either before or shortly after the completion of his medical training. If unmarried, however, he would have to wait at least until the age of twenty-five before receiving the title.

This phenomenon of the Physician-Ḥaver is yet further proof how over the centuries Jewish physicians have attempted to combine their medical practice with Torah learning. While with this preliminary study we begin to rectify the prior oversight of the Physician-Ḥaver combination, there will surely be additions to come, and I expect more attendees at our next reunion.

Addendum- Ḥaver Programs Today

The concept of a Ḥaver degree exists to this day in different forms and is a spiritual descendant of its Italian and German ancestors. Some decades ago, I participated in Rabbi J. David Bleich’s Ḥaver program at RIETS, tailored specifically to medical halakha. Rabbi Bleich, Shlit”a, also teaches a Ḥaver program in the field of law. This tailored, profession-specific Ḥaver learning curriculum is a modern iteration of the Ḥaver concept- a curriculum for the student with a serious interest in Torah learning but not interested, able, or yet ready to commit to a full rabbinic ordination program. Today, Yeshiva University has reconfigured its Ḥaver program and other similar programs, such as the popular Semichas Ḥaver program, have become popular.

[1] My profound thanks to Laura Roumani, who brought many of these Ḥaver records to my attention as she was reading through the Padua Jewish community archives. Laura was also instrumental in aiding in the deciphering of the 17^th century Italian Hebrew cursive script. The Padua Jewish Community Archives have only very recently been digitized by the NLI and made widely available for study and research.
[2] See discussion of the Ḥaver degree of Rafael Rabeni below.
[3] Benayahu.
[4] See David B. Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (Yale University Press: New Haven, 1995).
[5] See, for example, Edward Reichman, “The Yeshiva Medical School: The Evolution of Educational Programs Combining Jewish Studies and Medical Training,” Tradition 51:3 (Summer 2019), 41-56.
[6] David Holub, Pardes David, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1880 and 1882).
[7] Menachem Mendel Leib Sergei, Meshiv Nefesh (Vilna, 1906).
[8] Rabbi Barukh Halevi Epstein, Mekor Barukh vol. 2 (Ram Publishers, Vilna, 1928), 1113-1130.
[9] David Margalit, Hakhmei Yisrael ke-Rofim (Jerusalem: Mosad HaRav Kook, 1962).
[10] Asher Salah, La République des Lettres: Rabbins, écrivains et medecins juifs en Italie au 18^th siècle (Leiden: Brill, 2007).
[11] Avraham Steinberg, HaRefuah Ke-Halakhah 6 ,2^nd edition (Jerusalem, 5782), 196-206.
[12] The term Ḥaver dates back to Mishnaic times and has multiple uses and meanings. For a select few of these physicians, the Ḥaver, typically granted to the younger student, was a steppingstone to the more advanced semicha or rabbinic ordination, often restricted to those of a greater age, but most sufficed with the Ḥaver degree alone. I am unsure if a Ḥaver degree was a requirement for the more advanced rabbinic ordination, akin, for example, to a master’s degree and a Ph.D.
[13] Abdelkader Modena and Edgardo Morpurgo, Medici E Chirurghi Ebrei Dottorati E Licenziati Nell Universita Di Padova dal 1617 al 1816 (Bologna, 1967). (Heretofore referred to as M and M.)
[14] See Encyclopedia Judaica, s. v., “Ḥaver.” See also Bunim Tausig miMatersdorf, Minhagei HaKehilos in the environs of Bergenland-Austria (Jerusalem, 5765), 210-218, for a lengthy discussion of both the origin and evolution of the term Ḥaver, as well as a list of decrees from different European locations relating to its practice and application. I thank Rabbi Eliezer Brodt for the important reference. This source bears little mention of the Italian experience. Tausig also includes discussion of the introduction and history of the title “Moreinu,” (rabbinic ordination), a modified and diluted version of the original semiha. He cites Hatam Sofer H. M., 163 who notes that the titles “moreinu” and “Ḥaver” lack any talmudic origins and are later constructs of tenuous halakhic basis serving communal purposes.
[15] HM 3102 photo 811, folio 168b (for date Heshvan 5412-1651 and participants), photo 813 folio 169b decision 74 (for the decision).

ליל מש”ק ליל ראשון של ר”ח חשון התי”ב

הושמה פארטי מצד מעכ”ה שמכאן ולהבא לא יוכלו לתת סמיכה מחברות לשום אחד שאינו נשוי אשר לא יהיה מבן חמשה ועשרים שנה ומחמש ועשרים שנה ולמעלה ואם נשוי אשה יוכלו לתת סמיכה לו מחברות אם יהיה מבן עשרים שנה ומעשרים שנה ולמעלה, ולא יוכלו לתת סמיכה מרבנות לשום אחד אם לא יהיה מבן שלשים שנה ומשלשים שנה ולמעלה, ועל שאר מהפארטי על זה התקפה ובגבורתה תעמוד, ולא יוכלו לכשל פארטי זו אם לא יהיה נועד כל נועדי הקק”י חוץ משנים ושתשאר ע”פ שלשה רביעים מאשר ימצאו אז בועד. ונשאר ע”פ י”ז הן ח’ לאו

[16] The famous case of the non-Jew who received rabbinic ordination, was actually a Ḥaver degree. See Shimon Steinmetz, “On non-Jews with rabbinic ordination, real and imagined: some notes on Dr. Leiman’s post on Tychsen,” On the Main-line Blog (September 20, 2011), here.
[17] Taussig, 214-215.
[18] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photos 49-50, folios 21b-22a.
[19] For a brief bio and bibliography, see Salah n. 585, Benayahu, Avraham miZante 112-117, M and M, n. 133.
[20] Meir Benayahu, “Avraham HaKohen of Zante and the Group of Doctor-Poets in Padua” (Hebrew), Ha-Sifrut 26 (1978), 108-140.
[21] See E. Reichman, “How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries- An Unrecognized Genre,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), May 29, 2022.
[22]  CO. V. 285, c. 123 r. See M and M n. 133. I thank Filippo Valle for this photograph.
[23] The text begins with the word, “bayom,” “on the day of.” Some Ḥaver degrees were granted in the daytime, “bayom,” as is the case here, while others were bestowed in an evening ceremony and begin with the words, “baleilah hazeh.”
[24] Here is my transcription of this section:

וכל שכן כאשר באזנינו שמענו כלם כי בפרט היום דוקא ובעצם היום הזה עתיד הוא על פלא חריפא לקבל מאת מע’ החכמים מתא שלא מבני עמינו הלווריאה הגדולה הנהוגה ליתן לכל החכמים עד שבקהל רופאים היום ינוח ויען שבין כך ובין כךהיו מעלתיהם כלם נושאים ונותנים לתת לו כבוד והדר בכתרה של תורה בפתע פתאום כל ברמה נשמע אח”כ קול המולה גדולה בקלא דלא פסיק מכל פינה ופינה ברחוב העיר מחצוצרות וקול שופר בנבל וכנור מקול גדול ולא יסף נזדעזעו כלם והריעו ותקעו כל העם בכל רם חזק מאד ובפרט המון עם יחי החכם שלמה יחי החכם שלמה והעם ומרעים ומרננים אחריהם ומחללים בחליליהם ובשמחה גדולה ותבקע הארץ לקולם וישמעו גם הם ויאמרו מדוע קול הקריה הומה כזאת והביא (?והבינו והכירו) וידעו כי זו היא הבשורה שאמרו והשמחה היא שאמר הכתוב ולישרי לב שמחה וכששמעו בדבר אחר כל זה הסכימו כלם יחד באגודה א’ פה א’ ובשפה א’ ואמרו זה היום שקוינוהו מצאנו ראינו חובה לעצמנו לתת כבוד והדר להאי צורבא מרבנן ויותר ביום זה שהוא יום חתונתו ויום שמחת לבו דהוה ליה ביומא טבא דידיה כי הפיץ מעיינות חכמתו חוצה וברחובות בחוץ תרועה (?), ואם כן לכבוד ה’ ולתורתו הסכימו מעלותיהם כנף לפרוס גולתא דדהבא אצווריה דא(?) גברא ויאי(?) גולתיה ולעטרת תפארת בסמכה וחברות הסמיכוהו והכטירוהו ויהיה מן הסמוכים לעד לעולם ככל שאר כברייא(?) דילן עד שהלוך ילך ועלה יעלה ויגדל שמו כשם הגדולים אשל בארץ המה כי מובטחים מעלותהם וכלם כי קל חיש(?) יעלה ויבא מהרה ויבצבץ ויפרח כשושנה בחכמה ובינה בע”הו כחפצם וכחפץ וכל מע’ הוריו וכל אוהביו אכי”ר

[25] Shmuel Lustro, Avraham de Pase, and Yitzhak Mi-Marini.
[26] E. Reichman, “How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries- An Unrecognized Genre,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), May 29, 2022.
[27] M and M, n. 136. Modena and Morpurgo identify him with Abram di Isaac Macchioro. For more on Macchioro, see Benayahu, op. cit.
[28] The Oriental and India Office Collections, Shelfmark 1978.f.3.
[29] JTS Library Ms. 9027. A copy of the poem from JTS is digitized on the NLI website NLI film no. F40082, NLI system n. 990001116080205171-1, p. 326. I thank Laura Roumani for this reference.
[30] According to Laura Roumani, the heading of the poem says that the author is the brother-in-law of Yitzḥak Lustro, father of Solomon Lustro. In his note in Italian, Soave says that Yitzḥak Lustro married Dolcetta, daughter of Shelomoh Heilpron. According to Soave, Shelomoh Heilpron had a son named Moshe. The author should then be Moshe Heilpron. However, there are no cross-references to prove it.
[31] Below is my transcription of the poem:

צאינה וראינה בנות ציון במלך שלמה בעטרה שנתעטר היום יום חתונתו ושמחת לבו בחתונת בשמחת התורה והחכמה כאשר יצא ביד רמה הוכתר בכתר הפילוסופיה והרפואה בחקירות ודרישות הריאה כשמו כן חכמתו וכשלמה חכם הפליא בתכונתו ה”ה החכם החבר שלמה בן גיסי כרע כאח לי המפואר והנעלה כמה”ר יצחק לוסטרו ובכן באומרים לי בית החכמות נלך שמחתי ועל ידי שיר נאמן זה אליו שלחתי אהבתי ונפשי בנפשו קשורה בתורה וקול זמרה

הנה תורת אל(?) רפואת נפש
גבר שלמה זה בהוד עטרת
עתה לנו הורכב בטיט ורפש
רופא הלא נודע ברוב תפארת
דרש וחקר כל מחופש חפש
כחה וגם בזה ביד גוברת
מרפא לנו או לנשמה דוררשים
לבוא עניו(?) לא תהיו בששים

ויעלו האבר
בין כל אשר דת כח
גבר שלמה זה אנוש הגבר
זרח כאש דת למו
נודע ברוב תפארת
עלה עלי אנשי מרומי קדת(?)
השיב לכל שואל אשר קרהו
שם חק ומשפט לו ושם נסהו

[32] See Benayahu.
[33] The Oriental and India Office Collections, Shelfmark 1978.f.3. I thank Dr. Ilana Tahan for her assistance in identifying the location of this poem.
[34] See Edward Reichman, “Restoring the Luster of Solomon Lustro: Newly identified Congratulatory poems,” Forthcoming.
[35] Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Ms. 843, Catalogue Lutzki (L 710 Adler), Elkan Nathan Ms. 987, National Library of Israel System n. 990001130520205171. The manuscript is a miscellany of the writings of Solomon (Shlomo) Marini, including drafts and seed ideas for his sermons, among other items.
[36] Edward Reichman, “The Discovery of a Long Lost “Ḥaver”: A Previously Unknown Ḥaver diploma granted by Rabbi Solomon b. Isaac Marini (1594-1670) to a Medical Graduate of the University of Padua,” Koroth, in press.
[37] M and M, n. 11.
[38] S. Simonsohn, Zikne Yehuda (Mosad HaRav Kook: Jerusalem, 5716), 48. Simonsohn mentions the Ḥaver degree but does not provide a reference.
[39] See Edward Reichman, “Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates of the University of Padua in the 17th and 18th Centuries,” forthcoming.
[40] For the role of Jewish medical graduates of the University of Padua in the Plague of 1631, see Edward Reichman, “From Graduation to Contagion,” Lehrhaus (thelehrhaus.com), September 8, 2020.
[41] For the full Latin text of Morpurg’s diploma, see, Majer Balaban, Historja Żydów w Krakowie i na Kazimierzu 1304-1868 (History of Jews in Kraków and Kazimierz), vol. I (Kraków, 1931), 560. I thank Dr. Andrew Zalusky for this reference, and for the additional information on David Morpurg’s practice in Krakow.
[42] N. M. Gelber, “History of Jewish Physicians in Poland in the 18th Century,” (Hebrew) in Y. Tirosh, ed., Shai li-Yeshayahu (Center for Culture of Poel ha-Mizrachi: Tel Aviv, 5716), 347-371, esp. 350.
[43] M and M, 31.
[44] M and M, n. 100. On Marini, see M. Benayahu, “Rabbi Avraham Ha-Kohen Mi-Zante U-Lahakat Ha-Rof ’im Ha-Meshorerim Be-Padova,” Ha-Sifrut 26 (1978): 108-40, esp. 110-111.
[45] Minute Books of the Council of the Jewish Community of Padua (years 1651-1692), Folio 262v. HM-3104 NLI 990041779800205171.
[46] I thank Laura Roumani for this information.
[47] See Laura Roumani, “Le Metamorfosi di Ovidio nella traduzione ebraica di Shabtai Hayyim Marini di Padova” [Ovid’s Metamorphoses translated into Hebrew by Shabtai Ḥayyim Marini from Padua] (PhD diss., University of Turin, 1992). See also L. Roumani, “The Legend of Daphne and Apollo in Ovid’s Metamorphoses Translated into Hebrew by Shabtai Ḥayyim Marini” [in Italian], Henoch (Turin University) 13 (1991): 319–335.
[48] Modena and Morpurgo, as well as the Jewish Encyclopedia (entry on Solomon Marini) claim that Shabtai Marini (1594-1685), Solomon’s brother, was a physician, though the university does not have record of his attendance. The Ḥaver discussed here is a later Shabtai Hayyim Marini and graduated Padua in 1685. Solomon’s brother Shabtai Marini (1594-1685) may have been Shabtai Hayyim’s grandfather.
[49] M and M, n. 121.
[50] Benayahu, 109.
[51] See Benayahu, “Avraham mi-Zante,” op. cit. On this author and poem, see especially, 115, 124-125.
[52] Sacerdote was 47 years old at the time of this portrait. See also, Salah, op. cit., p. 156-157, n. 227.
[53] JTS Library, Ms. 9027 V5:6.
[54] M and M, n. 133.
[55] For a bio of Rabeni, see Salah, n. 817; Francesca Bregoli, Biblical Poetry, Spinozist Hermeneutics, and Critical Scholarship: The polemical activities of Raffaele Rabeni in early eighteenth-century Italy,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 8:2 (2009), 173-198. The biographical information below derives from these sources.
[56] M and M, n. 128
[57] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 55, folio 24b.
[58] Bregoli, 175. On Conegliano and his school, see S. Kottek “Tuviya Cohen in Context,” in Kenneth Collins and Samuel Kottek, eds., Ma’ase Tuviya (Venice, 1708): Tuviya Cohen on Medicine and Science (Jerusalem: Muriel and Philip Berman Medical Library of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2021); Ruderman, Jewish Thought and Scientific Discovery (cit. n. 3), 111–113. For more on the Conegliano family, see D. Kaufmann, Dr. Israel Conigliano (Budapest: Adolf Alkalay, 1895).
[59]  See Bregoli.
[60] S. D. Luzzatto, “Correspondence between C. Theophile Unger and Isaac Hayyim Cantarini,” (Hebrew) in Y. Blumenfeld, Otzar Nehmad 3 (Vienna, 1860), 128-149, esp, 128-131. See also Bregoli, op. cit., 175.
[61] See Salah, op. cit., n. 817.
[63] For example, see the community archive entry for the rabbinic ordination of Shabtai Marini mentioned above.
[63] M and M, n. 131.
[64] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 55, folio 25b.

Below is the transcription of the text:

ליל שלמחרתו יום ד’ י”ו כסליו התנ”ט

להרבות תורה ולהגדיל תושיה עדות ה’ נאמנה לכתם אופיו לא תסולה מפז ומפנינים יקרה נתוועדו מעל’ הרבנים והפרנסים יע”א ובתוכם מע” אהרון הכהן במקום נכנס מעלה והכתירו בכתר חברות התורה עץ חיים היא למחזיקים בה מע” הרופא יוסף פואה ומע” אליעזר מורדו מקורפו הבירה ובמקום שאמרו להתר התירו המצועה שמכאן ולהבא בכל דבר שבקדושה בשם חבר יהיה כל אחד מהם נקרא ולחבר באחדות גמורה אהל למודי התורה בזה דבר למחיה לא יבצר משמה ויעלם על רום המרכבה

כמהר”ר שמעון היילפרון, הרופא יצחק חי כהן מהחזנים, שמואל דוד אוטולינגי רבני עיר הזאת המהוללה

מע” כ”מ יצחק לוסטרו, גבריאל לאונציני, משולם היילפרון פרנסים

אהרון כ”ץ במקום נכנס

[65] See Nathan Koren, Jewish Physicians: A Biographical Index (Jerusalem: Israel Universities Press, 1973), 49.
[66] M and M, n. 135.
[67] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 69, folio 31b
[68] This copy is from the Valmadonna Trust, now in the NLI n. 990040718570205171.
[69] Chirurgia pratica accomodata all’uso scolaresco dedicata all’illustrissimo signor Antonio Vallisnieri … dal dottor Angelo q. Grassin Cantarini (Padova, 1715) There is a copy in the British Library, Identifier: System number: 001490104 Shelfmark(s): General Reference Collection 7482.g.25. UIN: BLL01001490104. This may be the only copy.
[70] See Bregoli, op. cit., 175 and 190 (n. 19).
[71] See Modena-Morpurgo, n. 136.
[72] From HM-3109, Minute book of the council of Padova (years 1692-1710).

HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 17-18, folio 6a-6b.
[73] M and M, n. 138.
[74] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 69, folio 32b.
[75] M and M, n. 137.
[76] JTS Library Ms. 9027 V5:22.
[77] M and M, n. 139.
[78] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 69, folio 32b.
[79] I thank Laura Roumani for this information.
[80] M and M, n. 141.

[8] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 55, folio 25b.
[82] See M and M, nos. 141, 213, 219, 220, 228, and 278.
[83] N. Y. ha-Kohen, Otsar ha-Gedolim Alufe Ya‘akov (Haifa, n.d.), 188, paragraph 673.
[84] See also Steinschneider’s Hebräische Bibliographie 21 (1881): 118 regarding the composition of a piyut (either by De Mordis or in his honor) with the acrostic Eliezer (in Hebrew). The text of one of the poems mentioned here, as well as additional acrostic poems by and for De Mordis, can be found in S. Bernstein, Piyutim u-Paitanim Ḥadashim me-ha-Tequfa ha-Bizantinit (collected from manuscripts of the maḥzor according to the custom of Corfu) (Jerusalem, 5701), 58, 59, and 71.
[85] This volume is housed in the Braginsky Collection BCB n. 67 (available online at the Braginskcollection.com). I thank Sharon Liberman Mintz for this reference.
[86] See Daniel Tirney, “Ikare ha-dalet tet” (the Hebrew letters correspond to the initials of the author), O. H., n. 4, p. 12. For more on De Mordo and this musical controversy, see S. Simonsohn, “Some Disputes on Music in the Synagogue in Pre-Reform Days,” Proceedings of the American Academy for Jewish Research 34 (1966), 99-110, esp. notes 31 and 53. I thank Sharon Liberman Mintz for this reference.
[87] See M. Benayahu, Ha-Yahasim she-ben Yehude Yavan li-Yehude Italya (Tel Aviv: Ha-Makhon le-Heker ha-Tefutsot, 5740), 283. There is additional information on De Mordis and his other family members in Salah, Le Republique des Lettres (cit. n. 27), 437–438.
[88] M and M, n. 147.
[89] HM 3109 NLI 990041779830205171 photo 61, folio 27b.
[90] For more on Morpurgo, see, Edward Reichman, “The Illustrated Life of an Illustrious Renaissance Jew: Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-1740),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), June 22, 2021.
[91] M and M, n. 184.
[92] Archivio della Comunità Ebraica di Padova, no. 13, p. 213. It was published in RMI 20 (1954), pp. 499-503 by Paolo Nissim.
[93] See Debra Glasberg Gail, Scientific Authority and Jewish Law in Early Modern Italy, Ph.D. Dissertation, Columbia University (2016), 127.
[94] On Navarra, see Cecil Roth, “Rabbi Menahem Navarra: His Life and Time 1717-1777. A Chapter in the History of the Jews of Verona,” Jewish Quarterly Review 15:4 (April, 1925), 427-466.
[95] M and M, n. 241.
[96] See Navarra’s circumcision ledger (1745-1783) at NLI system n. 990001857430205171. The original ledger is housed in the University of Leeds in the Cecil Roth Collection (MS Roth/208). The children of Basilea are listed at numbers 41 and 91, and the children of Ferrarese at numbers 116, 130 and 148.
[97] M and M, n. 267.
[98] Avraham ben Yaakov, Yerushalayim bein haHomot (Megilat Yuhsin), p. 367
[99] Tajan Judaica Auction House, June 27, 2006 (Paris).
[100] JTS Library Ms. 9027 V5:25.
[101] NLI, n. 990002098760205171, p. 33. I thank Laura Roumani for this reference and Dorit Gani of the NLI for her assistance in procuring a copy.
[102] M and M, n. 274.
[103] Otzar Yehudei Sefarad: Toldot Am Yisrael, p. 41.
[104] The following description appears in the Columbia University catalogue: Two diplomas for Menaḥem ben Natan Azar 1. Doctoral Diploma (September 28, 1778) for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine of Menachem (Mandolino) Ben Natan Azzar from the University of Padova, “under Venetian authority,” with three signers. The main signer is Leopoldus Marcus Antonius Caldani Bononiensis (4 leaves, illuminated) — 2. Surgeon Diploma (April 1, 1761) of Menachem di Natan Azzar from the Colleges of Padua and Venice with four signers on behalf of the Venetian “Proveditor General,” Francesco Grimani (1 leaf).

The Anatomy of an Auction: A Previously Undissected Body of Literature on the History of the Jews and Postmortem Dissection

 Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD 

The issue of autopsy and postmortem dissection has been exhaustively explored in halakhic literature.[1] If I were to ask where and when we find the first halakhic discussion about this topic, the immediate response would invariably be the teshuva of the Noda biYehuda, from the late eighteenth century.[2] It may be time to rewrite the medical halakhah history books. On Sunday, May 21 Genazym Auction House held its fifteenth auction. Lot #133 was a work entitled Pachad Yitzchak.

There are multiple works throughout history that bear the title Pachad Yitzchak. The modern reader will surely think of the work of Rav Yitzchak Hutner. The reader of this blog may also think of the first multi-volume halakhic encyclopedia, authored by Rabbi Dr. Yitzchak Lampronti (1679-1756). The volume offered for auction by Genazym is an earlier lesser-known composition of the same name by Yitzchak Hayyim Kohen me-haHazzanim (AKA Isaac Vita Cantarini)[3] published in 1685. 

Buried in Cantarini’s obscure work, in a section peripheral to the main theme of the book, we find a vivid and poetic description of a tragic incident relating to anatomical dissection.[4] Viewed in isolation, this incident merits historical attention due to its gravity. Yet, it merely reflects a much larger historical chapter about the Jews and postmortem dissection which long preceded the time of the Noda biYehuda and has remained largely undissected until now. But first a word about this work, its provenance and its author. 

The Work- Pachad Yitzchak (Amsterdam, 1685)[5]

The main subject of this work is the tale, told in poetic fashion, of the miraculous salvation of the Jewish congregation of Padua during the Austrian-Ottoman War in the year 1684. War erupted between the Austrian and Ottoman Empires in the year 1684 over the city of Buda (today part of Budapest). The virulently anti-Semitic Christian ruler of Padua spread a libel accusing the Jews of supporting the Muslim Turks in their battle against the Austrian Empire. His incitement caused an enraged crowd to break into the Padua Ghetto, yet the Jews miraculously persuaded the Venetian government to subdue the outburst. The Jews of Padua declared the 10th day of Elul as their Second Purim in gratitude for their miraculous salvation. This holiday was celebrated for many generations thereafter. 

However, the work also includes many additional unknown details of the history of the Jewish community and its rabbis. It is from this aspect of the book that we draw our discussion. 

Provenance

Regarding the item’s provenance, it was previously part of the William Gross Family Collection,[6] a significant portion of which has been recently sold at auction by both Kedem[7] and Genazym auction houses. Gross is a well-known prominent collector of Judaica and Hebraica and the selling of his collection is of historic significance. To see the collection of precious items united under one roof now become redistributed and disseminated across the world necessitates a moment of pause and reflection. Yet, this is the life cycle in the world of bibliophilia.[8] For centuries, passionate bibliophiles spent lifetimes amassing extraordinary and unique collections, only to have them subsequently sold piecemeal (for a variety of reasons) while still alive, or by less passionate heirs after death. Sometimes, however, collections are sold en bloc. An allusion to one such example is the image which appears on the bottom of the title page of the copy of Pachad Yitzchak sold at auction.  

This stamp, which is not mentioned in the catalogue description, indicates that this volume was previously part of the collection of Professor Lelio Della Torre. Della Torre was an Italian Jewish scholar of the nineteenth century, and prolific author, who served as a professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the rabbinical seminary in Padua, where Shadal also taught, from 1829 until his death in 1871. During this time, he was an avid collector of Hebraica. David Kaufmann, himself a renowned scholar and bibliophile, sought to procure Delle Torre’s collection upon the latter’s death. Kaufmann not only acquired Della Torre’s collection, but also that of Marco Mortara, a student of Shadal, and later Chief Rabbi of Mantua. Mortara’s collection in turn contained the library of Samuel Della Volta, whose life, work and library we discussed in this blog.[9]  All of these collections are now housed in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Library in Budapest, to which Kaufmann bequeathed his library. This volume from Della Torre’s library somehow escaped the grasp of Kaufmann and traversed a different path, ultimately landing instead in the Gross Family Collection.[10]

The Author- Yitzchak Hayyim Cantarini (1644-1723)[11]

The Cantorini family were a prominent family of Kohanim who were also associated with the cantorial profession – hence the name Cantarini, or MinHaHazanim, as their Hebrew name reflects. Isaac Cantarini graduated from the University of Padua Medical School on February 11, 1664, one of many Cantarinis who earned their medical degrees from the university.[12] He authored a number of congratulatory poems in honor of Padua medical graduates.

After graduated from Padua, Cantarini went on to become a leading figure in Italian Jewry. He is considered one of the greatest Torah sages of his time, and his responsa have been published in both Yitzhak Lampronti’s Pachad Yitzhak and Samson Morpurgho’s Shemesh Tzedakah.[13] Cantarini wrote halakhic, historical, and homiletic works, as well as medical treatises in Latin. He was a poet, author, physician, and consummate orator; non-Jewish clergy and lay people attended his Shabbat sermons. In the year 5460 there were so many non-Jewish visitors in synagogue when he spoke that the regulars had to ascend to the women’s section (ezrat nashim) to pray.[14] He was a teacher of both Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Ramchal),[15] as well as Rabbi Yitzchak Lampronti.

Non-Jews sought Cantarini’s sage advice as well, as evidenced by his correspondence with the Christian intellectual Theophilio Ungar.[16]

Cantarini was known by his initials יחכם. He was also quite adept at word play, and Shadal mentions but one small example of his utilizing the acronym of his name in the introduction to a kinah he composed upon the passing of Rabbi Yehuda Briel:[17]

Shadal takes a stab at solving the riddle.

A Fearful Story in Pachad Yitzchak

The following story appears in the pages of Pachad Yitzchak.[18] On the 17th of Shevat 5440 (שנת מ”ת as per Cantarini), a young man by the name of Hananel (AKA Graziadio) Levi[19] died in the Ghetto. His body was prepared for burial, but in the interim, a band of raucous students from the University of Padua stormed the Ghetto, kidnapped the body, and whisked it away to the anatomy room in preparation for dissection and medical student instruction. The Jewish community was in an uproar, riots ensued, and all political channels were pursued to secure the return of the body. When initial efforts failed, some members of the Jewish community on their own initiative attempted unsuccessfully to enter the anatomy lecture hall under cover of night to procure the body. Ultimately, after one week, negotiations succeeded, and the Jews were promised by the University that they needn’t worry about similar infractions in the future, and that the bodies of the Jewish community would no longer be forcefully taken for anatomical dissection. 

Anatomy, the Jews, and the University of Padua- An Undissected Body of Literature

This frightening incident recounted in Pachad Yitzchak is significant in its own right, but here we situate it as part of a much larger narrative of anatomy, the Jews and the University of Padua, which began over a century earlier.

Since the Middle Ages, individual Jewish students experienced numerous hurdles to the completion of their medical training, many rooted in discrimination and antisemitism. It was sometime around the 16thcentury, however, as the result of the synchroneity of two major historical developments, that Jews, as a group, first encountered a new major challenge to their medical education. This challenge, unlike any previous, did not originate with their non-Jewish colleagues or institutions, but was self-imposed by the Jews. Its consequences however were no less severe.

In the beginning of the fifteenth century, the University of Padua became the first European university to officially allow admission of Jewish students for medical training.[20] This policy led to a gradual influx of Jewish students and the creation for the first time in history of a significant Jewish presence and recognizable entity in a consistent fashion on a university campus.[21] This positive development for the broader Jewish community[22] unwittingly evoked unanticipated consequences.

Simultaneous with the expansion of the Jewish community in Padua, a young professor on campus was quietly revolutionizing the study of anatomy. Andreas Vesalius, who arrived in Padua in 1537, began to hold frequent public and private anatomical displays and approached the study of human anatomical dissection in a systematic fashion not previously attempted.[23] He would later come to be known as the founder of modern anatomy. With his innovations came the expansion of the anatomy course in Padua. Anatomy became identified from then on as the most essential course in medical training, and Vesalius, along with the University of Padua, were leading the revolution. 

The Ramifications of Vesalius’ Contribution for the Jewish Community

Vesalius’s work formalized and expanded the teaching of human anatomy at the University of Padua, as well as at medical schools throughout the world. With the expansion of the course came the necessity to supply more cadavers for the dissection tables. To procure cadavers for the anatomy course, the university turned to both the judicial system as well as its students and their communities. Executed criminals served as one steady source of cadavers, but this did not suffice. 

Grave robbing became commonplace in order to supplement the source of bodies. The practice was even encouraged by Vesalius and, though technically illegal, was unofficially tolerated by the government. A ducal document from 1549, during Vesalius’s tenure in Padua, condemns grave robbing,[24] but the ever-present fear and reality of the practice also affecting the Jewish cemeteries.[25] Indeed, one scholar has suggested that one of the historiated letters in the Fabrica specifically depicts a scene of the grave robbing of a body from a Jewish cemetery.[26]

The scene depicts putti (cherubic figures common in Renaissance art) removing a body from a grave. The “o” on the flag held by one of the putti was the symbol Jews were required to wear on their clothing and may reflect that this was a Jewish cemetery depicted.

The emphasis on anatomy begun by Vesalius would continue long into the future. Soon the university would further invest in this venture by building the first example in the world of a permanent anatomical theater, completed in 1595 (after the death of Vesalius), created for teaching anatomy through the dissection of corpses. The theater still stands to this day. 

The supply of cadavers was a perennial challenge for the medical school, and as a result, the university sought additional creative ways to address the issue. At some stage they instituted each community which sent medical students for training at the university would be required to provide a certain number of bodies for the dissection table.[27] The Jewish community, like others on campus, was expected to provide cadavers for the yearly anatomy course. However, the Jewish students and community took issue with this expectation. As elated as Jews were to walk the halls of a premier university for the first time in history, this privilege would not compel the abrogation of ancient Torah principles. Jewish law forbids the dissection of the human body after death absent mitigating circumstances yielding direct and immediate life-saving benefit from the procedure.[28] The prohibitions of desecrating and deriving benefit from the corpse, as well as the obligation to bury the body preclude routine dissection or autopsy. 

This refusal of the Jews to provide bodies sparked outcry from both the university and its students. The tension created from this conflict would play out over centuries. It is reflected, for example, in multiple recorded incidents of Padua medical students attempting to kidnap Jewish bodies to provide for the anatomy course.[29] Although we have no starting date, already in the earliest Vesalian and post-Vesalian days in Padua a compromise was struck with the Jewish community providing a hefty financial compensation to absolve them from the cadaver obligation. However, this was not a one-time incident, and the anatomy issue persisted, with frequent renegotiation of terms over the years and increased tension resurfacing periodically. Despite the Senate’s repeated pronouncements, frequently the graves in the Jewish cemetery were violated. It was not uncommon for gravely ill patients to be transported out of Padua for fear of being dissected upon their death.[30] The Jews were compelled to construct secret hiding places in the Ghetto where the bodies could be concealed until the funeral. Often, they buried the dead under the cover of night to avoid the dissection table.[31]

One would have expected to find halakhic responsa from 16th and 17th century Italy discussing this topic, but the extant halakhic literature is silent. The first cases discussing autopsy only surface in the late 18th century. We do however find reference to this ongoing issue in the Padua Jewish community archives as well as in the administrative records of the city and University of Padua. We share these documents here, many for the first time. While not enshrined in the extant responsa literature, this community response to anatomical dissection surely reflects the considered rabbinic opinion and halakhic analyses of the local Padua rabbinate, to whom the community deferred on such matters. Prominent rabbis who served the Padua community, or were connected with the medical students during the period under discussion include Maharam Padua (1482-1565), Rabbi Yehuda Arye de Modena (1571-1648) and Rabbi Yehuda Briel (1643-1722), Rabbi Dr. Isaac Hayyim Cantarini (1644-1723), Rabbi Dr. Isaac Lampronti (1679-1756), and Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-174), among others, and it is more than likely that they were involved, to some extent, in the discussions of the Jewish community regarding the provision of bodies to the medical school. 

The Padua Jewish Community Archives[32] 1624-1626

The Jewish community archives of Padua contain at least five entries from 1624 to 1626, discussed below, which directly address the anatomy issue. Daniel Carpi, the scholar of Italian Jewish history who transcribed and edited the archives, noted that since the Jews first settled in Padua the medical students requested from the Jewish community to provide to the university a specific percentage of Jewish bodies for use in the teaching of anatomy. The Jews refused and arranged a compromise to pay an annual ransom to absolve them from this obligation. However, the tension related to this matter never ceased, be it because the university continually raised the fee, or because they sometimes would only suffice with the supply of actual corpses for dissection. 

It is in this context that a tragic incident occurred in 1624 which frightened even the non-Jewish community. A group of students, led by a young anatomy professor, interrupted a Jewish funeral procession and attempted to kidnap the body. The agreement discussed in the first archival entry below appears to come on the heels of this incident in the hopes of preventing similar occurrences in the future.

April 19, 1624 (entry #545) compromise with the students during the season/days of dissection

In that the spirit of God has enlightened the esteemed philosopher Senior Cesare Cremonin to declare freedom (from dissection) for our deceased, through the continued annual designated payment to the students of the College of Arts, generation after generation. As a result, they are obligated to allow us to properly bury our dead during the season of dissection, lest anyone fear. Any violators will be fined, and they have coordinated with us to obtain from the government permission for a required fine for all who violate this agreement in a way amenable and sufficient for our needs. The aforementioned master Cesare and Yehudah Katz have already spoken on this matter and have begun discussion regarding the amount the Jewish community is willing to pay for this privilege. Therefore, to facilitate successful completion of these dealings, which will result in a salvation for our community, we present a parti to designate two members of our community,[33] even though they are not members of the committee, to negotiate directly with the aforementioned esteemed philosopher a sum which will then be presented to the community and the committee for a majority vote. 

Subsequent entries reflect the lengthy process of negotiation, implementation, and enforcement. A follow up entry from July 15, 1624 (entry # 554) states that the negotiations had been completed and a sum had been agreed upon with the government representative. The request is to approve the amount and facilitate payment. 

 An entry in the Padua University Archives from December 28, 1624 (pictured below) sheds a slightly different light on the negotiations, which may not have been officially ratified by the university.[34]

Here the university confirms an earlier privilege granted to the Jewish community by which those Jews studying medicine were granted free access to the anatomical theater, and the corpses of deceased Jews were to be left untouched by anatomical dissections due to strong religious objections to the procedure. For this privilege the Jews paid an annual sum of 100 Venetian pounds. The entry concludes, “the final decision on this proposal was delayed until the arrival of the “perillustris domini syndic.”[35] Parenthetically, this reveals that the agreements between the Jewish community and the university regarding Jewish cadavers date back to an earlier time.

An entry in the Jewish community archives some three weeks later (Entry # 566- January 21, 1625) corroborates the delayed decision of the university. It reiterates the need to arrive at an agreement between the Jewish community and the university to prevent the taking of Jewish bodies. A maximum fee of ten Ducat is set. This may have been a counteroffer to the much higher request of 100 ducats and explains why a specific number is mentioned here but not previously. 

May 17, 1626 (Entry #616)
Yet another entry reveals a creative solution to prevent grave robbing during the semester of anatomy.

Regarding designating two community representatives with the power to negotiate with Aharon Altarini to allow temporary burial[36] on his property (for community members) during anatomy season. They are granted permission to spend as much as necessary to appease those who oppose this practice.

While grave robbing was typically done secretly under the cover of night, some claims for Jewish bodies were more brazen. The entry of November 15, 1626 (Entry # 627) mentions a disturbing incident (mikre bilti tahor) of the interference of the medical students of Padua with the Jewish funeral procession of the wife of Moshe Fano (miPano). The incident, reminiscent of earlier similar episodes, appears to have been minor and fortunately did not escalate. Nonetheless, it precipitated another plea to find a long-term compromise with the university regarding the anatomy issue.

The Decree of 1672[37]

 On November 23, 1672, there was a decree reaffirming the Jews’ exemption from providing bodies for dissection and warning those who attempt to disturb the funerals or graves of members of the Jewish community. This decree appears in Jewish and governmental documents discussed below. It is unknown to me if or whether a specific historical event precipitated this reaffirmation.

The Case of Graziadio Levi and the Riots of 1679 

Here we position the story from Cantarini’s Pachad Yitzchak, occurring over a century after Vesalius’ expansion of the field of human anatomy with its subsequent creation of major halakhic and social problems for the Jewish community and its medical students. The event described by Cantarini which transpired in 1679[38] may have been the tipping point which led to a more serious and sustained response from the university. Following the death of a young Jew, Graziadio Levi, armed students stormed the Jewish ghetto in great numbers, kidnapped the corpse and brought it to the medical school in preparation for dissection. Riots ensued[39] and much effort was marshaled to rescue the body and provide a proper Jewish burial. The incident led to the issuance of a ducal letter dated February 27 of that year which rued the incident and emphatically reaffirmed the commitment by the university to protect Jewish corpses.[40]  As we have discussed, the events surrounding that fateful night in 1679 were recorded for posterity by Isaac Hayyim Cantarini in his Pachad Yitzchak. In the context of his recounting of the Levi affair, Cantarini mentions the earlier decree from November 23, 1672, protecting the bodies of the community from dissection. 

A record of the full 1679 decree is found in the Padua Civic Archives,[41] a copy of which I procured and present below. The name of Graziadio Levi is explicitly mentioned in the decree.

Ciscato transcribed the full text of the decree.[42]

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People possesses yet another record of the anatomy decrees. This unadorned document is a certified “copia” of the two decrees of 1672 and 1679.[43]

This was perhaps intended for archival records as opposed to public display. 

University (Governmental) Decrees Regarding Jewish Cadavers from 1672 to 1721

The Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People possesses yet another document, even more remarkable, related to the Padua anatomy decrees.[44] It includes not only one or even two decrees, but appears to be a summary or record of multiple decrees on the subject of cadavers, anatomy training at the medical school of Padua, and the Jewish community, spanning from 1672-1721. It includes the decrees of November 23, 1672, and February 27, 1679, as well as others. Furthermore, the presentation of these decrees, as an attractive broadside with calligraphy and illustrated header, indicates that it was likely intended for public display.[45]

Conclusion

In an obscure work published in 1685, recently offered for auction, appears an account of a tragic event involving the Jewish community and the dissection of human cadavers at the University of Padua. We have placed this seemingly isolated incident into a much broader historical context, fleshing out this chapter with new supportive archival material. For hundreds of years, beginning in the late sixteenth century, the Jewish community negotiated with the university for the right not to have Jewish bodies used for the anatomy course. There is no question that the local rabbinate of Padua must have been involved in these discussions and negotiations, though to what extent remains unknown. Refusal of the Jewish community to provide cadavers for dissection created major problems for both the many Jewish medical students who attended the university as well as for the Jewish community at large. The Jewish community’s restrictive position was premised entirely on halakhic grounds and would not have been sustainable throughout this lengthy period without significant rabbinic backing and support. Thus, while the extant published literature on autopsy begins with the Noda biYehudah in the late eighteenth century, there is little doubt that the halakhic discourse on the topic of anatomical dissection began long before.[46]

[1] For general discussions on anatomy and autopsy in Jewish law, see Kalman Kahana, “The Dissection of the Dead in Jewish Law: A Bibliography,” (Hebrew) haMa’ayan 7 (Tevet, 5727), 45-72; Avraham Steinberg, HaRefuah KiHalakhah 6 (Jerusalem, 2017), 512-550; Zev Farber and Irving Greenberg, “Autopsies I: A Survey of the Debate,” in Zev Farber, ed., Halakhic Realities (Maggid Books: Jerusalem, 2017), 323-417.
[2] For a discussion of the historical context of this teshuva, see Edward Reichman, “A Tale of Two Stones,” in The Anatomy of Halakha (Maggid/OU/YU Presses, 2022),
[3] Cantarini and Lampronti share at least one thing in common. They are both graduates of the University of Padua Medical School. Indeed, the passage in Cantarini’s work upon which I draw relates directly to the medical training at the university.
[4] This incident we describe transpired years before the so-called Purim of Buda (or Padua).
[5] The description of the work is drawn from the William Gross Collection Item Description, which is reproduced in the Genazym catalogue. See also M. Heller, The Seventeenth Century Hebrew Book (Brill, 2011), 1077.
[6] On Gross and his collection, see Shalom Sabar, Emile Schrijver, and Falk Wiesemann, Windows on Jewish Worlds: Essays in Honor of William Gross, Collector of Judaica on the Occasion of his Eightieth Birthday (Zutphen: Walburg Pers bv., 2019).
[7] In Kedem’s recent auction of items from the Gross Family Collection (Auction 92, May 2, 2023) we find two items of medical historical interest, one less obvious than the other. The first item is Mikne Avram (Venice, 1523), a Hebrew grammar work written by Avraham de Balmes (Auction 92, Part 1, Lot 4). De Balmes was a physician and his medical diploma from Naples, from the auspicious year of 1492, is the oldest extant Jewish medical diploma, now housed in the Braginsky Collection. On this diploma see, Giancarlo Lacerenza and Vera Schwarz-Ricci, “Il Diploma di Dottorato in Medicina di Avraham ben Me’ir de Balmes (Naploli 1492),” Sefer Yuhasin 2(2014), 163-193. De Balmes was also a student of Yehuda Messer Leon, who has been mentioned numerous times on this blog. Less known is that De Balmes is considered to be the first physician in history to perform a human-to-human blood transfusion. His patient was none other than Pope Innocent VIII. De Balmes transfused blood from three young boys, each of whom was paid a ducat, and infused the blood into the veins of the Pope. According to different reports, the Pontiff “either died or recovered.” See H. M. Brown, “Beginning of Intravenous Medication,” Annals of Medical History 1:2 (1917). Shortly thereafter we find him working in the printing press of Daniel Bomberg.  De Balmes was an expert in Hebrew language and grammar and was sought after by Christians for instruction. Mikne Avramwas published posthumously. A scholarly edition of this work was recently published placing it in the context of contemporaneous linguistic scholarship. See Dror Ben Arye, Mikneh Avram by Avraham de Balmes (Hebrew) (Ramat Gan, Bar Ilan University Press, 2022).

The second item (Auction 92, Part 2, Lot 115) is the spectacular medical diploma of Moshe ben Gershon Tilche from the University of Padua Medical School (1687), which we discussed in Edward Reichman, “Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: A Behind the Scenes Tour of a New Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua (November 2, 2022- December 31, 2022),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), December 1, 2022.
[8] For a lament about the sale and loss of access to great Jewish book collections, see E. Reichman, “The Lost Library by Dan Rabinowitz and the ‘Burial of Souls’ by Yehuda Leib Katznelson: Different Expressions of the Same Sentiment,” The Seforim Blog (April 3, 2019), available at https://seforimblog.com/2019/04/the-lost-library-by-dan-rabinowitz-and-the-burial-of-souls-by-yehuda-leib-katznelson-different-expressions-of-the-same-sentiment/.
[9] E. Reichman, “Samuel Vita Della Volta (1772-1853): An Underappreciated Bibliophile and his Medical ‘Diploma’tic Journey,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), November 5, 2021.
[10] When Kaufmann transferred Mortara’s library from Italy to Budapest a number of volumes were also “lost” on the way. See Asher Salah, “La Biblioteca di Marco Mortara,” in Mauro Perani and Ermanno Finzi, eds., Nuovi Studi in Onore di Marco Mortara nel Secondo Centenario della Nascita (Firenze: Giuntina, 2016), 149-168, esp. 157.
[11] On Cantarini, see, Harry A. Savitz, Profiles of Erudite Jewish Physicians and Scholars (Spertus College of Judaica Press, 1973), 25-28; C. Facchini, “Icone in sinagoga: emblemi e imprese nella predicazione barocca di I.H. Cantarini”, in Materia Giudaica, 7 (2002), 124–144. I thank Professor David Ruderman for this last reference. Cantarini’s Jewish legal responsa were published in both Yitzḥak Lampronti’s Paḥad Yitzḥak and Samson Morpurgo’s Shemesh Tzedakah. For his correspondence with the Christian intellectual Theophilo Ungar, see Y. Blumenfeld, Otzar Nehmad 3 (Vienna, 1860), 128-50.  For the definitive work on the Cantarini family, see Marco Osimo, Narrazione della Strage Compiuta nel 1547 Contro gli Ebrei d’Asolo e Cenni Biografici della Famiglia Koen-Cantarini (Casale-Monferrato, 1875). For a comprehensive bibliography on Cantarini, see Asher Salah, La Republique des Lettres: Rabbins, Ecrivains et Medecins, Juifs en Italie au XVIIIe Siecle (Brill: Leiden, 2007), 120-124.
[12] Modena and Morpurgo, Medici, 118; see D. Ruderman, Jewish Though and Scientific Discovery in Early Modern Europe (Yale University Press, 1995), 113-114, regarding families with multiple graduates from the university.
[13] On Morpurgo, See Edward Reichman, “The Illustrated Life of an Illustrious Renaissance Jew: Rabbi Dr. Shimshon Morpurgo (1681-1740),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), June 22, 2021.
[14] S. Y. Glicksberg, Ha-Derashah Be-Yisrael (Mosad HaRav Kook, 5700), 203-20.
[15] Ramhal wrote a eulogy for Cantarini. See R. Moshe Hayim Luzzatto, Sefer Ha-Shirim, ed. Y. Zemora (Mosad HaRav Kook, 5710), 4.
[16] This correspondence was published by Shadal. See Y. Blumenfeld, Otzar Nehmad 3 (Vienna, 1860), 128-50.
[17] Ibid.
[18] 45a- 46a.
[19] I discovered a wedding poem written a number of years earlier Graziadio (Hananel) Levi, assumedly the same person, for the wedding of Saul Lustro and Allegra Barukh in 1676. See JTS Library B (NS)CR2.
[20] The university admitted non-Catholics, which included, for example, both Protestants and Jews. On the history of the Jews and the University of Padua, see Edward Reichman, “How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School: Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17th and 18th Centuries- An Unrecognized Genre,” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), May 29, 2022; idem, “Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: A Behind the Scenes Tour of a New Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua (November 2, 2022- December 31, 2022),” Seforim Blog (https://seforimblog.com), December 1, 2022.
[21] The University of Montpellier was sporadically frequented by Jews in the Middle Ages, but does not compare to Padua, where Jews attended in far greater numbers and had their own student organizations.
[22] To be sure there were residual discriminatory practices towards the Jews at the university. In addition, while the Italian Jewish community viewed this development in a positive light, the Jewish communities in Poland and Germany were more concerned about the possible assimilation of the Jewish students and dilution and diminution of Torah study.
[23] We discuss the relationship of Vesalius to the Jews in Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law (Maggid/OU/YU Press, 2022).
[24] See Ciscato, Gli Ebrei in Padova, p. 297. Later documents, as discussed below, address body snatching in the Jewish community specifically.
[25] Carpi, op. cit., parti 616, discusses a request to delay burial during the season of anatomy at the medical school to preclude grave robbing.
[26] Jeffrey Levine, “Jewish History in Vesalius’s Fabrica,” September 17, 2014 (https://jmlevinemd.com/jewish-history-vesalius-fabrica/).
[27] Paul Grendler, The Universities of the Italian Renaissance (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004).
[28] See Steinberg, Avraham Steinberg, HaRefuah KiHalakhah 6 (Jerusalem, 2017), 512-550. I realize it may be anachronistic to mention these specific halakhic concerns or formulation, as these were developed later in history starting with Rabbi Yechezkel Landau. Nonetheless, they are halakhic prohibitions and obligations that apply to dissection.
[29] For more on the history of anatomy and graverobbing in rabbinic literature, see Edward Reichman, The Anatomy of Jewish Law (Maggid/OU/YU Press, 2022).
[30] This practice might have violated the prohibition of moving a goses, the halachic equivalent to a “dying person.” A similar question was posed to Rabbi Moshe Stern: Could one move a critically ill patient out of the hospital for fear that, upon his death, his body would be taken for autopsy and dissection without family consent? Rabbi Stern ruled in the negative. See his Be’er Moshe 8, nos. 239, 240, 241, 243. Likewise, Rabbi Moshe Lemberger was asked whether a Kohen physician could expose himself to tum’ah in order to establish cause of death and prevent a likely autopsy. Rabbi Lemberger argues that the Kohen must do so, as this case is akin to a met mitzvah (one who dies without family or friends to bury him). See Lemberger, Ateret Moshe, Yoreh De’ah 2:244.
[31] Hebraische Bibliographie 16 (1876), p. 37.
[32] See Daniel Carpi, Minutes Book of the Council of the Jewish Community of Padua Volume Two: 1603-1630 (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1979). All references to the Padua Jewish community archives are from this source. I thank Pia Settimi for kindly bringing these documents to my attention. See also Ciscato, 209-212.
[33] According to Pia Settimi, one of these was Avraham Catalano, who would later coordinate the community response to the plague in Padua in 1631 and author the diary Olam Hafukh about the experience.
[34] ASUPd, ms. 655, f. 13r. I thank Francesco Piovan, Chief Archivist of the University of Padua Archives, for procuring a copy of this document for me.
[35] I am unsure to whom this refers.
[36] The idea of temporary burial was suggested and debated by some prominent rabbinic authorities in the nineteenth century regarding the situation in Cincinnati, OH where graverobbing was rampant. See Reichman, Anatomy of Jewish Law, op. cit., 223-226.
[37] See below for discussion of this decree.
[38] Cantarini lists the Hebrew date of the event as 17 Shevat, 5440. Standard Hebrew date converters place this in 1680, but the Italian decrees all clearly place the year at 1679.
[39] There were broader political issues at play during these riots which are discussed by Cantarini.
[40] See Ciscato, Gli Ebrei in Padova, pp. 299–300; Hebraische Bibliographie 16 (1876), 37. The latter reference discusses an unpublished manuscript by Chaim (Vital) Moshe ben Elisha Cantarini that details this incident. I have been unsuccessful in locating this manuscript. Cantarini, member of an illustrious Italian family comprising many rabbi/physicians, graduated from the medical school in Padua and apparently taught in a yeshiva there as well. As discussed in this essay, this incident is described in great detail by his relative Isaac Chaim Cantarini in the latter’s Pachad Yitzchak.
[41] Archivio civico antico Ducali volume 13 carta 3r. I thank Antonella Ortis for her assistance in procuring this document.
[42] Ciscato, 299. The date of this decree is February 27, 1679. He lists the location as Ducali, Reg. N. N. 123 c. I r.
[43] Ducale: Che sia conservata agli ebrei la facoltà di eseguire le sepolture secondo il loro rito (Emessa in seguito alle proteste degli ebrei contro gli studenti di Anatomia). IT-Pa-47-ovs, Padova – Jewish Community 1679. I thank Ariel Viterbo of the National Library of Israel for bringing this document, as well as the others from the Central Archives, to my attention, and I thank Yochai ben Ghedalia, Yael Franklin and Tami from the Central Archives of the History of the Jewish People for so kindly providing copies of these documents.
[44] 206 Pergamena interessantissima concernente le violazioni di cadaveri degli israeliti che si permettevano gli studenti col pretesto  degli studi anatomici ” =IT-Pa 126 ovs. This broadside does not appear to have been mentioned by Ciscato or Roth, though the decrees were known to them. The Central Archives has another catalogue entry on the dissection of Jewish cadavers in Padua- Sulle violazioni dei cadaveri degli israeliti che si permettevano gli studenti col pretesto degli studi anatomici.  Archivio della Comunità di Padova, n. 206. 8 frames. HM-5157. This is a (poor) microfilm copy of the above broadside, thought the Archives does not identify it as such.
[45] Though he had not seen this document before, Francesco Piovan, the Chief Archivist of the University of Padua remarked, “As far as I can tell from the image, it’s just a summary of laws and decrees. Such summaries (even in print) of private documents and legal norms were quite normal: they can be found, for example, in processual documents. The interesting fact is that your document looks like a kind of ‘manifesto’ (placard), written in beautiful handwriting, and perhaps to be displayed, hung in a frame or fixed on a wooden tablet. In short, it seems destined for public viewing.”
[46] As a postscript, despite the religious limitation of providing bodies for dissection, there was at least some evidence of the interest and fascination amongst the Jews with the new discipline of human anatomy. When Padua’s anatomical theater was first built in 1595, the benches were not only occupied by the registered Jewish medical students, there is record of Jews from the community (non-students) attending dissections. See Cynthia Klestinec, “A History of Anatomy Theaters in Sixteenth Century Padua,” Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 59:3 (2004), n. 74. Furthermore, years after the publication of Pachad Yitzchak, when a young Abraham Levi was visiting Padua on his travels, his guide, our very same Rabbi Dr. Isaac Cantarini, as part of showcasing the highlights of the community, included a visit to an anatomy lesson where a cadaver was dissected. Shmuel Feiner, The Jewish Eighteenth Century: A Jewish Biography, 1700-1750 (Indiana University Press, 2020), 242.

Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: A Behind the Scenes Tour of a New Exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua
November 2, 2022- December 31, 2022
By Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

The city of Padua (or Padova), just twenty-five miles southwest of Venice, has a rich and expansive Jewish history, though it is not typically on the itinerary of the Jewish traveler to Italy. One might perhaps recognize the city name as the penultimate stop on the train from Florence to Venice. The likes of Rabbi Yehuda Minz (Mahari Minz- 15^th century), Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen (Maharam Padua- 16^th century), and Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal- 18^th century) all lived and taught there, as did many other great personalities in Jewish history.

One of the centerpieces of the city is the University of Padua, one of the oldest universities in the world, which is celebrating its 800^th anniversary this year. To this day, it remains one of the premier universities in Europe. The Jewish history of this city is very much intertwined with the university. One remarkable connection between the two is geographical. As divine providence would have it, the Ghetto of Padua was established literally meters away from the university campus. A casual stroll from Palazza Bo, the iconic architectural center of the University of Padua, to the Ashkenazi Synagogue in the Ghetto, now home to the Jewish Museum in Padua, takes less than five minutes.

A new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua, in collaboration with the University of Padua, explores the unique relationship between the university and the Jewish community in the pre-modern era, with particular focus on the medical training of Jewish students. The exhibit commemorates a key role the university played in Jewish medical history, beginning in the fifteenth century, as the first university to officially allow Jews to gain formal training in the field of medicine. Since the formation of the earliest universities,[1] Jews were officially barred by papal decree from attending, as the universities were by and large under the auspices of the Catholic Church. In the pages of this blog, we have drawn attention to the role the University of Padua played in Jewish medical education.[2] Most recently we focused on a rare genre of poems written in honor of Jewish medical graduates of this institution from the 16^th-18^th centuries.[3]

I am now delighted to inform you of a new exhibit at the Jewish Museum of Padua- Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua– which will run through December 31, 2022. The exhibit was inaugurated with an event on November 2, 2022. Introductions by representatives of the museum, the Jewish community of Padua and the University of Padua were followed by a recorded video address by Chief Rabbi Dr. Riccardo Di Segni of Rome, himself a prominent physician, on Judaism and medicine. The program concluded with my presentation about the training of Jewish medical students in Padua.[4]

The archival material occupies a large display case[5] and reflects three centuries of history through rare documents, including community and city archives, which have never been on public display. With the exception of the work of Vesalius, all the items are unica.

In addition, displayed throughout the exhibit hall are portraits of Jewish physicians from Padua from the Benvenesti Collection of the Museo d’Arte of Padua, and a slideshow of diplomas and congratulatory poems appears on the big screen.

Please join me for a behind the scenes virtual tour of some of the highlights of the exhibit.

I. Anatomy, Vesalius, and the Jewish Medical Students of Padua

Andreas Vesalius
De Humani Corporis Fabrica (1543)

Library of the University of Padua

On the lower left shelf of the case, we find an early edition of Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica, open to the frontispiece. It is no exaggeration that the field of modern anatomy was born at the University of Padua under the vision of the famed professor of anatomy, Andreas Vesalius (1514–1564).[6] You may wonder why a copy of this volume, one of the most famous works in the history of medicine and anatomy, is part of an exhibit on Jewish medical history.

This monumental development in the history of medicine interfaced with the Jewish community of Padua in a number of ways. Much like this one anatomy book reveals the structures of the entire body, so too, this one book provides a window into a complex chapter of the experience of the Jewish medical student in Padua with respect to anatomy.

Hebrew Anatomical Terms

The anatomical terms detailed in the works of Vesalius – the Tabulae Anatomicae and De Humani Corporis Fabrica – are presented in multiple languages. One of those languages is Hebrew.[7] The reason for this is not specifically related to the Jewish medical students of Padua per se, but rather to the role the Jews played in the translation of medical works and the transmission of classical medical teaching from antiquity to the Middle Ages and Renaissance.[8]

Exactly who is responsible for the Hebrew translations in the Tabulae Anatomicae is unknown. Vesalius may have attended lectures on the Hebrew language by Joannes van Campen at the Pedagogium Trilingue in Louvain.[9] With the Hebrew terminology for the Fabrica, however, Vesalius duly acknowledges some assistance:

I have decided to give in the index principally a simple list of the names of the bones, first presenting those I use in the text; then the Greek; then, any others in Latin taken from authoritative writers, and all that in such way that it may have value. After these will follow the Hebrew, but also some Arabic, almost all taken from the Hebrew translation of Avicenna[10] through the efforts of Lazarus de Frigeis, a distinguished Jewish physician and close friend with whom I have been accustomed to translate Avicenna.[11]

The reference to Avicenna, the eleventh century Persian physician and polymath, refers to the Canon of Avicenna, one of the more influential medical works of that time. A magnificent, illustrated Hebrew manuscript translation of the Canon, which dates from the mid fifteenth century, is found in the University of Bologna,12] and the work was printed later in the fifteenth century. The Hebrew terminology in Vesalius, and its relationship to the Hebrew medical terminology of the Canon, has been studied by both historian and linguist alike.[13] Some have been less than complimentary.[14]

Vesalius credits Lazarus de Frigeis, “a distinguished Jewish physician and close friend,” with assisting him with the Hebrew translation in the Fabrica.[15] While some evidence has come to light about this friend, his exact identity still eludes scholars.[16] De Frigeis is believed to be depicted in the classic illustration on the frontispiece of the Fabrica, visible in the exhibit showcase, wearing characteristically Jewish garb.[17]

Vesalius and the Jewish Medical Students of Padua

Another relationship between Vesalius and the Jews[18] is inferred from his tenure as a lecturer at the University of Padua.[19] As Padua[20] was one of the only institutions of higher learning in the medieval and Renaissance periods to admit Jews,[21] Jews from across Europe flocked to attend.[22] These students however were not versed in either Italian or Latin, the academic language of discourse. They sometimes required translation for their studies. This is evidenced by the existence of a rare manuscript of the Fabrica in Yiddish dating from the late 1500s.[23]

One could imagine a group of German Jewish medical students sitting in the back of Vesalius’s lecture hall hunched over this very manuscript trying to keep pace with the day’s lesson.

Vesalius’s work also formalized and expanded the teaching of human anatomy at the University of Padua, as well as at medical schools throughout the world. The supply of cadavers was a perennial challenge for the medical school and each community which sent medical students for training at the university was required to provide bodies for the dissection table. This presented a unique problem for the Jewish students, as Jewish law forbids the dissection of the body after death. The Jewish medical students and Jewish community went to great lengths to gain exemption from this requirement. This is reflected in the Jewish community archives of this period.[24] There was also fear of grave robbing from the Jewish cemeteries.[25] Indeed, one scholar has suggested that one of the illustrated letters in the Fabrica depicts a scene of the grave robbing of a body from a Jewish cemetery.[26]

The “o” on the flag held by the putti was the symbol Jews were required to wear on their clothing.

In one case in 1676, a Jewish body was stolen before burial by medical students and brought to the anatomy table for dissection. Riots ensued and a compromise was ultimately reached. Isaac Cantarini wrote about this in his Paḥad Yitzḥak (1684). Roth recounts a case where disgruntled students kidnapped an etrog that was being transferred between communities on Sukkot and held it ransom in exchange for providing Jewish bodies for dissection.[27]

II. History of Degree Granting for Jewish Medical Students before 1615- Counts Palatine

Padua City Archives (1469-1470)
ASPd, Notarile, vol. 1946
Archivio di Stato di Padova

The oldest and rarest item of the exhibit (bottom left section- front) is a volume of the Padua city archives from the late 15^th century. The pages on display document the medical degree-granting process for Jewish students during this period.

In the early centuries of the University of Padua Medical School, doctoral degrees were granted by the Sacred College of Philosophers and Physicians in a Catholic religious ceremony. As such, this pathway to a medical degree was not a viable option for a religious Jew. However, non-Catholics, including Jews, could obtain medical degrees through a different pathway outside of the university walls, granted by specific individuals known as Counts Palatine, who received their authority from the Holy Roman Emperor. These ceremonies were held privately before a notary and witnesses.[28]

On display is a remarkable archival record from February 21, 1469, reflecting this degree-granting process. The passage recounts that the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III, while visiting Italy, bestowed upon Judah Messer Leon[29] a double doctorate in medicine and liberal arts, in addition to the title of Counts Palatine, granting him the right to confer doctorates upon other Jews of proven worthiness.

Judah Messer Leon was an accomplished physician, professor, and Torah scholar who later taught at the University of Padua Medical School. His work Nofet Tzufim (Abraham Conat: Mantua, 1475), known to this blog audience as the first Hebrew book to be printed in the lifetime of its author,[31]is a treatise on rhetoric, utilizing the classical literary devices of the ancient discipline of rhetoric applied to the Torah. One of the uses for this work was to prepare the Jewish students who matriculated from foreign countries to the medical schools in Italy. Indeed, Messer Leon is purported to have organized a yeshiva where students could receive a comprehensive Jewish education while training in the secular disciplines necessary for higher studies in the humanities, philosophy, and medicine.[31]

In the same archival record, we learn that it would be just one year later that Messer Leon would exercise his privilege as a Counts Palatine. In Padua, on 27 February 1470, Rabbi Dr. Judah Messer Leon bestowed a medical degree upon the Jew Yoḥanan Alemanno in a private ceremony at his home. Alemanno was a prominent Italian rabbi, philosopher and Kabbalist who also apparently taught Hebrew to the likes of Pico Mirandola. The nature of the ceremony was similar to the conventional Padua University procedure and included presenting the new doctor with a signed book, placing a gold ring on his finger, a wreath on his head, tying a red silk thread around his waist, and kissing him on the cheek.[32] However, while the invocation to the ceremony for the typical Christian student was “In Christi Nomini,” Messer Leon’s invocation for Alemanno was “In Dei omnipotentis nomine amen” (in the name of the Omnipotent God, Amen).[33]

This was the precursor to the invocation which would be used for the formal diplomas of Jewish students in the following centuries, “In Dei Aeterni Nomine Amen.” Messer Leon exercised this extraordinary privilege a number of times during his lifetime.

Messer Leon was involved in a Jewish legal dispute regarding the permissibility of wearing academic robes. Issues relating to these robes included the obligation to wear tzitzit, as well as the concern that they might contain sha’atnez.[34]

In 1615, the Collegio Veneto was established to serve the purpose of granting degrees to non-Catholic students and essentially replaced the Counts Palatine. The diplomas on display in this exhibit are from the period of the Collegio Veneto.

III. Diplomas of Jewish Medical Graduates of the University of Padua

Diplomas of Padua Jewish medical graduates are exceedingly scarce. While there have been a few sold at auction over the last few decades,[35] such diplomas are rarely displayed in public. I have thus far identified a total of nineteen extant diplomas of Jewish Padua medical graduates. Only three examples are found in Italy, and all of them are on display at this exhibit. An additional diploma was reproduced for display,[36] and images of others appear on the screen in the exhibit hall. Below I describe the diplomas on display, accompanied by a brief bio of their (original) bearers.

1) Medical Diploma of Moise di Pellegrino (Moshe ben Gershon) Tilche[37]
University of Padua- 1687
Gross Family Collection (Tel Aviv, Israel)

The invocation for the diploma for the typical Padua graduate was “In Christi Nomini.” For Jewish students, such as Tilche, the invocation was typically amended to “In Dei Aeterni Nomini.” Tilche is identified as “Hebreus” in the diploma, which was common for most Jewish students.

This is one of only a few Jewish medical diplomas from Padua that bear the graduate’s portrait, and the only such example displayed in this exhibit. Below the portrait are putti holding a laurel wreath, a book, a ring, and a hat.

This is a remarkable and unique depiction of the features of the Padua graduation ceremony. In addition to placing the wreath and hat on the graduate, a ring was placed on his finger, and books were symbolically opened and closed to represent the transmission of knowledge. This is similar to the ceremony described above performed by Messer Leon. This is the only known such illustration found on any Padua diploma.

The year is listed as “currente anno” instead of the typical term with Christian reference, such as Anno Domini, Anno a Christi Nativitate, or Anno Christiano.

Witnesses: The two witnesses for Tilche’s diploma were the Jewish physician, and graduate of Padua, Isaac Vita Cantarini (AKA Yitsḥak Ḥayyim Cantarini) and the Jew Samuele Pace. A branch of the Pace family was established in Padua by the 17^th century. A member of the family, Solomon, received his medical degree from Padua in 1647.[38] Cantarini was a rabbi as well as a physician and was a prominent figure in the Padua Jewish community.[39] Cantarini was both the author and recipient of poems dedicated in honor of Padua medical graduates.

Moshe ben Gershon Tilche signed a letter published in the Jewish legal responsa of Sanson Morpurgo, another medical Padua graduate (1700),[41] about the custom of donning tefillin on ḥol ha-mo‘ed (intermediate days of the holiday).[41]

2) Medical Diploma of Samuele Coen[42]
University of Padua- 1702
University of Padua Archives Raccolta Diplomi, 33 (n. 3841)

There were sixteen medical graduates from the University of Padua from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries with the last name of Coen, though they were not all related. Samuele was part of the sphere of Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal). It was a common custom for students’ mentors, fellow Padua students or alumni, or family members to compose congratulatory poems, mostly in Hebrew, to celebrate the student’s graduation. There are three students I have identified for whom we possess an extant copy of both a diploma and a congratulatory poem. Coen is one. Coen’s brother Moise, also a Padua medical alumnus (1675), composed a broadside poem in honor of Samuele’s graduation.[43]

Moise served as a witness for the graduation diploma of another Jewish student, Emanuel Colli, whose diploma is housed in the Magnes Collection in California.

In 1741, Coen’s daughter married another graduate of Padua’s medical school, Jacob ben Moses Alpron.[44] Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal) wrote a poem in honor of Alpron’s graduation.

It was not uncommon for the typical Padua medical diploma to include an illustration of the family coat of arms for the graduate. Coen’s diploma is one of a few examples of coats of arms found in diplomas of Jewish students, and the only example in our exhibit. The coat of arms includes the symbol of the Kohen tribe, two hands in the formation used for the priestly blessing. Above the hands appears a crown, and below it appears a raven.

Samuel Coen was clearly a member of the kohen tribe, as were a number of Padua medical graduates including Tuviyah haKohen Rofeh and Isaac Cantarini, for example. Given the introduction of systematic anatomical dissection into the medical school curriculum in the 16^th century, I have long wondered why there is no reference in the halakhic literature of this time to the issue of dissection for a Kohen, let alone for a Yisrael. The first references to dissection are in the late 1700s with the famous responsa of the Nodah biYehuda and Rav Yaakov Emden, though they contain no discussion about Kohanim. This is perhaps because the format of anatomy teaching involved the professor alone performing the dissection and teaching over the body. This is reflected in the design of anatomical theater of Padua. Students did not perform hands-on dissection; thus, the only potential issue would be tumat ohel, which at least according to some authorities is not generated by a non-Jewish corpse. However, as the original theater had a retractable roof to eliminate the foul odors during dissection, perhaps even tumat ohel may have been a non-issue.

Returning to the diploma, there are two sets of books on a table under the medallion, all of them labeled with the names of secular authors who were part of the standard curriculum at that time, including Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen, and Avicenna.

I had hoped the name Maimonides might have appeared on the spine of one of the books.

Coen is identified as “Hebreus” in the diploma, which was the norm for Jewish students.

The year is listed as “currente anno” instead of the typical term with Christian reference, such as Anno Domini, Anno a Christi Nativitate, or Anno Christiano.

3) Medical Diploma of Moise Valle[45]
University of Padua – 1713
Biblioteca Statale del Monumento Nazionale di Praglia, Fondo Ebraico, 156

Moshe David Valle (1697-1777), one of the more well-known graduates of Padua, was an Italian Rabbi, physician, and kabbalist. He lectured for the Padua confraternity Mevakshei HaShem (seekers of God). He was a prolific author and teacher, as well as student, of Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (known as Ramḥal). He authored commentaries on the Torah and Prophets as well as works on Kabbalah.[46]  He is responsible for disseminating the teachings of Ramḥal. Ephraim Luzzatto, physician, poet and fellow graduate of the University of Padua, authored a poem praising Valle’s lectures.[47]

Ramḥal and the University of Padua

As we are discussing Valle, we would be remiss if we did not at least briefly mention the relationship of Ramḥal to the university and its students. Though not part of this exhibit, the relationship of Ramḥal with the students of the university has been explored.[48] It had long been debated as to whether Ramḥal actually attended the university, as evidence was elusive. Debra Glassberg Gail has recently discovered records of his matriculation,[49] though not graduation. I obtained copies of these records confirming the matriculation of Moise Vita Luzzatto at the universitas artistarum,[50] amongst the students of philosophy and medicine.

Matriculation Records of 1723

Moise Vita Luzzato di Giacob ebreo

Matriculation Records of 1725

Moise Vita Luzato di Giacob ebreo

Matriculation Records of 1726

Moise Vita Luzato di Giac ebreo

The Luzzatto family had a long and productive relationship with the university as described below regarding the diploma of Raffaele, which is on display. Some of Ramḥal’s most cherished students, including Yekutiel Gordon and Moshe David Valle, studied medicine in Padua, and I have identified at least eight medical students for whom Ramḥal wrote congratulatory poems upon their graduation.[51]

Returning to the diploma, Valle, as well as the other students represented in this exhibit, had the invocation amended to “In Dei Aeterni Nomini.” Valle is identified as “Hebreus” as well. The year is listed as “currente anno,” devoid of any Christian reference.

Valle was promoted by Bernardino Ramazzini, who was in contact with some of the Christian Hebraists of that time.[52]Ramazzini is also considered the founder of occupational medicine, and in his classic work on diseases of the tradesman he discusses the increased prevalence of scabies among the Jewish population.[53]

Valle is buried in the Jewish cemetery of Padua.

The Diploma Medallion

The Padua diploma typically contains a medallion on the front page, which was designed and intended for the inclusion of a portrait. However, as this option required an additional fee, it was not exercised by all students. As the basic structure of the diploma was templated, for those who refused the portrait option, the medallion nonetheless remained. In these cases, one thus finds the medallion left bare, or filled with text. The three aforementioned diplomas in our exhibit reflect the three possible options. While Tilche chose the premium package, his fellow graduates did not.

4) Medical Diploma of Raffaele Luzzatto[54]
University of Padua 1797
Centro per la Storia dell’Università di Padova

The latest diploma in our exhibit is likewise noteworthy, though not because of its artistic value. Raffaele was a member of the famous Luzzatto family, many of whom graduated the University of Padua Medical School.[55]Raffaele was from the town of San Daniele in the northeastern region of Italy, Friuli.[56] From the end of the 17th to the early 19th century, numerous members of the San Daniele Luzzatto family graduated from the Padua medical school.[57]In fact, Raffaele was in a direct, unbroken line of what would ultimately be six generations of Luzzatto physicians, many of them named Raffaele.[58]

Samuel David Luzzatto (1800–1865), the great scholar and bibliophile, known as Shadal, reports that on a visit to his uncle Isaac in San Daniele, he was shown the medical diploma of Isaac’s father, Raphael.[59] Shadal then commented, “We learn that the poet Isaac was preceded by a Raphael and an Isaac, and was followed by a Raphael and an Isaac, all of them doctors.” This diploma on display may be the very diploma Shadal saw on his visit.

This is a simple unilluminated diploma comprised solely of calligraphic text. The invocation reads “In Dei Nomine,” similar but not identical to the invocations of the other diplomas in this exhibit.

Close inspection reveals that the word “Dei” is written over erased text of a longer word. There are a few additional erasures, including the words under the granting authority of the degree, which reflect the possibility that this diploma was templated for a Christian student, and originally read, “In Christi Nomine.”

Further proof for this theory is that the invocation for the Jewish student usually read, “In Dei Aeterni Nomine,” with the word “Aeterni” added. This is not the case here, as given the limited space of the templated invocation, it would not have been possible to add the additional word. Of note, Luzzatto’s graduation record in the Padua University Archives actually bears the invocation, “in Christi Nomine.”

There are a number of cases where the archival record for Jewish students bears the standard Christian invocation, while the student diploma does not. The archival scribe may have simply followed the usual formula without much thought, and the student would likely never have known otherwise. The diploma, however, was given to the student to possess in perpetuity and therefore the emendation to “in Dei Aeterni Nomine” would have been preferred for a Jewish student.

Luzzatto is also not identified as a hebreus in either the archives or in the diploma. Furthermore, while the diplomas of Tilche, Coen and Valle amended the format for the date to remove any Christian reference, this diploma retains the conventional Christian dating, “Anno a xti Nativ” (shorthand for Anno a Christi Nativitate).” All the aforementioned observations support the suggestion that this diploma was originally templated for a Christian student.

IV. Benvenisti Collection of Portraits of Physicians

Padua’s Museo d’Arte contains the Benvenisti collection of portraits of physicians. Displayed are reproductions of portraits of some Jewish physicians,[60] some of whom graduated from the University of Padua. I highlight two examples below.

1) Sabbato Vita Marini (1662-1748)

Marini’s famous portrait is used for the museum exhibit advertising.

Shabtai Ḥayyim Marini graduated from Padua in 1685[62] and was a close friend and possible teacher of Rabbi Moshe Ḥayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal).[62] In addition, he translated into Hebrew the first three books of Ovid’s Metamorphoses from the Italian translation of Giovanni Andrea dell’Anguillara.[63] Joseph Almanzi composed an ode to Marini in his Nezem Zahav:

2) Samuele Medoro (1788-1854)

Samuel Medoro (1788-1854), received his training in the University of Padua, served as surgeon in the La Confraternità Israelitica “Sovvegno” di Padova, which endowed medical assistance to Jews throughout Italy, and published many medical articles. He was an active participant in the debate about the requirement for oral suction as part of the circumcision procedure. His handwritten lectures on cicumcision were sold at auction in 2013 by Kedem Auction House in Jerusalem.[64]

Conclusion

If you happen to be in Italy before the end of the year it may just be worth the detour from Venice to catch a rare glimpse of a little-known chapter at the crossroads of Jewish, Italian, medical and academic history. While there, make sure to book a tour with the museum, which includes the synagogue and cemeteries. In the old cemetery are buried Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen, who was a teacher and mentor to the Jewish medical students of Padua;[65] Abraham Catalano, physician and author of the work Olam Hafukh[66] on the 1631 plague (a reproduction of which is on display at the exhibit); and Moshe David Valle, who was a staunch supporter of Ramḥal and whose diploma is on display. If you have even the remotest interest in the history of medicine or anatomy, the University of Padua is home to the first and longest standing permanent anatomical theater in the world, completed in 1595, just steps away from the exhibit. In fact, the theater benches were not only occupied by many Jewish medical students over the centuries, there is also a record of Jews from the community (non-students) attending dissections when the theater was first built.[67] It is thus evident that you do not need to be a doctor (or health care provider) to appreciate this medically related exhibit.

I conclude with the following serious offer (though my wife Sara might describe it otherwise). If you make it to the exhibit in person, feel free to contact me, and I would be delighted to give you a tour while you are there- time and time zone permitting. (I have already done it once.)

Appendix- Jews, Medicine and the University of Padua: The Uncut Version

Below are a number of sections I had hoped to include in the exhibit, but for a variety of reasons did not make the cut.

Seforim/Books related to the Graduates

The original exhibit proposal included a section of first or early edition books/seforim related to or composed by Padua medical graduates. Included in this selective list are:

• Paḥad Yitzḥak by Isaac Ḥayyim Cantarini (Padua- 1664), which includes an account of a Jewish body kidnapped for the purpose of dissection by the non-Jewish medical students of Padua.

• The ubiquitous Ma’aseh Tuviyah by Tuviyah HaRofeh (Padua-1683), one of the most famous graduates from Padua.[68]

• Mateh Dan by David Nieto (Padua- 1687), patterned after the Kuzari.

• Paḥad Yitzḥak, the first halakhic encyclopedia, by Isaac Lampronti (Padua- 1696).

• Shemesh Tzedakah, responsa by Shimshon Morpurgo (Padua- 1700).

I also happened upon an article by Professor Joanna Weinberg about the collection of Hebrew printed works in the Antoniana Library of Padua.[69] A number of the items in this collection, all of which were printed before 1663, would be perfect for an exhibit on Jews and Medicine in Padua:

• Cannon of Avicenna:[70] One of two Hebrew incunabula in this library, it is the only known Hebrew medical incunabula. Could Lazarus de Frigeis have used this copy when assisting Vesalius with the Hebrew terms of the Fabrica? Speculative to be sure, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility. Perhaps marginalia are present in the copy to shed light.

• Shiltei ha Gibborim by Abraham Portelone:[71] Though neither medical in content nor written by a Padua graduate, it is nonetheless authored by one of the most famous Jewish medical personilites of that time and would certainly have been known to and possibly owned by the Jewish medical students in Padua. In addition, his son was a medical graduate of Padua and was promoted by none other than Galileo.

• Pesakim from R. Yehuda Mintz and R. Meir Katzenellenbogen:[72] These two Torah giants were leaders of the Padua Jewish community in their day and certainly interacted and taught the Jewish medical students.[73]

• Sefer Elim by Yosef Shlomo Delmedigo:[74] Delmedigo is one of the greatest alumni of Padua and amongst other things was known for his relationship with Galileo.[75]

In addition to the content of these books, their provenance was also relevant to our exhibit. Many of the Hebrew books held in the Antoniana Library originally belonged to Paduan Jews, evidenced by the family names inscribed on the title pages. I do not think it unreasonable to imagine that some of these works were actually used by Jewish medical students in Padua. Furthermore, I discovered that Pontificia Biblioteca Antoniana was a mere 750 meters from the Jewish Museum and Ghetto. It seemed too good to be true… and it was. The library requested exorbitant restoration fees for the items prior to transfer and regretfully financial constraints precluded this option. Alas, it was not meant be. I had also hoped to obtain Messer Leon’s Nofet Tzufim from the Vatican Library, but not unsurprisingly, was met with the same response and result.

Congratulatory Poems for the Jewish Medical Graduates of Padua

After having researched and written extensively about the congratulatory poems for the Jewish medical graduates of Padua, you might expect to find at least one hard copy of such a poem as part of the exhibit. However, for financial, legal and insurance reasons, the exhibit was limited to items found in Italy, primarily in the environs of Padua. Remarkably, of the over one hundred Hebrew congratulatory poems I have identified, not one is found in Italy. They are primarily found in Israel, America, England and Hungary. There is one single poem in the university archives written in Italian in honor of Samuele Coen,[76] whose diploma appears in the exhibit. The author is one of the University of Padua staff diploma illustrators, and I have yet to determine the story behind its composition. It does not in any way represent the genre of this poetry. In lieu of the physical poems, a slideshow of examples of congratulatory poems, along with examples of additional diplomas, is projected on the screen of the exhibition hall.

Padua Medical Graduates as Mohelim, Performing Circumcision on the Children of Their Fellow Graduates and Mentors

Identifying physicians of Jewish lineage is of great interest to some historians, but my interest lies at the intersection of medical practice and religious observance. The practice of circumcision by physicians is one such interface, and the physician-Mohel combination is not that common even today (with the exclusion of urologists). While this topic merits its own broader study, I have identified a number of Padua medical graduates who were also mohelim. Remarkably, in two cases, the pinkas mohel, or circumcision registry, is still extant, revealing another “medical” connection.

1) David Loria

Loria graduated Padua in 1623. Upon his graduation, Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh Modena composed a poem in his honor which now resides in the Oxford Bodleian Library.[77]

This poem is unique amongst the medical student poems, as it is one of only two medical student poems written in Aramaic.[78]

Loria and Modena maintained connection long after Loria’s graduation from medical school.[79] Indeed, Modena offered to bestow rabbinic ordination upon David Loria, though the latter declined for unknown reasons.[80] Loria was also a mohel and performed the rite for Modena’s grandson, Avtalion, in March 1636.[81] Though a physician in the Ghetto of Padua, Loria Fled Padua during the plague of 1631. However, he made extensive arrangements to provide for the needy.[82]

2) Salomon Lampronti[83]

Salomon was the son of the famous Isaac Lampronti, physician, rabbi, and author of Paḥad Yitzḥak. Isaac (Padua, 1696) and his son Salomon (Padua, 1734) were alumni of Padua’s medical school. Salomon was a mohel and his pinkas survived the ravages of time. Though I was unable to access the entire work, the passage shown in the Kedem auction catalogue[84] happened to include the record of Lampronti’s circumcision of the son of the physician Solomon Zamorani,[85] a Padua graduate of 1753.[86] Zamorani was also a student of the younger Lampronti. I suspect there are children of other Padua medical graduates included in this ledger.

3) Menahem Navarra[87]

Navarra completed his medical studies in 1740, and the poem below was written in honor of his graduation by Isaiah Romanin.[88]

Navarra was a mohel and, like Lampronti, his pinkas mohel has survived. Among those for whom he performed the rite were the children of Jacob Grassin Basilea and Raffael Ferrarese, both Padua medical graduates.[89] Below are examples of some of the entries:

March 27, 1757, son of Yaakov Gershon Basilea (Padua, 1735)[90] 

On December 2, 1769 Navarra circumcised the second son of Raffael Ferrarese (Padua, 1762), one of twins. The milah was performed one month after birth. Note he is called an “uman” (i.e., rofeh uman), which may possibly refer specifically to a university-trained physician.

There is a pinkas Milah housed in the University of Pennsylvania Library[91] which belonged to a member of the Fermi (or possibly Fermo/Firmo) family,[92] though the specific family member remains unknown. The entries run from 1705 to 1736. Therein are multiple references to Shimshon Morpurgo, a rabbi/physician graduate of Padua (1700).[93]

While the dates of the pinkas would align perfectly with the Padua medical graduate Moshe Yaakov son of David Fermo (Padua, 1701), I have no evidence to support his identification as the work’s author.[94] Furthermore, the spine of the work is stamped in gold with the words, Pinḳas mohel leha-R. Firmo. While the “R” typically refers to Rav, perhaps in this case the “R” stands for rofeh, though I admit this is unlikely.

How Jews of Yesteryear Celebrated Graduation from Medical School:
Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates in the 17^th and 18^th Centuries:
An Unrecognized Genre

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

Edward Reichman, Professor of Emergency Medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, is the author of The Anatomy of Jewish Law: A Fresh Dissection of the Relationship Between Medicine, Medical History and Rabbinic Literature (Published by Koren Publishers/OU Press/YU Press, 2022), as well as the forthcoming, Pondering Pre-Modern(a) Pandemics in Jewish History: Essays Inspired by and Written during the Covid-19 Pandemic by an Emergency Medicine Physician (Shikey Press).

Prelude

    As the season of graduation is upon us, I thought to look for a copy of the Hebrew poem I received upon my graduation from medical school. My search however was in vain, as I ultimately realized that no such sonnet was ever composed. When I graduated medical school some years ago, my parents, a”h, were overjoyed. They purchased me a copy of the Physician’s Prayer of Maimonides [1] (which still hangs on my wall) from the then-popular olive wood factory on the bustling Meah Shearim Street in Jerusalem. My extended family, friends, classmates, and mentors shared in my accomplishment, but no tangible expression of their happiness was forthcoming (nor did I expect one). At that time, the notion of someone authoring a poem in honor of my graduation, was, suffice it to say, nowhere to be found in the gyri of my cerebral cortex, with which I had become intimately familiar from my neuroanatomy lectures.

    My transient memory, or more aptly, history lapse may perhaps be forgiven, as I currently spend a portion of my life in Early Modern Europe, immersed in the world of Jewish medical history. It is in this period where we will find the origins of my (only partially misguided) poetic yearnings.

Introduction

    This year I discovered an account of a poem in honor of the graduation of an 18^th century Jewish medical student. It appeared some fifty years ago in the pages of Koroth, a journal of Jewish medical history.[2] The poem is housed in the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in the Netherlands, part of the Library of the University of Amsterdam. The article, written by the late Professor Joshua Leibowitz, grandfather of the academic field of Jewish medical history, and founding editor of Koroth, discusses the poem’s author, Isaac Belinfante, a poet, bibliophile, and preacher at the Ets Haim Synagogue in Amsterdam, and provides a transcription and commentary of the poem.

    As to the date of the poem, Leibowitz suggests around 1770.[3] About the recipient, whose name appears in the text of the poem, Leibowitz was unable to identify additional biographical information.

    Leibowitz’s most astonishing observation, however, was that “what we have before us is an occasional poem dedicated to a topic not found in Hebrew literature, the graduation of a physician.” This was the first and only poem of this type Leibowitz had encountered.[4]

    Here we revisit this poem and reclaim the lost identity of its recipient, solving one seemingly insignificant historical mystery. In the process, however, we discover that Leibowitz’s observation was profoundly mistaken, though by no fault of his own. This poem is in fact part of a much larger story in Jewish literary and medical history, one that can only now be adequately explored. We reveal an entire genre of literature in Jewish history that has gone largely unrecognized and underappreciated.

Section 1- Solving a 150-year-old Mystery

    Isaac Belinfante was a prominent personality and prolific poet in eighteenth century Amsterdam. He penned poems for friends, preachers, fellow poets, and as far as we know, only one poem for a graduating physician, Moses Rodrigues.

    Until today, the identity of Rodrigues and his medical institution has remained unknown.

The Date of the Poem

    Leibowitz writes that, “The external evidence would favour a date round about the year 1770, as most of the printed poems of Isaac Belinfante appeared at this time.” In fact, we needn’t seek external sources. An examination of the original manuscript reveals the date at the very bottom of the page.[5]

 

 

 

 

    The “A” is assumedly for annum, and the Hebrew year 5529 corresponds to 1768 or 1769. As we shall see, it refers to the latter. Leibowitz was off by only one year. I suspect he viewed a reproduction of the document, and the bottom of the page, which included the date, was simply left off the copy. Had he viewed the original, this notation would have surely not escaped his keen eye.

The Institution and Identity of the Graduate

    The text of the poem does not explicitly mention the institution. The physical presence of the poem in the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana in Amsterdam might reflect that the recipient was Dutch or that he graduated from a Dutch university. The author of the poem lived in Amsterdam and the last name of the recipient, Rodrigues, was common in 18^th century Amsterdam. However, based on the description of the graduation ceremony in the text of the poem, as well as other factors, Leibowitz writes that “we are inclined to suppose that Dr. Rodrigues obtained his degree abroad, possibly in Padua, as most of the Dutch Jewish physicians in the 17^th and 18^th centuries bore foreign diplomas.”[6]

Below is the relevant verse:

    The mention of the student’s rejoicing upon exiting the “house of the argument” is clearly a reference to the room where the graduation dissertation/disputation was held. The verse concludes with a description of the placing of a hat (biretta) on the graduate’s head and a ring on his finger. These are known features of the graduation ceremony from the University of Padua,[7] with which Leibowitz was quite familiar.[8]

    There is a spectacular illustration of this ceremony, which has gone unnoticed, found in the diploma of a Jewish medical graduate of Padua from 1687, Moses Tilche.[9]

    However, these elements were not necessarily unique to Padua. Indeed, while disputations were a prominent feature of most European universities, starting from the late fifteenth century (at least), the disputationes before obtaining a doctorate had fallen into disuse in Padua.[10] Leibowitz was not aware of this. The other graduation features were also not unique to Padua and were found in the commencement ceremonies of other European universities. Leibowitz believed this poem to be a unicum, and as such, he had no basis for comparison, or reference points to identify the institution.

    As for the graduate himself, Rodrigues is found nowhere in Friedenwald’s classic work,[11] nor in Nathan Koren’s expansive biographical index of Jewish physicians.[12] Moreover, despite the proliferation of online resources and databases, a Google search yields no results.

    Let us consider Leibowitz’s suggestion that Rodrigues was a graduate of a foreign medical school, such as Padua. Modena and Morpurgo compiled a comprehensive list, based on extensive archival research, of the Jewish students who attended the University of Padua from 1617-1816.[13] There is no Rodrigues listed among the students who either matriculated or graduated from the University of Padua.

    If Rodrigues did not attend Padua, perhaps he trained in Germany, as by this time Jews were widely accepted into German universities.[14] A review of these records again reveals no Moses Rodrigues. He is likewise not found amongst the of Jewish physicians in Poland at the time.[15]

    Having ruled out a foreign institution, we return to the land of the poem’s origin. Komorowski lists the graduation and dissertation of a Moses Rodrigues from Leiden in 1788,[16] but this is some twenty years after our poem was written. Perhaps a relative.

    This brings us to the work of Hindle Hes, who authored a monograph focusing exclusively on the Jewish physicians in the Netherlands.[17] Indeed, it is Professor Leibowitz who suggested to Hes the subject of her study.[18] (Perhaps he had hoped to resolve Rodrigues’ identity.) Hes lists a Mozes Rodrigues who graduated the University of Utrecht July 7, 1769,[19] the year of Belinfante’s poem. This aligns with the recipient of our poem. Rodrigues’ dissertation is pictured below.

    Moses Rodrigues hailed from Madrid and trained and practiced as a surgeon in Paris prior to his stay in Amsterdam. He later completed a medical degree in the University of Utrecht.²⁰ In the University of Utrecht student registry,[21] he is listed as Moseh Rodrigues, Hyspanus, Chirurgus Amstelodamensis (surgeon from Amsterdam), reflecting that he had already been a practicing surgeon. The other students in the registry have no such descriptor, only their names appearing.

    In the four-page introduction to his Latin dissertation,[22] Rodriguez notes that he had been a practicing surgeon for twenty-seven years prior to obtaining his medical degree. Unfortunately, he provides little other personal biographical information. What would compel a practicing surgeon to obtain an additional medical degree later in life? The content of the introduction provides possible insight. At this stage of history, surgery and medicine were unique disciplines with very different training and focus. Surgeons rarely attended universities. Rodrigues strongly advocates for the synthesis and unity of surgical and medical training.

It is one thing, moreover, that I thought it best to advise publicly in this work, namely, that twin arts are by the worst design and custom and are descended from the same father from the intimacy by which they are tied together. I am pointing to the medical and surgical art, which they distinguish with differences in various places, so that the first is concerned with curing internal diseases, the second in curing external diseases. What a distinction, since I see it extended beyond what is equal, as if these parts of medicine were to be separated rather than to be joined together! I wish to subject this work to this admonition, and to prove my endeavors in promoting both arts to good and fair readers, because, when I shall have attained it, I shall seem to have rendered to me the most beautiful fruit of design or of labor.[23]

    Formal university training in medicine would surely advance this objective. It is also possible that despite his years of experience, Rodrigues needed a formal degree to procure a higher-level position in the Netherlands.[24]

    The content of Belinfante’s poem further corroborates our identification.[25]

    In describing the medical practice of Rodrigues, Belinfante invokes distinctly surgical practices. The graduate is described as healing every “netah,” traumatic injury (from the word nituah, anatomy, or in today’s usage, surgery), as well as “one struck from a flying arrow.”[26] He seals the “mouth” of every wound and closes every opening. There are references to his treatment of afflictions of the skin and bone, as well as punctured, mauled or amputated limbs, all the domain of the barber-surgeon. This description would not have been applicable to a typical medical graduate or practitioner of medicine, but was clearly relevant to Moses Rodrigues, a practitioner of surgery. As mentioned above, Rodrigues was identified as a practicing surgeon in his matriculation record. He is also so identified on the cover page of his dissertation.

    While Hes makes no mention of any poem, it is unlikely she would have come across this lone leaflet buried in the archives of the Bibliotheca Rosenthaliana.

    In sum, we have conclusively proven that Moseh Rodrigues, graduate of Utrecht in 1769, is the recipient of Belinfante’s ode. While there is satisfaction in the historical restoration of this one obscure poem, it pales in comparison to the discovery revealed in the next section.

Section 2- An Update to Leibowitz’s Observation- Congratulatory Poems in Honor of Jewish Medical Graduates

    In 1971, Leibowitz was compelled to write an article on the Rodrigues poem owing to his belief in the utter novelty of a sonnet for a Jewish medical graduate in the 18^th century. How novel indeed was such an enterprise?

    In the last fifty years, a number of similar poems have come to light. Experts in Jewish Renaissance poetry have written about them;[27] bibliophiles, collectors and libraries own them; Jewish medical historians have footnoted them,[28] but I suspect none of them appreciates the extent of the proverbial forest.

    In the course of my research in the field of Jewish medical history, I have taken note of these poems, the majority of which were written for graduates of the University of Padua.

    Italian Hebrew poetry from the Renaissance and Early Modern Period, often in broadside form, has been and remains an eminently collectible category. These poems, written for a variety of occasions including weddings and funerals, are often part of larger manuscript and book collections of bibliophiles, and while some remain in private hands, many have landed in major institutions.[29] Among these collections, we find poems written for medical graduates of Padua.[30] Thus far, I have identified a record of one hundred poems,[31] mostly in Hebrew, written for sixty five medical graduates, all from the University of Padua during the 17^th to early 19^th centuries.[32]

    Similar poems can also be found for Jewish graduates in the Netherlands and Germany, though in smaller numbers.[33] The timeline of their appearance mirrors the transition of Jewish medical training from Padua to the Netherlands to Germany.[34]

    Though Leibowitz had no access to other poems, his conjecture was Padua as the student’s place of graduation.[35] While the recipient of that particular poem happened to be a Dutch university graduate, Leibowitz’s instincts were essentially correct. We now know that this genre of poetry for the Jewish medical student, in particular in Padua, was quite common.

Below I provide some observations of the congratulatory poetry for Jewish medical graduates.

Graduates of the University of Padua[36]

    Padua was the first university to allow Jews to formally train in medicine, and for a number of centuries, it was the only one. It is thus in association with the University of Padua that we find the earliest and most plentiful examples of our genre of poetry.

Chronological Span

    The poems range primarily from the 1620’s to the 1780’s, with some outliers expanding the dates from 1600 to 1836. One of the earliest examples is a poem written by Rabbi Yehuda Aryeh De Modena for the graduate David Loria.[37] The original, likely in the author’s hand, resides in the Bodleian Library.[38]

Format

    While the majority of the Padua poems are found in broadside format, some are found in book form, and others in manuscript. The broadside below, in honor of the graduate Jacob Coen (1691), is a typical example.[39]

Authors

    The authors include mentors, fellow students or recent graduates, family members, and poets (e.g., Simha Calimani and Isaiah Romanin). Some of the prominent personalities included among the authors are Rabbi Yehuda Arye de Modena, Rabbi Moshe Hayyim Luzzatto (Ramḥal), Rabbi Solomon Marini, and Rabbi Isaac Hayyim Cantarini. The example below, written by Ramḥal in honor of the graduation of Emanuele Calvo (1724),[40] is one of at least eight poems he authored for Padua graduates.[41]

Recipients

    For most of the graduates for whom we possess poems, we have only one example. A number of students however received multiple poems. For example, Joseph Hamitz (Padua, 1623) received eleven poems; Salomon Lustro (Padua, 1697)- eight; Shemarya (Marco) Morpurgo (Padua- 1747)- four. Below is a manuscript copy of a poem by Shabbetai Marini[42] in honor of Lustro. Marini, a fellow alumnus of Padua from 1685, and author of a number of graduate poems, also translated Ovid’s Metamorphosis into Hebrew.[43]

Numbers and Percentage of Students

    What percentage of medical graduates received congratulatory poems? Modena and Morpurgo list a total of 325 Jewish medical graduates from 1617-1816. We have a record of poems for sixty students in this period. We thus have poems for around 20% of the medical graduates from over a 200-year period. These are only the poems of which we are aware. As these poems were typically produced as ephemeral broadsides, there are certainly poems that have not survived. The actual percentage of student poems is thus likely higher.

Location

    The poems and broadsides derive primarily from the following institutions- the National Library of Israel (NLI),[44] the Library of the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS), the Valmadonna Trust,[45] the British Library, the Bodleian Library, and the Kaufmann Collection at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Hungary.[46] In a number of cases, a copy of the same poem is found in more than one library. There are likely poems in both private and public hands that have not yet surfaced.

Congratulatory Poems from Netherlands and Germany

    While the lion’s share of congratulatory poems are connected to Padua, there are examples from other countries as well. In the mid-seventeenth century, universities in the Netherlands (Utrecht, Franeker, Leiden) began accepting Jewish medical students. I have begun exploring the dissertations of Jewish medical graduates of the Netherlands and their value for the study of Jewish medical history. A comprehensive study remains a desideratum. The poems from the Netherlands, and from Germany as well, are not found in broadside form, but rather appended to the medical student dissertations. In Padua there were no dissertations within which to append poems, thus the poems were issued as broadsides. The broadside form was also used for other types of poetry in Italy at this time. Below is an example of a poem for a graduate of the University of Leiden, one of the premier medical schools in the world at this time. Salomon Gumpertz graduated Leiden in 1684 with the following dissertation.

    Appended to the dissertation is a poem written by his relative and fellow graduate, Phillip Levi (AKA Yehoshua Feibelman).

    While there is no poem at the end of Levi’s own dissertation, there is a short prayer in Hebrew composed by Levi himself to celebrate the completion of his medical studies.[47]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blessed is the Lord who has not withheld his kindness from me and has bestowed upon me kindness and wisdom to learn the discipline of medicine. I hope that God will grant me blessing and success in my efforts and the scattered people of Israel from the four corners of the earth should be gathered, our exile should come to a speedy end, and God should send us to our land through the aegis of our Messiah speedily in our days, Amen.

    The Leiden University Senate was less than enamored by Levi’s addition and despite his graduation with honors censured him for concluding with a prayer insulting Christianity. The prayer ends with a plea to God to hasten the end of the exile by bringing “our Messiah” speedily in our days. The Senate added a warning as well for any future Jewish students to abstain from similar expressions.[48]

    We also find poems attached to medical dissertations of Jewish students in 18^th century Germany. However, while in the Netherlands there were only three of four major universities where Jews attended, with Leiden being the most common, in Germany, there were many universities that opened their doors to Jews in the 18^th century and onwards.[49] A proper study of the congratulatory poetry for Jewish medical graduates in Germany would be more challenging. Below is one example, a poem in honor of the graduation of Jonas Jeitteles[50] by Avraham HaKohen Halberstadt.

    Jonas was the Chief Physician of the Jewish community of Prague. In 1784, Joseph II granted Jonas and “his successors” the right to treat patients “without consideration of their religion.” He is best remembered for his campaign supporting Edward Jenner’s smallpox vaccination, for which he received the approbation of Rabbi Mordechai Banet.

Congratulatory Poems for Jewish Medical Graduates- A Genre Whose Time has Come

    Even today, manuscripts or books hidden for centuries are occasionally discovered and brought to light.[51] In this case however, it is not one item, nor even one genizah or repository that we have revealed, rather, recently discovered and previously unidentified items in collections across the world that constitute, in their aggregate, a unique genre of poetry. Imagine that just fifty years ago the founder of the field of Jewish medical history was aware of only one example.

    The collection of Jewish medical graduate poems as a whole merits recognition as a unique entity and awaits comprehensive cataloging and research.[52] To be sure, the concept of congratulatory poetry written upon completion of academic study, including medical education,[53] was not limited to Padua, nor was it limited to Jewish students. There was a broader practice of writing congratulatory poems, often in Greek or Latin, at the end of academic dissertations.[54] Nor was the use of the Hebrew language for this poetic expression restricted to the Jewish community. There was even a practice by non-Jews, typically Christian Hebraists, to write congratulatory poems in Hebrew.[55] Comparison of these different bodies of literature will surely be the substance of future dissertations, but there is no doubt that our genre will have a unique place in history.

    Jews throughout history were often restricted in their choice of professions, limited to money lending or medicine. Though allowed to become physicians, Jews were barred by papal decree from obtaining a university education. It was around the 16^th century that the first academic institution, the University of Padua officially accepted Jewish students. Next would be universities in the Netherlands, starting in the mid-17^th century, followed by Germany in the early 18^th century and others. It is in this historical context that the congratulatory poems for Jewish medical students evolved. The collective community elation at the newly allowed entrance into the world’s leading academic institutions is reflected in these sonnets.

Conclusion

    Writing in 1971 about a manuscript of a poem he had recently discovered, Leibowitz claimed that the congratulatory poem for Jewish medical graduates was “a topic not found in Hebrew literature.” We now know just how untrue this statement is. It is not only “found in Hebrew literature,” but it was a common practice spanning over two hundred years and multiple countries. More examples will surely be discovered. While extensive research has been done for the Paduan poems, more work is needed to explore and identify the poems from graduates of the Netherlands, Germany,[56] and other countries.[57]

    For a variety of reasons, the unique genre of poetry for the Jewish medical graduate has all but disappeared in the modern era. This at least partially reflects the dissipation of the novelty of the concept of the university-trained Jewish physician. While arguably a positive trend, it nonetheless behooves us to restore this underappreciated genre to its rightful glory. Though I hesitate to call for a resurrection of the enterprise, partially due to my personal literary ineptitude, at the very least a recollection of the practice would serve to imbue today’s Jewish medical graduates with a renewed sense of pride and historical perspective.

The Discovery of a Hidden Treasure in the Vatican and the Correction of a Centuries-Old Error

Rabbi Edward Reichman, MD

In 2018, I was invited to speak at a conference co-sponsored by the Vatican and the CURA Foundation entitled, Unite to Cure: A Global Health Care Initiative. The mission of the conference was to “convene leading decision makers in medicine, business, media, advocacy and faith to encourage multidisciplinary collaboration, increase investment in research and innovation… education and better access to health care.”[1] My role, as a physician and rabbi, was to represent the Jewish faith in this dialogue and initiative. While “better access to health care” remains a desideratum, access to information in our age is historically unprecedented. The explosion of technology, communication, and social media have put the world’s vast knowledge, both present and past, within finger’s reach. The present contribution, detailing a fortuitous discovery at the Vatican, recalls an earlier period in Jewish history when access to sacred texts was generally limited. The advent of printing would portend an exponential increase in availability of Jewish books, but a controversy arose in its wake which ironically led to even greater inaccessibility of one of Judaism’s most fundamental texts.

No visit to the Vatican would be complete without a visit to its storied library. In anticipation of my trip, I contacted the Vatican Library to secure a reader’s pass.[2] I then scoured the catalogue and consulted colleagues for items of Jewish medical and general Jewish interest.

While I would only have a brief time to spend in the library I focused my list mostly on medically related works, both in manuscript and printed form. One of the works I included is not typically thought of as such. It is an incunable which was the answer to one of Professor Marc Shapiro’s Seforim Blog quiz questions- what was the first Hebrew book published in the lifetime of its author? The answer is Nofet Tzufim (Abraham Conat: Mantua, 1475) by Judah Messer Leon.[3]

Judah Messer Leon was an extraordinary physician, professor, and Torah scholar. He was granted the title of Count Palatine by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick III[4] which allowed him to confer doctorates upon other Jews of proven worthiness. Nofet Tzufim is a treatise on rhetoric, utilizing the classical literary devices of the ancient discipline of rhetoric applied to the Torah. One of the uses for this work was to prepare the Jewish students who matriculated from foreign countries to the medical schools in Italy. Indeed, he organized a yeshiva where students could receive a comprehensive Jewish education while training in the secular disciplines necessary for higher studies in the humanities, philosophy, and medicine.[5]

In my pre-visit research of the library catalogue, I noticed the record of a two-volume Mishneh Torah (Giustiniani: Venice, 1550-1551).[6] Being familiar with the controversy surrounding this work, I put it on my list despite its non-medical nature. I took a snapshot of the entry and placed it in my files.

Upon my arrival at the library, I was introduced to the protocols. I found it somewhat ironic that while the manuscripts were requested through a modern digital system, the printed works, housed in a different section, were requested by hand-written paper slip. When I submitted my requests to the librarian, I half expected her to respond, “and by the way, no, we do not have the Menorah.”[7]

The final item I requested was the Giustiniani Rambam. A short while after I submitted my slip, I noticed two massive unidentifiable tomes resting one atop the other on the front desk. It did not initially occur to me that these would be my requested items. I ultimately approached the desk and inquired if my items had arrived, only to be directed to these two plain, unadorned (with neither print nor illustration), nondescript, off white, cloth-covered folios. The covers are shown below:

The two volumes were virtually indistinguishable. As I opened the top volume, I observed the following printer’s mark on the title page.

This is the characteristic printer’s mark of Giustiniani, as expected, consisting of a picture of the Temple in Jerusalem (though more reminiscent of the Dome of the Rock). This was volume two of the Mishneh Torah.[8]

However, when I carefully cracked (almost literally) open the binding of the bottom volume, I noticed something unexpected:

The printer’s mark did not reveal a depiction of the Temple, rather it was comprised of three crowns, the distinct mark of another printing house. At this point, a brief review of the controversy surrounding the Giustiniani Rambam is in order.

Rabbi Meir ben Isaac Katzenellenbogen (1482-1565), known as Maharam Padua, produced a new edition of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah, including his own notes, and providing some of Rambam’s Talmudic references. As Jews were generally prohibited from publishing books at this time, he initially approached a veteran non-Jewish printer of Hebrew books, Marco Antonio Giustiniani. For unknown reasons, this arrangement did not work, and R. Katzenellenbogen instead published his work with Alfonse Bragadini, a novice printer for whom this would be his first publication. Very shortly thereafter, within the year, Giustiniani published a similar edition of the Mishneh Torah, including the notes of R. Katzenellenbogen, though with some alterations and with accompanying criticism, without the latter’s consent. He proposed to charge one gold coin less for purchase, clearly intending to sabotage Bragadini’s newly minted press. Fearing the loss of his significant financial investment, R. Katzenellenbogen approached the then-young R. Moshe Isserles (Rama) to adjudicate what would be one of the first cases in rabbinic literature of copyright infringement.[9]

Rama ruled in favor of R. Katzenellenbogen / Bragadini, but having no recourse in the secular courts, placed a cherem (excommunication) on any Jew who purchased books from Giustiniani until the print run of R. Katzenellenbogen had been sold. Giustiniani reacted fiercely, appealing to the Catholic Church and casting aspersions of blasphemy on the work. The Vatican expanded its inquiry launching a frontal attack on the work of R. Katzenellenbogen and other rabbinic texts as containing objectionable/heretical material. The attack soon included the Talmud and ultimately culminated in the decree to burn all extant copies of the Talmud and related works in 1553 in Campo di Fiori Square, just a few blocks from the Vatican.[10] Other cities in Italy soon followed suit and virtually all the copies the Talmud in Italy in both manuscript and print, as well as related works, including some editions of Rambam,[11] went up in flames.

The printer’s mark bearing the three crowns I observed on the title page of this work is none other than that of the Bragadini Publishing House. Upon further inspection, it became clear that I was looking at the original Bragadini edition of the Rambam Mishneh Torah, volume one, with the notes of the Maharam of Padua, from which the Giustiniani edition was copied. The Vatican library did not list a Bragadini edition of Rambam in its catalogue and was unaware of its existence. The Bragadini is volume one of the Mishneh Torah, and the Giustiniani edition is volume two. By external visual inspection the volumes look virtually identical in size and appearance with similar bland covers, worn and worm-eaten to the same degree. It is quite possible that the librarian who received these volumes some centuries ago opened only the second of two volumes, entering the information accordingly for the two-volume work, and simply never bothered to open the other volume. This theory is possibly corroborated by the fact that pencil markings with the catalogue number of the Vatican Library appear only in the second (Giustiniani) volume (in the upper left hand corner) and not in the first (Bragadini).

Once I realized the cataloguing error, I immediately notified the librarian of this oversight, though she was of course unfamiliar with the historical significance of these volumes, and I was assured that the catalog would be corrected accordingly.

Upon my return home, in April 2018, I followed with an e-mail to the Vatican Library including additional references and a fuller discussion of the historical significance of the different editions. Shortly thereafter, I had the opportunity to visit the private medical historical library and collection of the late, world-renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. James Goodrich, known for his expertise in separating craniopagus conjoined twins (sharing or connected by the brain). I shared the details of my recent Vatican Library visit, to which he responded with his own slightly more dramatic experience at the same library. While inspecting a Medieval anatomy text, he noticed one of the famous illustrations was missing from the volume. He immediately notified the librarian. Within a few moments, he was surrounded by police, hands in the air, being threatened with arrest, himself accused of the theft.

Every few months I would check to see if the catalogue entry had been corrected. Sometime in late 2019 or early 2020, I gave up hope of any correction and did not check further. In November 2021, in preparing topics for an upcoming cruise to Northern Italy on Italian Jewish medical history, I was reminded of the Vatican Library visit and searched the catalogue for the Bragadini Rambam. To my pleasant surprise, the catalogue had been corrected to reflect the two editions, and the entries for both volumes of Rambam had been updated and expanded.

New Entry for the Bragadini Rambam

New Entry for the Giustiniani Rambam

How these two volumes of one set from different printers originally came together remains a mystery, but this “mixed” set of Rambam appears to have been owned by both Jews and non-Jews from at least the 17^th century and possibly earlier. Previous ownership of the set by both institutions and individuals, Jews and non-Jews, is reflected by a number of similar inscriptions in the respective volumes.

Both volumes contain the imprint of the library of the Church Santa Pudenziana in Rome:

Volume 1

Volume 2

Both bear the inscription of D. Julius a S. Anast[asi]a with the added information that he purchased (emit) them in 1652.

Volume 1

Volume 2

That a set of Rambam would be owned by non-Jews, be it private or institutional, is not remarkable given the history of Christian Hebraism.[12] Julius de St. Anastasia was a pseudonym for Giulio Bartolocci (1613-1687),[13] an Italian Cistercian Monk and Hebrew scholar who authored a four-volume work on rabbinic literature, Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica.[14] It was just a year before this purchase date, 1651, that he was appointed professor of Hebrew and Rabbinics at the Collegium Neophytorum in Rome and “Scriptor Hebraicus” at the Vatican Library. He may have purchased the volumes in 1652 either for his private collection or for the Vatican Library. In either case, it is likely that these volumes have been either in his possession or the Vatican Library’s since 1652. The residence of the Rambam volumes in the Biblioteca Santa Pudenziana thus likely precedes this period. Perhaps Bartolocci acquired the works from this library. This helps date another signature that appears on both title pages, one that escapes mention in the Vatican catalogue entry.

Volume 1

Volume 2

In the first I can clearly see the words שלי יצחק, which follow a decorative flourish, though cannot decipher the last name. In the second, I can see remnants of the words שלי יצחק, and the second name is missing entirely. At minimum, this establishes ownership by a man whose first name is Yitzhak sometime before the early to mid-seventeenth century. Who Yitzchak was, and when in the period between the publication of the volumes (1550) and their acquisition by the Biblioteca Santa Pudenziana he took possession, is unknown, though it is intriguing to contemplate. It is almost certain that he was the earliest of the known owners. It is unlikely that Yitzhak would have acquired a set of Rambam from representatives of the Catholic Church, though one can imagine how the Church acquired the works, be it directly or not, sometime after the events of 1553.

Let us consider the possibility that it was Yitzhak who first acquired the mixed set of Rambam during their time of publication. How would this have come about? Why did he not simply purchase both volumes of the Bragadini Rambam? Were both volumes issued together, or was volume two released later? The publication of the two volumes of the Giustiniani Rambam was separated by at least a number of months, with volume one appearing in 1550 and volume two released January 25, 1551.[15] Furthermore, what of the ban implemented by Rama? Would this not have prevented him from buying the Giustiniani Rambam altogether? When was the ban issued and when would he have even heard of it? Lastly, and most importantly, were these volumes not included in the decree to burn Jewish literature. How could they have survived?

In answer to this final question, copies of Rambam’s Mishneh Torah were confiscated and burned, though not as systematically as was the Talmud.[16] Rama’s ban would have had no impact whatsoever on Yitzhak’s purchasing preferences, as Rama explicitly limited his decree to “our country” (i.e., Poland). It is not known whether Italian rabbis adopted a similar stance for their communities.

Furthermore, these very volumes reflect the impact of the feud of their publishers, and of the subsequent burning and imposed censorship. According to the Vatican Library catalogue, they were censored by Lorenzo Franguello in 1575 and again in 1599 by Luigi Da Bologna.[17] Whether it was Yitzchak who presented the work to the censors we may never know.

The impact of the burning of the Talmud on Jewish literature in general has been treated elsewhere, but as my interests lie in Jewish medical history, I conclude by sharing its effect on one of the more prominent figures in Jewish medical history, Abraham Portaleone (d. 1612).[18] Portaleone, descendant of a long line of prominent physicians, and himself physician to dukes and princes, developed a stroke in his sixties leaving him partially paralyzed on one side of his body. His illness sparked reflection that led him to the conclusion that he had not devoted enough of his life to Torah study. To rectify this deficiency, he set out to compose a comprehensive work on prayer and the Temple service, Shiltei haGibborim, which he dedicated to his children. It is an encyclopedia of Renaissance knowledge, including extensive discussions on the composition of the Temple incense, drawing on contemporary botanical studies, as well as unprecedented research into the instruments and music of the Levites accompanying the Temple service.[19]

In his introduction, Portaleone details the nature of his early education, and recalls how while a student studying Talmud with R. Yaakov MiPano, the infamous decree led to the Talmud “being consumed by fire before our eyes.”[20] After the initial burning of the Talmud in Rome, other Italian cities followed suit with their own citywide burnings of the Talmud. Portaleone was witness to one such event. Decades later, as he penned his classic work, Shiltei haGibborim, the Talmud still remained unavailable in Italy. Portaleone was forced to use substitute works that alluded to or quoted the Talmud, if available, but sometimes the information was simply not accessible. For example, in his discussion of the Lechem Hapanim (shewbread) of the Temple, he writes, “Perhaps some place in the Talmud Hazal spoke of this, and I am not aware. As a result of the known decree [preventing access to the Talmud] I have not been able to properly ascertain this.”[21]

In one remarkable instance Portaleone reveals his elation at being able to acquire a bona fide Talmudic reference. He writes that after he completed the chapter on the Lishkat haGazit (Chamber of Hewn Stone), God ordained (“hikra”) that he happen upon a wise man from the city of Tzfat (where the Talmud was available) who had come to Italy to seek financial support for his family. “From his mouth I heard the sugya in the second chapter of Yoma on the laws of the Lishkat haGazit, and I write them here for you (my children) from his mouth…”[22]

In yet another place he excitedly relates of his accessing a small passage from Tractate Chagigah from a tattered manuscript remnant in the library of a great Torah scholar (Gaon) of Verona.[23]

These few, yet remarkable, instances reveal how the absence of access to the Talmud in Italy impacted the life and work of one of Jewish medical history’s most famous personalities.

While our ancestors yearned for access to even one miniscule fragment of the Talmud, we have unfettered access to virtually the totality of rabbinic literature literally at our fingertips, from a device likely smaller in size than the one fragment of Talmud Abraham Portaleone was so overjoyed to discover.

Conclusion

It is incredible to think that for hundreds of years, unbeknownst to the Vatican library, Bragadini has been hiding in plain sight under the cover of his arch nemesis and fierce competitor Giustiniani. Their feud led to one of the greatest tragedies in Jewish history, instigated by the very institution wherein they now lie. Giustinani’s press ceased production in 1552, shortly after and possibly related to his attack on Bragadini, while the Bragadini press, and the three crowns, continued for generations.[24] At long last Giustiniani’s reach from the grave to still overshadow Bragadini has been foiled and a centuries-long error has been rectified.

It is perhaps noteworthy that this discovery occurred while I was a presenter at a Vatican conference. As for the conference itself, the medical issues addressed (including stem cell research, CRISPR gene editing and longevity research) and their halakhic ramifications merit discussion in a different blog. However, let us pause and appreciate how far we have come with respect to religious tolerance.[25] Suffice it to say, had I lived in the times of Bragadini and Giustiniani, I would likely not have been invited to a conference at the Vatican.