Pilpul Zeman, Zemanim, Zemaneihem [Anti-Christian parody of the Passover Hagadah]

RAPA, JONAH.

Italy

circa 1800

A facsimile of a leaf from a ms. of Pilpul Zeman appear before the title of Davidson, Parody in Jewish Literature

Israel Davidson (Parody in Jewish Literature), pp. 41-42, 153-167. (It is possible that this is the 17ff. manuscript listed in Davidson, p. 156, no. 6.)

Cecil Roth sums up the state of affairs in eighteenth century Italy: “The polemical literature which, though for obvious reasons never published, continued to be written in some quantity, especially after the intensification of the literary onslaught on Judaism at the beginning of the eighteenth century—defensive in Italian, by scholars such as Leon Briel of Mantua, replying to the attacks of Father Pinamonte and others, offensive in Hebrew by his [Briel’s] pupils, Jonah Rappa and Joshua Segrè, in biting satires which passed from hand to hand in manuscript” (The History of the Jews of Italy [1946], p. 402). Davidson however, assigned the year 1680 as the date of the parody’s composition. Davidson, p. 158. The satire was eventually published in an annotated edition by Gershon Belasco in London, 1908. (See Friedberg, P-376.) “ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PARODIES IN HEBREW LITERATURE” (ISRAEL DAVIDSON)