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The Jews of San Nicandro

Not many people know of the utterly extraordinary events that took place in a humble southern Italian town in the first half of the twentieth century - and those who do have struggled to explain them. In the late 1920s, a crippled shoemaker had a vision where God called upon him to bring the Jewish faith to this 'dark corner' in the Catholic heartlands, despite him having had no prior contact with Judaism itself. By 1938, about a dozen families had converted at one of the most troubled times for Italy's Jews. The peasant community came under the watchful eyes of Mussolini's regime and the Catholic Church, but persisted in their new belief, eventually securing approval of their conversion from the rabbinical authorities, and emigrating to the newly founded State of Israel, where a community still exists today. In this first fully documented examination of the San Nicandro story, John Davis explains how and why these incredible events unfolded as they did. Using the converts' own accounts and a wide range of hitherto unknown sources, Davis uncovers the everyday trials and tribulations within this community, and shows how they intersected with many key contemporary issues, including national identity and popular devotional cults, Fascist and Catholic persecution, Zionist networks and postwar Jewish refugees, and the mass exodus that would bring the Mediterranean peasant world to an end. Vivid and poignant, this book draws fresh and intriguing links between the astonishing San Nicandro affair and the wider transformation of twentieth-century Europe.

Donato Manduzio's diary, from church to synagogue

Donato Manduzio was an illiterate Southern Italian peasant who only learned how to read and write at the age of thirty-two, while convalescing from a wound during the First World War. His subsequent reading of Scripture and the visions he experienced led him to turn to Judaism and to seek an official conversion for himself and seventy-odd followers. For twelve of the sixteen-year-long process, Manduzio wrote about his experiences. Although some excerpts from the Diary have been translated, the manuscript has remained unpublished either in Italian or in any other language up to this day. This b.Donato Manduzio was an illiterate Southern Italian peasant who only learned how to read and write at the age of thirty-two, while convalescing from a wound during the First World War. His subsequent reading of Scripture and the visions he experienced led him to turn to Judaism and to seek an official conversion for himself and seventy-odd followers. For twelve of the sixteen-year-long process, Manduzio wrote about his experiences. Although some excerpts from the Diary have been translated, the manuscript has remained unpublished either in Italian or in any other language up to this day. This book translates the full text of Manduzio's Diary from the original Italian into English, making it available at last to a wider public. After providing a social and historical framework for the trajectory of this remarkable man, it retraces Manduzio's mystical visions and spiritual development, as well as his struggle to create and maintain a Jewish community in a remote corner of Apulia at a time when Fascism was taking hold of Italy. It also shows how the text fits in the context of religious conversion narratives and of literary studies, thus shedding a fresh and fascinating light on the subject.This book will be of interest to specialists of autobiography, Jewish studies, Italian studies, and cultural studies. The Diary's literary qualities and riveting story-telling will also make it a must-read for general audiences.

Online EBSCO Academic Comprehensive Collection