Christians in Jewish Houses: The Testimony of the Inquisition in the Duchy of Modena in the Seventeenth Century
www.mdpi.com
This article concentrates on Modenese inquisitorial processi that investigated interactions between Jews and Christians that took place in their domestic premises, especially the more spacious dwellings in country towns and villages where there were no ghettoes. These investigations confirm that inquisitorial vetoes on socializing were blithely ignored, and that Jews and Christians often seemed to have no antipathy for or suspicion of each other. As will be shown, Christians went into Jews’ houses, but Jews seldom appeared to enter those of Christians. The reasons for this are suggested below.

cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/1634558

It is interesting to note that in these cases—and no doubt in many others—the ones disrupting the amicable relations between Jews and ordinary Christians were the upper‐class authorities. Segregation was in the Christian ruling class’s interests, but lower‐class Christians, and sometimes even members of the clergy, were not always so compliant. For example:

In 1680, the situation was even more scandalous when it appeared that fraternization between Jews and Christians included members of the clergy. The inquisitorial vicar in Finale Emilia, Fra Girolamo Moretti, was denounced to the Holy Office by Father Provincial of the Conventual Franciscans of Bologna, for participating in social gatherings with Jews and even for eating unleavened bread during the Jewish festival of Passover.28

One Jewish witness, Elia Benedetto Castelfranco, was able to confirm that the vicar had sat with him a few years earlier in his sukkah: the temporary abode (booth) which Jews build as an attachment to their home during the festival of Tabernacles.29 These gatherings of Christians in the homes of Jews seem to have nurtured knowledge of Jewish practices and also personal friendships and genuine trust.