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Yehudah Aryeh (Leone) me-MODENA (1571-1648): Magen va-herev

Edition

. The text was edited by Shlomo Simonsohn, Magen va-herev: Hibur neged ha-Natsrut meet Yehuda Ariyeh mi-Modena (Tel Aviv, 1960) A small portion of the treatise was published by A. Geiger, Leon da Modena Rabbiner zu Venedig und seine Stellung zur Kabbala zum Thalmud und zum Christenthume (Breslau, 1856), 10b-14b

Manuscripts

The text of the disputation is extant in eight manuscripts:

1. Budapest, Jewish Theological Seminary - University of Jewish Studies (BUD SEM 38, nineteenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-17r
2. Jerusalem, Mosad ha-Rav Kook (JER KOOK 887, nineteenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-46v
3. Jerusalem, National Library (JER NLI 786=38, nineteenth-twentieth-century Ashkenazi cursive type handwriting), 1r-87r = copy of PARMA 2257 ms.
4. London, British Library (LON BL 1084 = LON BL Add. 27149, nineteenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-14v

   The item is digitized.

5. Milano, Biblioteca Ambrosiana (Milan Q 139 Sup., seventeenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-45r
6. Oxford, Bodleian Library (OX 2786, nineteenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-94v
7. Parma, Biblioteca Palatina (PARMA 2257, seventeenth-century Italian /-Sephardic/ type handwriting), 1r-51v

   The item is digitized.

8. Warszaw, Zydowski Instytut Historyczny (SARAVAL 45 = Warsaw 35, nineteenth-century Italian type handwriting), 1r-47r

Secondary Literature

• G. B. de Rossi, Bibliotheca Judaica Antichristiana (Parma, 1800), 18-19.
• Jewish Encyclopedia Online Edition Leon of Modena
• S. Stern, Der Kampf des Rabbiners gegen den Talmud im XVII. Jahrhundert. Vorher geht: Religion des Individuums und Religion des Volkes (Breslau, 1902).
• D. Simonsen, 'Eine Sammlung polemischer und apologetischer Literatur', in Alexander Marx und Herman Meyer (eds), Festschrift für Aron Freimann zum 60. Geburtstage (Berlin, 1935), 117..
• L. Silberman, The Magen v'Herev of R. Judah Aryeh oh Modena (Unpublished D. H. L. Thesis; Hebrew Union College, 1943).
• J. Rosenthal, 'Anti-Christian Polemics from its Beginnings to the end of the Eighteenth Century', Areseth 2 (1960), 157. no. 107. (in Hebrew)
• D. J. Lasker, Jewish Philosophical Polemics against Christianity in the Middle Ages (Jerusalem, 1977), 18.
• J. E. Rembaum, 'Medieval Jewish Criticism of the Christian Doctrine of Original Sin', AJS Review 7/8 (1982/83), 353-382.
• H. E. Adelman, Success and Failure in the Seventeenth Century Ghetto of Venice: The Life and Thought of Leon Modena (Unpublished Ph.D Thesis, Brandeis University, 1985), 839-846.
• B. Safran, 'Leona da Modena's historical thinking', in Isadore Twersky and Bernard (eds), Jewish Thought in the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge /Mass./, 1987), 381-398.
• H. E. Adelman, 'Rabbi Leon Modena and the Christian Kabbalists', in M. C. Horowitz, (ed), Renaissance Readings: Intertext and Context (Chicago, 1988), 271-286.
• L. Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah (Edition and translation by Mark R. Cohen; Princeton, 1988) 176, 269-270, 271.
• M. R. Cohen, 'Who Wrote the Ambrosiana Manuscript of Hayyei Yehuda', in L. Modena, The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life of Judah (ed. and trans. M. R. Cohen; Princeton, 1988), 291-293.
• J. Maier, Geschichte der jüdischen Literatur (Freiburg, 1992), 519.
• J. Weinberg, 'Preaching in the Venetian Ghetto: The Sermons of Leon Modena', in D. B. Ruderman (ed), Preachers of the Italian Ghetto (Berkeley, 1992), 126-127.
• S. Krauss, The Jewish-Christian Controversy: From the Earliest Time to 1789 (ed. W. Horbury; Tübingen, 1995), 106, 107, 180, 229-230.
• A. Guetta, 'Leone Modena's Magen wa-herev as an Anti-Catholic Apologia', Jewish Studies Quarterly 7 (2000), 296-318.
• B. Richler (ed), Hebrew Manuscripts in the Biblioteca Palatina in Parma (Jerusalem, 2001), 403.
• W. Horbury, 'Hebrew Apologetic and Polemical Literature', in N. de Lange (ed), Hebrew Scholarship and the Medieval World (Cambridge, 2001), 201.
• A translation of the Magen wa-hereb by Leon Modena, 1571-1648 (trans. A. H. Podet; New York, 2001).
• A. Guetta, 'Anti-Catholic Apologetics in Leon Modena's Magen va-Herev: A Comparative Reading', in R. Bonfil and D. J. Malkiel (eds), The Lion Shall Roar: Leon Modena and His World (Jerusalem, 2003), 69-89 (in Hebrew).
• T. Fishman, 'Changing Early Modern Jewish Discourse about Christianity: The Efforts of Leone Modena', in R. Bonfil and D. J. Malkiel (eds), The Lion shall Roar: Leon Modena and his Word (Jerusalem, 2003), 159-194.
• H. Tz. Adelmann, Encyclopaedia Judaica, 22 vols. (Jerusalem, 2007), 14: 408-410.
• L. Modena, Jüdische Riten, Sitten und Gebräuche (ed. and trans. Rafael Arnold; Wiesbaden, 2007), 213.
• H. Tz. Adelman, 'A Rabbi Reads the Qur'an in the Venetian Ghetto', Jewish History 26 (2012), 134.
• Ch. Ochs, Mattheus Adversus Christianos. The Use of the Gospel of Matthew in Jewish Polemics against the Divinity of Jesus (Tübingen, 2013), 268.
• K. D. Dobos, 'The Impact of the Conversos on Jewish Polemical Activity in Baroque Italy: Was Yehuda Aryeh me-Modena's Magen we-Herev Destined for a Converso Audience?', Annali di Storia dell' Esegesi 33 (2016/2), 413-434.

© Karoly Daniel Dobos: Jewish-Christian Polemics in Early Modern Italy

Research that enabled the preparation of this bibliography was sponsored by the Anniversary Fund of the National Bank of Austria (Jubiläumsfonds der Österreichischen Nationalbank, project number: 16099: "Jüdisch-christiliche Polemik: Akkulturation und Modernisierung")

Jubilaeumsfonds

The webpage was created by Karoly Daniel Dobos