Leone Modena
Leone Modena was born in Venice and spent most of his youth in Ferrara. In addition to acquiring a traditional education, he studied poetry, letter writing, music, Latin, and kabbalah. While awaiting ordination in Venice, Modena earned a living in a variety of ways, among them teaching, writing letters and poetry, preaching, and correcting proofs. Modena spent time in Ferrara, Florence, and other Italian towns before he was finally ordained in Venice in 1609. He later served as chief translator of Hebrew documents for the Venetian government. Known for delivering sermons in the Venetian synagogues so skillfully that he attracted Christian listeners, Modena published numerous books in Hebrew for Jews, as well as Historia de’ riti Ebraici (Account of Jewish Rites; 1637), an Italian-language guide to Jewish ritual originally commissioned for King James I. Particularly well known is his work Ari nohem (A Roaring Lion), which questioned the antiquity of the kabbalah. Ḥayye Yehudah (The Life of Judah) details Modena’s personal struggles, including his excessive gambling, several illnesses, and the deaths of infant children and two grown sons.
Entries in the Posen Library by This Creator
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Ḥayye Yehudah (The Life of Judah)
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Historia de’ riti Ebraici (History of the Jewish Rites): On the Sabbath
- Jews hold the Sabbath, above all other feasts, with the greatest veneration on account of it being named so often in the Scripture and being ordered…
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Begging Letter
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Lev aryeh (Heart of a Lion)
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Tsori la-nefesh u-marpe’ la-‘etsem (Balm for the Soul and Healing for the Bones)
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Midbar Yehudah (The Wilderness of Judah)
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Ari nohem (Roaring Lion)
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Magen va-ḥerev (Shield and Sword)
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Magen ve-tsina (Shield and Bulwark)
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Sha‘agat aryeh (The Lion’s Roar)
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Asleep in songs and lullabies
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As on this month’s last day
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I’m in a rage, so angry that I don’t know what to do
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Introduction: Salamone de Rossi’s Ha-shirim asher li-Shelomoh (The Songs of Solomon)
Related Guide
Music and Opera in Jewish Culture, 1750–1880
One of the most striking changes in European Jewish culture toward the later eighteenth century was marked by the entry of Jews into art music, opera houses, and the stage.