ABSTRACT
Theyear1536wasnotanotableonefortheforemostJewishfamiliesof
Rome.Thedocumentstestifyingtotheirwhereabouts,totheirmajor
doings,areifanythingflat.Therearerentals,aproblemwithbanksand
bankers,andaquestionoftaxes.Someoneisapprenticed.Allverywork-
adaymatters.Therewasascandal.ZarfatiandBacalulgotinvolvedina
messydivorcelitigation,whichresultedinBacalulfirstinsistingthathis
childrenbesenttolivewithhimandsoonafterinsistingthattheynever
darkenhisdoorstep,butshouldratherremainsolidlywithintheirmoth-
er'sdirectembraceandunderherroof. 1Thisishardlythekindofevent
wemightexpecttofind-admittedlyassumingaratherdramaticap-
proachtohistory,whereoneeventissupposedinexorablytoanticipate
another-onlytwentyyearsbeforetheghetto,onlyadecadeorlesssince
thesackofRome,andfewerthanfiftyyearssincetheexpulsionfrom
SpainandfromthetimeofothereventsthatapparentlymadeRome's
Jewishpopulace-oratleastshouldhavemadeit-changecourse.Yet
whatstrikesusinparticularabouttheZarfatidivorce-andwhatiseven
moreprominentthantheeventsthemselves-istheconcentrationofthe
individualsonthemselvesandtheirowndoings.Forinthesixteenth
century,thedegreeofindividualism(asitappearshereinanalmost
contemporarysenseoftheterm)asafactorinfamilylifeand,even
more,self-indulgencewithinthefamilyisaquestionthatmeritsserious
debate.Forinthesixteenthcentury,suchblatantindividualismand,
even more, self-indulgence-especially in family life-is usually not deemed
other Jewish "aristocrats," and was this self-indulgence constant over the years? More important, did not this private behavior also have a public resonance, betraying a posture for coping with the world, including a vision of community and of the balance between it and the individual? And were not such visions and postures all locatable within a pattern of Jewish public behavior and thought? Yet this pattern was likely never verbalized nor explicitly described. For normally such a pattern is imbedded in (what has alternately been termed) the public habitual, social, or collective memory, that is, the repeated behavioral patterns a society as a whole uses to restate its time-honored values, as well as the implicit codes that distinguish the insider-and its very self-from those outside. Still, this habitual memory may be known, in its own right-as we shall see-but also as it is portrayed by its counterpart, cognitive memory, the memory of that which has been learned, hence, a memory that is regularly verbalized, orally or on paper, 2 or enshrined in descriptions of the past, specifically, in that which, all too broadly, and sometimes facilely, we call historical writing.
