ABSTRACT
After the turning point of the processes of immigration and ghettoization in the 16th century, another radical break in the history of the Italian Jews takes place in the 18th century: the age of emancipation and the granting of civil and political rights to the Jews. In addition to triggering a growing anti-Judaism in the Catholic world, emancipation brings with it paradoxical and contradictory consequences related to the dialectic between the equality of rights and the right to diversity. The Enlightenment reforms introduced in the Italian States brings the Jewish question to the center of the conflict between Church and States, where it is used as a political tool by both parties. The new ideas also penetrate Italian Judaism, as expressed by Enlightenment figures such as Benedetto Frizzi, Isacco Reggio, and Beniamino Foà. However, the culture of the reforms also produces internal problems related to the observance of the traditions, religious obedience and the authority of the rabbis, as Isacco Lampronti denounced in Ferrara. The traditional corporate organization of the communities and ghettos, the Jewish Università, begins to enter into crisis, in conflict with the new ideas and the growing claims of individual rights against the community system.
