Umberto Cassuto

Umberto Cassuto in Jerusalem

Umberto Moshe David Cassuto (born September 16, 1883 in Florence , † December 18, 1951 in Jerusalem ) was an Italian-Israeli historian and biblical scholar .

Live and act

Cassuto was born in Florence to Gustavo and Ernesta Galletti into a traditional Jewish family. He studied at the same time at the University of Florence, where he completed his studies in 1906, and at the Rabbi Seminary, where he was ordained a rabbi in 1908 . Until 1922 he worked for the Jewish community in Florence, first as a secretary, then as a vice-rabbi. From 1922 to 1925 he was Chief Rabbi, but resigned the office when he was appointed Professor of Hebrew Language and Literature at the University of Florence in 1925 . In 1933 he became professor of Hebrew and Comparative Semitic Studies at the Roman Sapienza . During his Roman times he edited the Hebrew manuscripts of the Fund of the Bibliotheca Palatina . His catalog of the Hebrew manuscripts 1–115 of the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana did not appear until 1956, a few years after his death. Because of the fascist racial legislation he lost his chair in 1938. A lifelong Zionist himself , Cassuto followed a call as a biblical scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1939 , where he taught until his death in 1951. Family members who were unable to emigrate fell victim to the Nazi terror in occupied Italy. His daughter-in-law, who survived the concentration camp, was killed in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

At the beginning of his scientific career he devoted himself to researching Italian-Jewish history. His writing Gli ebrei a Firenze nell'età del Rinascimento (“The Jews in Florence in the Age of the Renaissance”), published in 1918, was awarded the Prize for Historical Works by the Accademia dei Lincei in 1920 , the most important scientific award in Italy, and Cassuto became in the same year appointed Cavalier of the Italian Order of the Crown . In 1935 he also became a corresponding member of the academy. From 1933 he concentrated more and more on studying the Bible . As one of the first Ugarit experts, he showed the diverse connections, but also the demarcations, to early Canaanite and Biblical literature. The focus of his research was the book Genesis . He opposed to his time has become popular, especially Julius Wellhausen represented documentary hypothesis , originally separate for the genesis of three written sources ( Yahwist , Elohist and Priestly goes out). Instead, Cassuto assumed an epic basis (epic substratum) into which various orally transmitted stories were artfully woven by an editor.

Works (selection)

• The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Eight Lectures by U. Cassuto. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1961
• A Commentary on the book of Genesis. From Adam to Noah. Volume 1. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1961-1964, ISBN 978-965-223-480-3
• A Commentary on the book of Genesis. From Noah to Avraham. Volume 2. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1961-1964 ISBN 978-965-223-540-4
• A Commentary on the book of Exodus. Translated from the Hebrew by Israel Abrahams. Pp. Xvi, 509. Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1967
• Biblical and Oriental Studies. Translated from the Hebrew and Italian by Israel Abrahams. 2 vols. Magnes Press, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 1973-1975

literature

• David A. Glatt-Gilad: Cassuto, Umberto. In: Adele Berlin (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, p. 161
• Israel Abrahams, Cecil Roth : Cassuto, Umberto. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica. The Gale Group, 2008
• J. Alberto Soggin:  CASSUTO, Umberto (Mose Dawid). In: Alberto M. Ghisalberti (Ed.): Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). Volume 21:  Caruso – Castelnuovo. Istituto della Enciclopedia Italiana, Rome 1978.
• Lemma Umberto Cassuto , in: Philo-Lexikon. Handbook of Jewish Knowledge , Berlin 1935
• Hans Morgenstern: Jewish biographical lexicon. A collection of important personalities of Jewish origin from 1800, LIT Verlag, Vienna 2009 ISBN 978-3-8258-0509-8 , pp. 138f
• Salomon Wininger : Great Jewish National Biography . Kraus Reprint, Nendeln 1979, ISBN 3-262-01204-1 (reprint of the Czernowitz edition 1925), Volume 1, pp. 510f

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Cassuto Umberto in Dictionnaire Biografico
2. ↑ The section Life and Work mainly follows Israel Abrahams, Cecil Roth: Cassuto, Umberto. In: Encyclopaedia Judaica. The Gale Group, 2008 and David A. Glatt-Gilad: Cassuto, Umberto. In: Adele Berlin (Ed.): The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion. 2nd ed., Oxford University Press, Oxford 2011, p. 161
3. ↑ I manoscritti palatini ebraici della Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana e la loro storia , Vatican City 1936 [Studi e testi 66] (emphasis in 1974). Reviewed by Ernesto Munkàcsi in: La Rassegna Mensile di Israel , seconda serie, Vol. 11, No. 8/9 (Aprile-Maggio 1937), pp. 368-372 Stable URL JSTOR
4. ^ Humbertus Cassuto: Codices Vaticani Hebraici. Codices 1-115 . BIBLIOTHECAE APOSTOLICAE VATICANAE CODICES MANUSCRIPTI RECENSITI, vol. 30 ISBN 88-210-0152-0
5. ^ ^{A b} Salomon Wininger: Great Jewish National Biography . 1925, volume 1, p. 510
6. ↑ On October 16, 1938, he was excluded due to the Leggi raziali , and on April 12, 1945, like all other victims of fascist measures, he was resumed by law.