Resist, refute, redirect: Roman Jews attend conversionary sermons

Jews in Rome were constrained to listen to weekly conversionary sermons – an event and legislation they resented. Such sermons began in the 1580s and continued through the 18th century. This paper will explore the variety of ways the Roman Jews resisted these sermons, and will evaluate the effectiveness of their various forms of protest. These came in three general categories. The most common consisted of attempts to object to, or to improve the experience of having to attend sermons. This category included passive resistance during the sermons, attempts to change legislation, and objections to violent behaviour around sermon-going. The most dramatic were objections to content they considered unreasonable, demonstrated through petitionary treatises. Finally, we also have some evidence that sermons were routinely, even ritualistically refuted when they were delivered. Given the legal and religious constraints on the Jewish community of Rome, we will ask how much success could be expected from Jewish resistance, and how any success would be defined. In every case, we can document small or incremental victories, and consider whether this aggregation of resentment exerted a broader or long-term influence on the nature of conversionary preaching or sermons.