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In recent years, scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the history of scholarship in general and, more specifically, to the emergence of critical historical and anthropological literature from and within ecclesiastical scholarship. However, few studies have discussed the Jewish figures who took part in this process. This paper analyzes the role played by historiographical and ethnographical writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Italian Jewish–Christian polemics. Tracing various Christian polemical ethnographical depictions of the Jewish rite of shaking the lulav (sacramental palm leaves used by Jews during the festival of Sukkot), it discusses the variety of ways in which Jewish scholars responded to these depictions or circumvented them. These responses reflect the Jewish scholars’ familiarity with prevailing contemporary scholarship and the key role of translation and cultural transfers in their own attempts to create parallel works. Furthermore, this paper presents new Jewish polemical manuscript material within the relevant contexts, examines Jewish attempts to compose polemical and apologetic ethnographies, and argues that Jewish engagement with critical scholarship began earlier than scholars of this period usually suggest

s zenith, the Jewish sages introduced special ecological regulations pertaining to its overall urban landscape. One of them was a prohibition against growing plants within the city in order to prevent undesirable odors or litter and thus maintain the city&rsquo s respectable image. The prohibition against growing plants within the city did not apply to rose gardens, maybe because of ecological reasons, i.e., their contribution to aesthetics and to improving bad odors in a crowded city. In the city&rsquo ) around the city of Jerusalem. Haggadic-Talmudic tradition tries to endow Jerusalem with a metaphysical uniqueness by describing fantastic plants that allegedly grew in it in the past but disappeared as a result of its destruction. s status is its flora and ecology. The current study aims to address the historical events and the Talmudic traditions concerning the flora and landscape of Jerusalem. In the city&rsquo The Second Temple period is considered both a pinnacle and a low point in the history of Jerusalem. One manifestation of the sharp fluctuations in Jerusalem&rsquo s decline, its agricultural crops and natural vegetation were destroyed when the beleaguered inhabitants were defeated by Titus&rsquo army. One Talmudic tradition voices hope for the rehabilitation of the flora (&ldquo shitim&rdquo

Whereas the conflict over Palestine’s’ holy places and their role in forming Israeli or Palestinian national identity is well studied, this article brings to the fore an absent perspective. It shows that in the first half of the 20th century Muslims and Jews in Jerusalem shared holy sites, religious beliefs and feasts. Jewish–Muslim encounters of that period went much beyond pre-modern practices of cohabitation, to the extent of developing joint local patriotism. On the other hand, religious and other holy sites were instrumental in the Jewish and Palestinian exclusive nation building process rather than an inclusive one, thus contributing to escalate the national conflict.