TEDESCHI

TEDESCHI (Tedesco, "Ashkenazi"), name of several Italian families whose members were found particularly in Ancona, Rovigo, Veneto, Piedmont, Rome, and Ferrara. The Tedeschi families, however, did not originate from a single stock, and the name is also common among Christian families, especially in Sicily. isaac and moses tedesco were among the representatives of the Catalan School in Rome in 1581. From the 18^th to the 20^th centuries the family produced some distinguished rabbis, jurists, physicians, and writers, among them nathan tedeschi, author of a ḥidah (enigmatical poem) for Purim (1765).

marco tedeschi (1817–1869) was rabbi in Nizza-Monferrato, Saluzzo, Asti, and Trieste, having been appointed to the last position by Cavour in 1858. He was a preacher of renown and translator of prayers into Italian (Le preghiere di un cuore israelita). His poems were published by Rabbi V. Castiglioni as Yelid Kinnor (1886).

david vita tedesco (1820–1849), of Venice, edited a text of prayers for the five fast days with an Italian translation (1845); he also translated and wrote commentaries on several books of the Bible, which were not published, and was among the disciples of Samuel David *Luzzatto. Moses Isaac *Tedeschi (Tedesco), was a teacher, translator, and biblical commentator. eliezer laude tedeschi, rabbi of Turin, was the author of a chant for the inauguration of the Hebrew school there (Scuola ebraica), in 1884.

isaac refael tedeschi (1826–1908) was born in Ancona and became the first rabbi of the Jewish community (Universita ebraica) of Bologna after its reestablishment in 1860. He was a propagator of pre-Zionist ideas from as early as 1871. He was appointed rabbi at Corfu in 1865 and succeeded Rabbi David Vivanti in Ancona in 1877. Tedeschi energetically defended Jewish Orthodoxy, often polemizing with Italian rabbis of liberal tendencies. He contributed to the main Italian Jewish newspapers and Ha-Ẓefirah. Some of his works were collected by his disciple, Rabbi H. Rosenberg, and were published (in Italian, 1929; as She'elot u-Teshuvot, 1932). However, many remained unpublished, among them a commentary to the Torah and an addition to Isaac Lampronti's Paḥad Yiẓḥak (Avnei Zikkaron).

Gad (Guido) *Tedeschi (1907–1992) was professor of civil law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

bibliography:

Mortara, Indice, 64; C. Roth, Venice (1930), index; G. Bedarida, Ebrei d'Italia (1948), index; H. Rosenberg, Saggio degli Scritti dei Rabbini Vivanti e Tedeschi (1929); idem, Saggio degli Scritti in lingua ebraica dei Rabbini Vivanti e Tedeschi (1932); V. Castiglioni et al., I.R. Tedeschi (1909); A. Milano, Il ghetto di Roma (1964), index; idem, Storia degli Ebrei Italiani nel Levante (1949), 191.

[Alfredo Mordechai Rabello]