With deep gratitude to HaKadosh Barukh Hu, we are thrilled to share that The Missions of the Holy Land is now live on Amazon!
Some of the most dangerous ideas arrive dressed as virtue. In 1863, the Jewish communities of Italy, gathered in assembly at Ferrara, moved to abolish the centuries-old institution of the emissaries of the Holy Land — a common-sense measure that would save money, and cost everything. One rabbi rose to stop them.
In these burning pages, Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh of Livorno argues that the emissary was never merely a collector of coins, but the living nerve binding a scattered People to its Land, and that to sever it would be to let the very idea of Israel fade into myth. His deeper warning still stands: that reform, however reasonable, may be proposed but never imposed.
Unread for more than a century and a half, the work appears here for the first time in English — freshly translated and annotated, with a substantial introduction, historical background, and appendices by the editor — Rabbi Yonatan Y. Halevy of Shiviti — that open the world standing behind the text, and reveal how urgently its argument still speaks to our own.
Baruch Hashem, through the dedication of our team and of our publication partners, we have been able to bring this work to print ahead of schedule — leaving ample time for your copies to arrive during these days of Ben HaMetzarim, when the bond between the People and its Land presses upon us most.
This first English edition includes:
◆ The first complete English translation of the original Italian edition published in Livorno in 1863
◆ A substantial introduction to the life and thought of Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh
◆ An essay reconstructing the historical background and the controversy that occasioned the work
◆ Scholarly annotations illuminating the persons, sources, and ideas behind the text
◆ Two appendices of original research inspired by the work
Thank you to the entire Shiviti family for welcoming this volume into your homes, and for helping us bring the writings of Rabbi Eliyahu Benamozegh to readers around the world.
You can order the new book here: