In 1570, a severe earthquake struck the city of Ferrara; among the survivors was a learned Jew named Azariah de’ Rossi, who thereafter began composing controversial, but widely read, works on Judaism and Jewish history. Henry Abramson describes the disaster’s impact on de’ Rossi’s thinking, and argues that his ideas adumbrated what would now be considered “Modern Orthodoxy.”
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More about: Azariah de Rossi, Italian Jewry, Modern Orthodoxy, Renaissance, Science and Religion