Salomone Rossi: Great Jewish Composer of the Italian Renaissance

Nov. 13 2014

A group of Israeli musicians has been performing the sacred and secular work of Salomone Rossi, who composed music both for the synagogue and to entertain the dukes of Mantua. Rossi, a product of heightened cultural interaction between Jews and Christians in Renaissance Italy, introduced elements of modern European music into the Jewish liturgy and was himself a great musical innovator. Geoffrey Clarfield explains:

Three years before [Claudio] Monteverdi, in his madrigals, Rossi pioneered the use of the basso continuo part. In 1607 his compositions featured the first trio sonatas to have ever appeared in Europe. He probably invented the form. We must remember, then, that Rossi was just one, even if he was the best, of a significant number of Italian Jews who were masters of and contributors to the classical music of the time. . . . During the last few years of Rossi’s life, the Jews of Italy and, later, almost all Jews of Western Europe were confined to ghettos. His last pieces were written in Hebrew and correspond to that time when he and his family were moved to the ghetto of Mantua. This is his famous collection called the Songs of Solomon . . . referring (in a typical Renaissance play on words) to himself, the composer, not the ancient Israelite king. They are the first musical rendering of the Hebrew Psalms known to us in the European polyphonic tradition. They were designed to be interspersed in the synagogue liturgy of his coreligionists in Mantua and Venice.

Read more at Times of Israel

More about: British Jewry, Italian Jewry, Jewish music, Renaissance, Salomone Rossi

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023