Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean.

Benjamin Arbel. Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean. (Brill's Series in Jewish Studies, 14.) Leiden and New York: E.J. Brill, 1995. xi + 237 pp. $77.50. ISBN:90-04-10057-1.

The two predominant images of the Jew in pre-modern Europe tend to center around the merchant and moneylender, and often the stereotype is better known than the historical reality. Benjamin Arbel's elaborately researched Trading Nations: Jews and Venetians in the Early Modern Eastern Mediterranean, based on a wide range of Italian archival documents and contemporary Hebrew sources, is therefore especially important and welcome.

Five of the book's eight chapters represent modified and updated versions of articles which previously appeared in specialized publications in English, Italian, and Hebrew. Now integrated and with new chapters and an introduction, conclusion, documentary appendix, and bibliography, the material takes on additional significance as a major contribution to the field.

Arbel traces the key sixteenth-century transitional period, when the Levantine Jewish merchant - once despised as a foreigner - became an integrated but not equal part of the Venetian scene as a result of developments in the Eastern Mediterranean. Specifically, Ottoman support of Jewish merchants enabled them to assume a prominent role in the internal trade of the empire. Consequently, Venetian merchants had to rely on these Jewish merchants, whose dominant position in the wholesale trade of products especially valuable to the Venetians (such as wool, cloth, camelots, and alum) tended to make them indispensable as middlemen for foreign exporters. However, this new role of the Jews in the Levant trade of Venice, which had constituted the main source of Venetian prosperity, was offensive to many Venetians, and the anti-Jewish atmosphere of the counter-reformation further contributed to animosity toward them while the fate of the Jews residing in Venice itself was also greatly affected by changing relations between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.

Yet once convinced that the Jews could not be set aside, the Venetian Republic, Arbel points out, followed the expedient maxim that if you cannot beat them, join them (or perhaps more precisely: invite them to join you in Venice). The Venetians, he rightly concludes, were not philosemites; rather, economic considerations led to a practical toleration which proved in the long run to be stronger than the traditional religious attitudes, though it did not change them significantly.

Arbel greatly adds to our understanding of the situation by very carefully tracing the complex and hitherto-neglected activities of individual Jews such as the two customs farmers named Abraham Castro, the merchant-diplomat Solomon Ashkenazi (the key figure in negotiating the peace treaty of 1573 between Venice and the Ottoman Empire), and the merchant-entrepreneur Hayyim Saruk. He also extensively discusses Joseph Nasi, claiming that Nasi's role in influencing Ottoman foreign policy and also his motivation to harm Venice were much less than generally thought; however, though the contemporary view, that Nasi headed an international organization of espionage and sabotage active in the Venetian state constituted a myth, it nevertheless assumed reality in that it affected Venetian attitudes toward the Jews in Venice and reinforced the collective image of the Jew as a perfidious traitor. Also of great importance is Arbel's discussion of Jewish entrepreneurial modes of operation, which he demonstrates were the same as those of Christian merchants, and of Jewish involvement in commercial shipping as owners and operators of commercial vessels, some of which had been specially built for them.

Thus, Arbel sums up, the Jews in the sixteenth century were again a trading nation, not merely in their roles as peddlers, small traders, or merchants accompanying their goods, but in their contribution to higher levels of international commerce. The success of the Jewish merchants in the East, as a result of Ottoman encouragement, enhanced their position elsewhere in the Mediterranean, especially in Italy. However, with the decline of the Ottoman empire toward the end of the century, the situation reversed. No longer was Ottoman identity a lever for mercantile operations; rather, the Jews used their positions as subjects of Venice, Tuscany, and France to succeed in the markets of the East.

Despite the often very detailed presentation and discussion, more information on the nature of the protective Venetian commercial legislation and the privileges granted to the Jewish merchants would be desirable; also, more on the non-merchant Jews residing in Venice - the so-called Tedeschi moneylenders - would be helpful. Although Arbel understandably places them in the margin of his analysis, he points out that they were strongly influenced by the issues treated in the book. Certainly an elaboration of the not yet adequately investigated view that the religious affiliations of the Ponentini (Iberians of New Christian origin who reverted to Judaism) sometimes tended to be secondary to their business interest would shed light on a key issue. Missing from the book above all is a sense of the far-flung "Iberian diaspora" linking the Levantini Jews of the Ottoman Empire, many of whom were of Iberian origin, with the Ponentini New Christians and Crypto-Jews of the Iberian peninsula who were active in maritime commerce and eventually left for other places, including Venice.

To conclude, this carefully researched and very informative volume should certainly be read by all engaged in research on Venice, Italian-Ottoman relations, Jews, and economic history in the sixteenth century.

BENJAMIN RAVID Brandeis University