Joshua dei Cantori was a converted
Italian
Italian(s) may refer to:
* Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries
** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom
** Italian language, a Romance language
*** Regional Ita ...
Jew
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
who attacked the
Talmud
The Talmud (; he, , Talmūḏ) is the central text of Rabbinic Judaism and the primary source of Jewish religious law ('' halakha'') and Jewish theology. Until the advent of modernity, in nearly all Jewish communities, the Talmud was the ce ...
at
Cremona in 1559. According to
Moritz Steinschneider, he belonged to the family
Cantarini. In consequence of a dispute with
Joseph Ottolenghi, who was head of the
Talmudical school of Cremona, Cantori, in order to avenge himself on his adversary, appeared with the converted Jew
Baptista Vittorio Eliano and denounced the Talmud as containing blasphemies against the Christian faith. The result of this accusation was the public burning of 10,000 to 15,000 Hebrew books in 1559 at Cremona.
Joseph ha-Kohen
Joseph ben Joshua ben Meïr ha-Kohen (also Joseph HaKohen, Joseph Hakohen or Joseph Hacohen) (20 December 1496 in Avignon, France – 1575 or shortly thereafter, Genoa, Italy) was a historian and physician of the 16th century.
Life
Joseph's p ...
records this incident, and adds that later Cantori was found assassinated in a street of Cremona, and was buried "behind the board" in the Jewish cemetery of that city as a mark of contumely. According to another source quoted by
J. Wolf, Cantori was a convert to Christianity.
References
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cantori, Joshua Dei
16th-century Italian Jews
16th-century Roman Catholics
1559 in Italy
Converts to Roman Catholicism from Judaism
Italian Roman Catholics
16th-century deaths
People from Cremona