Free The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara by David I. Kertzer Page A

able to tell you today about recent developments of the greatest importance, but I hope to do so next Monday.” The response from the Bolognesi showed their exasperation: “You wrote on the 27th that you hoped soon to send an extremely important communication, which filled us with great hope, and we anxiously await the news, which it seems you are still not in a position to give us. We would be very grateful if you would let us know the present state of things, insofar as you can, and what steps are in progress.”
    Momolo set out. According to a friend, he was in a sad state, his spirit broken, his once boundless energy drained.
    While Rome’s Jewish leaders wanted to handle all dealings with the papal authorities in their own way, the Jews of Bologna favored a more aggressive approach. Their end-of-July letter proposed a multipronged strategy. The first involved Momolo’s activities once he reached Rome. The second, they proposed, should be a unified effort by all the Jewish communities of the Papal States, calling on the Pope to act in order to “relieve thousands of the state’s most peaceful and obedient subjects from anxieties that are worse than havingto fear for their lives and their possessions.” It was the third, however, that brought Momolo’s Bolognese kin and friends into active conflict with Scazzocchio and his colleagues, for the letter called for mobilizing “the most eminent foreign Jews to interest European public opinion, nations, and governments in the case.”
    The same day that this letter was written, another was sent to Rome’s Università Israelitica, this one from Crescenzo Bondi, a Roman Jew who happened to be on a business trip in Senigallia, a town of twenty-four thousand in the central Adriatic region of the Papal States. Bondi reported on a meeting held there the previous day, a gathering of representatives from all the major Jewish communities of the area—Ancona, Urbino, Pesaro, and Senigallia—who had come to meet with Angelo Moscato, Marianna’s brother-in-law. Moscato briefed them on the latest events and urged them to join a fund-raising campaign for the Mortaras. Knowing that this news would be poorly received in Rome, Bondi asked his Roman brethren to be understanding of their friends from Bologna, who were gripped by a desperate need for action and had organized the fund-raising campaign “without first consulting our Community, as it was their duty to do.”
    Rome’s Jewish community could boast of being Europe’s oldest, for Jews had lived there continuously for two millennia. Its location at the center of power in the Papal States and, indeed, at the center of world Christendom gave it a certain pride of place among the Jews of Italy—an honor, however, that came at a high price. Rome’s Jews keenly felt the might of the Pope and the Church hierarchy, and their very proximity to ecclesiastical power meant they came under greater scrutiny than Jews elsewhere.
    Rome’s Jews had their own unhappy memories, which the news from Bologna once more brought to mind. One of the most searing was a story told to them by their parents and grandparents, the story of the dramatic confrontation that took place on the evening of December 9, 1783, when the ghetto gate, already shut for the night, was unexpectedly opened. A coach, with a large police escort, rolled in. Residents rushed to put on their yellow hats, which by law they had to wear at all times, as the carriage rolled across the cobblestones and stopped in the center of the ghetto. Out from the coach came two government officials, who demanded to see the rabbis and lay leaders of the community.
    When the surprised ghetto leaders made their way to the carriage, the reason for the visit was explained. The men were looking for two orphans, a boy aged 11 and his sister, aged 7, who lived with their grandmother. They were to be taken to the House of the Catechumens to be prepared for baptism.
    Alarmed and indignant, the Jewish