Books by Marcella Simoni
part of the material is concerned, speci cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of il... more part of the material is concerned, speci cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on micro lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a speci c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional af liations.
Papers by Marcella Simoni
Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, 2022
Adopting a transnational perspective, this article investigates the history, mobility and identit... more Adopting a transnational perspective, this article investigates the history, mobility and identity of Baghdadi Jews in South, East and Southeast Asia and in Europe between 1850 and 1950. Unlike previous works on the subject, which have focused mainly on the magnates among the Baghdadis of the Asian hubs, this article also includes many references to the middle classes. The first part of the article examines how Baghdadis in the Asian hubs transformed their collective identity by dwelling in and across India, Singapore, Burma (Myanmar) and China and what role did mobility play in this process. Individuals travelled for reasons and work or leisure, they exchanged money and commodities, used different languages (among them Judeo-Arabic and English), and objects circulated too; among them liturgical and religious objects, as well as the Jewish press. The second part analyzes what was the significance of Europe for this group. London represented a point of arrival for many of the most successful traders among them, especially the tycoons. However, in the first half of the twentieth century other capitals (Paris, Madrid, and even New York) acquired a growing relevance in connection to the contemporary contraction of the Sephardic space and expansion of the Ashkenazi one. Sources for this work come from oral history repositories at the National Archives of Singapore, the Hong Kong Oral History Project, the memorial website Jewish Calcutta and from the contemporary Jewish press, and in particular the Shanghai based monthly publication Israel's Messenger.
Rethinking the Age of Emancipation
AJS Review, 2020
The history of modern human rights has recently emerged as a popular subset of scholarly inquiry.... more The history of modern human rights has recently emerged as a popular subset of scholarly inquiry. Over the past decade or so, scholars have identified various origins for the expansion of Western human rights politics and law, including medieval natural rights discourse, the Enlightenment, transatlantic abolitionism, nineteenth-century liberal nationalism, imperial civilizing missions, mid-twentieth-century Christian humanism, or the legal instruments adopted by United Nations in the second half of the 1940s. Dismissive of long-term genealogies, revisionist historians, such as Samuel Moyn, locate instead the “explosion” of human rights discourse and activism in the 1970s, when popular NGOs such as Amnesty International appealed to a wider public. In Rooted Cosmopolitans, James Loeffler offers yet another chronology. Between the end of World War I and the start of the 1960s, he argues, prominent Jewish internationalists laid the foundations of the contemporary human rights regime. They include “five remarkable men” (xiii) whose lives and ideas are explored in the book: the Polish-born legal scholar Hersch Lauterpacht, a pioneer in international human rights law and legal adviser at the Nuremberg trials, who first coined the phrase “crimes against humanity”; the Lithuanian jurist Jacob Robinson, a defender of Jewish minority rights before the outbreak of the SecondWorld War and a legal adviser to the State of Israel after 1948; the Baltimore oilman Jacob Blaustein, the president of the American Jewish Committee and a confidant of Harry Truman; the British rabbi Maurice Perlzweig, one of the forefathers of the World Jewish Congress, created in 1936 to serve as the diplomatic arm of the Jewish people; and Peter Benenson, the founder of Amnesty International. As Loeffler contends, their commitment to human rights law and activism stemmed from “particular engagements with the rigor and rhapsodies of modern Jewish politics” (xiv). This is the main argument developed in this finely researched study: although dedicated to universal standards of human rights enshrined in international law, these “rooted cosmopolitans” remained passionately attuned to the plight of Jews in interwar Book Reviews
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Languages of Discrimination and Racism in Twentieth-Century Italy
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Books by Marcella Simoni
Papers by Marcella Simoni