The Shalvi/Hyman Encyclopedia of Jewish Women

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Luisa Levi D'Ancona Modena

Dr. Luisa Levi D'Ancona Modena (PhD, Cambridge University 2004) is an Italian historian, living in Jerusalem. Her interests include Jewish philanthropy in Europe, women and civil society in Liberal Italy, Jewish secularism, and ego-writing. She is currently a Research Fellow at the European Forum of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a research collaborator in the Jewish Country House project based in Oxford University.

Articles by this author

Modern Italy

Jewish women were crucial both to changes in post-emancipation Italian Jewish life and to the overall condition of women in modern Italy. This article reflects on the changes in the role of Jewish women in modern Italy within the Jewish press and institutions, their activism in shaping a secular civil society, and their experiences through the Fascist regime, the trauma of the 1938 Racial laws, emigration, resistance, deportation, survival, and reconstruction.