In this poster, I am going to present the main traits of my ongoing research project on Italian Jewish prayer books printed in the Nineteenth Century. 
The aim of this project is to carry out a digital and conceptual analysis of nineteenth-century Italian prayer books, with the purpose of utilizing them as objects of historical inquiry. The tools I will use to carry out this analysis consist of an inventory and scanning of these prayer books, in order to enable a digital analysis with HTR software. Prayer books encompass every aspect of Jewish life, from every day prayers to the special occasions of the High Holidays. For this reason, they are the most frequently printed book in Judaism. In spite of their prominence in Jewish life, they have received very little academic attention, because they have been considered as stable factors, whose dynamics would be unworthy of analyses. Indeed, it is true that prayer books maintained a certain uniformity in space and time, but the small changes of the different editions can actually represent substantial changes in the political and cultural perception of a specific Jewry, in a specific place and time. The HTR is used to single out and address exactly these variations. The project’s point of departure is that these small changes can actually reflect substantial developments in the political and cultural (self)perception of a specific Jewry in a specific place and time. 
Ultimately, through the prism of the prayer book, the project hopes to challenge essential categories in the field of Jewish Studies, such as Orthodoxy and Reform, but also other categories, such as Italian, Sephardi, and Ashkenazi, the main Jewish groups present in the Italian peninsula.
I have now completed the first part of the project, which entailed identification, location, and scanning of the sources. Hitherto, I have singled out a corpus of about 250 prayer books, between Siddurim and Mahzorim, from which I have selected about 130 texts for my digital analysis.  I am currently at the initial stage of my digital phase, which includes transcription and segmentation of the prayer books.
Concerning the software, I have opted for eScriptorium, a HTR software, which presents three advantages. 1) Being originally programmed for hand-written texts, it can reach an even higher reliability when applied to printed texts. Nineteenth-century Jewish prayer books often included introductions or instructions in the Rashi script, which requires almost the same accuracy as a handwritten text. 2) It can very well be applied to right-to-left languages, including Hebrew. 3) Users have already shared some tested models applied to Hebrew texts, which I could partly re-use. As I am a cultural historian, in this analysis I am aided by my Institute’s Digital Humanities Department and by consultations with external IT experts with affinity with the Jewish Studies. 
At the conference, I will be able to present my approach and will be particularly looking forward to further suggestions and methodological advice from experts in the field.

"Minhag Italia": Digital Approaches to Jewish Print Cultures – Nineteenth-century Italian prayer books

The international conference #DHJewish - Jewish Studies in the Digital Age will bring together more than 60 scholars and heritage practitioners to discuss how the digital turn affects the field of Jewish Studies. The conference is organised by the [Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (C²DH).](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/) 

[For more information, and a PDF download of the program, please see also here.](https://www.c2dh.uni.lu/events/dhjewish-jewish-studies-digital-age) 



In order to meet other participants and for informal chats in the breaks, join us in our [wonder.me room](https://www.wonder.me/r?id=73a12756-8d93-4871-9374-143253bfbf59).