“The Lord of Hosts Is with Us”: Italian Rabbis Respond to the GreatWar

t In the spring of 1915, Italian Jews faced the first real test of their integration into "body of the nation" since they had obtained their definitive political-juridical emancipat about sixty years earlier. This essay analyzes the interpretation of the war offered by Ital rabbis, and in particular by the "military rabbis"—those serving in a role first introduced the Italian military at the beginning of this conflict. By analyzing sermons, prayers, discours and statements published by Italian rabbis in the Jewish press, both Zionist and non-Zion and by examining documentation generated by the military rabbis working on the war fr this article focuses on the content of rabbinical teachings during the war and examines t religious and cultural references with which Jewish religious leaders tried to combine harmonize the values of the Jewish tradition with new patriotic and national