Cáceres versus Abinum. Wedding presents in the Jewish nation of Pisa

Abstract

This paper studies an important aspect of the Hebrew marriage, the wedding gifts among the husband and the wife, from unpublished documentation from the sefardi community established in the Italian city of Pisa since the end of the 16th century. However, apparently, no text has been preserved directly testimony the issue. For this reason this study has analyzed and edited a record of the first hefty volume of atti civili -signature 1286 of the historical archive of the Hebrew community of Pisa- from January and February 1685, in which there are a lot of references about it. The filed record -the number 39 entitled “Cáceres versus Abinum”- consists of the demand for the return of the wedding gifts requested by Ester de Cáceres to Yehoshua Abinum and his daughter Luna (Ester’s daughter-in-law) to be able to fulfill the payment of the family debts.

Keywords

• matrimonio hebreo, judíos sefardíes, comunidad sefardí de pisa, regalos de boda