Introduction Miscellanea 2014

The ‘Focus’ section of this edition of ‘Quest’ is composed of very diverse contributions, authored by both junior and senior scholars. The articles cover a wide range of topics, time periods and geographical areas. Overall these very different contributions shed light, each with its own peculiar style and methodology, on relevant aspects of the modern Jewish experience. They fit well within the approach chosen by ‘Quest:’ to devote every issue to original historical research and historiographical debate on Jewish life and history in the modern era, inclusive of all Jewish realities – from the Sephardic to the Ashkenazi world -, to consider Jewish identities in their context, to analyze the shifting forms and functions of anti-Judaic sentiment and the ever changing reactions of Jewish groups to the challenges of modernity.