An Illustrated Shehitah Kabbalah (license to perform ritual slaughter) granted to Daniel ben Moses David Terni

An illustrated shehitah license granted to the future rabbi of Florence. 

The Hebrew Bible distinguishes between animals that may be eaten and those whose flesh is forbidden. However, to be deemed kosher or ritually fit for consumption, meat from permitted animals must also be slaughtered in a religiously prescribed manner. The laws of shehitah (ritual slaughter) govern the way animals are to be killed and who may perform this task. Due to the complexities of the rules and regulations governing shehitah, communal religious leaders began, as early as the thirteenth century, to require potential ritual slaughterers (shohetim) to be examined and approved by a rabbi or another qualified expert. The formal licensing of shohetim by means of a written document was introduced only in the sixteenth century. In Italy as across early‑modern Europe, such kabbalot functioned as portable professional credentials and instruments of communal governance, recording the examination, its witnesses (often including the incumbent community shohet), and the scope of authorization (beasts and/or fowl).

The present license certifies that Daniel ben Moses David Terni (d. 1814), described as an unmarried young man (bahur), was examined in the laws and practice of shehitah and bedikah (checking the animal post-slaughter) and is authorized to slaughter for the community of Ancona. It states that the examination took place in the presence of the community shohet, Obadiah ben Abraham Castile, who signs alongside Jehiel ben Jacob ha‑Kohen (a leading rabbinic authority in Ancona) and Daniel Nahmu ben Moses, another important scholar of the community. The certificate is dated Lag ba‑Omer, 18 Iyyar 5514, which in Ancona fell on Friday, 10 May 1754.

The recipient, Daniel ben Moses David Terni, would later become one of the most prominent and prolific Italian rabbis of his day. Born in Ancona and raised by his maternal grandfather Daniel Nahmu (one of the signatories), Daniel had composed his first work, a collection of homilies, by 1761, at which time he was invited to serve as a preacher in the community of Ancona. He subsequently held rabbinic posts in Lugo and Pesaro and, in 1791, was appointed rabbi of Florence, where he authored his most important work Ikkerei ha-dat, a widely used halakhic compendium. The license is therefore a notably early, securely dated attestation of his burgeoning public career.

The document is vividly painted with two large domestic fowl: a strutting rooster on the left and on the right, a broad‑tailed turkey displayed in full fan, amid foliage and with a small architectural motif between them. The decoration is executed in pen-and-wash—greens, rust-reds, and grey-blue—typical of vernacular Italian Judaica in the mid-eighteenth century and serves as a pointed visual gloss on the text’s authorization to slaughter poultry. The choice of turkey is noteworthy. A New World fowl brought to Europe by the Spaniards and other early explorers, the turkey quickly became associated with elite tables and appears as a favored subject in artworks. Although unknown to classical Jewish sources, it was gradually accepted as kosher by most communities and entered Italian Jewish cuisine as a familiar and much-used ingredient. The painting thus signals the everyday, practical scope of the license.

Physical description

Ink and gouache on parchment, (390 x 197 mm). Text in a neat Italian square Hebrew hand within red wash borders at head and right and left margins; three signatures in Hebrew cursive beneath the text (Jehiel ben Jacob ha‑Kohen; Daniel Nahmu ben Moses; Obadiah ben Abraham Castile). Decoration: lobed terminal head painted in pen‑and‑wash with rooster and turkey amid foliage and a small brick structure. 

Literature

Shimon Vanunu, Entsiḳlopedyah le-hakhme Italya

(Jerusalem, 2018), 167–169, 242.