Bedarida, Guido
BEDARIDA, GUIDO
BEDARIDA, GUIDO (1900–1962), Italian author and historian. Born in Ancona of a family of south French origin, Bedarida ultimately settled in Leghorn. The Jewish environment had a deep influence on him, inspiring his poetical and literary work and his eagerness to proclaim his Jewish and Zionist identity. Most of Bedarida's poems deal with Jewish subjects. His first collection of verse, Io Ebreo (1927), appeared under the pen name of Eliezer ben David, which he thereafter used frequently. Bedarida wrote plays such as La casa vuota (1928) and Io t'ho chiamato (1930), and three in the Jewish dialect of Leghorn: Lucilla fa da sé (1924), Vigilia di sabato (1934), and Il siclo d'argento (1935). In the verse dialogues Alla "banca di Memo" and Il lascito del sor Barocas (1950) and in a collection of sonnets, Ebrei di Livorno (1956), he gave a lively picture of the life of the Jews of Leghorn and the local Jewish dialect. His Ebrei d'Italia (1950) described the Jewish contribution to Italian culture.
bibliography:
E. Toaff, in: Scritti… in memoria di G. Bedarida (1966), 5–13 (complete bibliography on p. 15).
[Giorgio Romano]