COLOMBO, SAMUEL

COLOMBO, SAMUEL (1868–1923), Italian rabbi and scholar. Born in Pitigliano, Colombo completed his rabbinical studies at Leghorn under Israel Costa and Elia Benamozegh and graduated from the University of Pisa. From 1900 he served as rabbi and head of the rabbinical seminary in Leghorn. In 1912 he was accused before an Italian court of having applied Jewish law by refusing to conduct the wedding of a mamzer (see RMI, 29 (1963), 207ff.), but he won his case. Colombo was president of the Italian Rabbinical Federation and a keen Zionist. Among his published writings are Babel und Bibel (1904) against Delitzsch, Il pensiero religioso di G. Mazzini (1905), La coscienza di un popolo (1923), Una questione di Divorzio secondo il Diritto Ebraico (1895), and Sepoltura o Cremazione? (1908); Vivere per un' Idea (1958), L'Idea dell'Ebraismo (1958), Verso Sion (1920). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: A.S. Toaff, S. Colombo (1948); A. Pacifici, Interludio (1959); G. Laras, S. Colombo (1968); Y. Colombo, in: RMI, 35 (1969), 21ff. (Alfredo Mordechai Rabello)