Recovering Lombroso's Jewish identity is important for understanding the context in which he lived and worked. Italian statehood and positivist science had particular meaning relative to Jewish emancipation. Lombroso turned his back on Judaism and Jewish tradition, but interacted over the years with a circle of Jewish colleagues. Salvatore Ottolenghi, Pauline Tarnowsky, Helen Zimmern, Max Nordau and Jean Finot influenced his professional life in more than one way, as did members of his family, such as David Levi. Lombroso contributed to the defence of Jews from the surge of anti-Semitism in the late nineteenth century and he even managed a measure of critical analysis in his discussion of Jews and crime. Although he failed to overcome the prejudices and misconceptions at the centre of his outlook, the Lombroso who engaged ‘the Jewish question’ emerges as a more complicated and conflicted character than the Lombroso associated with ‘the criminal man’.