Jewish itineraries in Italy

The Jews in Italy, an age-old history

The Jewish presence on the Italian Peninsula can be traced back as far as 200 B.C. during the late Roman Republic.  Epigraphs dating back to the 2nd, 3rd and 4th centuries were found in Rome, Aquileia, Naples and Ostia, especially in catacombs (Villa Torlonia and Villa Rondanini in Rome and Venoso in Basilicata). These communities were not proper “keillot”, but smaller settlements.  Other traces of the Jews in Italy are provided by the Roman emperors’ edicts and legal documents such as those from Constantine, Teodosio, Teodorico and Giustiniano.  The Jews of Rome were likely the first to settle on the Italian peninsula before the Diaspora and therefore, they lay claim to being to the oldest Jewish community in Europe.  They are neither Sephardic nor Ashkenazic, but “Italkim”.  Over the centuries, these more ancient Jews of Rome moved in all directions along the peninsula, in order to find better life opportunities; some had migrated to Italy from Spain, especially after the epic 1492 Jews and Muslim expulsion from Spain and its dominion.  Northern European Jews began seeking shelter in north and central Italy from the 1200s, when they had to leave their homes, after the first pogroms in France and Germany.  This explains why Italian Jewry is especially diverse, a mix of Italian, Sephardic, Ashkenazic, Persian and Libyan Jews.The history of Italian Jews is actually more complicated than this, and, over the decades, several historical studies have been conducted, in order to shed some light on a population which has lived in the shadows and on the fringes of history, until recent times. Italy reveals several amazing signs of the resident Jews’ long and textured past, perhaps more than does any other country in Europe.  An interesting starting point is the New Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, the so called MEIS, opened in 2017 in Ferrara, in the former prison of the town. The MEIS explores the long and complex history of Italian Jews and the relationship between Christianity and Judaism.  Ferrara is a lovely town in northeastern Italy between Bologna and Venice and once a medieval center of Jewish life and an important Renaissance city, dominated by a large castle, the hub of the powerful Este family, and ringed by historic walls and ramparts. Ferrara is off the beaten path as far as Jewish life and popular tourism in Italy is concerned, but MEIS may change this. Venice is an important Jewish landmark in Italy because of its “ghetto”, established by decree of Doge Leonardo Loredan on March 1516, to become one of the first places where people were forcibly segregated and surveilled because of religious beliefs.  The term “ghetto” itself originated here.  The area chosen for the Jewish Ghetto, a corner of Cannaregio, the quiet northwest quadrant of Venice, had once been used as a foundry (“get” in Venetian dialect) and over time the neighbourhood’s polyglot residents corrupted the word to ghetto.  After the fall of “La Serenissima” in 1797, Napoleon decreed the end of the Jewish segregation. This became definitive when Venice was annexed to the Kingdom of Italy in the 1800s.  Today, the Jewish Museum and five splendid synagogues are visitable: the Ashkenazic Great German Schola, built in 1528 and therefore the most ancient, the Canton, the Italian, the Levantine and the Spanish.  Few know that there are more synagogues in Piedmont than in any other Italian region: sixteen. Their great variety reveals the rich texture of Jewish history and the centuries-old presence of Jews in this Region. The most iconic monument of Turin itself, the Mole Antonelliana, was originally supposed to be the synagogue of the cosmopolitan and wealthy capital city of the newly born Kingdom of Italy, founded in 1861; in fact, two years earlier, the local Jewish community commissioned this monumental synagogue as a tangible symbol of emancipation. Famous architect Antonelli designed a great interior expanse in a giant building. Yet soon after, the colossal area was considered unbearable by the Jewish community, who donated it to the Turin municipality. We offer a Jewish itinerary in Piedmont, which includes the outstanding synagogues of Vercelli, Casale Monferrato, Carmagnola, Cherasco, Saluzzo, to mention the most significants.

Tuscany is likewise rich in Jewish memories, starting in Florence with its outstanding 19th century “Tempio Maggiore”. The Jews of Tuscan history are strongly intertwined with the Medici’s family as it was just Cosimo I, first Grand Duke of the glorious and ancient dynasty, who opened the Ghetto of Florence in the late 15th century, forcing all the Jews living in his duchy to move there or to leave the country for good.  Traveling south, before reaching Rome (the city that once housed one of the oldest Jewish community in the world) we can visit Siena, Monte San Savino, and Pitigliano, that once were seats of ancient Jewish communities. The Jewish community of Rome faced traumatic times since 1555, when the Pope Paolo IV Carafa issued the bull “cum nimis absurdum”.  He locked up almost 3000 Jews of Rome and of the Papal State in two ghettos, Rome and Ancona.  Men were required to wear the “sciamanno”, a distinctive mark on their clothes, or a pointed yellow hat.   Women wore a yellow shawl or a kerchief.  Property ownership was prohibited as well as practicing common job, such as those of lawyers, public employees, notaries or painters; Jewish doctors could practicing but not on Christian patients. Only unskilled jobs were left to the Jews of the Papal State, ragmen, second-hand dealers, fishmongers, and occasionally pawnbrokers. A long phase of poverty and humiliation afflicted the Jews of Rome.  All restrictions were abolished only in 1870 when the papal state was taken over by the Savoia dynasty and annexed to the Kingdom of Italy. At that time in history Rome became the capital of modern Italy, and the Jews were granted full citizenship.  The Ghetto walls were torn down and the entire district modernised.  Finally in 1900 a monumental synagogue was built; today its square dome is one of the most popular landmarks of Rome’s skyline.  The Jewish district is considered a pleasant and even glamourous area of Rome today.

It occupies a central part of the city by the Tevere River, and is surrounded by ancient Roman monuments.  Elegant art galleries and restaurants, many of which are kosher, plus bakeries and wine shops make this neighbourhood one of the most popular of the Italian capital city.