Destinations - Italy

There is a danger because the Italian language gave the world the internationally known word, ghetto that a wrong message could be sent. Whilst one cannot gloss over acts of discrimination over the centuries, Italy has been a kinder home to the Jews than most.

They have lived there since the 2nd century BCE and Rome’s Jewish community is the oldest in Europe. There were also communities in northern and southern Italy, Sardinia and Sicily.

With the rise of Protestantism, the Catholic Church took vigorous measures against all other religions and ordered the expulsion of Jews from the cities, except Rome, Ancona and Avignon.

The 17th and 18th centuries were known as the Age of the Ghetto. This did not stop Jewish cultural and spiritual life from flourishing. The birth of Hebrew publishing was in Italy where the first printing house was established in 1475.

During the First World War and most of the Fascist period Jewish rights were not harmed. But, the German-Italian Alliance in 1938 altered things. The holocaust claimed over 7,000 Jews, mainly deported to Auschwitz. Around 2,000 fought with the partisans. A Jewish cemetery, on the Lido, dating from the 1380s, has recently been opened in Venice. Some tombstones pre-date the famous cemetery in Prague.

Emilia Romagna is one of the richest sites of Jewish history in Italy and a new hi-tech Jewish museum has been opened in the regional capital, Bologna.