All my life, I
My Jewish mother
from Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, went to
A month later, my
dad got off the boat in
The unique intersections
between Jews and Italians dating back more than 2,000 years are displayed
through Feb. 15 at
"Il Ghetto:
Forging Italian Jewish Identities 1516-1870" leads visitors through
Jewish-Italian relationships dating back to 161 B.C., when envoys of Judah Maccabee came to Rome to ask for help against the Syrian
Greeks.
The exhibit
centers on what
Jewish
moneylenders have indeed played a prominent role throughout
Almost from the
beginning, the Catholic Church had ostracized Jews, especially those who were
prosperous, Rosenberg-Wohl said.
Beginning about
A.D. 1215, by papal order, Jews in
Interestingly,
"Jewish doctors received permission not to have to wear a distinguishing
mark because doctors were of use not just to Jews but to Christians, and you
didn
Between 1517 and
1721, 230 medical degrees were awarded to Jews in
Though Italian
Jews and Christians weren
Aside from being
successful merchants, moneylenders and doctors, Jews were musicians, artisans,
architects and poets. Their patrons included that most famous Renaissance
family, the Medicis of Florence and
One of the stars
of Venetian society was Sara Copio Sullam, who grew up in the Jewish ghetto and hosted a salon
that attracted the city
While Italian
Jews never shook the stigma embodied by Shylock, "they were useful to
Christian communities in
"Jews were
like prostitutes, a necessary evil. You could criticize their activities, but
below the surface, they were extremely valuable."
Jews also played
a huge role in promoting "peace, stability and tolerance," he said.
"If you look at 15th century
The
But anti-Semitism
was alive and well in xenophobic Shakespearean England, Rosenberg-Wohl said.
"Jews were
excluded entirely and not admitted until the late 1600s."
After the
Christians conquered Muslim Andalusia in 1492, Jews were expelled from
The Venetians,
realizing the importance of the Jews, established the ghetto in 1516, which,
along with Livorno became home to some of the Jews driven from
The ghetto gates
were locked at night and patrolled by guards, but Jewish culture thrived. By
1529, the Great German Synagogue opened in
Religious
tolerance didn
By the time the
word "ghetto" first appeared in English, in 1611, there were Jewish
ghettos in
Paola Bagnatori, managing director of the Museo,
said the word "ghetto" came from the Italian word gettare,
"which means to throw or throw away in the Venetian dialect, the G becomes
hard."
Anti-Semitism was
based on jealousy Jews were very
successful merchants who weren
"The
Franciscan monks were the worst," spreading rumors of Jewish child sacrifices
that provoked anti-Jewish riots.
Napoleon
Despite the
religious barriers that kept Jews and Christians from marrying, Italians and
Jews have enjoyed an enduring relationship based on a mutual love of life,
food, mothers, family, art and traditions, Rosenberg-Wohl
said.
That relationship
became critical during World War II, when Adolf Hitler ordered the
extermination of all Jews, Bagnatori said. By 1938,
about 8,000 Italian Jews had been deported to death camps.
[Actually, these
8,000 Jews were mostly Refugees from Germany-Austria, and were Not deported until
"But even
Mussolini resisted Hitler as long as he could," Bagnatori
said.
Jews throughout
The
"Culture
knows no walls," said Rosenberg-Wohl. "When
people live together, their respective traditions bend but do not break. In
some ways, they begin to look like each other. In other ways, they try to
maintain difference."
The spirit of the
exhibit, which has already been toured by thousands of visitors since it opened
in September, is captured in the words of Rabbi Elia Benamozegh
of
"Italian
Jews!
Two great names, two enviable glories, two splendid crowns are joined together
in you. Who among you, in human and
divine glories, does not reverently bow before the prodigious names of Moses
and Dante "