A synagogue in Venice Ghetto, Cannaregio, Venice

Venice Ghetto

Venice, Italy

Venice Ghetto dates from 1516 and is the oldest ghetto in the world.

History

The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were compelled to live by the government of the Venetian Republic. The English word ghetto is derived from the Jewish ghetto in Venice.

The Venetian Ghetto was instituted on 29th March 1516. It was not the first time that Jews in Venice were compelled to live in a segregated area of the city. In 1552 Venice had 160,000 inhabitants, including 900 Jews, who were mainly merchants.

There are two areas: Ghetto Nuovo (New Ghetto) and the adjacent Ghetto Vecchio (Old Ghetto). These names of the ghetto sections are misleading as the New Ghetto is actually older than the Old Ghetto.

The ghetto was connected to the rest of the city by two bridges that were only open during the day. Gates were opened in the morning at the ringing of the marangona, the largest bell in St. Mark’s Campanile and locked in the evening. Permanent, round-the-clock surveillance of the gates occurred at the Jewish residents’ expense. Strict penalties were to be imposed on any Jewish resident caught outside after curfew.

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Synagogues

Between 1516 and 1797 Venice Ghetto was settled by Jewish communities from various places in Europe. Each of these set-up their own place of worship to practice their own particular religious rites.

In total there are five synagogues in Venice. In the Ghetto Nuovo (the old part of the Ghetto) there are three:

The earliest is the German School Synagogue built in 1527. It was renovated in the late Baroque period and briefly again in the 1800s.

The Canton School Synagogue (or French School) was built in 1530 and agin was renovated/rebuilt in the late Baroque period. The smallest of the synagogues, it has eight wooden panels depicting scenes from the Old Testament.

The Italian School Synagogue
Built in 1575, it is the simplest and smallest synagogue in Venice, accommodating 25 people. It was restored to its current state in 1970. This is a “clandestine”, hidden, synagogue, located in a private building.

The following two synagogues are located in the Ghetto Vecchio:

The Levantine School Synagogue
Possibly built in 1541, it was recently restored (1976-81) by the Save Venice organisation. It is noted for its finely carved woodwork which is believed to be the work of Andrea Brustolon (1662–1732). It was the first Sephardic synagogue in Venice.

The Ponentina or Spanish School Synagogue
Founded in 1581 by the Sephardi community of Spanish and Portuguese origin, expelled from Spain in 1492, it is the largest of the Venetian synagogues.

Jewish Museum

The museum was founded in 1953 by the Jewish Community of Venice.

On view are various examples of goldsmith and textile manufacture and a wide selection of ancient books and manuscripts and some objects used in the most important moments of the cycle of civil and religious life.

The museum is built in two areas, the first one devoted to the cycle of Jewish festivities and to objects used for liturgy, the latter- planned with a greater educational approach- deals with the history of Venetian Jews through images and objects.

Holocaust Memorial

There is both a memorial plaque and memorial bas relief sculptures to Venice’s Holocaust victims in Venice’s Campo del Ghetto Nuovo

The larger memorials are by the Lithuanian–Jewish artist Arbit Blatas which remembers the victims of the Nazi deportation.

The first edition of this monument was installed in the historic Venetian Ghetto on April 25, 1980, on the occasion of Liberazione, the national holiday celebrating liberation from Benito Mussolini’s government and consists of plaques showing deportation, Kristalnacht, the quarry, punishment, execution, the Warsaw Uprising, and the final solution.

On September 19, 1993, in the same Ghetto, then-President of Italy honoured Blatas by dedicating his sculpture The Last Train, a monument honouring the 50th anniversary of the deportation of the Jews from the Venetian Ghetto

Banco Rosso

Banco Rosso is believed to be the only remaining bank of the first three banks in the world. It’s also believed to be where the expression “in the red” comes from.

In reality, Banco Rosso was a pawnshop where the Jews were authorized to grant loans to individuals. These three banks, which survived until the end of the republic in 1797, were identified by red, green and black signs. The name of the bank comes from the red receipt that customers received when they pawned an item.

The banking trade in Venice of this time is recalled in William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice where Shylock, the Jewish money-lender, demands a loan repayment in the form of ”a pound of flesh.”