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Lombardy
Until the middle of the nineteenth century and the unification of Italy, very few Jews lived in Lombardy. Today, however, Milan represents the second largest Jewish population in Italy after ...
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Casale Monferrato
The Ashkenazic synagogue of the lovely, rich city of Casale Monferrato on the floodplain of the Po River was constructed in 1596, in the center of the old Jewish quarter. It is one of the oldest ...
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Asti
The of this administrative center is unique for two reasons. First, its liturgy is special: called astigiano in Italian and Appam in Hebrew, its language is named after the initials of the three ...
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Mondovi
The Jewish presence in Mondovi appears to date back to the end of the 16th century, and they played an active part in the town’s economic life. Among them was Donato Levi, who founded the ...
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Cherasco
In the small town of Cherasco, in the province of Cuneo, you can make an appointment to visit a very interesting on private property. Hardly bigger than a living room, the synagogue features ...
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Saluzzo
Saluzzo’s small Jewish quarter maintains its former appearance in the area around Via Deportati Ebrei. In one of the courtyards on this street stands a building containing a on its third ...
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Carmagnola
The most elegant of the region’s Baroque synagogues is found in the little city of Carmagnola near Turin. The city’s Jewish community was forced to live in a ghetto beginning in 1724. ...
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Turin
Turin is one of the finest examples of the crossroads of Jewish cultures: Ashkenazim from the north, Provençals following the expulsion, Sephardim following the Inquisition, Italians for 2 ...
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Piedmont
Unjustly slighted as a tourist destination, Piedmont is one of the richest regions of Jewish heritage in Italy, with magnificent small Baroque synagogues like those of Carmagnola, Casale ...
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Modena
Modena has the great merit of being known for quite different monuments. Architectural and religious monuments, as in many Italian cities, and gastronomic masterpieces such as its famous vinegar. ...
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Ferrara
Ferrara, a sublime city with a medieval centre listed as a World Heritage Site, does not appear to be a vast, museum-like enclosure encircled by a city. On the contrary, its historic centre is ...
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Bologna
Bologna is famous for having been one of Europe’s leading cities in the Middle Ages. Thanks to its large population living within its walls, the wealth of local agriculture, the development ...
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Emilia-Romagna
The rich region of Emilia-Romagna is definitely worth a week visit. Located on the south of the floodplain of the Po River, it includes cities like Bologna, home to a museum that is a model of ...
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Pisa
The Jewish presence in Pisa probably dates back to the 12th century, but could be older. Benjamin of Tudela described the city as follows: “All the inhabitants are courageous; no king or ...
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Livorno
A visit to Livorno is required in the name of remembrance, even if the urban renewal projects of the early twentieth century around the port and the bombings of the Second World War in 1943-1944 ...
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Siena
Siena’s ghetto was created at the same time as that of Florence in 1571. The large Jewish presence in the city is verified by documents from the beginning of the thirteenth century that ...
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Pitigliano
Located at the extreme south of Tuscany among the hills and cypresses, the borough of Pitigliano rises from a rocky pinnacle. Once called “little Jerusalem” by Tuscan Jews, the ...
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Florence
The former ghetto of Florence was located in the heart of the old city center near the market in a zone totally destroyed and the end of the twentieth century, situated today between Via ...
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Tuscany
With cities like Livorno and Florence, Tuscany represents an important part of the history of Jewish life in Italy, although evidence of the longstanding Jewish presence here is less abundant ...
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Rome
The Jews in the capital of Italy are perhaps the oldest Romans of all. They have settled in the same ancient neighborhoods in the heart of the Eternal City for 2000 years, making their homes in ...
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Faro
Capital of the Algarve region in southern Portugal, the city of Faro was home to a large Jewish community, expelled in 1497. A number of them continued to live there as conversos. Jews did not ...
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Lisbon
If Jews had to flee the city in the 16th century, Lisbon was also the city that welcomed Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition or the transit of Jews fleeing Nazism to the American continent. But ...
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Castelo de Vide
The Jews who lived within the walls of the little hilltop town of Castelo de Vide were engaged in the traditional activities of commerce, crafts, and sometimes medicine. The population grew after ...
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Tomar
Although there was an organized community in Tomar at the turn of the fourteenth century, indicated by the inscription on the tombstone of Rabbi Joseph of Tomar, who died in Faro in 1315, it was ...
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Belmonte
The little community of Belmonte of between 100 and 300 souls was “discovered” in 1920 by the engineer Samuel Schwarz. Its existence was revealed to the world by Frédéric ...
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Porto
Porto is the capital of northern Portugal. It is the country’s second largest city after Lisbon. It is best known for its historic monuments and its wine. The Jewish presence dates back to ...
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Hervás
Although the Judería in Hervás was small, a local proverb that “in Hervás there are many Jews” made the quarter famous. It stood close to the Ambroz River near the town’s exit. ...
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Trujillo
The community of Trujillo is first mentioned in 1290. Just before the expulsion, it had 150 members. All of them went to Portugal. Not long ago, construction in the back of a pharmacy brought to ...
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Cáceres
Cáceres had a fairly sizable Jewish presence after the Christian reconquest. In 1479, 100 married Jews were listed in a community with some 650 members. They lived in two juderías: the ...
Location
Estremadura
It is likely the history of Spain’s Jews began in Estremadura. Vestiges from the third century bear witness to them, and, according to the twelfth-century chronicler Abraham ibn Daud, the ...