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Located 90 km south of Turin and 45 km from the French border, the city of Cuneo was once home to one of the most important Jewish communities in Piedmont. Today, made up of about fifteen people, the community stands out for its attachment to its synagogue. Located in the heart of what was once the ghetto of the city, the synagogue was built in the seventeenth century and largely modified in ...
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In the fourteenth century, a Jewish community settled behind the ramparts of Rhodes erected by the knights of Saint John after their flight from the Holy Land. These Jews had the strange destiny of finding common ground with the Crusaders in their war against the Ottomans, only to be forced by Grand Master Pierre d’Aubusson to convert to Christianity or flee. The waves of expulsion from ...
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In the late twelfth century, Jewish traveler Benjamin de Tudela encountered a lone Jew on Corfu. Three centuries later, however, Jews had become so numerous here that the Venetians, then in control of this much-coveted, strategically important Adriatic island, had them confined to ghettos. A local Christian legend, which, strangely, spoke of Judas as a native of Corfu, made Jewish life here ...
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Hasköy is the other Jewish suburb of Istanbul located on the northern bank of the Golden Horn. When the Ottoman Empire was at its height in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Hasköy was slightly more populous than Balat and contained a greater concentration of elite Jews. One of the most famous inhabitants of the quarter, the prestigious physician from Granada Moshe Hamon, was an ...
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During the late Middle Ages, the city of Trani was home to a significant minority population of Jews. This community reached a high point during the thirteenth century. The giudecca of Trani was compact in size, diverse in architectural character and largely open to the city around it, which indicates a specific form of coexistence. At the moment of its greatest physical expansion, we find in ...
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The Jews first aarrived in Ancona around 1000 C.E. In the fourteenth century, the city hosted a significant Jewish community, whose activities were organized around the port and commerce with the Orient. In 1541, Pope Paul III encouraged Jews expelled from Naples and, in 1547, even the Marranos from Portugal to settle in Ancona, granting them protection from the Inquisition. A hundred or so ...
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The history of the Jews in Senigallia is similar to that of the Jews of Urbino or Pesaro. In the eighteenth century, the Jews numbered 600 of a total population of approximately 5500 inhabitants. When French troops withdrew, the populace sacked the ghetto, killing thirteen Jews and forcing the others to flee to Ancona. In 1801, Pope Pius VII forced the Jews to return and rebuild their ghetto. ...
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Documents attest to a Jewish presence in Pesaro dating back to 1214. The expulsion of the Jews from the papal states in 1569 led numerous Jewish families to Pesaro, which became the most important center of Jewish life in the Duchy of Urbino. The annexation of the Duchy by the Pope radically changed the Jews’ situation. Three years later, in 1634, 500 Jews were forced to move into a ...
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Under the protection of the Gonzaga dukes, Jewish life flourished in the city of Mantua during the course of centuries. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, come 7000 Jews lived in the city, representing 8% of the population. Nevertheless the walls of the ghetto, established in 1612, fell only with the arrival of Napoleon Bonaparte’s soldiers. Unfortunately, not much remains of ...
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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 in Piedmont. The discreet exterior facade has nothing remarkable to recommend it, but the interior with its numerous gild wood decorations and frescoes is one of the most remarkable in Italy. After ...
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The synagogue 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 small towns where it is still actively spoken (Asti, Fossano, Moncalvo). Annie Sacerdoti and Luca Fiorentino note in their Guida all’ Italia Ebraica (Guide to Jewish Italy) that it is ...
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In the small town of Cherasco in the province of Cuneo, you can make an appointment to visit a very interesting synagogue on private property. Hardly bigger than a living room, the synagogue features magnificent woodwork and gilding. A plaque at the entrance commemorates the founding of the synagogue in 1797. The Baroque tevah in the room’s center is made of polychrome wood. The aron ...
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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 synagogue on its third floor. Constructed in the eighteenth century and remodeled in 1832, the prayer hall was designed to accommodate more than 300 persons. Notice the beautiful carved door, as well as the gilt ...
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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 the former ghetto, in Trastevere, and on both sides of the Tiber River where it is crossed by the Ponte Fabricio or Ponte Quattro Capi. Not only one of the oldest communities of the peninsula, Roman ...
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The Jewish presence in Cavaillon goes back to at least the thirteenth century. The Jews lived on rue Hébraïque, which became their obligatory residence in 1453 and has changed very little since. Permission to build a synagogue was granted in 1494, and it was probably on the vestiges of this older building that the new place of worship was built in 1772. On the second floor is the men’s ...
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Carpentras had a Jewish population when it was yielded to the papacy by the king of France in 1274. In the fourteenth century, the Jewish quarter on rue Fournaque, near the town walls, was home to ninety families. In 1459 it was sacked by rioters and sixty people were killed. The community was forced to move to rue des Muses in the town center, which became rue des Juifs, a carriere closed ...
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In the beautiful synagogue of Ahrida, one of the oldest in Istanbul, the tevah assumes the shape of a caravel symbolizing not only Noah's Ark but also the vessels that in 1492 transported the Jews banished from Spain to the shores of the Ottoman Empire. A royal edict issued in Granada, only recently recaptured from the Arabs, gave the Jews no choice but conversion to Catholicism or exile. ...
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