Venetian Ghetto

The Venetian Ghetto was the area of Venice in which Jews were forced 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 29 March 1516 by decree of Doge Leonardo Loredan and the Venetian Senate. It was not the first time that Jews in Venice were compelled to live in a segregated area of the city. In 1555, Venice had 160,208 inhabitants, including 923 Jews, who were mainly merchants.

Between 1541 and 1633, the Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto Nuovo were made to accommodate the increase in Jewish immigration, but the total number of Jews in Italy did not exceed 25,000. The Jewish community in Venice didn't exceed 5,000 until the early seventeenth century.

In 1797, the French Army of Italy, commanded by the 28-year-old General Napoleon Bonaparte, occupied Venice, forced the Venetian Republic to dissolve itself on 12 May 1797, and ended the ghetto's separation from the city on the 11th of July of the same year. In the 19th century, the ghetto was renamed the Contrada dell'unione.

 

The origins of the name ghetto (ghèto in the Venetian language) are disputed. Among the theories are:

• ghetto comes from "giotto" or "geto", meaning "foundry", since the first Jewish quarter was near a foundry that once made cannons; ghetto, from Italian getto, which is the act of, or the resulting object from, pouring molted metal into a mold, as old state foundries existed in this city quarter
• ghetto formerly meant "street" (like German Gasse, Swedish gata, and Gothic gatwo)
• ghetto comes from borghetto, diminutive of borgo, meaning "little town"
• ghetto is related to the Hebrew word get, meaning a divorce document.

The Oxford University Press etymologist Anatoly Liberman 2009 reviewed many theories and concluded that all were speculative.

Historian Donatella Calabi argued in the documentary Venice and the Ghetto (2017, Klaus T. Steindl) that ghetto comes from the Italian word gettare [dʒet·ˈta:·re] which means "throw away", because the area was before then a waste dump for foundries. The first Jewish arrivals were German and they pronounced the word [ˈɡɛto]—the spelling followed ("h" after "g" changes [dʒ] to [ˈɡ]). The same opinion was published in her book Venezia e il ghetto. Cinquecento anni del "recinto deli ebrei". Marcella Ansaldi, director of the Jewish Museum of Venice, endorses this theory in a history video.

The author of Ghetto: The History of a Word, Daniel B. Schwartz, endorses the theories that the term ghetto did not emerge as a result of Jewish resident segregation, but rather, that the word is a relic of a history that preceded the arrival of the Jewish residents. Schwartz states that the strongest argument in support of this is how the original area to which Jews were restricted was called the Ghetto Nuovo, and not the Ghetto Vecchio. "Were it otherwise, one would expect that the first site of the Jewish enclosure would have been known as the 'Old Ghetto' and the subsequent addition as the 'New Ghetto.'"

 

The Ghetto is an area of the Cannaregio sestiere of Venice, divided into the Ghetto Nuovo ("New Ghetto"), and the adjacent Ghetto Vecchio ("Old Ghetto"). These names of the ghetto sections are misleading, as they refer to an older and newer site at the time of their use by the foundries: in terms of Jewish residence, the Ghetto Nuovo is actually older than the Ghetto Vecchio. 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" (belfry), 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. Areas of Ghetto Nuovo that were open to the canal were to be sealed off with walls, while outward facing quays were to be bricked over in order to make it impossible for unauthorized entry or exit. The area that was considered to be Ghetto Vecchio later on, was once an area where Christians lived and once the Christians relocated, the area became available for non-Venetian Jewish merchants to stay while working in the city temporarily.

Though it was home to a large number of Jews, the population living in the Venetian Ghetto never assimilated to form a distinct, "Venetian Jewish" ethnicity. Four of the five synagogues were clearly divided according to ethnic identity: separate synagogues existed for the German (the Scuola Grande Tedesca), Italian (the Scuola Italiana), Spanish and Portuguese (the Scuola Spagnola), and Levantine Sephardi communities (the Scuola Levantina). The fifth, the Scuola Canton, was possibly built as a private synagogue and also served the Venetian Ashkenazi community. Today, there are also other populations of Ashkenazic Jews in Venice, mainly Lubavitchers who operate a kosher food store, a yeshiva, and a Chabad synagogue.

Languages historically spoken in the confines of the Ghetto include Venetian, Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Spanish, French, and Yiddish.^{[citation needed]} In addition, Hebrew was traditionally (and still is) used on signage, inscriptions, and for official purposes such as wedding contracts (as well as, of course, in religious services). Today, English is widely used in the shops and the Museum because of the large number of English-speaking tourists.

A large portion of the culture of the Venetian Ghetto was the struggle that existed for Jews to travel outside of the ghetto, especially for employment purposes. Life in the Venetian Ghetto was very restricted, and movement of Jews outside of the ghetto was difficult. Inspired by lives of Jewish merchants outside of Venice, Rodriga, a prominent Jewish Spanish merchant, took on the role of advocating for Venetian Jews to have rights similar to others in different locations. Rodriga cited that Jews played a part in the Italian economy which could not be ignored. In return for the changing of Jewish restrictions, Rodriga promised that the Venetian economy and commerce would increase.

 

 

 

 

Today, the Ghetto is still a center of Jewish life in the city. The Jewish community of Venice, which numbers around 450 people, is culturally active. However, only a few Jews actually live in the Ghetto because the area has become expensive.

Every year, there is an international conference on Hebrew Studies, with particular reference to the history and culture of the Veneto. Other conferences, exhibitions and seminars are held throughout the year.

The temples not only serve as places of worship but also provide lessons on the sacred texts and the Talmud for both children and adults, along with courses in Modern Hebrew, while other social facilities include a kindergarten, an old people's home, the kosher guest house Rimon Place, the kosher restaurant Ba Ghetto Venezia, and the bakery Volpe. Along with its architectural and artistic monuments, the community also boasts a Museum of Jewish Art, the Renato Maestro Library and Archive and the new Info Point inside the Midrash Leon da Modena.

In the Ghetto area there is also a yeshiva, several Judaica shops, and a Chabad synagogue run by Chabad of Venice. Although few Venetian Jews still live in the Ghetto, many return there during the day for religious services at the two synagogues still actively used for worship (the other three are only used for guided tours, offered by the Jewish Community Museum).

Chabad of Venice also runs a pastry shop and a restaurant named "Gam Gam" in the Ghetto. Sabbath meals are served at the restaurant's outdoor tables along the Cannaregio Canal with views of the Guglie Bridge near the Grand Canal. In the novel Much Ado About Jesse Kaplan, the restaurant is the site of a historical mystery. Canal boats carrying a sukkah and a menorah tour the city annually during the festivals of Sukkot and Hanukkah, respectively.

Notable residents of the Ghetto have included Leon of Modena, whose family originated in France, as well as his disciple Sara Copia Sullam. She was an accomplished writer, debater (through letters), and even hosted her own salon. Meir Magino, the famous glassmaker also came from the ghetto.

In fiction

• Amitav Ghosh's 2019 novel Gun Island links the Sundarbans to Venice and the Ghetto.
• Geraldine Brooks' 2008 novel People of the Book, which traces the history of the Sarajevo Haggadah, includes a chapter with action taking place in 1609 in the Venetian Ghetto.
• Sarah Dunant's novel In the Company of the Courtesan, written in 2006, features some scenes which take place at a Jewish pawnshop in the Ghetto.
• Susanna Clarke's 2004 novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell features a scene in the Ghetto.
• Hugo Pratt's Fable of Venice. Corto Maltese, Book 8. Graphic Novel. IDW Publishing. ISBN 978-1631409264
• Roberta Rich: "The Midwife of Venice". Ebury Publishing, UK 2011. ISBN 97800944902.
• Rainer Maria Rilke: Eine Szene aus dem Ghetto. in: Rilke: Geschichten von lieben Gott. Insel, Leipzig 1931, Argon, Berlin 2006. (div. weitere Ausg.) ISBN 3-86610-045-0
• William Shakespeare's Shylock in The Merchant of Venice, including in adaptations and related work such as Arnold Wesker's play The Merchant (1978) and Mirjam Pressler's novel Shylocks Tochter.
• The trilogy by Israel Zangwill:
  • Kinder des Ghetto. 1897. Cronbach, Berlin 1897, 1913 (German)
  • Träumer des Ghetto. 1898. Cronbach, Berlin 1908, 1922 (German)
  • Komödien des Ghetto. 1907. Cronbach, Berlin 1910 (German)
• Daniel Silva: A Death in Vienna. 2004. Novel (features scenes in Cannaregio). ISBN 0399151435
• Noah Gordon: The Jerusalem Diamond (1979) includes several chapters based in the ghetto of the 1500s.

• Moses Soave
• History of the Jews in Venice
• Fondaco dei Turchi
• Fondaco dei Tedeschi

Notes