History of the Jews in Trieste
The nucleus of Jewish Trieste was, for much of the next few centuries, formed by Ashkenazi moneylenders, such as Solomon of Nuremberg, who signed a contract with the city to reside as the "public banker".
[2] The community also included scholars; at least four Jewish students attended the University of Padua and the work of rabbi Menahem Zion Porto still survives in the National Central Library in Florence.
[2] Relations between gentile Trieste and the Jewish community were largely positive until the mid-17th century, when the general economic decline of the city began to fuel resentment against the Jews.
[3] Trieste official explicitly argued for a policy of luring foreign merchants, with a focus on Greek and Jewish traders, with privileges of freedom of commerce and settlement.
Jews in Trieste were granted a range of liberties, including ownership of real property, free and equal engagement in both inland and maritime commerce, artisanry, and manufacturing.
Indeed, after a short occupation of the French in 1797, they began to build two new synagogues in the street of the Jewish schools, but they were demolished during the first quarter of the 20th century when the Old Town was destroyed.
They held prominent political positions, established important firms and founded or were leading figures in insurance companies such as Assicurazioni Generali, RAS, and Lloyd Adriatico.
Importantly, too, the Trieste Jewish community produced towering cultural figures such as the writer Italo Svevo and poet Umberto Saba, both of whom today are commemorated with busts in the city's public gardens.
One of Jewish Trieste's most illustrious sons, Rabbi Professor Samuel David Luzzatto, (1800–1865) known as the Shadal, was a philosopher, poet, Biblical scholar, and translator.
Designed by the Christian architect, Ruggero and Arduino Berlam, its plan followed the trend of other central European communities in a style reminiscent of Middle Eastern buildings, ancient and modern.
[5] By the turn of the 20th century, the Jewish community supported Zionist efforts both philanthropically and as a link to Italy's political and economic interests in the Mediterranean.
Trieste became known as the "gateway to Zion" as a result of the city's ties to the Habsburg commercial networks and connections to trading communities in central and eastern Europe.
After World War II around 1,500 Jews remained in Trieste, they restored the Synagogue and renewed Jewish communal institutions; in 1965 the number lowered to 1,052 out of 280,000 inhabitants.
