History of the Jews in Italy

[15] A nephew of Rabbi Nathan ben Jehiel acted as administrator of the property of Pope Alexander III, who showed his amicable feelings toward the Jews at the Lateran Council of 1179.

Paola dei Mansi, one of the women of this gifted family, also attained distinction; she had considerable knowledge of the Bible and Talmud, and she transcribed Biblical commentaries in a notably beautiful handwriting (see Jew.

The effect of this on the Italian Jews was apparent in their love of freedom of thought and their esteem for literature, as well as in their adherence to the literal rendering of the Biblical texts and their opposition to fanatical cabalists and mystic theories.

The deputation succeeded in its mission, but the period of grace was short; for Martin's successor, Eugenius IV, at first favorably disposed toward the Jews, ultimately reenacted all the restrictive laws issued by Benedict.

The great centers, such as Venice, Florence, Genoa, and Pisa, realized that their commercial interests were of more importance than the affairs of the spiritual leaders of the Church; and accordingly the Jews, many of whom were bankers and leading merchants, found their condition better than ever before.

Alexander VI welcomed them into Rome, declaring that they were "permitted to lead their life, free from interference from Christians, to continue in their own rites, to gain wealth, and to enjoy many other privileges."

[20] The popes and many of the most influential cardinals openly violated one of the most severe enactments of the Council of Basel, namely, that prohibiting Christians from employing Jewish physicians; they even gave the latter positions at the papal court.

A third Usque, Solomon, merchant of Venice and Ancona and poet of some note, translated the sonnets of Petrarch into excellent Spanish verse, and this work was much admired by his contemporaries.

Although the return to Judaism of the Marrano Usques caused much rejoicing among the Italian Jews, this was counterbalanced by the deep grief into which they were plunged by the conversion to Christianity of two grandsons of Elijah Levita, Leone Romano and Vittorio Eliano.

On the Jewish New Year Day (9 September) in 1553, all the copies of the Talmud in the principal cities of Italy, in the printing establishments of Venice, and even in the distant island of Candia (Crete), were burned.

Here the Duke of Urbino welcomed them graciously in the hope of directing the extensive commerce of the Levant to the new port of Pesaro, which was, at that time, exclusively in the hands of the Jews of Ancona.

There was a pending decree of expulsion of the Jews by the leaders of several kingdoms within Italy, thereby making the Venetian Senate concerned if whether there would be difficulties collaborating with Solomon of Udine.

Furthermore, the slightest assistance given to the Maranos of Portugal and Spain, in violation of the canonical laws, was sufficient to deliver the guilty one into the power of the Inquisition, which did not hesitate to condemn the accused to death.

Special sermons, designed to convert the Jews, were instituted; and at these at least one-third of the Jewish community, men, women, and youths above the age of twelve, was forced to be present.

The Jews of Mantua, Milan, and Ferrara, taking advantage of the favorable disposition of the pope, sent to him an ambassador, Bezaleel Massarano, with a present of 2,000 scudi, to obtain from him permission to reprint the Talmud and other Jewish books, promising at the same time to expurgate all passages considered offensive to Christianity.

In the mid-1650s Ciantes wrote a "monumental bilingual edition of the first three Parts of Thomas Aquinas' Summa contra Gentiles, which includes the original Latin text and a Hebrew translation prepared by Ciantes, assisted by Jewish apostates, the Summa divi Thomae Aquinatis ordinis praedicatorum Contra Gentiles quam Hebraicè eloquitur.... Until the present this remains the only significant translation of a major Latin scholastic work in modern Hebrew.

The victories in Europe of the Turks, who brought their armies up to the very walls of Vienna in a 1683 siege, helped even in Italy to incite the Christian population against the Jews, who remained friendly to the Ottoman Empire.

Of the four rabbis assigned to the committee which was to draw up the answers to the twelve questions proposed to the Assembly of Notables, two, Cologna and Segre, were Italians, and were elected respectively first and second vice-presidents of the Sanhedrin.

In the year 1829, consequent upon an edict of the Emperor Francis I, there was opened in Padua, with the cooperation of Venice, of Verona, and of Mantua, the first Italian rabbinical college, in which Lelio della Torre and Samuel David Luzzatto taught.

He was minister of finance to the self-proclaimed Venetian Republic of San Marco (whose president, Daniele Manin came from a Jewish family that had converted to Christianity in 1759) during the war of 1848 against Austria, and his grateful country erected to him a memorial in bronze.

Jews fervently supported the Risorgimento, identified as Italian nationalists, proved valiant as soldiers in World War I, and, in terms of their relatively small numerical presence within the general population, they later went on to form a disproportionate part of the Fascist Party from its beginnings down to 1938.

[43] Mussolini originally held the view that a small contingent of Italian Jews had lived in Italy "since the days of the Kings of Rome" (a reference to the Bené Roma) and as a result, they should "remain undisturbed".

Although they did not directly threaten Jewish lives, these laws excluded Jews from public education, the military and the government, and they also made it practically impossible for them to engage in most economic activities.

[50] Examples of Italian Jews that operated within the regime until the enactment of the racial laws include Giorgio Morpurgo (lieutenant colonel, staff officer of the Corpo Truppe Volontarie), Aldo Finzi, Renzo Ravenna (podestà of Ferrara and personal friend of Italo Balbo), Ettore Ovazza and Guido Jung (the latter however eventually converted to Christianity in 1938).

Michele Sarfatti has written a thorough compendium of the situation of the Italian Jewish community under the fascist regime in his book The Jews in Mussolini's Italy: from equality to persecution.

The Italian colonial authorities in Ethiopia after the conquest of this African state came into contact with the Beta Israel community and greatly favoured them, enacting special laws to protect them from offences and violences routinely committed against them by Christian and Muslim Ethiopians.

German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop complained to Benito Mussolini that "Italian military circles... lack a proper understanding of the Jewish question."

[56][57] After September 1943, when the Italian northern half effectively came under German occupation, SS-Obergruppenführer Karl Wolff, was appointed as the Supreme SS and Police Leader in Italy tasked with overseeing the final solution, the genocide of the Jews.

Odilo Globocnik, appointed as Higher SS and Police Leader for the Adriatic coastal area, was responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Jews and Gypsies in Lublin, Poland, before being sent to Italy.

[58] Karl Brunner was appointed as SS and Police Leader in Bolzano, South Tyrol, Willy Tensfeld in Monza for upper and western Italy and Karl-Heinz Bürger was placed in charge of anti-partisan operations.