Italian Jews

Italian Jews can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living in Italy or in a narrower sense to mean the ancient community who use the Italian rite, as distinct from newer arrivals who use the Sephardi or Ashkenazi rite.

Divisions

Italian Jews historically fall into four categories.

1. The original Italian community that resided in central Italy since Roman times; see Bené Roma.
2. Spanish and Portuguese Jews, i.e. Sephardim who arrived in Italy following the expulsions from Spain in 1492, Portugal in 1497 and the Kingdom of Naples in 1533. These include both those expelled at the time and crypto-Jewish families who left Spain and Portugal in subsequent centuries and reverted to Judaism. Prominent communities were those of Venice, Pisa and Livorno (Gorneyim). See also: Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily
3. Ashkenazi Jews, living mainly in the northern part of the country.
4. The Jews of Asti, Fossano and Moncalvo ("Appam"). These represent the Jews expelled from France in the Middle Ages. Their liturgy is similar to that of the Ashkenazim, but contains some distinctive usages descended from the French Jews of the time of Rashi, particularly in the services for the High Holy Days.

There are some historical links between Italy and the Sephardi Jews of the eastern Mediterranean.

• Dalmatia and many of the Greek islands, where there were large Jewish communities, were for several centuries part of the Venetian Republic, and there was a "Levantine" synagogue in Venice. Many Italian Jews today have roots in these places, especially Corfu.
• In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many Italian Jews (mostly but not exclusively from the Spanish and Portuguese group) maintained a trading and residential presence in the Near East and North Africa, where they formed an elite group known as Francos: they generally retained their European nationalities and were often appointed as consuls by the European powers.

Today there are further categories:

• The Jews of San Nicandro of San Nicandro Garganico;
• Iranian Jews living in Rome and Milan;
• Libyan Jews, mostly in Rome.

History

Main article: History of the Jews in Italy

Italian Jews can be traced back as far as the second century BCE: tombstones and dedicatory inscriptions survive from this period. At that time they mostly lived in the far South of Italy, with a branch community in Rome, and were generally Greek-speaking. It is thought that some families (for example the Adolescenti) are descendants of Jews deported from Judaea by the emperor Titus in 70 CE.

The Italian Jewish community as a whole has numbered no more than 50,000 since it was fully emancipated in 1870. One of the most famous of Italy's Jews was Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707-1746) whose written religious and ethical works are still widely studied.

During the Second Aliyah (between 1904 and 1914) many Italian Jews moved to Israel, and there is an Italian synagogue and cultural centre in Jerusalem. (There is also an Italian synagogue in Istanbul.)

Italian rite Jews

The native Italian Jews, as distinct from the Sephardim and the Ashkenazim, are sometimes referred to in the scholarly literature as Italkim (Hebrew for "Italians"; pl. of "italki", Middle Hebrew loanword from the Latin adjective "italicu(m)", meaning "Italic", "Latin", "Roman"; italkit is also used in Modern Hebrew as the language name "Italian"). They have traditionally spoken a variety of Judeo-Italian languages, sometimes collectively referred to in academic literature as Italkian.

Religious traditions

The customs and religious rites of the Italian-rite Jews are in some ways a bridge between Ashkenazi and Sephardi Jews, showing similarities to both; they are closer still to the customs of the Romaniotes (native Greek Jews). A sub-division is recognised between minhag Bené Romi, practised in Rome, and minhag Italiani, practised in northern cities such as Turin, though the two rites are generally close.

In matters of religious law, Italian-rite Jews generally follow the same rules as the Sephardim, in that they accept the authority of Isaac Alfasi and the Shulchan Aruch as opposed to the Ashkenazi customs codified by Moses Isserles (the Rema). However their liturgy is different from that of both these groups. One reason for this is that Italy was the main centre of early Jewish printing, enabling Italian Jews to preserve their own traditions when most other communities had to opt for a standard "Sephardi" or "Ashkenazi" prayer-book.

It is often claimed that the Italian prayer-book contains the last remnants of the Judaean/Galilaean Jewish tradition, while both the Sephardi and, to a lesser extent, the Ashkenazi rites reflect the Babylonian tradition. This claim is quite likely historically, though it is difficult to verify textually as little liturgical material from Eretz Yisrael survives. Additionally, some Italian traditions reflect the Babylonian rite in a more archaic form, in much the same way as the prayer-book of the Yemenite Jews. Examples are the use of keter yitenu lach in the kedushah of all services and of naḥamenu in Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals) on Shabbat, all of which are found in the Siddur of Amram Gaon.

Pronunciation of Hebrew

The Italian pronunciation of Hebrew is similar to that of conservative Spanish and Portuguese Jews. Distinguishing features are:

• beth raphe is pronounced [v] (unlike Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who pronounce it as [b]);
• he is often silent, as in the family name "Coen";
• vav is normally [v] as in most Hebrew dialects, but can become [w] in diphthongs (as in the family name "Anau"). Thus, in construct masculine plurals with male singular possessive suffix יו-, the pronunciation is not [-av] but [-au];
• zayin is often pronounced [dz] like Italian voiced "z";
• ayin is pronounced [ŋ] (like English "ng" in "sing"). In some dialects, like the Roman, this sometimes becomes [nj], like the Italian combination "gn";
• final tav is pronounced [d];
• speakers in communities south of the the La Spezia-Rimini isogloss, and Jewish communities transplanted north of this, pronounce dagesh forte as a true geminate sound, in keeping with the pronunciation of double letters in Italian.

This pronunciation has in many cases been adopted by the Sephardi, Ashkenazi and Appam communities of Italy as well as by the Italian-rite communities.

Ashkenazi Jews

There have been Ashkenazi Jews living in the North of Italy since at least as early as the late Middle Ages. In Venice, they were the oldest Jewish community in the city, antedating both the Sephardic and the Italian groups. Following the invention of printing Italy became a major publishing centre for Hebrew and Yiddish books for the use of German and other northern European Jews. A notable figure was Elijah Levita, who was an expert Hebrew grammarian and Masorete as well as the author of the Yiddish romantic epic Bovo-Bukh.

Another interesting community is that of Asti, Fossano and Moncalvo, which was descended from Jews expelled from France in 1394. Their rite, known as Appam (from the Hebrew initials for those three cities), is similar to the Ashkenazi, but has some peculiarities drawn from the old French rite, particularly on the High Holy Days. These variations are found on loose-leaf sheets which the community uses in conjunction with the normal Ashkenazi prayer-book; they are also printed by Goldschmidt.

In musical tradition and in pronunciation, Italian Ashkenazim differ considerably from the Ashkenazim of other countries, and show some assimilation to the other two communities. Exceptional are the north-eastern communities such as that of Gorizia, which date from Austro-Hungarian times and are much closer to the German and Austrian traditions.

Sephardi Jews

From 1442, when the Kingdom of Naples came under Spanish rule, considerable numbers of Sephardi Jews came to live in Southern Italy. Following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, from Portugal in 1495 and from the Kingdom of Naples in 1533, many moved to central and northern Italy. One famous refugee was Don Isaac Abravanel.

Over the next few centuries they were joined by a steady stream of conversos leaving Spain and Portugal. In Italy they ran the risk of prosecution for Judaizing, given that in law they were baptized Christians; for this reason they generally avoided the Papal States. The Popes did allow some Spanish-Jewish settlement at Ancona, as this was the main port for the Turkey trade, in which their links with the Ottoman Sephardim were useful. Other states found it advantageous to allow the conversos to settle and mix with the existing Jewish communities, and to turn a blind eye to their religious status; while in the next generation, the children of conversos could be brought up as fully Jewish with no legal problem, as they had never been baptized.

The main places of settlement were as follows.

1. Venice. The Venetian Republic often had strained relations with the Papacy; on the other hand they were alive to the commercial advantages offered by the presence of educated Spanish-speaking Jews, especially for the Turkey trade. Previously the Jews of Venice were tolerated under charters for a fixed term of years, periodically renewed. In the early 1500s these arrangements were made permanent, and a separate charter was granted to the "Ponentine" (western) community. The flip side was the confinement of the Jews to the newly-established Venetian Ghetto. Nevertheless for a long time the Venetian Republic was regarded as the goldene medinah for Jews, equivalent to the Netherlands in the seventeenth century or the United States in the 1900s.
2. Sephardic immigration was also encouraged by the Este princes, in their possessions of Reggio, Modena and Ferrara. In 1598 Ferrara was repossessed by the Papal States, leading to some Jewish emigration from there.
3. In 1593, Ferdinando I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, granted Portuguese Jews charters to live and trade in Pisa and Livorno.

On the whole the Spanish and Portuguese Jews remained separate from the native Italian Jews, though there was considerable mutual religious and intellectual influence between the groups.

The Scola Spagnola of Venice was originally regarded as the "mother synagogue" for the Spanish and Portuguese community world wide, as it was among the earliest to be established, and the first prayer book was published there: later communities, such as Amsterdam, followed its lead on ritual questions. With the decline in the importance of Venice in the eighteenth century, the leading role passed to Livorno (for Italy and the Mediterranean) and Amsterdam (for western countries). The Livorno synagogue was destroyed in the Second World War: a modern building was erected in 1958-62.

Many merchants maintained a presence in both Italy and countries in the Ottoman Empire, and even those who settled permanently in the Ottoman Empire retained their Tuscan or other Italian nationality, so as to have the benefit of the Ottoman Capitulations. Thus in Tunisia there was a community of Juifs Portugais, or L'Grana (Livornese), separate from, and regarding itself as superior to, the native Tunisian Jews (Tuansa). Smaller communities of the same kind existed in other countries, such as Syria, where they were known as Señores Francos, though they generally were not numerous enough to establish their own synagogues, instead meeting for prayer in each other's houses.

Discography

• Italian Jewish Musical Traditions from the Leo Levi Collection (1954-1961) (Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel, 14, edited by Edwin Seroussi): contains examples of Italian liturgical music from the Italiani/Bené Romi, Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions

See also

• History of the Jews in Italy
• List of Italian Jews

External links

• List of all Jewish Italian synagogues
• Union of Jewish Communities in Italy
• Jewish Community of Rome
• Jewish Community of Milan
• Jewish Community of Venice
• Jews in Lugo
• Ferdinando I De Medici, Document Inviting Jewish Merchants to Settle in Livorno and Pisa, in Italian, Manuscript on Vellum, Florence, Italy, 10 June 1593 (fac-simile)
• Siddùr Benè Romì (in Italian)