Ghetto (venice)

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Map of the Venice Ghetto, 1905
The ghetto is one of the smaller individual islands of the Cannaregio sestiere and is relatively central

The Ghetto in Venice is an island in Sestiere Cannaregio . From the 16th century until its abolition in 1796 under Napoleon, it was the closed residential area for the Jewish population in Venice. The island is the namesake of all ghettos of this era. In later centuries the term was carried over to other institutions.

The Jews of Venice lived in cramped conditions separated from the rest of the population until the end of the republic in 1797, but at the same time enjoyed the protection of the republic. As everywhere in Christian Europe, they were taxed heavily, but in Venice they were also granted protection from the Inquisition and the reprisals that occurred again and again in the lagoon city . Assaults by Christians against Jews were punished. Likewise, the responsible officials in the cities of the Terra ferma , as the territories of Venice were called on the adjoining Italian mainland, were punished, who tolerated the attacks against Jewish residents and not of their own accordsanctioned . From the 16th century to the beginning of the 19th century, Venice's Jews enjoyed legal security that is unique in Europe . The Serenissima and its people have not participated in pogroms against its Jewish population .

geography

Gheto Island (Gheto Novo) is 105 meters long and 93 meters wide. The area covers almost one hectare . It is surrounded by much larger islands of the Cannaregio sestiere and separated from them by channels of different widths over which three bridges lead. In the north, one of the bridges leads over the 18-meter-wide Rio San Girolamo-Ormesini to the island of Ormesini. In the east and in the south-west two more bridges lead over the only six meters wide Rio Gheto to the island of San Leonardo, on which the Gheto Vecchio lies immediately to the south-west of the Gheto Nuovo . In the west, the 14 to 20 meters wide Rio del Battello - Cà Moro separates the ghetto from the island of Chiovere. In the center of the island is the open square of Campo de Ghetto Novo .

The name Ghetto

Campo de Gheto Novo

The origin of the name is not completely clear. It is probably derived from the Italian expression geto for foundry , which over time has become gheto or ghetto . The probable reason for this was the settlement of the Jews in the district of the unpopular iron foundry, hence the connection with "geto". In 1414 he appeared in this form in a file in Venice. In 1562 Pope Pius IV used the word for the first time in a bull for a closed Jewish district ( ghetto ). Towards the end of the 16th century, the word ghetto for closed Jewish residential areas in Italian cities had gained acceptance. Until the early 16th century, the word was spelled both geto and ghetto .

history

There were Jews in Venice as early as the 5th and 6th centuries, but the city generally only tolerated them as traders, but not as residents. Jewish traders of German origin, like other merchants from the Holy Roman Empire, had to live in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi , while Italian Jews lived on the mainland. The first major influx of Jews into Venetian territory occurred in the course of the plague of 1348/49 , as the Jews in Central Europe were blamed for the epidemic and persecuted with blood . In 1396 they were given their first own cemetery on the Lido , not far from San Nicolò.

The establishment of the Gheto novo

Campo de Gheto Novo

In the middle of the 14th century, the city found itself in a precarious economic situation (see economic history of the Republic of Venice ). The wars against Verona and Genoa (1350–1355) and the consequences of the plague had led to a decline in trade. The Grand Council had to deal with the problem of the general lack of money, which affected not only the treasury but the entire population. Permanent approval of Jewish pawnbrokers who were already active in Mestre and Treviso was also being considered for Venice. Their activity enabled new capital to flow into the economic cycle, and the responsible bodies of the republic soon recognized the benefits for the republic. So Jews were taken in, but only given temporary residence permits, so that they had to continue to commute between the mainland and the city. In the meantime, demarcated and sometimes walled Jewish quarters , known as Giudaiche , had emerged in the colonies from around 1325 .

With the economic recovery in Venice, tensions between the individual social groups soon returned, which were reflected in more or less short-term harassment on the part of the authorities. So the Jews had to label their clothes. From 1397 they had to wear a yellow mark on their clothes when they were in Venice. The same was true for the colonies of Venice . From 1496 they should wear a yellow headgear, or from 1497 a black hat. They were not allowed to purchase building land; on the other hand, they were allowed to take off their discriminatory clothing in times of danger and maintain armed bodyguards for their protection , that is, to protect the capital needed by Christians that passed through their hands. The legal titles, which changed at short notice, were continuously adapted to the current needs of the republic.

The influx of Franciscans and Dominicans into the city did not make the situation any easier for the Jews and the Signoria . To find out about possible papal become clear repression because of its tolerant policy, the Doge was Cristoforo Moro at Cardinal Bessarion a report in the order in which it should state whether could harm the daily handling of Jewish Christians. In his letter of December 18, 1463, the cardinal declared that there was no danger to the salvation of Christians and that the Jews should be respected. Venice could therefore continue with its pragmatic policy and look forward to the reactions from Rome without concern.

The unsatisfactory state of denied or granted, temporary admission was finally ended on March 29, 1516 by a decree that assigned Jews a permanent place to live in the area of ​​the Gheto novo . About 700 heads of families and their relatives were expected.

The pragmatic attitude of the republic to the Jewish inhabitants, in which ideological or religious motives only played a marginal role and which should continue to characterize the relationship between the Serenissima and the Jewish community in the future, is exemplified by the history of the founding of the ghetto.

The Gheto novo is located within the Cannaregio sestiere in the area of ​​an abandoned foundry. The permission to settle there was initially only valid for northern European and Italian Jews. The ghetto was locked every evening and the gates were guarded at night; the costs of guarding were borne by the residents. The procedure of closing and guarding certain residential areas at night was quite common at that time. For the German merchants it was practiced in the Fondaco dei Tedeschi , while Venetian merchants lived in a district in Alexandria, Egypt , where they were locked up at night and on Muslim holidays.

Only the highly respected Jewish doctors were allowed to leave the ghetto at night if necessary, but were checked by guards and had to give the names of the patients.

The gheto vecchio

Gheto Vecchio

In 1474 Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella of Castile ascended the Spanish throne. A bloody persecution of the Jews began; a wave of intolerance spread over the entire Spanish territory, which at that time extended to Sardinia and Sicily . From 1496 Portugal , whose King Manuel I was a son-in-law of Ferdinand and Isabella, also took part in the persecutions. Anyone who did not agree to leave the country within a short period of time was forcibly baptized. This policy sparked migration across the Mediterranean. The group of Jewish immigrants who arrived in Venice after detours via stations in port cities of the eastern Mediterranean, the Levant , were called the Levantines in Venice.

Another wave of immigration was triggered by the defeat in the Battle of Agnadello in 1508, in which Venice was inferior to the League of Cambrai and numerous Jews from the Terra ferma sought protection in the urban area. The bankers from Mestre also fled to Venice. Tensions in the city between the residents and the refugees increased and the right of residence of Jews was discussed again in the Senate.

The economic potential that the immigrants brought with them was used pragmatically and a solution was found. An adjacent area belonging to the nobleman Leonardo Minotti was rededicated to expand the ghetto by promising the owner high rental income. In 1541 the Jews were allowed to live in this area. The new ghetto with the name Gheto vecchio was primarily populated by Levantines . The term “vecchio” ( Italian for “old” ) does not refer to the settlement of Jews, but the area was already known as a foundry quarter.

In 1589, oriental Jews, such as the Spanish and Portuguese Jews and Conversos , often pejoratively referred to as Marranos , were given permission to settle in the Gheto vecchio .

The gheto novissimo

In 1611, 5,500 people lived in an area of ​​around three hectares , while in 1552 there were only 900. The living conditions in the ghettos were extremely cramped, so the houses were built more and more upwards, while the height of the individual floors was reduced more and more, so that one could hardly stand in the rooms. After the losses caused by the plague from 1630 to 1632, many Jews left the city and settled in other cities in Italy, for example in the liberal Livorno .

In 1633 the gheto novissimo was finally created , in which there were spacious houses and palaces and in which mainly Spanish and Portuguese Jews lived. During this time the Jews were recognized and valued in Venice, they could study in Padua , the Venetian university . There they were subject to almost no restrictions; the same laws applied to them as to all other students. Only the tuition fees were considerably higher for Jews. After graduating , they worked as scientists or doctors. A rich Jewish culture developed in Venice itself.

Decline of the ghetto

At the same time as the economic and political power of Venice fell, the ghetto fell. After the losses caused by the plague, in which Venice lost a third of its population, many Jews left the city, on the other hand the influx of Jews who suffered from persecution in Northern and Eastern Europe continued.

The plague and the political changes in the Adriatic region caused serious economic and social problems in the republic. The financial burden on the Università became more and more oppressive. In 1641 the tensions between Venice and the Turks escalated again in their struggle for supremacy in the Mediterranean, so that the Jewish merchants suffered heavy financial losses due to the loss of trade routes and trading partners. The tributes to the city could hardly be raised, and the poverty in the ghetto became more and more oppressive. Between 1681 and 1686 the Università had to pay 3,000,000 ducats . The peace concluded in the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1699 after the Turkish War brought Venice no advantages, the debt increased and the Jews had to pay another 800,000 ducats by 1700.

Simultaneously with the political decline of Venice, the number of its authorities with their undefined and overlapping responsibilities increased, each of which issued a flood of ordinances and thus made life unbearable for the ghetto inhabitants. The question of the fair distribution of the tax burden led to tension among nations in the ghetto itself.

Due to the impending insolvency of the banks, a new contract was signed between the parties in 1739, the various agreements with the nations were repealed and converted into a contract applicable to all three nations. Nevertheless, the banks' liquidity was not assured.

Venice, incapable of reforms, reacted to the threatening situation for the republic with further repression against the Jewish community, which was now determined not only by economic motives but also by anti-Semitic affects .

The opening of the ghetto

With the conquest of Venice by Napoleon , the discriminatory laws were repealed, the gates of the ghetto were burned in 1797 and the residence obligation was repealed. However, the Jews only received all other rights like all citizens with the equality of 1848.

By then, many of its residents had long since left the city due to the economic decline; the ghetto was in a bad structural condition and only the poor population remained. Whole rows of houses were broken off, so that the face of the ghetto changed again.

20th century and the ghetto area today

Most of the 286 Jews still living in the ghetto during fascism were deported by the German occupiers of Italy from 1943 onwards and most of them were murdered. The reliefs by the Lithuanian sculptor Arbit Blatas on Campo de Gheto Novo in 1980 commemorate the victims . The artwork consists of seven bas-reliefs known as the Holocaust Memorial .

After the almost complete annihilation of the Jewish population, survivors of the concentration camps and others who had managed to escape returned to the ghetto. Today there is again a small Jewish community in the whole of Venice of around 500 people (as of 2016), of which only a small part (around 30 people) live in the ghetto. For the residents there are shops, a kosher butcher, a specialty bakery for the production of matzos , a retirement home and in addition to the Scole , which serve as a museum or other profane purposes, there are also two active ones, the Schola Levantina and the Schola Ponentina (Spagnola), which can be used alternately seasonally. There are also three historical synagogues (Scola Grande Tedesca, Scola Canton and the Scola Italiana). The ghetto is under intensive police protection. The officers have their own guard on site.

  • Memorial plaques

  • Relief on the deportations

  • The Holocaust Memorial, Venice

The Scole

Entrance to the Scola Levantina

During the 16th century synagogues were built in the ghetto for the “nations” , called Scole as in German the “school”. These synagogues are hardly noticeable in the cityscape, as they were built either in the outer shape of residential houses or on their roofs due to the prohibition on building synagogues on Venetian land. The Scola Grande Tedesca was the first scola in Geto novo to be built in 1528/29. Thanks to its five arched windows, it can also be recognized from the outside. The Scola Canton from 1531 was a synagogue for the Ashkenazi , their Bima dates from the 17th century. The Scola Italiana dates from 1571 and is crowned with a small dome . In the Gheto vecchio there is the Scola Levantina , the interior of which is attributed to the sculptor Andrea Brustolon , and the Scola Spagnola , the largest of the Venetian synagogues. It dates from the second half of the 16th century and was visited by the Marranos and Jews of Spanish and Portuguese origins. In 1635 it was completely rebuilt in the style of Baldassare Longhena . The interior with its fittings of multi-colored marble, gilded stucco and wood paneling and the oval women's gallery with the wooden balustrade shows itself as a great baroque room setting.

Università

Università was the name of the community of Venetian Jews from different nations. It consisted of the Natione Tedesca (Ashkenazi) of the Gheto novo, the Natione Levantina in the Gheto vecchio and the Natione Ponentina in the Gheto novissimo, Spanish and Portuguese wealthy merchants who had settled directly in Venice after Lepanto in 1571, without the detour via eastern Mediterranean cities to take. They differed in their origins, their language, their clothing, their cultural background and even in their religious rites, they had different agreements with the republic and they did not enjoy the same privileges. The three districts also differed in terms of their structure and the activities carried out in the ghettos: the pawnbrokers were located in the Gheto novo, the quarter with the poorer population, and the Gheto Vecchio was a trading quarter in which all rooms on the ground floor were used commercially. In a climate of tolerance, small craft businesses and workshops have now settled here. The gheto novissimo was a residential area. The process of rapprochement between the nations was slow.

Within the Università, the community enjoyed a high degree of autonomy . Towards the end of the 17th century, the Signoria recognized the Parnassim as negotiating partners. The Parnassim , the community leaders , were elected by a representative assembly, the Kahal gadol . In the first half of the 16th century there were twelve rulers, in 1585 their number was reduced to six. Resolutions of this body were passed with a two-thirds majority. You could be elected twice to the committee.

The general assembly dealt with questions of hygiene , kosher slaughter, and social issues such as helping poor families.

The main topic was the tax problem. The republic levied neither head tax nor sales tax, but demanded a fixed amount each, which depended on the changing needs and debt level of the Serenissima . It was up to the Università to raise the total amount and to distribute the burden among those affected. Those responsible for distributing and collecting taxes were selected with great care and sworn in before the Torah .

In addition to the taxes paid to the republic, these taxes were used to finance general services such as payment of the cantor , the synagogue staff and the Christian ghetto guards. Internal jurisdiction was exercised by rabbis .

Jewish Museum - Museo Ebraico

Since 1953 there has been a Jewish museum in Ghetto Nuovo , the Museo Ebraico di Venezia . In particular, it shows objects related to the Jewish festival calendar, valuable textiles from the synagogue - some of which were made in the city - the history of the population group, immigration (the nation ), the book trade in the city and based on it. The collection in the “Renato Maestro” book archive serves this purpose in particular. And it commemorates the individual victims of the deportations to the German concentration camps . If you want, you can take advantage of specially trained tours through the house, the Scholen (synagogues) and the district.

graveyard

The Jewish cemetery, restored in 1999, is located on the Lido near the port opening at the grave fields of San Nicolò at the airport. The originally separate location of the graves according to communities is no longer preserved. Gravestones have been around since the 18th century; a cemetery existed here earlier.

See also

Movie

literature

  • Rafael Arnold: The Calimani Family in Venice . In: Kalonymos. Contributions to German-Jewish history . Issue 2. Salomon Ludwig Steinheim Institute, July 2004, ISSN  1436-1213 , p. 11 f . ( steinheim-institut.de [PDF]).
  • Silke Berg: Il ghetto di Venezia. The first Jewish ghetto in Europe . Bergauf, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-00-000575-7 .
  • Donatella Calabi: Venezia e il Ghetto. Cinquecento anni del "recinto degli ebrei" , Bollati Boringhieri editore, Torino 2016. ISBN 978-88-339-2763-3 . (First publication: Ghetto de Venise 500 ans ; Éditions Liana Levi, Paris 2015.)
  • Riccardo Calimani : Storia del Ghetto di Venezia . Arnoldo Mondadori, Milan 1995, ISBN 88-04-39575-3 (Italian).
    • German Riccardo Calimani: The merchants of Venice. The history of the Jews in the Lion Republic . Claasen, Düsseldorf 1988, ISBN 3-546-41699-6 .
    • as paperback The Merchants of Venice. The history of the Jews in the Lion Republic . dtv, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-423-11302-2 .
  • Brian Pullan: The Jews of Europe and the Inquisition of Venice, 1550-1670 . Barnes & Noble, Oxford 1983, ISBN 0-389-20414-5 (English).
  • Renata Segre, Shaul Bassi (eds.): Gli ebrei a Venezia: 1938-1945: una comunità tra persecuzione e rinascita . Il Cardo, Venice 1995, ISBN 88-8079-048-X (Italian).

reception

  • Hugo Pratt : Venetian legend (=  Corto Maltese . Volume 8 ). Carlsen Comic, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-551-71669-2 (first edition: 1985).
  • Mirjam Pressler : Shylock's daughter. Venice in 1568 . 1st edition. Alibaba, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 3-927926-29-9 .
    • as a paperback Shylock's daughter. Venice in 1568 . Bertelsmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-570-30172-9 .
  • Rainer Maria Rilke : A scene from the ghetto . In: Stories from the Dear God . Insel, Leipzig 1931.
    • New edition A scene from the ghetto . 1st edition. Artemis & Winkler, 2008, ISBN 978-3-538-06355-6 .
    • and various other issues, e.g. B: A scene from the ghetto . Argon, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-87024-667-9 (audio book CD).
  • Israel Zangwill : Children of the Ghetto . tape 1 (1897) and volume 2 (1913). Cronbach, Berlin (English: The Children of the Ghetto . 1892.).
  • Israel Zangwill: Dreamer of the Ghetto . Cronbach, Berlin 1922 (English, original title: Dreamers of the Ghetto . 1898. First edition: 1908).
  • Israel Zangwill: Comedies of the Ghetto . Cronbach, Berlin 1910 (English, original title: Ghetto Comedies . 1907.).
  • Barbara Goldstein : The Evangelist . Bastei Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 2008, ISBN 978-3-404-15794-5 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ La comunità ebraica di Venezia e il suo antico cimitero. Ricerca a cura di A. Luzzatto , Volume I. Milan 2000.
  2. ^ B. Ravid: The Religious, Economic and Social Background and Context of the Establishment of the Ghetti of Venice. In: G. Cozzi (Ed.): Gli Ebrei e Venezia secoli XIV – XVIII. Milan 1983, pp. 211-259, here: p. 220.
  3. ↑ Arbit Blatas , curriculum vitae in the AskART database , online at: askart.com / ... (restricted access)
  4. ^ Homepage of the Museo Ebraico di Venezia with information on its exhibition and history (Italian and English).
  5. ↑ The memorial wall for the victims of the Shoah
  6. ^ Jewish Cemetery of S. Nicolò (two images) and wmf.org
  7. ↑ on San Nicolò and the dating of the burial ground, compare Stefano Levi Della Torre: since 1386 with some photographs of stones. And the Festa della Sensa to the church

Web links

Commons : Ghetto (Venice)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on September 16, 2006 .

Coordinates: 45 ° 26 ′ 43 ″  N , 12 ° 19 ′ 35 ″  E