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This article describes the making of the Jewish ghetto the influx of Jews that caused it and what is was like

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By Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw

Today, nearly half of Italy's 35,000 Jews call Rome home. Jews here have a uniquely Roman style of worship and even preserve remnants of their own Judaic-Roman dialect. That's because, unlike most of the world's Jewish people, Roman Jews are neither Sephardic (descended from Spain) nor Ashkenazi (descended from Eastern Europe). Italy's Jews came directly from the Holy Land before the Diaspora, first arriving in Rome in the second century BC as esteemed envoys (hoping to establish business ties) and then, after Rome invaded Judaea in the first century AD, as POWs sold into slavery. These first Jews lived, like other foreigners, outside the city - across the river, in Trastevere.

The Romans favored the Jews because they were well-networked throughout the empire, they didn't push their religion on others, and most important, they paid their taxes. But with the fall of the Roman Empire, the status of Jews declined. As Christianity enveloped Rome, the state denied Jews their full rights as citizens, and once the pope became literally the king of Rome, the Church enforced laws that limited the spread of the Jewish faith (such as no proselytizing, no new synagogues, no intermarriage). The severity of these laws varied from pope to pope. Through most of the Middle Ages, the standing of Rome's Jews fluctuated, but for the most part they prospered and were often held in high regard as physicians, businessmen, and confidants of popes. The community in Trastevere was even allowed to spill across to the opposite bank of the Tiber.

Then, in 1492, Spain expelled its Jews, with similar removals following in other European countries. Rome's Jewish population doubled, swelling with refugees. By the 1500s, the Catholic Counter-Reformation - begun to combat rising Protestantism - turned its attention to anything deemed a "heresy" or simply not Catholic, including Judaism. In 1555, Pope Paul IV forcibly moved all of Rome's Jews into the undesirable flood zone inside a bend of the Tiber River, creating a ghetto of some 4,000 Jews packed into a miserable seven acres of mucky land. There they lived - in cramped conditions, behind a wall, with a curfew - for three centuries. They could go out by day, but had to return before the gates were locked at night. Jews were forced to wear yellow scarves and caps, and were prohibited from owning property or holding good jobs. During Carnevale (Mardi Gras), they were forced to parade down Via del Corso while Christians lined the streets and shouted insults. Through this long stretch of oppression, the synagogue was the only place Jews could feel respected and dignified. It's no wonder such loving attention was given to the Jewish tools of worship.

Rome's Jews enjoyed a little boost in freedom when Napoleon occupied the city (1805-1814) and after the ghetto walls were torn down in 1848. But it was only after Italian unification in 1870 - when a secular government replaced the religious rule of the Vatican - that the ghetto's inhabitants were granted full rights and citizenship. When Rome became the country's capital, the city - ashamed of its shoddy Jewish quarter - destroyed the old ghetto and modernized the district, giving it the street plan we see today.

Then came the rise of fascism. Even though Mussolini wasn't rabidly anti-Semitic, he instituted a slew of anti-Jewish laws as he allied himself more strongly with Hitler. When Mussolini was deposed and the Nazis occupied Rome late in the war, the ghetto community was suddenly in even greater danger. Of the 13,000 ghetto dwellers, 2,000 were sent off to concentration camps. Only a handful came back.

A measure of healing and reconciliation came with Pope John Paul II, who took a special interest in fostering relations with the Jewish community. It was John Paul II who finally acknowledged that the Church should have intervened more forcefully to defend the Jews during the Holocaust. In his last letter, John Paul II thanked Rome's emeritus rabbi for allowing him to initiate this Catholic-Jewish rapprochement he felt was so long overdue.

Gene Openshaw is the co-author of the Rick Steves Rome guidebook.

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By Rick Steves and Gene Openshaw Today, nearly half of Italy's 35,000 Jews call Rome home. Jews here have a uniquely Roman style of worship and even preserve remnants of their own Judaic-Roman dialect. That's because, unlike most of the world's Jewish people, Roman Jews are neither Sephardic (descended from Spain) nor Ashkenazi (descended from Eastern Europe).

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Explore the Oldest Jewish Ghetto in Venice

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Explore the Oldest Jewish Ghetto in Venice

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The ¨ghetto", usually having a negative connotation, was an enclosed neighborhood was made for Jews. It was actually referred to the foundry that the district replaced

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Explore the Oldest Jewish Ghetto in Venice | Marriott Bonovy Traveler

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Situated in the Cannaregio district, Venice's historic Jewish ghetto is the fulcrum of the Jewish community, home of synagogues and more.

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In 1516 Venice's council debated on whether the Jewish should remain in the city. They allowed the Jews to stay but they were confined to Ghetto Nuova, a small dirty island which became the world's first ghetto. Soon restrictions were placed on the Jews living in the ghetto. They were only allowed to leave during the day and were locked inside at night, they were only allowed to work at pawn shops, act as money lenders, work the Hebrew printing press, trade in textile or practice medicine.

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Venice is considered one of the world's most beautiful and romantic cities. Its canals and streets remain the same as they were hundreds of years ago. For Jews, however, Venice is also a place with a dark history; it is where the world's first ghetto was instituted and the quality of Jewish life often shifted with the whims of the ruling power.

Early History

While Jews did not settle in Venice until the 13 th century, many Jewish merchants and moneylenders visited and worked in the city beginning with the 10 th century. Jews were mentioned in documents in 945 and 992 forbidding Venetian captains from accepting Jews onboard their ships. In 1252, Jews were not allowed to settle in the main part of the city, so they settled on the island of Spinaulunga (also spelled Spinalonga) which later became Giudecca.

In 1290, Jewish merchants and moneylenders were allowed to work in Venice, but were forced to pay a special tax of five percent on all their import and export transactions. The Jewish moneylenders received permission to settle in the city in 1385. They were given a piece of land to be used as a Jewish cemetery in 1386.

The Senate decided to expel the Jews from the city in 1394 due to fears of Jewish encroachment in certain economic spheres. They were allowed to work in the city for limited two-week intervals. Those who were not moneylenders were allowed to remain in the city, albeit with certain restrictions. Jews were forced to wear various markings on their clothing to identify themselves as Jews. In 1394 they had to wear a yellow badge, it was changed to a yellow hat in 1496 and to a red hat in 1500. Other anti-Jewish laws including the prohibition against owning land (enacted in 1423) and from building a synagogue (enacted in 1426). On occasion, Jews were forced to attend Christian services or become baptized. Anti-Jewish feelings were prevalent and three Jews died in a blood libel in 1480 and more died after another libel in 1506.

Despite the harsh economic hardships, Jewish culture was allowed to develop to a certain degree. Daniel Bomber, known as Aldo Manuzio (1449-1515), the first Italian printer, used Hebrew fonts in his publications. This marked an increased open-mindedness toward Jewish culture among Venetian and Italian intellectuals.

Venice received an influx of immigrants from Spain and Portugal following the expulsion in 1492. Isaac Abravanel was one of the well-known Sephardic immigrants who came during this period.

The Ghetto

In 1516, the doges, Venice's ruling council, debated whether Jews should be allowed to remain in the city. They decided to let the Jews remain, but their residence would be confined to Ghetto Nuova, a small, dirty island; it became the world's first ghetto. The word "ghetto" is from the Italian getto meaning "casting" or Venetian geto meaning "foundry."

Jews of Italian and German origin moved into this ghetto. The latter came to Venice because of persecution in their communities, while the former came from Rome and from the South, where they faced anti-Semitism.

Jews from the Levant, who practiced Sephardic traditions, moved into Ghetto Vecchio in 1541. The Spanish and Portuguese Jews also came to Venice in the late 16 th century and were the strongest and wealthiest community in the ghetto. Many of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews were Marranos and became "Jewish" again once moving to Venice. The Spanish/Portuguese and Levantines lived in the Ghetto Vecchio.

The German, Italian and Levantine communities were independent, yet lived side by side to one another. A hierarchy existed among them, in which the Sephardic (Spanish and Portuguese)/Levantine Jews were at the top of the scale, Germans in the middle and Italians at the lowest rung.

Further restrictions were placed on Jews living in the ghetto. They were only allowed to leave during the day and were locked inside at night. Jews were only permitted to work at pawn shops, act as money lenders, work the Hebrew printing press, trade in textiles or practice medicine. Detailed banking laws kept their interest rates low and made life difficult for many of the poor pawnbrokers and moneylenders.

Once they left the ghetto they still had to wear distinguishing clothing, such as a yellow circle or scarf. Jews were faced with high taxes and the Talmud was burned in 1553, due to arguments between two Venetian printing companies. Hebrew books were not allowed to printed for the next thirteen years, however, the Jewish printing press and publishing companies continued to thrive until the early 19 th century.

One period that was particularly difficult for Venetian Jews was during the 1570's, after the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Jews were blamed for the war and expulsion threats were made. The German and Italian Jews survived the war by making financial concessions. They decreased their interest rate to five percent per annum, the price they had to pay for stable residence in the ghetto. This was a major setback, however, the Jews were able to recover.

Despite the poor living conditions, Jewish community life continued to grow inside the ghetto. Life centered around Jewish ritual and customs and the celebration of the Sabbath. The Ashkenazic Jews built two synagogues on the top floors of the ghetto building, the Scola Grande Tedesca in 1528-29 and the Scola Canton in 1531. The Levantine Jews, who had more money, built an extravagant synagogue in 1575 and it was housed in its own building in Ghetto Vecchio. The Spanish Jews built a synagogue in 1584. Jews were also able to build their own free school, the only one in Venice. Christians came to the ghetto to visit Jewish banks, doctors or shop for spices, jewelry and fabrics.

The 17 th century was the period of the ghetto's golden age; Jewish commerce and scholarship flourished. Jews controlled much of Venice's foreign trade by the mid-1600s. The Sephardic groups gained influence and wealth in the Venetian economy. The residents of the Ghetto Nuovo also began to have greater economic stability and began participating in maritime trade, which had before only been allowed for those in Ghetto Vecchio.

The commercial activity of the ghetto was halted during the plague that spread throughout Europe in 1630-31 and hit the Jewish community of Venice in the summer of 1630. An estimated 450 Jews lost their lives to the plague and many merchants left the city. The end of the plague was marked by public ceremonies and fasts. The Jewish community recovered and they opened a new prayer and study halls. The ghetto's boundary were extended and the Nuovissimo ghetto was opened to house wealthy Jewish residents.

In this period, Venice was home to many famous physicians who later served the Queen of France, the royal Court in Spain and figures such as Pope Paul III. Famous personalities included, Rabbi Simone Luzzato, who served as Venice's rabbi for 50 years. Luzzato published the Discorso circa il stato defl'Hebrei (Discourse on the State of the Jews), which examined the social and political conditions of Jews in a non-Jewish environment.

Another famous personality was Rabbi Leon da Modena. Modena's writings include poetry, several dictionaries, commentaries on the Bible, the Sur Meda and a tractate against gambling, which was written at age thirteen.

A third famous personality was Sara Coppio Sullam, who was the ghetto's leading poets, she held a salon that drew many educated men and aristocrats.

Venice was the center for Jewish knowledge and learning for many Sephardic Jews. Venetian Sephardic scholars traveled from Venice to start new communities in London and Amsterdam. Venice also served as a center for Kabbalah in the early 18 th century. One of the community's most influential Kabbalists was Rabbi Mosheh Zacuto, who was active from 1645-1673.

The economic conditions for Jews deteriorated at the end of the 17 th century. Anti-Jewish feelings were prevalent in the 18 th century and limitations were placed on Jewish economic activity. The Jewish population decreased from 4,800 in 1655 to 1,700 in 1766 because many prominent families left for Leghorn or other port cities. Taxes were extremely stiff and Jewish ship owners and merchants lost their shops between 1714-1718. Finally in 1737, the Jewish community had to declare bankruptcy.

In February 2016 Venice marked the 500 th anniversary of the establishment of the world's first Jewish Ghetto, kicking off a year-long commemoration including keynote speakers, concerts, exhibitions on Jewish life in Venice, workshops, art installations, conferences, and more. The celebration will also include the first ever performance to take place in the ghetto of William Shakespeare's "the Merchant of Venice," featuring U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg presiding over the mock trial within the play.

Emancipation Onward

Everything changed in 1797 when Napoleon's troops reached Venice and tore open the ghetto gates. Swept up in the fervor, many Jews volunteered for Napoleon's army. Venice became part of the Hapsburg empire in 1798 and some of the restrictions were reintroduced, however, the ghetto was not officially reestablished. Many Jews chose to continue to live in the ghetto, but the wealthy Jews left to live in other parts of the city.

In 1848-49, there was a short-lived Venetian Republic run by Daniele Manin, who had Jewish origins. After Italy's unification, in 1866, Venetian Jewry achieved an equal status. One famous Venetian Jew, Luigi Luzzati, began his career in politics organizing an aid society for gondoliers. He continued to serve in the Italian Parliament for 50 years and was elected Italy's first Jewish Prime Minister in 1910.

Following World War I, many Jews left the city because of rising tensions. Jews did not face restrictions in the early years of Mussolini's rule, but the situation changed in the 1930's because of Italy's relationship with Germany. About 1,200 Jews were living in Venice when German troops occupied the city in 1943. Between November 9, 1943 and August 17,1944, 205 people were deported to extermination camps, including Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi. At the end of World War II, 1,500 Jews were living in Venice and the number gradually decreased over the years. By 1965, 844 Jews remained in Venice.

Venice Today

Today Venice has a Jewish population of about 500 peoples, only 30 of them live in the former ghetto. The ghetto houses all of the city's major Jewish institutions. The community is officially Orthodox. Jews are prominent in business and as doctors, but no longer are involved in the banking industry.

Venice is the only Italian city where one can find an intact ghetto that has remained unchanged since its founding. The site is so prominent in the city's history that there is a water taxi stop that lists the ghetto (in Italian and Hebrew) as one of the nearby sites and, at night, a neon sign with Hebrew letters is turned on above the dock.

Venice has five synagogues, a Jewish bookstore, a Jewish publishing house, a social center, a rest home, a museum, a yeshiva and a kosher restaurant.

Jewish Tourist Sites
Campo del Ghetto Nuovo
The ghetto consists of an open square surrounded by "skyscrapers" on three sides. Because of the lack of space in the ghetto, many six-story "skyscrapers" were built. Laws forbid building separate synagogues, hence the synagogues were built on the top floors of the buildings because there should be no obstructions between the congregation and the heavens.

Jewish Museum (Museo Ebraico)

The museum contains Jewish ritual objects that were made or used in Venice, such as Seder plates and spice boxes. Three of the ghetto's five synagogues come under the auspice of the Jewish Museum.

The first of these is the Tedesca or German synagogue, located to the left of the Museum. The oldest synagogue in the ghetto, built in 1528, it can be found on the fifth floor of the building. It was restored in 1848, 1860, 1910 and in 1975. The synagogue's service room houses the Museum of Hebrew Art.

On the right side of the Museum is the Canton Synagogue, which was built in 1531. This synagogue served as the center for Jews from Germany, France and Switzerland. One can fine a beautiful ark with carved and gilded doors. It has been restored and altered a number of times and is still in use today for wedding ceremonies.

The Italian synagogue, built in 1575, served the Italians, the poorest group in the ghetto. The synagogue is quite simple reflecting its status among the communities. It was restored to its original appearance in 1970.

The Jewish home for the aged-Casa di Riposo Israelitica houses only ten people, but the building is increasingly used by the community to welcome travelers and to provide kosher meals.

On both sides of the Casa di Riposa building are Holocaust memorials designed by sculptor Arbit Blatas. The Nazis gathered Jews for deportation in the square. One of the monuments is a bronze panel depicting the Last Train, the other monument has bronze reliefs that show the Nazi brutality against the Jews.

In the ghetto, there is also a kosher grocery store, run by Chabad, as well as a kosher restaurant.
Ghetto Vecchio
Inside this section of the Venetian ghetto, at the Campiello delle Scuole, are Venice's two functioning synagogues, which were built by the Sephardim. The Spanish Synagogue is a four-story story yellow stone building, constructed in 1550, as the center for Spanish and Portuguese Jewry. The building was restored in 1635. Its interior is more ornate than the Levantine Synagogue and contains three large chandeliers and a dozen smaller ones, as well as a huge sculpted wooden ceiling. This synagogue may be the only in the world that has held services continuously from 1550 until the present day. It is open for services from Passover until the end of the High Holiday season

The Levantine Synagogue, which is a two-story yellow stone building, catered to the Jews of Middle East descent. Inside the sanctuary are two dozen hanging lamps and an ornate wooden bima. It was built in the late 16 th Century. Today it is used for prayer services from the period after the High Holy Days until Passover.

In the alleyways facing the Levantine synagogue, one can find the Calle del Forna, where there is an oven that is still used today for making Matzah.

One can also find, in this section of the ghetto, the bet midrash (study house) of Leon da Modena and the Midrash Vivante, which was founded in 1853.
Ghetto Nuovissimo
There is not much left of this section of the Venetian ghetto, besides a few mezuzah indentations found on the doorposts of some of the buildings.
The Jewish Cemetery
The land for the Jewish cemetery at the Lido di Venezia was given to the Jews in 1386. One can find the grave of Rabbi Leon da Modena, as well as Sarah Sullam. A new cemetery was opened in the 1800's in the adjacent area. On the graves from this period, one can find portraits of the deceased.

Other sites of Jewish interest in Venice include a stone with an engraved Star of David found in St. Mark's Cathedral. According to legend, the stone was brought to Venice from the Temple in Jerusalem. Above the stone is a mosaic of Moses. Mosaics of King Solomon, Joseph and Abraham can also be found in the cathedral.

In the Palace of the Doges, next to Saint Mark's, there are statues of King Solomon and other biblical figures.

For more information about Jewish life in Venice, contact:

Sources: Ancient Ghetto of Venice
Chabad of Venice
The Ghetto of the Lagoon: A guide to the history and art of the Venetian Ghetto. Translated by Roberto Matteoda. 1987-2000.
The Jewish Cemetery at Lido of Venice
Jews and Synagogues: A practical Guide. EdizioniStorti Venezia. 1999
Jewish Art and Civilization. Edited by Geoffrey Wigoder
"Venice." Encyclopedia Judaica. CD-ROM edition, Judaica Multimedia
" Venice."
Tigay, Alan M. "Venice" The Jewish Traveler

Photo credits: Lido cemetery photos copyright © PhotoArts, photos of medieval Jews, " milah," menorah and inside of Canton Synagogue copyright © Jews and Synagogues. EdizioniStorti Venezia. 1999, the remainder copyright © Mitchell Bard.

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Venice is considered one of the world's most beautiful and romantic cities. Its canals and streets remain the same as they were hundreds of years ago. For Jews, however, Venice is also a place with a dark history; it is where the world's first ghetto was instituted and the quality of Jewish life often shifted with the whims of the ruling power.

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Smithsonian Article about Jewish Ghetto in Italy 

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Smithsonian Article about Jewish Ghetto in Italy 

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This article gives a map and provides detailed information on the history and depictions of this ghetto.

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The Centuries-Old History of Venice's Jewish Ghetto

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A look back on the 500-year history and intellectual life of one of the world's oldest Jewish quarters

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The Venice ghetto was one of the first places where people were forcibly segregated because of religious beliefs.

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The Ponte delle Guglie. To the right of the bridge is the passage to the Jewish ghetto. Credit... Andrea Wyner for The New York Times

A journey into one of the world's oldest Jewish ghettos, where this year a long, rich history is commemorated.

The Ponte delle Guglie. To the right of the bridge is the passage to the Jewish ghetto. Credit... Andrea Wyner for The New York Times

Though you can still see the recesses in the walls where the hinges of the portals once hung, the Venice ghetto has not been a prison since Napoleon seized the city and tore down the gates in 1797. Today, no barrier or signpost marks where Venice ends and its ghetto begins. Cross a canal on an arched bridge, duck through a sottoportego (an alley tunneling through a building), disappear down a vent in the urban fabric - you come and go just like everywhere else in the maze of this island city.

But linger long enough in the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo, the generous, frayed, tree-flecked plaza that anchors this corner of Cannaregio (the quiet northwest quadrant of the city) and you'll feel the wall of the past closing in. Half a millennium of history does not transpire without stamping the soul of a place.

Established by decree of Doge Leonardo Loredan on March 29, 1516, the Venice ghetto was one of the first places where people were forcibly segregated and surveilled because of religious difference. The term itself originated here; the area had been used as a foundry ("geto" in Venice dialect) and over time the neighborhood's polyglot residents corrupted the word to ghetto.

I traveled to La Serenissima in December to see how the city was gearing up for the anniversary of the establishment of the ghetto. A major exhibition called "Venice, the Jews and Europe: 1516 to 2016" (on view from June 19 to Nov. 13) was being planned for the Ducal Palace, and during the last week of July, Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" will be staged (in English) for the first time in the confines where its most hallucinatory scenes take place. Venice being Venice, there will also be glittering parties, celebrity-filled fund-raisers and fancy dress galas, starting with the invitation-only performance of Mahler's First Symphony at La Fenice opera house on March 29.

But in the course of my visit, what I became most curious about was the mood of the current Jewish community of 450 people. Venice is such an impossibly beautiful fantasy, it seems astonishing that ordinary people, Jews among them, actually live there. How, I wondered, did deep-rooted Jewish families feel about their past - and future - in this ancient, vulnerable city?

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Inside the Scuola Grande Spagnola, or Great Spanish Synagogue, possibly the work of Baldassare Longhena. Credit... Andrea Wyner for The New York Times

My first answer came inside the humble, rectangular sanctuary of the circa-1532 Scuola Canton, one of five synagogues still standing in the ghetto. The synagogues are open to the public only as part of guided tours offered by the Jewish Museum of Venice, and that morning just three of us (two other Americans and I) had signed up for the 10:30 tour in English. We were standing with our guide, Silvia Crepaldi, admiring the golden spiraling tree-trunk columns that support the arch over the bimah (podium), when the subject of rising sea levels came up.

"The city will be empty before it sinks," Ms. Crepaldi said ruefully. "Venice is shrinking before our eyes."

The urban exodus of both Jews and gentiles has been going on for some time, though the pace has accelerated in recent years.

When the ghetto was at its height in the 17th century, 5,000 Jews from Italy, Germany, France, Spain and the Ottoman Empire carved out tiny, distinct fiefs, each maintaining its own synagogue, all of them crammed into an acre and a quarter of alleys and courtyards. Confinement was a burden, but it also provided an opportunity for cultural exchange unparalleled in the diaspora. As Jan Morris, a Venice devotee and one-time resident, writes in "The World of Venice," the city was a "treasure-box" full of "ivory, spices, scents, apes, ebony, indigo, slaves, great galleons, Jews, mosaics, shining domes, rubies, and all the gorgeous commodities of Arabia, China and the Indies."

Jewish merchants and bankers were vital to the flow of these commodities, but as Venice declined, the Jewish presence dwindled. By the outbreak of the Second World War, Jewish Venice had shrunk to 1,200 residents. Today, with the city's total population hovering around 58,000 (down from 150,000 before the war), there are about 450 Venetian Jews left, only a handful of them residing in the ghetto.

"So now the ghetto is just a shell?" I wondered aloud as Ms. Crepaldi led us across the campo, over a bridge, down a street of intriguing-looking shops, and into a tighter, grimmer square (the Campiello delle Scuole or "little square of the synagogues"), flanked by the two Sephardic scuole.

The answer to my question was revealed inside one of these: the sumptuous Scuola Grande Spagnola (Great Spanish Synagogue), possibly the work of Baldassare Longhena, the renowned 17th-century architect of Santa Maria della Salute. After we had gazed our fill at the elliptical coffered ceiling and the black-columned pediment that frames the ark of the covenant; after we had craned our necks to glimpse the cherry wood balustrade and diamond-hatched panels that screen the upstairs women's gallery; after our eyes had bathed in the silver gleam of candelabra and the soft glow of crimson-curtained bottle-glass window panes, Ms. Crepaldi pointed to the brass plaques affixed to the pews. "These are the names of families who pay to rent their own bench sections," she told us. "These families still pray here. This synagogue is used in summer, and in winter they switch to the Scuola Levantina because it's heated. The Venetian Jewish community may be small, but it's still strong."

Calimani and Sullam - two of the surnames inscribed on those plaques - appeared in tiny letters by the buzzer I pressed at 10 o'clock the next morning. Riccardo Calimani, the esteemed historian of Italian Jewry and the author of a book about the Venetian ghetto, had given me very precise directions to his home off the Strada Nuova (a rare rectilinear thoroughfare stocked with shops catering more to residents than tourists).

What Mr. Calimani had neglected to say in his email is that he lives in a palace: a light-bedazzled, soaring-ceilinged, art- and book-lined Renaissance suite overlooking the Grand Canal. As he ushered me into his princely study, the ample, urbane Mr. Calimani struck me as a kind of latter-day Jewish doge.

"My father's family arrived in Venice from the north of Italy in 1508," he said, slowing his Italian down to a tempo I could follow. "My ancestor Simone Calimani was the author of a trattato morale [moral treatise], printed in the 18th century when Jewish publishing was flourishing here. My grandfather was the cantor in the Scuola Levantina, even though our roots are not Levantine but Italian and German." The Venetian history of the Calimani family, I realized, coincides almost exactly with the history of the ghetto.

The palace belongs to his wife's family, the Sullams, Spanish Jews who took refuge in Venice after the expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula at the end of the 15th century. I knew, from reading Mr. Calimani's "The Ghetto of Venice" (1988), that Italian and German Jews, the first and poorest to settle in Venice, had been consigned to selling rags and running pawnshops, while the great merchants of Venice were later arrivals from Spain and the Levant.

With tantalizing fragrances wafting out of the hidden kitchen and the velvety light of winter burnishing thousands of leather spines, I could practically taste the history that had made this room possible. The palace may be extraordinary, but the convergence of cosmopolitan currents in the Calimani/Sullam household is quintessentially Venetian.

Their families' abandonment of the ghetto is also typical. As soon as the ghetto was abolished in 1797, Jews with means fled the high-rise tenements - the tallest buildings with the lowest-ceilinged apartments in Venice - for more elegant, and spacious, parts of the city. But the ghetto remained the anchor of Venetian Jewry. Since travel by gondola was deemed permissible on the Sabbath, the observant had no trouble floating back each week to pray at the scuola of their choice.

Today, the Jews of Venice, though still a proud (if dispersed) community, are invisible. (The black-garbed Hasids you see in the campo are not Venetian but followers of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement who have resettled here from other parts of Europe and the United States.) Mr. Calimani, like every local Jew I spoke to, said he moves unremarked in and out of Jewish circles. "The Venice ghetto," he told me, "was always more open to the city than the Roman ghetto, which was beset by the conversion mania of the church."

The dispersal of the community had the unexpected benefit of sending me into unfamiliar neighborhoods in pursuit of interviews. I had been in Venice twice before, but far from growing accustomed to its gorgeous strangeness, I found it endlessly fascinating just to thread the maze, and inevitably get lost in it, on my way to appointments.

The Airbnb my wife, daughter and I rented just off Campo SS. Giovanni e Paolo - the heart of Castello, a still quasi-authentic quarter of working families, schools, neighborhood bars and the municipal hospital - is perhaps half a mile as the crow flies from the flat of Donatella Calabi, a professor of urban history who curated the exhibition "Venice, the Jews and Europe: 1516 to 2016." But even though Ms. Calabi had emailed me a map with arrows pointing the way, it still required several forays across the nearby Campo Santa Maria Formosa before I hit on just the right "calle" (street in the Venetian dialect).

No matter; it just gave me more angles from which to admire this perfect urban plaza with an austere whitewashed church rising in the center and a perimeter of magnificently crumbling palaces now occupied by restaurants, hotels, banks and the delightful 16th-century house-museum of the Fondazione Querini Stampalia.

As we sat by the windows of her top-floor apartment watching the dome of San Marco go gray against the December dusk, Ms. Calabi spoke with animation of the coming exhibition at the Ducal Palace. "The ghetto provided an incredible occasion for cultural exchange" she said, "and the exhibit will focus on that exchange within the ghetto itself, between the ghetto and the city, and with the rest of Europe." Artworks including Carpaccio's "Predica di Santo Stefano" (St. Stephen's sermon) on loan from the Louvre, virtual reconstructions of the ghetto in various periods, and sacred books will conjure up the rich complexity of this exchange.

Ms. Calabi became more somber when the conversation turned to the present. "Renaissance scholar Francesco Sansovino wrote that for the Jews, Venice was 'quasi una vera terra di promissione' - practically a true promised land," she said. "But today Jewish Venice is a small community within a small city. The 500th anniversary is an occasion not to celebrate - you don't have a festival for a ghetto - but to commemorate. An unbroken stretch of 500 years of history will not happen again soon."

I heard similar sentiments voiced later in the week at a packed meeting of an informal discussion group that gathers at intervals to consider issues pertinent to Venetian Jewry. The members had assembled that night in a pretty little house on a canal in Cannaregio near the Gesuiti Church, a Baroque pile that presides over a quarter once inhabited by artisans and artists (Titian and Tintoretto among them). My Italian, though not quite up to the rapid flow of ideas, was good enough to register the passion and erudition that these 30 or so men and women brought to a discussion of their deeply rooted community.

Amos Luzzatto, an esteemed Venetian-Jewish intellectual and the past president of the Jewish Community of Venice, was present, and we chatted for a few minutes about the small Jewish cemetery on the Lido, the "beit midrash" (study room) named for his family that is still in use in the ghetto, and the book by his renowned ancestor Rabbi Simchah Luzzatto that I had spotted in the Jewish Museum.

I didn't have a chance to ask Mr. Luzzatto how he felt about the state of the ghetto today, but as I picked my way back to SS. Giovanni e Paolo through deserted echoing alleys and over black filaments of water, I thought of a comment he had made in a recent interview posted on YouTube: "The ghetto today belongs to the city of Venice - it does not belong to the Jews. The ghetto has become part of the panorama of Venice."

The panorama was its most ravishing the day I met Venice's head rabbi, Scialom Bahbout, for lunch in the campo. Maybe it was the dazzle of another clear December day or the adrenaline of the holidays (Hanukkah was ending, Christmas still a week away), but the campo, which had struck me as rather forlorn on prior trips, now looked like a stage set waiting for a play. (In fact, this summer's production of "The Merchant of Venice" will be staged right here, notes Shaul Bassi, a professor at the University of Venice who is spearheading the production.)

Mothers pushed strollers in and out of shadows cast by the teetering ghetto "skyscrapers." Booted and scarfed Venetians clicked their heels across a bridge and disappeared into the inviting trattorias that line the fondamenta (bank) of the Rio della Misericordia canal. A small knot of tourists hovered by the entrance to the Jewish Museum, a charming warren of rooms stuffed with precious objects and books (and slated for a major makeover later this year under the aegis of Venetian Heritage, an international organization dedicated to preserving the city's cultural riches). I had just enough time before lunch to duck down an alley and browse the elegant Judaica pieces in glass and gold at Arte Ebraica Shalom.

The one jarring note was the makeshift police booth at the far end of the campo. Though there have been no attacks here, the booth is staffed around the clock by Italian police, rarely seen elsewhere in Venice, and the Jewish community has brought in its own private Israeli security guard. The juxtaposition of the armed police and the two Holocaust memorials (a series of bronze reliefs on either side of the Jewish old-age home that encloses one side of the campo) is apt. During the Nazi occupation, some 250 Venetian Jews, including its beloved chief rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi, were seized from the ghetto and elsewhere in the city and sent to Auschwitz and a Trieste concentration camp. Eight returned.

The conversation touched only briefly on the Holocaust in the course of my leisurely lunch with the rabbi at Ghimel Garden, the popular kosher restaurant that opened recently beside the old-age home. Davide Federici, a local journalist, and the Venetian sculptor Giorgio Bortoli were present, and Rabbi Bahbout, who is highly regarded after two years in the community, seemed entirely in his element as the talk rambled around art, politics, history, cinema and food.

"Did you know sarde in saor" - sweet and sour sardines, a ubiquitous winter appetizer in Venice - "is typically Jewish?" the rabbi asked as the first round of plates appeared beside our glasses of prosecco. I was aware of the influence of ancient Jewish recipes on Roman cuisine, but it never occurred to me there was anything Jewish about the food of Venice, where shellfish (not kosher) figures in so many dishes. I'd also never seen an Orthodox rabbi sipping prosecco.

By the time the pasta arrived, the conversation had moved on to the rabbi's dream project: a Jewish university in Venice. "The challenge today is to sustain the vivacity of our culture and carry it into the future. What better way than with an international Jewish university?" In Venice today, conservation tends to dominate other concerns - "but what we really need is to construct the next 500 years."

The rabbi's American-born wife, Lenore Rosenberg Bahbout, joined us for pinza, a thrifty confection of stale bread and spice. We were chuckling about all the celebrities (Barbra Streisand, Donna Karan, Diane von Furstenberg, Barry Diller) whom Toto Bergamo Rossi, the charming director of Venetian Heritage, had tapped to fund the ghetto restoration project. "It's wonderful," said Mrs. Bahbout. "But it would be even more wonderful if this money could be used to restore the soul of the ghetto."

I contemplated the soul that Saturday morning, my last in Venice, at the Shabbat service in the Scuola Levantina. The high, dim sanctuary was about a quarter full, perhaps 40 men scattered around the benches that ran the length of the room between the massively carved bimah and the red-curtained ark of the covenant, with 15 or so women peering down at us from the upstairs gallery.

I'd been in Venice less than a week, but already I recognized faces - Paolo Gnignati, the current president of the Jewish community; Elly, the strapping Israeli security guard who had warned "no cellphones - they're Orthodox!" before letting me enter the synagogue; and of course Rabbi Bahbout, distinguished and elegant in his fedora as he chanted the Sephardic liturgy.

Every Venetian I spoke to, Jew and gentile alike, had expressed deep pessimism about the city's future. But as I sat in this sacred space in the hushed, carless city, listening to the Hebrew prayers and Italian murmur, I felt reassured, not discouraged, by the evidence of time. Since the ghetto was first established, doges, merchant princes, Shylock, Napoleon, the Austrians, the Nazis have come and gone (and in Shylock's case, will soon return). Through that half-millennium of history, Jews have gathered on Sabbath mornings like this one at the serene cusp of winter to pray and gossip in the Venice ghetto.

The website of the Jewish Community of Venice, veniceghetto500.org/?lang=en, has the latest information about events planned for the anniversary year. The Venetian Heritage Council, vh-council.org, is in charge of the coming restoration of the Jewish Museum and the ghetto synagogues.

"Venice, the Jews and Europe: 1516 to 2016" will be on view at the Ducal Palace ( veniceghetto500.org/la-mostra/?lang=en, Piazza San Marco) from June 19 to Nov. 13. Tickets are 19 euros (about $20) and can be purchased online.

"The Merchant of Venice" will be performed outdoors in the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo on July 26, 27, 28, 29, and 31, with a rain date on Aug. 1. The production, in English, is being staged through a partnership between Compagnia de' Colombari theater company (colombari.org/#!home/c1pbl) and Ca'Foscari University of Venice. For tickets and further information, see themerchantinvenice.org.

The Jewish Museum of Venice is open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Oct. 1 to May 31 and until 7 p.m. from June 1 to Sept. 30. Hourly guided tours of the synagogues (in Italian and English) start at 10:30 ( museum admission is €4; museum and synagogue tour is €10). The museum also offers tours of the Jewish cemetery on the Lido, with advance booking. Closed Saturdays and Jewish holidays. For more information, museoebraico.it/english/museo.html.

The Kosher in Venice website, kosherinvenice.com, lists kosher restaurants, hotels and food shops in the ghetto, including Ristorante Ghimel Garden, the recently opened Giardino dei Melograni guesthouse, and Panificio Volpe Giovanni, a bakery and grocery.

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A journey into one of the world's oldest Jewish ghettos, where this year a long, rich history is commemorated. The Ponte delle Guglie. To the right of the bridge is the passage to the Jewish ghetto. Credit...

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The Jewish ghetto is in the heart of Rome. It was established in 1555 in the Rione Santangelo. Nazi soldiers entered the neighborhood on October 16th, 1943 and deported between 1,000 and 2,000 people. Only 16 survived.

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Note: The Jewish Ghetto in Rome features prominently in our Rome As A Local Tour, which takes travelers to some of Rome's most incredible under-the-radar attractions. If you are interested by what you read here, check out the tour - we guarantee that you won't be disappointed
Hidden in the heart of the city, Rome's Jewish Ghetto is one of the best attractions in Rome and also one of its least-known. As the oldest Jewish community in all of Europe, this beautiful, thriving neighborhood is as central to the history of the city as it is to the Jewish faith. Follow us into the Jewish Ghetto, Rome, to see how Jews have shaped the Eternal City.

The Ghetto was established in 1555 in the Rione Sant'Angelo, near the Tiber River in the southern part of Campo de'Fiori. Its borders were laid down in a Papal Bull along with various discriminatory laws about what professions Jews could and could not hold. One of the accepted professions, that of selling fish, still lends its name to streets in the area of the old fish market. Though the neighborhood now commands some of the highest property prices in Rome, the original Jewish Ghetto (known simply as the Roman Ghetto) was walled-in and crowded. It was built on low, malarial land subject to regular floods from the Tiber. Life was grim until the Ghetto walls were torn down in 1888.

Jewish culture grew and thrived in the Roman Ghetto, but the neighborhood also witnessed one of the most heart-wrenching episodes of the Nazi occupation during the Second World War. After the German government proclaimed that Rome's Jews would be spared deportation to the concentration camps if a gold ransom was paid, many in the city, including The Vatican, donated their gold (though there is some debate as to whether or not the Vatican's offer was refused). Even though the Jewish community raised the required amount, Nazi soldiers entered the neighborhood on October 16th, 1943 and deported between 1,000 and 2,000 people. Only 16 survived.

Over the years the area has grown into a beautiful neighborhood filled with restaurants, churches, and synagogues that combine jewish culture with the grandeur of Roman architecture. The ruins of the enormous ancient Portico, the Portico d'Ottavia, rise from under 20 feet below street level, at once a testament to history as well as the changes time brings.

Named after Marcus Marcellus, Emperor Augustus's nephew, who died five years before its completion, the Teatro was begun by Julius Caesar and completed by Augustus in 13 BC. It's also known as the Jewish Coliseum for its resemblance to the original Colosseum. This ancient, open-air theater once held approximately 11,000 to 20,000 spectators, and the seats filled for acting, dancing or singing performances. Located in the Rione of Sant'Angelo, today it still holds different shows throughout the summer. Look up to the top floors to see swanky apartments that command beautiful views of the city center and are occupied by some of the city's oldest Jewish families.

The Great Synagogue of Rome, or the Tempio Maggiore di Roma in Italian, is the largest synagogue in all of Rome and possibly all of Italy. This impressive building is pretty new by Roman standards. After people of Jewish faith were granted citizenship during Italian unification in 1870, the original ghetto synagogue was torn down and plans for the Great Synagogue began. The cornerstone was laid in 1901 and the Synagogue was officially completed in 1904, a veritable baby in the Roman skyline. How to visit via Catalana, Roma, tel. 06-6840061. From mid-June to mid-September, hours are Sunday to Thursday 10am to 7pm, Friday 10am to 4pm. At other times, hours are Sunday to Thursday 10am to 5pm, Friday 9am to 2pm.

The Jewish Museum is located in the Great Synagogue. Opened underneath the Great Synagogue in 1960, it displays silverware and textiles, parchments and marble carvings from the collections of the Jewish Community of Rome. It tells the history of the Jews and the Jewish Ghetto in Rome. Begin your explorations of the neighborhood here to get some context under your belt. A museum visit also includes entrance to the Great Synagogue. Admission is 10 euros. How to visit via Catalana, Roma, tel. +39 06-6840-0661

the Mouth of Truth, or Bocca della Verita, is the image of a man's face carved in marble. Located in the entrance of the Santa Maria in Cosmedin Church since the 17th century, the sculpture is thought to be from the first century. Though we know that it's not connected to judaism or Rome's Jewish Ghetto, legends of its origins range from being a part of an ancient fountain, to a church, to a manhole cover, but the strangest part of all is its powers as a lie detector. As far back as the Middle Ages, Romans believed that if you told a lie with your hand in the sculpture's mouth, your hand would be bitten off! How to visit The Church is open from 9:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m. Piazza della Bocca della Verità, 18, Roma, tel. +39 06 678 7759.

The Fontane delle Tartarughe

The Turtle Fountain is a late Renaissance fountain in the rione Sant'Angelo. Though it might have been called the Dolphin Fountain, as it once had dolphins where the turtles now sit, they were removed because of low water pressure, and the turtles were added to make the fountain seem complete. Originally built as a drinking fountain, the water was sourced from the Acqua Vergine, one of Rome's first aqueducts - a big deal for sixth century Romans!

.... And maybe even a Church

Somewhat surprisingly all things considered, there are more than 15 churches in the small area that comprises the old Jewish Ghetto. Some of the most famous are Chiesa di Santa Maria del Pianto, Chiesa di San Tommaso ai Cenci, Chiesa di Santa Caterina dei Funari, and Chiesa di San Stanislao dei Polacchi. If you found our Insiders' guide to the Jewish Ghetto, Rome, helpful, you should check out some of our other Insiders' Guides: The Amalfi Coast Guide, The Tuscany Guide, Outdoor Adventures Guide

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Visiting The Jewish Ghetto, Rome | Blog | Walks of Italy

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Note: The Jewish Ghetto in Rome features prominently in our Rome As A Local Tour , which takes travelers to some of Rome's most incredible under-the-radar attractions. If you are interested by what you read here, check out the tour - we guarantee that you won't be disappointed Hidden in the heart of the city, Rome's Jewish Ghetto is one of the best attractions in Rome and also one of its least-known.