Shakespeare’s Shylock may have been anti-Semitic fiction. But many real 16th century merchants of Venice were Jewish. And they lived in a ghetto.
So did the Jews of Rome and the Jews of Florence. For more than 350 years, most Italian Jews were forced into dank ghettos, yet still they managed to sustain Jewish life and thrive.
A glimpse of that ghetto life is on display in a splendid new exhibition, “Il Ghetto: Forging Italian Jewish Identities 1516-1870,” at the Museo ItaloAmericano in San Francisco. It runs through next February.
On display are art and artifacts from several Italian ghettos, as well as informative wall panels, timelines and photos detailing a remarkable if lesser-known aspect of Jewish history.
The exhibit includes crafts such as amulets, wedding rings, Torah crowns (several on loan from Berkeley’s Judah L. Magnes Museum), tin-glazed earthenware and an original Torah commentary printed in 1635.
A silver and gold Havdalah spice box fashioned in the shape of a gondola can be seen, as well, although only a large photograph.
The Italian ghettos were, “a liberal solution to how Western Christianity usually treated its Jews, which was kick them out or kill them,” says David Rosenberg-Wohl, the exhibit’s curator. “The ghetto is not so much a prison as the idea of containment.”
Rosenberg-Wohl worked closely with museum managing director Paola Bagnatori, advisers Sheila and Murray Baumgarten, project coordinator Mary Serventi Steiner and many others to bring the show to life.
Though Jewish traders first arrived in Italy nearly 23 centuries ago, the rise of the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages increased anti-Jewish sentiment, culminating in the ghetto decrees.
The word “ghetto” comes from the Italian verb gettare, which means, “to cast.” The first Jewish ghetto, in Venice, was built on what had previously been a dump for a local foundry, where all the trash had been cast.
There, the Jews were crowded into a small island with limited access to the wider world. They could practice only certain trades, such as money lending, and they had to be back in the ghetto, under lock and key, by nightfall. But they did interact with the non-Jewish world around them.
Venice is home to some of the most beautiful synagogues in Italy. Because the ghetto was an island, Jews had nowhere to go but up, so synagogues are often on second stories of buildings that appear drab on the outside. Inside, Venetian splendor reigns.
Elsewhere in Italy — which was largely made up of small principalities — Jews contended with ghetto life. Florence had its ghetto, yet the nearby coastal city of Livorno did not. There, Jews were free to do business, becoming important figures in the silk, glass, coffee and printing trades.
Rosenberg-Wohl notes that that the all-powerful Catholic Church, while loathing and oppressing the Jews, had doctrinal reasons for keeping them around.
“Jews had to remain,” he says. “In Catholic dogma, the Jews represent the perils of not choosing Jesus, and [they] need to be around for the second coming. There was plenty of tension. But when it was clear the Jewish community would continue to be important as a financial catalyst, the Church had to adjust its ideology.”
In a foreshadowing of the infamous Nazi yellow star, Italian Jews had to wear identifying hats or yellow badges. Besides Jews, only prostitutes were forced to wear such humiliating insignia.
A major part of the exhibit focuses on texts. With the rise of the printing press, Hebrew printing flourished in the ghettos. During the 16th and 17th centuries, Jewish and Christian scholars alike delved into Hebrew Bible and commentaries. Italy’s Jews were the first to publish such works.
As the Enlightenment’s influence spread, and Italy unified as a nation, Jews were eventually free to leave the ghettos. The last ghetto, in Rome, closed in 1870. Most were razed.
But near the rubble of Rome’s former ghetto, Jews built their Great Synagogue in 1904. It remains one of the city’s architectural and spiritual glories.
And it was there, in April of 1986, that Pope John Paul II became the first Pontiff ever to set foot in a Jewish synagogue. He addressed the Jews as his “elder brothers.”
Of the many exhibits on display, there’s one that especially catches the fancy of Rosenberg-Wohl. It’s a Hebrew text that had multiple passages blacked out by the Christian censors of the time.
The curator points to those passages in the text. “The censors struck them out,” he says. “But the ink is fading.”
“Il Ghetto: Forging Italian Jewish Identities 1516-1870”runs through Feb. 15. The exhibit is open noon to 4 p.m., every day except Monday, at the Museo ItaloAmericano, Fort Mason Center, Building C, S.F. Free. Information: (415) 673-2200 or museoitalomericano.org.