Italian Jews (Italkim)

Origins

Jews reached Italy by the second century BCE; Rome's community traces to at least 161 BCE.² War captives and merchants swelled it, and by the first century CE an estimated 50,000 Jews lived in Italy, over half in or around Rome.² The early Roman Jews were largely Greek-speaking and organised in numerous congregations, while ancient communities also took root across southern Italy and Sicily.² War captivity was itself a major engine of this growth: Pompey's prisoners of 63 BCE founded the Transtiberine quarter, the fall of Jerusalem in 70 CE sent tens of thousands of enslaved Judaeans to Rome, and after the Bar Kokhba revolt captives were scattered across the empire in such numbers that slave prices collapsed.⁵⁶⁷

Religious life

The Italkim developed an independent liturgy—the Italian rite, or minhag Bnei Roma—regarded as an offshoot of the ancient Land-of-Israel (Palestinian) minhag and akin to the Romaniote rite of Byzantine Jewry, distinct from the Ashkenazi and Sephardi rites.³ Italy also nurtured notable Torah scholarship: the rabbinical academies of Otranto, Bari and Trani were renowned medieval centres of study.⁸ Roman learning produced Nathan ben Jehiel's Arukh, the classic Talmudic-Aramaic dictionary, and Renaissance Italy the biblical exegete Obadiah Sforno.⁹¹⁰ Ghettoisation from the sixteenth century confined, but did not extinguish, this religious life.¹¹

Language & culture

Italkite Jews spoke a succession of vernaculars written in Hebrew script. The Greek-speaking Jews of Roman and Byzantine Italy gave way, in the south, to Judeo-Greek (Yevanic) within the Romaniote cultural sphere.⁴ From Judeo-Latin developed the Judeo-Italian dialects—Giudeo-romanesco of Rome, Judeo-Livornese (Bagitto), Judeo-Venetian and others—of which Judeo-Roman is the only variety still spoken, and only by a small, mostly elderly group.⁴ Hebrew remained the language of high culture: the Rome-born poet Immanuel ben Solomon introduced the sonnet into Hebrew and, for his Maḥbarot, was called the 'Hebrew Dante.'¹²

Relations with neighbours

Roman law tolerated Judaism as a permitted cult, and Jews lived among their neighbours as freedmen, artisans and traders for centuries.² Under the medieval and early-modern papacy their status oscillated between protection and repression. Venice pioneered enforced segregation in 1516, confining Jews to the walled Ghetto Nuovo whose name gave the world the word 'ghetto.'¹³ Papal policy hardened with Paul IV's 1555 bull Cum nimis absurdum, which locked Rome's roughly 2,000 Jews into a gated ghetto, imposed a distinctive yellow hat and barred them from all trades but rag-dealing.¹¹ Yet Italy also became a refuge, admitting Sephardi exiles after 1492.²

Decline & dispersal

The Italkite communities of the south fell first: Aragonese Sicily and Sardinia expelled their Jews under the 1492 Alhambra Decree—Sicily alone losing more than 30,000 by January 1493—and the Kingdom of Naples completed its expulsion by 1541, ending these ancient congregations.¹⁴² In the centre and north, three centuries of ghetto life (1555–1870) impoverished Roman Jewry until Italian troops breached Porta Pia on 20 September 1870, tore down the ghetto walls and granted equal citizenship.² Emancipation was undone by the 1938 Racial Laws and German occupation: on 16 October 1943 the Gestapo seized 1,259 Roman Jews, deporting 1,023 to Auschwitz, of whom only sixteen survived.¹⁵ About 30,000 Jews remain in Italy, and the Italian rite endures in Rome and Jerusalem.¹

Notable figures

• Shabbethai Donnolo (913–982) — Physician and Hebrew scientific writer. Southern-Italian physician and astrologer whom the Jewish Encyclopedia identifies as the earliest Jewish writer on medicine.¹⁶
• Nathan ben Jehiel of Rome (1035–1106) — Lexicographer, author of the Arukh. Roman rabbi who completed the Arukh, a major Talmudic-Aramaic dictionary, in 1101.⁹
• Immanuel of Rome (Immanuel ben Solomon) (1261–1332) — Hebrew and Italian poet. Rome-born poet who introduced the sonnet into Hebrew verse; his witty Maḥbarot earned him the epithet 'the Hebrew Dante.'¹²
• Obadiah Sforno (1475–1550) — Biblical exegete and physician. Bologna physician and exegete whose plain-sense Torah commentary became a standard text of Italian Jewry.¹⁰
• Leone (Judah Aryeh) Modena (1571–1648) — Venetian rabbi and writer. Venice rabbi, preacher and polemicist; his Historia de' riti hebraici explained Jewish practice to Christian Europe.¹⁷
• Samuel David Luzzatto (Shadal) (1800–1865) — Scholar of Wissenschaft des Judentums. Padua scholar and biblical exegete, a founding figure of critical Jewish scholarship (Wissenschaft des Judentums) in Italy.¹⁸

Key events

• 161 BCE Founding of the Roman Jewish community. Rome's Jewish community, among Europe's oldest, traces to at least 161 BCE; captives and immigrants later swelled it to tens of thousands.²²
• 70 Destruction of the Second Temple and enslavement. Titus stormed Jerusalem and razed the Second Temple in 70 CE; Josephus reports that 97,000 Judaeans were enslaved, and captives paraded in Titus's triumph—their bondage and the plundered Temple vessels commemorated on the Arch of Titus—were carried to Rome, swelling its Jewish community.⁵²
• 135 Bar Kokhba revolt crushed; mass enslavement. Hadrian's suppression of the Bar Kokhba revolt (132–136 CE) left Judaea devastated—Cassius Dio reports 985 villages razed and 580,000 slain—and captives were enslaved in such numbers that, Jerome records, they were sold for a pittance at the market by the Terebinth near Hebron and at Gaza, then scattered across the empire.⁶⁷¹⁹
• 1493 Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily. Under the 1492 Alhambra Decree, Aragonese Sicily's ancient Jewish community of more than 30,000 was expelled by January 1493.¹⁴
• 1516 Establishment of the Venetian Ghetto. In 1516 Venice confined its Jews to the enclosed, gated Ghetto Nuovo—the first compulsory Jewish ghetto and the origin of the word 'ghetto.'¹³
• 1541 Expulsion from the Kingdom of Naples. Spanish rule expelled the Jews of the Kingdom of Naples by 1540–1541, extinguishing the ancient Italkite communities of the Italian south.²
• 1555 Cum nimis absurdum and the Roman Ghetto. Paul IV's bull of 14 July 1555 confined Rome's roughly 2,000 Jews to a gated ghetto, imposed the yellow hat and restricted them to rag-dealing.¹¹
• 1870 Emancipation and abolition of the Roman Ghetto. When Italian troops breached Porta Pia on 20 September 1870, the Roman Ghetto walls were torn down and Jews gained equal civil rights, ending papal segregation.²
• 1943 Nazi raid on the Roman Ghetto. On 16 October 1943 the Gestapo seized 1,259 Roman Jews; 1,023 were deported to Auschwitz and only sixteen survived.¹⁵

Where they lived

• Livorno (Leghorn) · 1593
• Rome & Central Italy · 160 BCE
• Sardinia · 50 BCE – 1492 CE
• Sicily · 100 BCE – 1493 CE
• Southern Italy (Naples & Apulia) · 100 BCE – 1541 CE
• Venice & the Veneto · 1090