For more than 500 years, the streets of the Jewish quarter, home to a jewish community that still persists in the same neighborhood. Its five synagogues, the Museum Ebráico, the plates reminiscent of famous people or historical facts are mixed with restaurants Kosher food, book-themed jewish and craft shops, showing to the visitor one of the faces most unknown of Venice, and at the same time, the more attractive.
One of the most unknown of Venice and in turn more interesting, is the Jewish quarter, or better said, the "Jewish Ghetto of Venice": the ghetto oldest in the World. This is a small neighborhood located in the Sesttiere of Cannareggio, very close to the Train Station of Santa Lucia, which has two doors, one for input and another for output, the streets that we find in its interior does not lead us to any such site, the streets are cut or that lead to a small patio. This neighborhood, before being sent to enclose the jews, it was a neighborhood of craftsmen dedicated to the casting of metals. In venetian dialect, the word "ghettar" means to melt metals, and as the neighborhood was full of workshops for casting, he was known as "ghetto", keeping this name even when the workshops disappeared and were transformed into houses and premises used by the jews. For this reason we say that is the first "ghetto" of the story, however, we cannot say that the case of the first quarter, as they abounded in the West a long time before it became this "ghetto".
The "ghetto" of Venice was born in 1516, before this date there were already certain nuclei of the jewish population in the city, these were forbidden to dwell in the six districts of Venice, but it had a certain freedom to move to the outskirts of the city. One of the places chosen by the jews to live was an island next to St. Mark's Square, but outside of the city limits. This island was given the name of Giudecca (jewish quarter in venetian dialect). The nearby town of Mestre, near the river Piave, was also a site used by the jews to put their homes. In the year 1492, queen Isabella I of Castile signed the Decree of the Alhambra, by which all the jews which dwell in Castile will have to abandon it in the next four months, as their only option conversion to catholicism, Ferdinand II of Aragon and John II, in Portugal, will follow in the footsteps of Queen Elizabeth, leaving the Iberian Peninsula free of the jewish population. The jews "sefardies," which is named from the Iberian Peninsula, they will seek a new life in Morocco, but the relations between jews and muslims will be so complicated that many have sought shelter in other parts of Europe, and ending in Venice a large part of them. The increase of the jewish population in the vicinity of Venice led by the Doge, Leonardo Loredan, proclaimed a decree in 1516 by which the jews were required to reside within the "ghetto". Also from other places arrived jews to the city of canals, with the hope that at least there could have a house and a job without fear of being expelled or killed, it is the case of the jews from Germany, called the "tedescos", east Europe (Greece and Turkey, mostly), dubbed the "levantine" and a large amount of the jewish population from Rome. The arrival of jews of different nationalities awarded the "ghetto" a huge cultural mix that still today we can breathe in its streets.
Life in the "ghetto" it was not easy for its inhabitants, huge wooden doors closed, the two accesses to the "ghetto" so that the jews could not leave the neighborhood, especially after the Sun goes down. Access to the "ghetto" were watched by guards christians who controlled the inputs and outputs of the jews, which had to be the only day they were to go out dressed with caps and badges that identify and had to be asked for permission beforehand. The work that could perform a jew were also limited, and we can boil it down to three professions: lenders, we have to understand that the jews who had managed to flee out of their lands after being thrown out, they were people with a certain purchasing power, since the jews poor had no choice but to convert to christianity, in the case of Spain, the Catholic Monarchs, allowed the jews to sell their homes before leaving Spain, which made that could increase their foreign currency; medical training has always been one of the most important pillars for the jewish population, jewish doctors were better prepared than the christians, and this, joined to Venice suffered at the end of the SIXTEENTH Century a second wave of the black death, had the jewish doctors were highly respected in the city; and the third profession is of the merchants of fabrics of second hand, also called "rag-pickers", this profession they exercised the jewish poor, who were basically the coming of Rome, since, as we have said previously, the jews who migrated from other states used to be rich jews. The Venetian Republic also forbade jews the purchase of homes, they were forced to rent houses to venetian origin. The increase of the jewish population in the "ghetto" made the houses have a very small surface area, and the buildings grow in height because the space in the landscape was becoming more and more limited, which is why the "ghetto" is called the "neighbourhood of the skyscraper", a feature that still today we can observe.
The measures of confinement and restrictions suffered by the jews spread in time to last for nearly three centuries, in the year 1797, will be the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte who after occupy Venice, and finally ending with the power of the Doge, retire for the first time the doors of the "ghetto" and the burn in one of the squares of the neighborhood, giving freedom of movement to the jews, even though it may not set your residence outside the "ghetto". It will be in 1866, with the annexation of Venice to the Kingdom of Italy, when the jews to enjoy absolute freedom. The tranquility of this community ended in 1939 when nazi troops were abducted without mercy to jewish families to take them to concentration camps, the "stones of memory" that are spread over the pavers of the "ghetto" give good proof of this. German sculptor Gunter Demnig devised in the 80's these stones, also called "stolpersteine" to honor the memory of this families abducted, as happens in Berlin, Budapest or Rome, in Venice you can see these stones in many corners of the "ghetto", indicating in its interior, the name of the person abducted, the year of the kidnapping and the concentration camp, which served time, Auschwitz in most cases. The way they could proceed the nazis was contact with the rabbis from different jewish communities, as these had in their possession a few lists that indicated the name of all jews who belonged to his community in addition to your address, if the rabbi facilitated this list, the nazis had the possibility of saving his life. However, in Venice, the opposite occurred, when the nazis entered in the "ghetto", the leader of this community, the doctor Giuseppe Jona, burn this list and suicide, thus allowing many jews could flee the nazis. The jewish community appreciated this gesture, placing a plate in the "ghetto again" on December 7, 1947, to honor the figure of this doctor.
Of the 5,000 jews who came to live in the "ghetto", currently there is a community of about 50 inhabitants. This community focuses on managing the premises of the neighborhood: restaurants Kosher food, bookshops, craft shops Hebrew...as well as its five synagogues: Italian, tedesca, the canton, the levantine and the largest and most important, the "sefardie" or Spanish. These synagogues have a look quite humble on the outside, concentrating all the decor in the interior of the same. On the facade of the Synagogue Levantina has a plate where all the dead jews in the bombing austrian, 1912, and on the Spanish mainboard remember all the dead of the Holocaust. The entrance to the synagogue is done through the Museum Ebráico, founded in 1954, which shows in detail the history of the jews since they were locked up in the "ghetto", as well as an important collection of furniture and fabrics. The entrance to the museum allows you to make guided visits to all the synagogues except to the Italian, and keep in mind that every Saturday is closed as this community continues to celebrate the "sabbath". We can not overlook a few bronze reliefs which are scattered through the walls of the "ghetto again", which allude to the brutality of the nazis in the concentration camps.
We can say that the "ghetto" is divided into three. "ghetto old" (1516), "ghetto again" (1541), and "ghetto novisimo" (1633), which correspond to the successive enlargements that has suffered the neighborhood as a whole. In the "ghetto old" we found the Synagogue of Spain, with the Spanish and with the infant school; in the "ghetto again," the greatest", we found the synagogues italiana, tedesca and canton, the Museum Ebráico, Red Bank, reliefs alluding to the concentration camps and the plaque in memory of Giuseppe Jona, in addition to a center of meeting where board this whole community to read, to pray or to eat together, always dressed in the attire of a orthodox jew: the-loops, talit, kippah... and visible to the eyes of the visitors and travelers. Both the "ghetto" as old as the new are dotted with restaurants, bookstores and all kinds of craft shops; the "ghetto novisimo" is the smallest of the three, and the only houses.
One of the curiosities that we find in the "ghetto" is that it is the scenario that was used by William Shakespeare in his play The Merchant of Venice, and also in one of their bridges, especially between "ghetto" the new and the old, is the only woman gondolera is in the city, of the name Chiara. The "ghetto" is also very similar to one of the most unknown and most venetian environment, the neighborhood of the Mercy, where you can enjoy a typical meal, a venetian or a spritz until the wee hours of the night. The whole forming the Jewish quarter with the Neighborhood of the Mercy assume a Venice unknown, most traditional, and, if possible, more beautiful than the Venice tourist.
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