Discovering Jewish Venice
A Venice the Cannaregio district is the first to come across when arriving at the Santa Lucia train station. It is the largest in the city and also the most populated: it takes its name from the canal that crosses it, once called Canal Regio, which joins the lagoon to the Grand Canal and which is still passed through by water buses. One of the main tourist attractions of this part of the city, considered popular because it is far from the noble palaces lined up along the Grand canal and from the more chic areas near San Marco, Rialto and the Accademia, is the Jewish ghetto of the sixteenth century.
The decorated ceiling of the Great German School
Testimonies of a long history
In Venice, a strategic center of trade between East and West, the Jews arrived according to tradition towards the beginning of the eleventh century and settled there amidst a continuous alternation of permits and prohibitions. A decree of the Republic of 1516 established that the Jews must all live in a single area of the city, in the area where the foundries, called “geti” in Venetian dialect, were once located. Hence the name of the ghetto, a neighborhood surrounded by water that was closed during the night, while the Serenissima was being held, they traveled by boat through the surrounding canals to prevent nocturnal exits. The synagogues of the Venetian ghetto were built by various ethnic groups between the 16th and 17th centuries: depending on the origin of the faithful, the German and Canton Schools, the Italian Schools, the Levantine Schools and the Spanish Schools were born, which have remained intact over time and are evidence of a long history.
A lively neighborhood
The end of segregation and the equality of the other arrivals with the citizens Napoleon which put an end to the thousand-year history of the Venetian Republic in 1797, but what was one of the first Jewish settlements in Europe today looks like a neighborhood of the city teeming with life where Jewish religious and administrative institutions still remain, as well as five synagoguessome of which can be visited thanks to the guided tours of the Jewish Museum which for 60 years has been committed to narrating and explaining the complex and fascinating history of an amazing cultural heritage.
The interior of the Levantine school
The spiritual soul of the ghetto
Hardly recognizable from the outside but furnished like little jewels inside, the synagogues are the spiritual soul of the ghetto. La Scola Levantina founded in the 16th century it was rebuilt at the end of the following century with interventions by the school of Baldassarre Longhena whose stylistic modules are evident in the façade and retains an important wooden pulpit by Andrea Brustolon. After the pandemic, the tour itineraries have restarted from the new temporary location in Calle del Forno 1107. Several are undergoing renovation, but the visit is only a short one hour guided buildings with interesting results in Italian or English, every day except Saturdays and Jewish holidays include access to the Levantine Synagogue, while the museum is currently not accessible due to restoration work.
Jewish Museum of Venice
Cannaregio 2902 / b – 30121 Venice
tel. 041 715359