The history of the Jews in Trieste goes back over 800 years.
| Part of a series on |
| Jews and Judaism |
|---|
The history of the Jews in Trieste goes back over 800 years.
The oldest official document available mentioning a Jewish settlement in Trieste goes back to the year 1236 and it is composed of a notarial deed that mentions an economic transaction made by a certain Bishop Giovanni: he paid 500 'marche' to the Jew Daniel David, who had spent them to fight thieves on the Carso.
After Trieste sided with Austria in 1382, Jewish people from Germany, some subjects to the Austrian dukes while others to local princes, came to live in Italy. Lacking a synagogue and legal recognition, the small Ashkenazi Jewish community held services in a private home from the 15th century. From 1684 to 1785 the authorities ordered the construction of a ghetto and the compulsory residence there. However, after the first Jewish public synagogue was built, the Jews from Trieste felt the need to give a constitution to their community; therefore the evening of 14 December 1746, the chiefs called a meeting of the "particolari", that is the heads of families who contributed to the expenses of the community.
In the beginning of the 18th century, Trieste was declared a free port by the Habsburgs, with the first free port patents inviting persons of "any religion or nationality" to both trade and settle in Trieste. [1] Trieste official explicitly argued for a policy of luring foreign merchants, with a focus on Greek and Jewish traders, with privileges of freedom of commerce and settlement. Under this policy, the Jewish population of Trieste began to increase dramatically, from under 100 at the beginning of the 18th century to 1,250 in 1800, constituting 5-7% of the total population. Jews in Trieste were granted a range of liberties, including ownership of real property, free and equal engagement in both inland and maritime commerce, artisanry, and manufacturing. The wealthiest Jewish merchants held seats on the Trieste Commodity Exchange from its founding in 1755, holding 6 of the 42 seats by the early 1780s. [1]
On 19 April 1771, Maria Theresa granted two Sovereign Licenses to the Jews of Trieste, licenses that constitute real regulations. [1] In 1782, with the famous Edict of Tolerance, Joseph II admitted the Jews to some charges in the stock exchange and to other liberal professions. A year later the Jewish primary school was opened with the name of Scuole Pie Normali Israelitiche. The following year, in 1784, the gates of the Ghetto were opened so that the Jews of Trieste could live together with their fellow citizens of different religions; however most of them continued to live in the ghetto. Indeed, after a short occupation of the French in 1797, they began to build two new synagogues in the street of the Jewish schools, but they were demolished during the first quarter of the 20th century when the Old Town was destroyed.
In the 19th century, the Jews of Trieste become more and more important in various fields such as humanities, industry, and commerce, and they also gradually grew in number. Jews became pioneers in the realms of banking, commerce, and insurance that drove the city's spectacular growth. They held prominent political positions, established important firms and founded or were leading figures in insurance companies such as Assicurazioni Generali, RAS, and Lloyd Adriatico. Several local Jewish families were even raised to the nobility by the House of Habsburg. Importantly, too, the Trieste Jewish community produced towering cultural figures such as the writer Italo Svevo and poet Umberto Saba, both of whom today are commemorated with busts in the city's public gardens.
Also in the 1830s, there was an influx of Jews from Corfu, leading to the establishment of a Sephardic community alongside the long-standing Ashkenazi presence.
One of Jewish Trieste's most illustrious sons, Rabbi Professor Samuel David Luzzatto, (1800–1865) known as the Shadal, was a philosopher, poet, Biblical scholar, and translator. He directed the newly established rabbinical seminary, Collegio Rabbinico in Padua. His scholarship combined the deep erudition of the medieval rabbis with the newer trends in Judaic scholarship emanating from the enlightened Haskalah circles of northern Europe. He was a master of Hebrew philology and translated the Bible into Italian. His literary circle included Hebrew poets, such as his cousin Rachel Luzzatto Morpurgo — whose sonnets, elegies, and wedding poems in the style of the Spanish Hebrew religious poets and the Italian Renaissance related mostly to family and biographical incidents.
Although most Triestine Jews were not of Italian origin, they rallied to the unification of Italy. The peace settlement brought Trieste into the Kingdom of Italy in 1919. Immigration swelled Jewish numbers to 6,000; Jews were prominent in the city's economy and assimilation spread unchecked. In 1910, the affluent Trieste Jewish community approved the construction of the Great Synagogue of Trieste. Designed by the Christian architect, Ruggero and Arduino Berlam, its plan followed the trend of other central European communities in a style reminiscent of Middle Eastern buildings, ancient and modern.
The Trieste Jewish community supported Jewish settlements in Palestine decades before Theodor Herzl's call for the establishment of either a Jewish state or political Zionism, beginning in the 1860s with calls to support an agricultural school in Jaffa. [2]
By the turn of the 20th century, the Jewish community supported Zionist efforts both philanthropically and as a link to Italy's political and economic interests in the Mediterranean. Trieste became known as the "gateway to Zion" as a result of the city's ties to the Habsburg commercial networks and connections to trading communities in central and eastern Europe. It was also the site of the publication of the Israelite Courier (Italian : Il corriere israelitico), founded in 1862, the first Jewish periodical in Italian to support Zionism. [2] Trieste was also the home of Dante Lattes, a leader of Italian Jews, champion of Zionism, and grandfather of Amos Luzzatto. Triestine Jews led early efforts from Italy to help fleeing Central European refugees escape Hitler's regime.
In 1938 the Fascist and racist legislation was introduced in Italy and in 1940 there were some attacks against the Jews. In reaction to the school and job discrimination enacted in 1938, the Trieste Jewish community opened a private secondary school, which operated until 1943, when the Germans took direct control of the city. The Nazi threat prompted those with means to try to escape. By 1940, half of the city's Jews had left the city, although some chose to convert. The number of Jews in this time who converted to Catholicism was very high in comparison to other Italian Jewish communities. [3] Italian Fascists desecrated the synagogue in 1942. During the Shoah (Holocaust) the Nazis made round-ups against the Jews on 19 October 1943 and 29 January 1944; in the latter the target were the old and sick people living in the old people's homes of Trieste, including the Jewish one.
Trieste was one of the major European ports of embarkation in the mass emigration to the Americas in the last part of the 19th century. With the approach of the Second World War, it was the Gateway to Zion, an emergency exit for Jews leaving Europe for Israel. Two ships operated on the Trieste - Haifa route. The Jewish captain, Umberto Steindler of the Jerusalem boasted over one hundred trips to Palestine between the world wars. After being turned back to its homeport because of the outbreak of war, the Jerusalem weighed anchor once again on 1 September 1939, and arrived in Haifa with 600 Jewish immigrants.
After World War II around 1,500 Jews remained in Trieste, they restored the Synagogue and renewed Jewish communal institutions; in 1965 the number lowered to 1,052 out of 280,000 inhabitants. This drop was mostly due to a lack of balance between death and birth rates. Today the Jewish community counts about 600 members. The Jewish community of Trieste today represents the organizational structure of the association of Jewish people living in Trieste. The organization was established in order to provide for the needs of the Jewish community, and to establish a statute and appropriate guidelines.
Several museums in Trieste shed further light on local Jewish culture and history:
The old cemetery was created in 1446, when Michael Norimberga bought a vineyard to make a cemetery for himself and his coreligionists. The Jews from Trieste buried their dead there for four centuries. In the middle of the nineteenth century the cemetery became too small, so it was extended until it reached the slopes under the Castle of S. Giusto. In 1843 a new Jewish cemetery was built near the Catholic cemetery of Sant'Anna.
Umberto Saba was an Italian poet and novelist, born Umberto Poli in the cosmopolitan Mediterranean port of Trieste when it was the fourth largest city of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Poli assumed the pen name "Saba" in 1910, and his name was officially changed to Umberto Saba in 1928. From 1919 he was the proprietor of an antiquarian bookshop in Trieste. He suffered from depression for all of his adult life.
Moshe Chaim Luzzatto, also known by the Hebrew acronym RaMCHaL, was a prominent Italian Jewish rabbi, kabbalist, and philosopher.
Josefov is a town quarter and the smallest cadastral area of Prague, Czech Republic, formerly the Jewish ghetto of the town. It is surrounded by the Old Town. The quarter is often represented by the flag of Prague's Jewish community, a yellow Magen David on a red field.
Hebrew literature consists of ancient, medieval, and modern writings in the Hebrew language. It is one of the primary forms of Jewish literature, though there have been cases of literature written in Hebrew by non-Jews. Hebrew literature was produced in many different parts of the world throughout the medieval and modern eras, while contemporary Hebrew literature is largely Israeli literature. In 1966, Agnon won the Nobel Prize for Literature for novels and short stories that employ a unique blend of biblical, Talmudic and modern Hebrew, making him the first Hebrew writer to receive this award.
The history of the Jews in Austria probably begins with the exodus of Jews from Judea under Roman occupation. There have been Jews in Austria since the 3rd century CE. Over the course of many centuries, the political status of the community rose and fell many times: during certain periods, the Jewish community prospered and enjoyed political equality, and during other periods it suffered pogroms, deportations to concentration camps and mass murder, and antisemitism. The Holocaust drastically reduced the Jewish community in Austria and only 8,140 Jews remained in Austria according to the 2001 census. Today, Austria has a Jewish population of 10,300 which extends to 33,000 if Law of Return is accounted for, meaning having at least one Jewish grandparent.
The history of the Jews in Prague is one of Central Europe's oldest and most well-known. Prague boasts one of Europe's oldest recorded Jewish communities, first mentioned by a Sephardi-Jewish traveller Ibrahim ibn Yaqub in 965. Since then, the community never ceased to exist, despite a number of pogroms and expulsions, the Holocaust, and subsequent antisemitic persecution by the Communist regime in the 20th century. Nowadays, the Jewish community of Prague numbers approximately 2,000 members. There are a number of synagogues of all Jewish denominations, a Chabad centre, an old age home, a kindergarten, Lauder Schools, Judaic Studies department at the Charles University, kosher restaurants and even a kosher hotel. Famous Jews from Prague include the Maharal, Franz Kafka, Miloš Forman and Madeleine Albright.
The history of the Jews in Latvia dates back to the first Jewish colony established in Piltene in 1571. Jews contributed to Latvia's development until the Northern War (1700–1721), which decimated Latvia's population. The Jewish community reestablished itself in the 18th century, mainly through an influx from Prussia, and came to play a principal role in the economic life of Latvia.
The Synagogue of Trieste is a Jewish house of worship located in the city of Trieste, northern Italy.
The history of the Jewish community of Venice, which is the capital of the Veneto region of Italy has been well known since the medieval era.
The history of the Jews in Slovenia and areas connected with it goes back to the times of Ancient Rome. In 2011, the small Slovenian Jewish community was estimated at 500 to 1,000 members, of whom around 130 are officially registered, most of whom live in the capital, Ljubljana.
The history of the Jews in Turin, Italy, can be first traced to the 4th century when bishop Maximus of Turin recorded the presence of Jews in the city. The city of Turin is in north-west Italy and is the capital of the Piedmont region.
The history of the Jews of Thessaloniki reaches back two thousand years. The city of Thessaloniki housed a major Jewish community, mostly Eastern Sephardim, until the middle of the Second World War. Sephardic Jews immigrated to the city following the expulsion of Jews from Spain by Catholic rulers under the Alhambra Decree of 1492. It is the only known example of a city of this size in the Jewish diaspora that retained a Jewish majority for centuries. This community influenced the Sephardic world both culturally and economically, and the city was nicknamed la madre de Israel.
The history of the Jews in Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic dates back to 1848, following the emancipation of Austrian Jews. The greatest expansion achieved owing to presence of two significant families, who contributed to city development, at the end of 19th and at the beginning of 20th century. Two following dictatorships had devastating effect on the community. Most Jews fled prior to or during World War II. In November 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the few Jews that remained in Ústí were sent to extermination camps.
The Jewish Museum in Prague is a museum of Jewish heritage in the Czech Republic and one of the most visited museums in Prague. Its collection of Judaica is one of the largest in the world, about 40,000 objects, 100,000 books, and a copious archive of Czech Jewish community histories.
The history of the Jews in Kyrgyzstan is linked directly to the history of the Bukharian Jews of Uzbekistan. Until the 20th century, most Jews living in the Kyrgyz areas were of the Bukharian Jewish community. However, during the 20th century, large amounts of European Jews began to emigrate to Kyrgyzstan which was then part of the Soviet Union, and a small amount of them still live in the country.
The Jewish Community of Gdańsk dates back to at least the 15th century though for many centuries it was separated from the rest of the city. Under Polish rule, Jews acquired limited rights in the city in the 16th and 17th centuries and after the city's 1793 incorporation into Prussia the community largely assimilated to German culture. In the 1920s, during the period of the Free City of Danzig, the number of Jews increased significantly and the city acted as a transit point for Jews leaving Eastern Europe for the United States and Canada. Antisemitism existed among German nationalists and the persecution of Jews in the Free City intensified after the Nazis came to power in 1933. During World War II and the Holocaust the majority of the community either emigrated or were murdered. Since the fall of communism Jewish property has been returned to the community, and an annual festival, the Baltic Days of Jewish Culture, has taken place since 1999.
The history of the Jews in Ancona in Italy, began when Jews settled into the city in the first half of the 14th century, contributing to money-lending and other economic roles.
The Jewish Museum “Carlo and Vera Wagner", is located in via del Monte 5/7, Trieste, Italy. It was inaugurated in 1993, by the initiative of Mario Stock together with the generous support of the Wagner-de Polo family.
The Jewish Museum of Rome is situated in the basement of the Great Synagogue of Rome and offers both information on the Jewish presence in Rome since the second century BCE and a large collection of works of art produced by the Jewish community. A visit to the museum includes a guided tour of the Great Synagogue and of the smaller Spanish Synagogue in the same complex.
| History |
|  |
|---|---|---|
| Geography and surrounding area | ||
| Buildings and landmarks | ||
| Places of worship |
| |
| Culture | ||
| Local media |
| |
| Education and research | ||
| Sports venues |
| |
| Transport | ||