As I mentioned in my Saturday in Venice post, I wanted to write a separate story on this area, as it fascinated me, and I had not previously visited there.
On our cheerful walk in Venice this Saturday, we discovered a very different area of the city. In the Cannaregio district we turned one more corner and crossed yet another small canal and ducked into a small gate under a massive apartment building. Once inside a square opened up with tall houses almost all around. But the eerie thing was how silent it had become all of a sudden. I looked around and shivered at the sight of the barbed wire still visible on top of one portion of the wall. We were inside the world's oldest ghetto.
In fact, the concept was born in the year 1516 in Venice, and the name came from the old medieval foundry where metal and cannons were cast (called geto in Venetian) that was previously located on this site. The merchant empire of Venice was known for its strict laws and special taxes, so Jews wanting to do do business there were only allowed to do so in the late 14th century when they were allowed to physically take residence there. As a response to anti-semitic forces some 150 years later, the doge's council forced the Jews of Venice to move to a small islet where there were only two gates out, both manned by Christian guards.
The Jews were allowed outside the Ghetto only during the day, and only by wearing badges and caps identifying them as Jews. They were also limited to doing certain trades, which were also either deemed "dirty" (such as money-lending) or where Jews excelled (e.g. textiles and medicine). For example, the gates would be unlocked at night for Jewish doctors on call to wealthy Venezians.
Despite these conditions, or perhaps because the conditions here were even better than in the rest of Europe as Jews were in fact protected within the Ghetto, immigrants started moving in. In the middle of the 17th century there were around 5,000 Jews in Venice. As their little confinement island ran out of space, they were forced to build upwards.. They built the so-called Venezian sky-scrapers; six-story buildings, on top of which they built synagogues. According to their law they couldn't live on top of a house of worship, so they made the best of their increasingly difficult situation. There are two synagogues still active, and to visit them you need to buy tickets at the Jewish museum (Museo Ebraico).
Eventually the ghetto outgrew the little islet, and expanded into the neighboring quarters. During various rules over the coming centuries, the Ghetto gates were either pulled down, or re-built... culminating with a near final decimation with the Nazi deportation of a few hundred Jews in the Ghetto between 1939 and 1945. Today there are supposedly around 500 Jews living in Venice, but only around 30 live in the Ghetto, probably why it feels so desolated. If the walls could only speak...
