Inherit The Earth

IT’S HARD TO stumble on the Ghetto of Venice. You have to go looking for it. Two entrances are low, uninviting gates. The third is over a lovely cast-iron bridge across Rio della Miseracordis. That’s well off the well-trodden path through the Cannaregio district between the Rialto Bridge and Santa Lucia train station. The diversion is one worth taking.

“When you leave the fondamenta (canalside) and go through the gate, you recognize it is a completely different Venice, even if you don’t know why,” says glassmaker Marco Scaramuzza. He runs Vetro di Venezia, a tiny shop full of wonderful contemporary glass art in the heart of the Ghetto, but he enjoys the lack of visitors. “Most of the people who visit here are those who stay in Venice more than one day,” he says. “We have time to discuss the work with them.”

The Ghetto is a tiny area, centred on Campo del Ghetto Nuovo. Like most such squares in the city, it has a distinctive domed rainwater well but it lacks one usual feature: a church. Instead, three synagogues are hidden away behind arched windows, their number offering clues to a complex history. The best way to discover it is on a walking tour starting at the Jewish Museum in one corner of the Campo.

“The Ghetto was founded by the Venetian Republic in 1516,” says guide Simonetta Lazzaretto. “It was a former metal foundry on the outskirts of the city and in the Venetian dialect, getto is the word for casting. The first Jews to live here were Ashkenazi from Germany and they pronounced it with the hard ‘g’. It was the world’s very first ghetto.”

Other communities soon followed and the area expanded from the tiny island of the Ghetto Nuovo across a bridge into the Ghetto Vecchio. (Simonetta explains that the “new” is older than the “old” as the labels came from the former metalworking areas.) During the 16th and 17th centuries, each community built its own synagogue and our tour takes us into three of the five – the other two remain in use.

They are all on the top floor of ordinary-looking buildings, as the Catholic authorities did not allow any ostentatious display of Judaism, although the Jews themselves had to wear a yellow badge or a scarf. The only outward sign is a row of five arched windows but inside they are glorious examples of Venetian architecture – the architects were notable Christian ones as it was not a profession open to Jews.

OVER THE CENTURIES, more and more people crammed into the Ghetto until it reached a population of more than 4,000. Forbidden from expanding outward, its buildings grew up into seven-storey, low-ceiling blocks. These “skyscrapers” – unique to this area of Venice – hold cheap apartments that have more recently attracted artists. One such is American Tony Green, whose oil paintings of Venice show his eye for its light and its festivals – a love shared with his other home of New Orleans. Married to an Italian, he lives right on Campo del Ghetto Nuovo.

“The Ghetto is coming alive,” he says. “With no church, it had nothing to attract tourists. It was a forgotten place, which was part of its charm. It still has a great sense of community, because of the Jewish presence. Now small businesses are mushrooming all over but it’s still one of the last authentic bits of Venice.”

Tony’s terrace stands over the portico of another hidden gem: Banco Rosso – the world’s oldest Jewish pawnshop, now a tiny museum but still in its original 16th-century building. It’s a trade made famous by Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.

“The early Jewish residents were forbidden from carrying on any business other than selling second-hand goods,” says Emma Mastrangelo, whose husband now owns the building. “The Church considered it sinful to lend money for interest, so the Jews were forced into usury by the State in order to support the city’s poor.”

Another artist with a gallery here is Michal Meron, from Israel, whose paintings have a strong Jewish theme. “After Napoleon opened up the Ghetto in 1789, very few Jews remained here,” she says. “We are among the few who still live in the Ghetto. The synagogues are still here, and a religious community, so it’s nice to see the contrast between modern Venice and this 500-year history, even for a non-religious person like me. It’s like a small village, where you know all your neighbours. And, yes, the apartments have very low ceilings but that makes it easy to change the light-bulbs!”

Michal’s gallery – The Studio in Venice – is at Canareggio 1152 and nearby at Canareggio 1218 is Arte Ebraica. “It’s the oldest Jewish shop in Italy, opened by my father Marco in 1955,” says Diego Baruch Fusetti. The shop is full of precious objects from silver or glass menoroth to fabrics richly embroidered in Hebrew.

Wandering around the Ghetto, I find other tributes to its Jewish heritage, including a Jewish bookshop and a Yeshiva study centre. Tablets recall some of the notable Jews sent to the Nazi death camps, including Chief Rabbi Adolfo Ottolenghi. A Holocaust Memorial is on the walls of the Campo, next to a nursing home. Almost 300 residents of the Ghetto were deported, many from this home, but only seven returned. The presence of a security booth nearby reminds me that this tragic history still touches the present.

La Serenissima, however, endures and this corner of it reminds us how the city has always welcomed people of all nations and all cultures. While the world around it changes, the Ghetto celebrates its 500 years of history by quietly preserving its past.

This story was originally written for Balgioni Hotel Luna

Further info:

The Jewish Museum was restored for the 500th anniversary of the Ghetto. A guided tour to the synagogues in English and Italian runs every hour from 10.30am until 5.30pm [4.30pm Oct-May]. Tours can also be arranged in other languages, including Hebrew. No tours on Saturday (Shabbat), or Jewish festivities.

Jewish Community Venice

Ziva Kraus’s Ikona Venezia specialises in contemporary photography.

The Melori & Rosenberg Art Gallery specialises in contemporary art.

Kosher food can be found at Gam Gam (Cannaregio 1122) and Ghimel Garden on the Campo del Ghetto Nuovo, which offers a sushi dinner on Saturdays. Fish is also a speciality of Ristorante Upupa on the square. The Jewish Museum has a good quality kosher café.