Within the last few days our attention has been focused upon Italy,
because of the reverses which have befallen her army, so soon after
its notable heroic achievements. Knowing the innate courage and
heroism of the Italians, we must hope that their military misfortunes
are only temporary. Meantime, this situation serves to increase our
interest in the relation that has existed between Italy and the
Jews--a question which our association with her in the present
world-struggle has brought to the fore.
It is well to remember that the Jewish community of Italy is the
oldest Jewish community of Europe. Moreover, if the origin of the Jews
in other countries is shrouded in mist, this is not the case here. The
full light of history illumines the earliest period of Jewish life in
Italy.
In Talmudic literature we read of the journeys of famous rabbis to
Rome and of their activities there; in the New Testament we hear of
the Jews of Italy, and of their synagogues, which formed the scene of
activity for the founders of the new faith; in Philo, the great Jewish
writer of the first century, we have a description of the Jewish
community of Rome in the days of Augustus, with references to their
communal life and religious observances. Similarly, there is an
allusion to the Jews, their number and their influence, at Rome, in
one of Cicero's famous orations.
All this teaches us in unmistakable language that even before the
beginning of the Christian era, Jews in considerable numbers
established themselves in the capital of the Roman empire, and that
before long they attained to a position of marked prosperity and
power, thanks not only to their own industry and intelligence, but
also to the good-will of some of the emperors. When Caesar died, it is
said, the Jews kept vigil at his tomb for three nights.
But the history of the Jews in Italy is remarkable not only for its
antiquity. It is remarkable also for its uninterrupted glory and
magnificence. Italy, it has been said, is the one country in which
there has never been such a thing as Jewish persecution on a large
scale. In England and in France there were periods when the Jews were
banished. In Italy they were spared such a wholesale calamity.
This is not to say that the Jews of Italy were not called upon time
and again to face hardship and misery. This is not to say that now and
then one city or another did not try to expel them. Nor is this meant
to cover up the fact that in Rome, from the year 1555 to the year
1848, the Jews were made to live in a ghetto, which contributed beyond
measure to their material and spiritual degradation. In Italy, as
everywhere else, the Jews had more than their share of sorrow and
misery to endure, owing to the fanaticism of popes and the vacillation
of the masses. But the one thing that never did occur was a wholesale
expulsion of the Jews from all her domain, similar to the one from
England in 1290, from France in 1393, and from Spain in 1492.
As a result, the history of the Jews of Italy affords today a record
of uninterrupted activity and glory, extending over more than the
entire period of Christian history. In every century of Italian Jewish
history, we find men and movements of importance, bearing witness to
the energy of the Jew and to the opportunities for its exercise. And
this long period of the past is worthily crowned by the position that
the Jews occupy in the Italy of today. Though their number is small,
there being but about forty thousand of them in Italy, their influence
is striking, seeing that in every sphere they have risen to exalted
positions, unsurpassed, in this respect, if equalled, by their
brethren in any other part of the world.
When we try to account for this, various facts have to be considered.
First, there is the condition of the country. Then, the character of
the people. And, finally, the part of the Jew himself.
For hundreds of years Italy was broken up into many independent towns
and rival principalities, competing and contending with one another,
which frequently proved to the advantage of the Jew, who, when driven
from one part, found refuge in another. Then, the Italians have always
been known for their love of liberty and justice, of education and
enlightenment, in addition to being a pre-eminently practical and
commercial people. This, in its turn, could not help but make them
hospitable to the Jews.
But all this would not have availed to make the history of Israel in
Italy illustrious were it not for the Jews themselves and for what
they have accomplished in various spheres. It is these latter things
particularly that we must consider in a survey of the Jew's history in
Italy.
There is, first of all, the part of the Jew in the commerce of Italy,
as well as in her industries.
This we may name first, because history makes it quite clear that the
Jews were first welcomed and appreciated in Rome and her dependencies
and neighbor-cities because of their commercial ingenuity and
enterprise. Well, there is good reason for believing that as far back
as Augustus, the Jews had begun to play an important part as
commercial factors between Italy and other countries.
In the middle ages, however, they became the commonly recognized
bankers of Italy, particularly in the southern parts, so much so that
in some cases the Jews were even compelled to maintain banks and in
some instances their doing so was made part of diplomatic treaties
between cities, as when Venice making an alliance with Ravenna, in the
fifteenth century, it was stipulated by Ravenna that the Jews should
conduct a bank there, and in one case, at least, on record, in Gubbio,
a Jew was paid a salary by the city for maintaining a bank. In this
way the Jews were expected to contribute to the trade of the town and
the relief of the needy, though in the course of time they were called
usurers for engaging in this sort of business, and it was made the
cause of propaganda against them, and of persecution.
Nor is it fair to suppose that the Jews of Italy were merely engaged
in money-lending and commerce. History tells us that they were also
largely represented in the various trades and industries. The
dye-making industry formed one of the chief occupations of the Jews of
Italy in the thirteenth century. In Sicily, documents relate, almost
all iron workers were Jews. In Sardinia there were among the Jews so
many blacksmiths, locksmiths, weavers, and silversmiths that Ferdinand
the Catholic felt impelled to make a law against their plying their
noisy trades on Christian holidays.
It is hard for some people to get away from the notion that the Jew is
nothing but a merchant. No matter how much they hear of tens of
thousands of Jews engaged in various trades, to the extent of having
trade unions of their own, they still cling to their preposterous
notion that the Jews are a people of merchants only, (though every now
and then they will change their tune and charge all Jews with being
socialists, which certainly is not the special characteristic of
merchants).
It is equally wrong to assume that in the Italy of the past, the Jews
were only bankers and merchants; no, they were also artisans, engaged
in all kinds of trades, including agriculture, and as such they were
of vast importance to their country.
If the Jews of Italy are said to have invented the letter of credit,
thanks to Jewish immigrants in Lombardy possessing valuable interests
in other countries from which they had been expelled, and thus to have
added an important instrument to the conduct of commerce, they were no
less conspicuous in the diverse manual occupations. And the Italians,
knowing the value of commerce and the crafts, stood ready to
appreciate the worth of the Jew.
No less remarkable has been the spiritual history of the Jews of
Italy. Macauley depicts the Italians as possessing a spirit so proud
and fine as to make them equally eminent in the active and the
contemplative life. Even if this description did not happen to apply
to all Jews, it certainly would be applicable to the Jews of Italy.
What would all their distinction in the industrial and commercial
life have signified if they had failed to maintain their spiritual
ideals? As a matter of fact, it is herein that the Jews of Italy have
been especially fortunate.
From the very beginning to this day, as a French writer has put it,
the fire has never died out upon their altars. They were always among
the leaders in Jewish learning and loyalty. Their rabbis were among
the most famous in the world. Some of their works are among the great
classics of Jewish scholarship--such as the _Arukh_, the great
Talmudic cyclopedia of Rabbi Nathan of Rome, or the _Malmad_, the
popular homiletic work of Rabbi Jacob Anatoli, or the _Mesiloth
Yesharim_, the celebrated ethical treatise Hayyim David Luzzatto. Some
of their poets are among the most famous and permanent, like the
satirist Immanuel of Rome, said to have been the friend of Dante.
Perhaps nothing testifies so clearly to the intellectual and spiritual
energy of the Italian Jews as the promptness with which they adopted
the art of printing and the vast number of Hebrew books they issued
soon after the invention of the art. The first Hebrew printed works
appeared in 1475-76, and in the sixteenth century Ferrara, Bologna,
Naples, Cremona, Mantua, became veritable centres for the publication
of Hebrew Bibles, the Talmud, the Zohar, and other rabbinic works. It
is interesting to note that the first Spanish translation of the Old
Testament appeared in Ferrara, and was the work of a Jewish exile, who
by the maltreatment of Spain was not estranged from the love of her
language.
Moreover, the culture of the Jews of Italy even centuries ago had
something that was lacking among their contemporaries elsewhere--it
had breadth, resulting from contact with a cultivated and enlightened
people. Some of the foremost rabbis were also physicians, and were
sought as such by popes, princes, cardinals, and other men of
distinction.
Frequently, we find Jewish scholars acting as teachers and translators
for eminent Christian scholars and patrons of learning, as, for
instance, Jacob Anatoli, Leo Modena, Elijah Levita, and others.
This breadth of culture is the reason why some of their finest works
were written in Italian, such as _The Dialogues of Love_ by Leo
Hebreo, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, and several of the
religious and ethical treatises of such celebrated scholars as Leo
Modena, Samuel David Luzzatto, and Elia Benamozegh. For breadth, as
well as versatility, the products of Israel's spiritual genius in
Italy have never been excelled.
Finally, one cannot study the history of the Jew in Italy without
realizing the depth and ardor of his patriotism. "From the lowest to
the highest," an Italian writer has said, "the Italian is always a
patriot." This certainly may be affirmed of the Italian Jew. He has
always stood for Italy, and been ready to defend her with his blood.
When in the year 536, Belizar, the commander of Justinian I, besieged
Naples, it was the Jews who opposed the surrender of the city, and
offered not only to participate in the defense, but to support the
population with money during the siege. To them was assigned the
defense of the most dangerous section of the city, facing the sea, and
when the city was captured they were made to pay most severely for
their patriotism. And the example of those heroic patriots was
followed repeatedly by the Jews of Italy. It is such patriotism that
made them defenders of Rome when Louis Napoleon sent an army corps
against it in behalf of the Pope, and such patriotism that made them
take such a prominent part, under Cavour and Mazzini and Garibaldi, in
the days of the Risorgimento, in the struggle that led finally to the
emancipation and unification of Italy.
No wonder, then, that Italy had no sooner won her liberty and unity
than she paid due tribute to the patriotism of her Jewish citizens and
gave them that complete emancipation to which their whole history had
entitled them and for which even some of the most eminent non-Jews had
pleaded for many a day--non-Jews whose spirit of justice and freedom
was sublimely symbolized by that noble priest, Father Ambrosoli, who,
in the Passover night of 1848, when the walls of the ghetto were
demolished, was seen amid the crowd, holding under his cloak a
crucifix, which he was ready to uplift as an emblem of love and
brotherhood in case of any hostile demonstration against the Jews.
What good use the Jew of Italy has made of his new-found liberty, the
record of the years since 1870 tells eloquently! In the sciences, in
the arts, in philosophy, in public service--as diplomats and ministers
of State--in every sphere, the Jews of Italy have become an honor to
themselves as well as to their country.
In Rome you may see today a beautiful new Temple erected on the ruins
of the old ghetto. In the vestibule there is a tablet commemorating
its dedication, in the presence of the King of Italy, and reciting the
fact of its erection on the spot where formerly stood the walls of the
ghetto. When I saw it several years ago, I was deeply impressed with
the beauty of the structure and the loyalty that reared it among those
squalid but historic surroundings.
This Temple is a symbol. It is a symbol of the ancient character of
the Italian Jewry. It is a symbol of its loyalty. But above all, it
is a symbol of the liberty and happiness that the advance of democracy
has brought to the Jew of Italy, as well as of other lands. It
inspires us with the hope that so long as Italy remains true to the
cause of democracy, which is the cause of justice and enlightenment,
so long will the Jew be free and safe and happy within her borders!
V