Jewish Community of Turin

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The Jewish Community of Turin represents the organizational structure of the association of Jewish people living in Turin. The organization was established in order to provide for the needs of the Jewish community and to etablish a statute and appropriate guidelines.

[edit] First Settlements

The main Jewish settlements in Piedmont began in the 15th Century and were constituted by [[Jews who escaped from persecution in the east of France. These Jews escaped a few decades after the Spanish persecutions, when in 1492 the Catholic King and Queen of Spain Ferdinand and Isabella forced all the Jewish and Arab subjects to convert, escape or die on the stake.

The Dukes of Savoy tolerated the Jewish presence in their lands in Piedmont]] to increase commerce and to obtain from them high taxes and imposts. Jews as foreigners could not avoid such payments. They were always threatened with the possibility of a sudden warrant for their expulsion.

Through the 16th, 17th and 18th Centuries, the most important Jewish Communities (then called Universities) were formed, on the basis of statutory laws passed mainly by Amedeo the 8th, Emanuele Filiberto and Vittorio Amedeo the 2nd. These Universities were located in Turin, Asti, Alessandria, Cuneo, Casale, Carmagnola, Moncalvo, Saluzzo, Savigliano and Fossano. At the end of the 18th Century, each one of these communities had a Jewish population of more than 100 people with an overall total of 4192. The major Jewish Community of Turin had 1317 people and the minor of Trino Vercellese 35 people.

The main deprivations made by the Dukes and the Kings of Savoy against Jews were the prohibition of owning real property, of joining the standing army, of belonging to the arts and trades corporations and of entering schools. Jews were obliged to wear a distinctive yellow mark.

Between the numerous prohibitions which were aiming to separate Jews from the rest of society, sovereigns allowed them to be pawnbrokers, as a sort of privilege. Jews were the only ones who could practice this activity as it was forbidden to Christians, and therefore was a concession (or an imposition) to Jews. The economy of the State could not exist without money lending, therefore private people and the Savoy kings themselves had to appeal to the Jews.

Jews in Piedmont lived together in specific areas, far away from churches and Catholic procession routes, but actual ghettos were built up about a century and a half after the imposition by Pope Paul the 4th in 1555 on the Jews in Rome.

The ghetto of Turin was built in 1679 and it was enlarged in the 18th Century. It had the characteristic and still visible galleries on the courtyard, along all the sides of the four walls. The ghetto was composed of two blocks of buildings, one between the roads Via Principe Amedeo, Via Bogino, Via Maria Vittoria and Via San Francesco da Paola, and the other one between Via Bogino, Via Des Ambrois and Piazza Carlina. In Via Maria Vittoria 25 and Via Des Ambrois 2 it is still possible to see the original ghetto gates. The inhabitants suffered diseases and deformities due to living in small poorly ventilated conditions. On the roads there were shops where Jews sold the few goods they could: second hand items, ritual foods and garments repaired by very skilled darners. Inside the ghetto there were two Synagogues with Italian and Spanish liturgies. There was also a school (Talmud Torah) where children attended from the age of three.

At the end of the 19th century the European Reform movement and especially the French revolution gave political and civil rights to the Jews on the other side of the Alps.

With the Napoleonic occupation of northern Italy these rights were given also to the Jews of Italy, starting from the Communities of Piedmont. After the emancipation, Jews abandoned the traditional occupation of pawnbroker. They spread in every profession including the military, and as they could now buy buildings, they founded great textile firms which offered jobs to hundreds of Jews and Christians.

When 15 years later Napoleon was defeated in 1814, king Vittorio Emanuele the 1st was restored to his throne. He reinstated all the old deprivations except for the yellow mark. The first attempt at Emancipation was over, but in the meantime the society had changed. The liberal movement had grown, and the monarchy was being transformed from absolute to constitutional. This transformation was also changing the mindset of the larger Piedmontese leadership. Important personalities such as Count Cavour and the brothers Massimo and Roberto D’Azeglio, pleaded for the extension of the constitutional rights of freedom and equality to the oppressed minorities in the kingdom, such as Jews and Waldensians. When the time came, several members of these minorities adhered to the first Risorgimental movement in the late 40's. Eventually, King Carlo Alberto (1831-1849) with a decision of the Parliament in July 1848 allowed the extension of all civil and political rights to the Jews. He proclaimed that differences between religions were not a reason for discrimination anymore.

Thanks to the Emancipation of 1848, Jews began a new life: they could practice any profession or commercial activity and they could participate actively in political life, which they did with great determination and success. The building of the Mole Antonelliana, later the symbol of Turin, was originally commissioned by the Jews of Turin, to celebrate their emancipation when the city became the capital of Italy in 1861. However, the Mole was never used as a Synagogue, and the project was soon sold to the City of Turin in order to buy another piece of land and start from scratch with a slightly smaller project. Over less than 15 years, between 1848 and 1861 the same rights given to the [[Jews of [[Piedmont were given to the rest of the Jewish Communities of Italy – excluding Rome and the Pope’s territories – as soon as each part of the peninsula joined the kings of Savoy in the Unification of Italy.

The Jewish cemetery as it is today was opened in 1867. The Jewish Community moved the ancient burial stones (16th – 17th Century) from the older Jewish cemetery to the new one. By leaving the ghettos, it became inevitable that Jews would start to assimilate. This process started to worry the Rabbis and Jews, fearing to lose their own identity. After a few generations some Piedmontese Jewish Communities became depopulated by assimilation, urbanisation (mainly towards Turin) and later by the Nazi-Fascist persecutions.

In the 20’ and 30’ many Piedmontese Jews supported Fascism. For a short time in Turin was even published a Fascist Jewish periodical. In opposition to the old Zionist propaganda, “La nostra bandiera” (our flag) exalted Italian Nationalism and openly supported Fascism since its' early stage.

On the other hand, a much more relevant number of Jews became strongly anti-Fascist since the early 20’s, and many others joined over the years of Mussolini’s dictatorship, and after the Racial Laws’ promulgation in 1938. Some of them become partisans after the fall of Fascism on September 8, 1943. The Jewish Primary School in [[Turin is named after Emanuele Artom, one of the young Jewish men and women who died for freedom.

Many Jewish families were forced to leave their homes between 1941 and 1943, and lived in the country or in the mountains until the Liberation of the North of Italy in late April 1945. They were hidden by countrymen and their families or by groups of partisans who took the life-threatening risk of hiding Jews. Despite this, all the Piedmontese Jewish Communities lost a very high number of members in the Nazi-fascist persecutions and deportations. Some of the small ones, never recovered and closed the Synagogues after the War.

In Porta Nuova train station in Turin]] there is a memorial stone to the people deported to Auschwitz. Out of 1414 Jewish citizens of Piedmont in 1938, about 400 people were deported never come back.

Nowadays in Piedmont there are three independent Communities: Turin, Vercelli and Casale Monferrato. Other Communities have been absorbed by Turin due to a too small number of members or extinction : Carmagnola, Asti, Cuneo, Acqui, Ivrea, Alessandria, Cherasco, Chieri, Saluzzo, Mondovì, Fossano and Savigliano.

In almost all of these cities the cemeteries and the ghetto buildings and Synagogues are still preserved entirely.

The Jewish Community of Turin counts about 950 Jews (with a high percentage of adults and old people) and has its own Nursery, Primary Schools, Old Aged Home, big Library open to the public, Youth Centre, historic-artistic Archives and a Social Centre where many cultural activities are held.

The numerous contributions provided by public and private associations allowed the Jewish Community to restore the big Synagogue of Turin and the Synagogue of Carmagnola which is valuable for its typical Piedmontese Baroque style. The magnificent Synagogue of Casale and the small one of Ivrea have been already restored. Although the Jewish population in Piedmont is decreasing, it is still possible to visit twelve Synagogues, built both before and after the Emancipation.

The Community of Turin organises lectures and conferences for non Jewish schools on the history of the Judaism with the aim to provide cultural religious information and to stop the spread of anti-Semitism and racism.