La Giudecca

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In Southern Italy and Sicily, la Giudecca identified any urban district (or a portion of a village) where Jewish communities dwelled and had their shrines and business.Unlike ghettos, in some Southern Italian hamlets and cities the Hebraic families and their members concentrated without constraint and they could freely circulate and even contribute with Christian neighbours to the success or commercial, cultural and artistic progresses of a region.A very few Sicilian Giudeccas were unhealthy and declined, the greater part numbered lots of craftsmen, doctors and dealers.

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[edit] Etymology

Judeca and Giudecca are the corrupt or jargonized medieval versions of the latin female adjective Judaica , namely Judaical or Judean. The Jewess or The Jewry are other plausible meanings.

[edit] Jewish neighbourhoods in southern Italy

Italian Region Southern Italian Cities, small towns, villages with their Hebrew Districts
Sicily

In the Arab Balarm[1] these two areas were called Harat-Al-Yahud (The Jewish Ward)[1].
Calabria
Campania
  • Naples: Monterone and San Marcellino, Patrizzano, Giudecca Vecchia di Forcella, Giudecca Grande di Portanova, Giudechella del Porto.
  • Sorrento
  • Amalfi
  • Salerno: Giudecca
Basilicata
  • Melfi
Apulia
Sardinia
  • Cagliari: Giudaria di Castello
  • Oristano
  • Alghero

[edit] Some names' senses

  • Meschita derives from Arab Masjid meaning Mosque.[2]
  • Cafarone, corruption of Cafarnao or the local Hebrew dialectization of "Qaphar Aharon", namely "The Hamlet of Aaron" (maybe a Jewish religious leader, a rich and prominent Jewish person from Catanzaro or a simple respectful eponym to remember Moses' brother).
  • Rabato is the Sicilian arabicized translation of Rabāṭ (literally a Stronghold or a Fortalice).The ancient fortified zone of Erice was mainly populated by Jews.

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ Balarm was the Arab name of Palermo.
  2. ^ In the Saracenic Sicily the Synagogue or the Temple were called Mosque , since a Beit Tefila could often phagocyte and take place in an abandoned Muslim cultic building.The words Meskita, Moschetta, Muschitta, Moschella are the Siculo-Arab variants for Little Mosque. After 1492, Moschetta and Moschella were widely adopted as surnames by several Southern Italian Neofiti.Nowadays, they are two very common last names highly diffused in all the meridional regions of Italy.

Sicilia Judaica, N.Bucaria.Flaccovio Editore (1996)