Venice

WELCOME TO THE FLOATING CITY!

Jews have lived in Venice since the Middle Ages but the first Jewish community was not established until the 14th century when a group of moneylending Jews were granted a charter to work in the city. Years of restrictions on Jewish life followed until the Jews were finally forced into the ghetto in 1516 which became increasingly crowded as Jews from other cities joined the Venetian community. After the advent of the printing press, Venice became a printing hub for Jewish books and a hub of Jewish scholarship.

Your tour will take you through ghetto where much of the Jewish community is still centered. You can visit the Jewish cemetery with its mass graves, a result of the waves of Bubonic Plague which struck the Jewish ghetto over the years. You’ll walk past sites of building once built to eight or nine stories — that were structurally less than sound — to accommodate the ghetto’s growing population. And of course, you’ll see the five historic synagogues that are still used today by the contemporary Venetian Jewish community!

PLACES OF INTEREST

SYNAGOGUES

PLACES TO EAT

ACCOMODATIONS

RESOURCES