Italian Jews

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Italian Jews
Ebrei italiani
יהודים איטלקים
Total population
Regions with significant populations
 United States10,000
Italian, Hebrew, Judeo-Italian languages and dialects (historically)
Related ethnic groups
Jews, Sephardi Jews, Ashkenazi Jews

Italian Jews (Italian: Ebrei italiani, Hebrew: יהודים איטלקיםYehudim Italkim) or Roman Jews can be used in a broad sense to mean all Jews living or with roots in Italy, or, in a narrower sense, to mean the Italkim, an ancient community who use the Italian liturgy as distinct from the communities dating from medieval or modern times who use the Sephardic liturgy or the Nusach Ashkenaz.


Italian Jews historically fell into four categories.

  2. Sephardi Jews, in particular Spanish and Portuguese Jews, i.e., Jews who arrived in Italy following their expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula. The Kingdom of Spain expelled Jews with the 1492 Alhambra Decree and the persecution of Jews and Muslims by Manuel I of Portugal lead to their expulsion in 1497. In addition, Jews were forced out of the Kingdom of Naples in 1533. These groups also include anusim, crypto-Jewish families who left Iberia in subsequent centuries and reverted to Judaism, as well as immigration by Sephardi families which had lived in the Eastern Mediterranean following expulsion from the Iberian Peninsula.
  3. Ashkenazi Jews, Jews living mainly in Northern Italy.
  4. The Jews of Asti, Fossano, and Moncalvo ("Appam"). These represent the Jews expelled from France beginning in 1182 subsequent to the Rhineland massacres after the First Crusade. Their liturgy is similar to that of the Ashkenazim, but contains some distinctive usages descended from the French Jews of the time of Rashi, particularly in the services for the High Holy Days.


Today there are further categories:



Two of the most famous of Italy's Jews was Obadiah ben Jacob Sforno (1475-1550) and Moshe Chaim Luzzatto (1707–1746) whose written religious and ethical works are still widely studied.

The Italian Jewish community as a whole has numbered no more than 50,000 since it was fully emancipated in 1870. During the Second Aliyah (between 1904 and 1914) many Italian Jews moved to Israel, and there is an Italian synagogue and cultural centre in Jerusalem. Around 7,700 Italian Jews were deported and murdered during the Holocaust.[3]

Italian rite Jews[edit]

Jewish wedding in Venice, 1780 Musée d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaïsme


The customs and religious rites of the Italian-rite Jews can be seen as a bridge between the Ashkenazi and Sephardic traditions; showing similarities to both; they are closer still to the customs of the Romaniote Jews from Greece. A subdivision is recognised between minhag Benè Romì, practised in Rome, and minhag Italiani, practised in northern cities such as Turin, though the two rites are generally close.


It is often claimed that the Italian prayer-book contains the last remnants of the Palestinian minhag, while both the Sephardi and, to a lesser extent, the Ashkenazi rites, reflect the Babylonian tradition. This claim is quite likely historically accurate, though it is difficult to verify textually as little liturgical material from the Land of Israel survives. Additionally, some Italian traditions reflect the Babylonian rite in a more archaic form, in much the same way as the prayer-book of the Yemenite Jews. Examples of old Babylonian traditions retained by the Italians but by no other group (including the Baladi-rite prayer of the Yemeni Jews) are the use of keter yitenu lach in the kedushah of all services[4] and of naḥamenu in Birkat Hamazon, the grace after meals on Shabbat, both of which are found in the siddur of Amram Gaon.

The Italian rite community traditionally has used Italian Hebrew, a pronunciation system similar to that of conservative Iberian Jews. This pronunciation has in many cases been adopted by the Sephardi, Ashkenazi and Appam communities of Italy as well as by the Italian-rite communities.

Graeco-Italian Jews[edit]

The medieval pre-expulsion Jews of Southern Italy (the Jews of Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily) are often subsumed under the designation of "Italian Jews", and from a geographical point of view this is correct. In truth, however, Southern Italy, divided into the provinces of Sicily and the Catepanate of Italy, belonged to the Byzantine Empire till 1071, and remained culturally Greek well after that (see Griko people). Accordingly, the medieval Jewish communities of Southern Italy were linguistically a part of the Yevanic area[5] and as concerns customs and liturgy a part of the Romaniote area.[6] Even after the Byzantine Empire had lost the Southern Italian provinces, the Kehillot in Apulia, Calabria and Sicily maintained connections to their coreligionists in Greece and Constantinople.[7][8] Nevertheless, Jews in rural areas of Emirate of Sicily and Apulia are known to have made some use of Judeo-Arabic and Judeo-Italian languages in addition to Greek.[9][10]

Ashkenazi Jews[edit]




Sephardi Jews[edit]



The main places of settlement were as follows.

  2. Sephardic immigration was also encouraged by the Este princes, in their possessions of Reggio, Modena and Ferrara (these cities also had established Italian-rite and Ashkenazi communities). In 1598, following the extinction of the male line of d'Este dukes of Ferrara, that city was repossessed by the Papal States, leading to some Jewish emigration from there (although overall the community survived as a distinct and significant entity up until the 20th century).






See also[edit]


  1. ^ Kjeilen, Tore. "Israel / Peoples - LookLex Encyclopaedia".
  2. ^ As reported by the American Jewish Yearbook (2007), on a total Italian population of circa 58 million people, which therefore is approx. 0.1% of the population. Greater concentrations are in Rome and Milan. Cf. the demographic statistics by Sergio DellaPergola, published on World Jewish Population, American Jewish Committee, 2007.URL accessed 13 March 2013. As data originate from records kept by the various Italian Jewish congregations (which means they register "observant" Jews who have somehow had to go through basic rituals such as the Brit Milah or Bar/Bat Mitzvah etc.). Excluded are therefore "ethnic Jews", lay Jews, atheist/agnostic Jews, et al. – cfr. "Who is a Jew?". If these are added, then the total population would increase, possibly to approx. 50,000 Jews in Italy, not counting recent migrations from North Africa and Eastern Europe.
  3. ^ "The Jews of Italy". The Museum of the Jewish People at Beit Hatfutsot. Retrieved 25 June 2018.
  5. ^ Bernard Spolsky, The Languages of the Jews: A Sociolinguistic History. 2014
  6. ^ R. Langer, Cursing the Christians?: A History of the Birkat HaMinim, p. 203. 2012
  7. ^ R. Bonfil et al., Jews in Byzantium: Dialectics of Minority and Majority Cultures, 2011
  8. ^ Joshua Holo, Byzantine Jewry in the Mediterranean Economy. 2009
  9. ^ Metcalfe, A. Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic-Speakers and the End of Islam. 2014
  10. ^ Safran, L. The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy, p. 215. 2014

Further reading[edit]

  • Ferrara degli Uberti, Carlotta, "Making Italian Jews: Family, Gender, Religion and the Nation 1861-1918, Palgrave MacMillan (London) 2017.
  • Ebreo chi? Sociologia degli ebrei italiani ( Jewish who? A sociology of the Italian Jews today) Ugo G. Pacifici Noja and Giorgio Pacifici eds., with contributions of Umberto Abenaim, Massimiliano Boni, Angelica Edna Calo Livne, Enzo Campelli, Renata Conforty Orvieto, Sergio Della Pergola, Roberto Della Rocca, Anna Foa, Silvia \Maiocchi, Natan Orvieto, Rossana Ottolenghi, Giorgio Pacifici, Ugo G. Pacifici Noja, Vittorio Pavoncello, Gian Stefano Spoto, Claudio Vercelli, with a foreword of Furio Colombo, Jaca Book, Milan, 2017 ISBN 978-88-16-41419-8

Italian rite prayer books[edit]

  • Mahzor kefi ha-nahug li-kehal Roma, Casal Maggiore 1486
  • Ḥelek me-ha-maḥzor kefi minhag k”k Roma, Bologna 1540
  • Maḥzor ke-minhag Roma, Mantua 1557
  • Siddur mebarekhah: ke-minhag k”k Italiani, Venice 1618
  • Siddur Benè Romì, Milan 2002
  • The Complete Italian Machazor, ed. Emanuele Artom, Jerusalem 2005 [1]



  • Italian Jewish Musical Traditions from the Leo Levi Collection (1954–1961) (Anthology of Music Traditions in Israel, 14, edited by Francesco Spagnolo): contains examples of Italian liturgical music from the Italiani/Bené Romi, Sephardi and Ashkenazi traditions
  • Free download of tefillot, haftarot, parashot sung according to the Italian rite on the site

External links[edit]