The history of the Jews

Jews

The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...

 in Apulia

Apulia

Apulia is a region in Southern Italy bordering the Adriatic Sea in the east, the Ionian Sea to the southeast, and the Strait of Òtranto and Gulf of Taranto in the south. Its most southern portion, known as Salento peninsula, forms a high heel on the "boot" of Italy. The region comprises , and...

 (also known as Puglia) can be traced to over two millennia. Apulia, (from Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 Ἀπουλία, in , ˈpuʎʎa) in Hebrew:פוליה) is a mountainous region in the "boot heel" of the peninsula of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 bordering the Adriatic Sea

Adriatic Sea

The Adriatic Sea is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan peninsula, and the system of the Apennine Mountains from that of the Dinaric Alps and adjacent ranges...

. The Jews have had a presence in Apulia for at least 2000 years. The Jews of Apulia had a rich Rabbinic tradition and also had a sizeable Jewish population in the central Mediterranean prior to the their expulsion.

Ancient history

Apulia was once part of the ancient Greek

Ancient Greece

Ancient Greece is a civilization belonging to a period of Greek history that lasted from the Archaic period of the 8th to 6th centuries BC to the end of antiquity. Immediately following this period was the beginning of the Early Middle Ages and the Byzantine era. Included in Ancient Greece is the...

 province of Bruttium, then became part of the Italian region of Calabria

Calabria

Calabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....

 until its distinction today as a separate area. In the 1st century, Roman records tell of the Jewish communities of Bari

Bari

Bari is the capital city of the province of Bari and of the Apulia region, on the Adriatic Sea, in Italy. It is the second most important economic centre of mainland Southern Italy after Naples, and is well known as a port and university city, as well as the city of Saint Nicholas...

, Oria, Otranto

Otranto

Otranto is a town and comune in the province of Lecce , in a fertile region once famous for its breed of horses.It is located on the east coast of the Salento peninsula. The Strait of Otranto, to which the city gives its name, connects the Adriatic Sea with the Ionian Sea and Italy with Albania...

, and Taranto

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

. Other legends tell of Jewish captives deported from Judea by the Roman Emperor Titus

Titus

Titus , was Roman Emperor from 79 to 81. A member of the Flavian dynasty, Titus succeeded his father Vespasian upon his death, thus becoming the first Roman Emperor to come to the throne after his own father....

 after the fall of Jerusalem in the year 70. Official documents from the Western Roman emperor Honorius

Honorius (emperor)

Honorius , was Western Roman Emperor from 395 to 423. He was the younger son of emperor Theodosius I and his first wife Aelia Flaccilla, and brother of the eastern emperor Arcadius....

 in the year 398, confirm there were several Jewish communities in Apulia. The many tombstone inscriptions, some entirely or partially written in Hebrew, found in Trani

Trani

Trani is a seaport of Apulia, southern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea, in the new Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani , and 40 km by railway West-Northwest of Bari.- History :...

, Taranto, Matera, Bari, Brindisi

Brindisi

Brindisi is a city in the Apulia region of Italy, the capital of the province of Brindisi, off the coast of the Adriatic Sea.Historically, the city has played an important role in commerce and culture, due to its position on the Italian Peninsula and its natural port on the Adriatic Sea. The city...

, Otranto, and Oria shows the large number of Jews settled in the region, and the usage of Hebrew. Inscriptions found in the Campanian

Campanian

The Campanian is, in the ICS' geologic timescale, the fifth of six ages of the Late Cretaceous epoch . The Campanian spans the time from 83.5 ± 0.7 Ma to 70.6 ± 0.6 Ma ...

 town of Venosa

Venosa

Venosa is a town and comune in the province of Potenza, in the Southern Italian region of Basilicata, in the Vulture area. It is bounded by the comuni of Barile, Ginestra, Lavello, Maschito, Montemilone, Palazzo San Gervasio, Rapolla and Spinazzola....

 mention the communal organization of Jewish life in southern Italy. After the fall of the Roman Empire

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....

, the region of Apulia fell under the rule of the Byzantine Empire

Byzantine Empire

The Byzantine Empire was the Eastern Roman Empire during the periods of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, centred on the capital of Constantinople. Known simply as the Roman Empire or Romania to its inhabitants and neighbours, the Empire was the direct continuation of the Ancient Roman State...

 and during the 9th century. This opened a troubling time of zealous Christian missionary effort for the region's Jews. In 875 and 925, Arab armies invaded and occupied parts of Apulia, resulting in much misery for the Jews, which forced many of them to flee for their lives. The Jewish court physician Shabbethai Donnolo

Shabbethai Donnolo

Shabbethai Donnolo was an Italian physician, and writer on medicine and astrology born at Oria. When twelve years of age he was made prisoner by the Arabs under the leadership of the Fatimite Abu Ahmad Ja'far ibn 'Ubaid, but was ransomed by his relatives at Otranto, while the rest of his family...

 lived Calabria/Apulia area in the tenth century and wrote of these times.

Medieval history

By the 11th century, the region was again a peaceful haven for the Jews. During this time many Apulian Torah

Torah

Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five books of the bible—Genesis , Exodus , Leviticus , Numbers and Deuteronomy Torah- A scroll containing the first five books of the BibleThe Torah , is name given by Jews to the first five...

 scholars had regular contact with the Rabbinic academies of the east. The Chronicle of Ahimaaz

Ahimaaz ben Paltiel

Ahimaaz ben Paltiel was a Italian-Jewish liturgical poet and author of a family chronicle. Very little is known about his life. He came of a family some of whose members are well known in Jewish literature as scholars and poets; for example, Hananiel ben Amittai, and his nephew Amittai ben...

 in 1054 contains many details on Apulian Jewry. Apulian poets of the time include Shephatiah of Oria who wote the poem "Yisrael Nosha" which is included in the Neilah service on the Day of Atonement in the Ashkenazi liturgy. Amittai in Oria, and Silano in Venosa were also well known poets. Torah scholars are mentioned from the middle of the tenth century in Bari, Oria, and Otranto. The Josippon

Josippon

Josippon is the name usually given to a popular chronicle of Jewish history from Adam to the age of Titus, attributed to an author Josippon or Joseph ben Gorion....

 chronicle, composed sometime in the mid-tenth century, is a product of the southern Italian Jewish/Hebrew culture. The south Italian Jewry contributed to the early Ashkenazi culture in central Europe. The Jews of France and Germany recognized the scholarship of the Apulian center as late as the 12th century. This is acknowledged in a quote by the French Tosafist, Jacob ben Meir

Rabbeinu Tam

Rabbeinu Tam , born Jacob ben Meir, was one of the most renowned French Tosafists and a foremost halachic authority of his generation...

: "For out of Bari goes forth the Law and the word of the Lord from Otranto" Other rabbinic scholars of Apulia in the 13th century include Isaiah ben Mali of Trani (the Elder)

Isaiah di Trani

Isaiah di Trani ben Mali , better known as the RID, was a prominent Italian Talmudist.- Biography:...

, his grandson Isaiah ben Elijah of Trani

Isaiah di Trani the Younger

Isaiah ben Elijah di Trani was an Italian Talmudist and commentator who lived in the 13th century and 14th century. He was the grandson, on his mother's side, of Isaiah di Trani the Elder. He is usually quoted as ריא"ז , or Isaiah ben Elijah di Trani (the Younger) (Hebrew: ישעיה בן אליהו...

, and Solomon ben ha-Yatom. The lives of the Jews in Apulia continued to be tolerable until the end of the 13th century. Jews in Apulia owned land, were employed in crafts, such as the dyeing industry. Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas

Thomas Aquinas, O.P. , also Thomas of Aquin or Aquino, was an Italian Dominican priest of the Catholic Church, and an immensely influential philosopher and theologian in the tradition of scholasticism, known as Doctor Angelicus, Doctor Communis, or Doctor Universalis...

, a native of southern Italy, refers to the employment of the Jews in southern Italy in 1274, saying: "it would do better to compel the Jews to work for their living, as is done in parts of Italy, than to allow them… to grow rich by usury."

Toleration of the Jews in Apulia came to end when the Apulia, as well as other parts of southern Italy fell to the Kingdom of Naples

Kingdom of Naples

The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...

. King Charles II of Anjou ordered the forced baptism

Baptism

In Christianity, baptism is for the majority the rite of admission , almost invariably with the use of water, into the Christian Church generally and also membership of a particular church tradition...

 of all Jews in his realm. Many Apulian Jews fled either to neighboring central Italy and northern Italy. Many also moved to the Germanic

Germanic peoples

The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...

 areas of central Europe. All synagogoues at that time were converted into Roman Catholic Churches and all Torah academies were closed. Many of the Jews who had coerced into Christianity , still practiced the Jewish faith in secret. These Jews became the historic population of Neofiti

Neofiti

The neofiti were a group of Italian anusim, also known as crypto-Jews, living in Southern Italy.-History:The Jewish ancestors of the neofiti were forced to convert to Roman Catholicism in 1493. They continued to secretly practice certain elements of Judaism, however, as did many of their descendants...

. These Crypto-Jews, also known in Hebrew as Anusim

Anusim

Anusim is a legal category of Jews in halakha who were forced or coerced to abandon Judaism against their will, typically while forcibly converted to another religion...

 were frequently compelled to live in special quarters known as Giudecca

Giudecca

Giudecca is an island in the Venetian Lagoon, northern Italy. It is part of the sestiere of Dorsoduro. It is a locality of the comune of Venice.-Geography:...

. They were regarded by the local catholic populatipon as heretics. In 1311 King Robert directed that those who had either secretly practcing or relapsed back to Judaism to be severely punished; the order was renewed in 1343 by Joanna I

Joan I of Naples

Joan I , born Joanna of Anjou, was Queen of Naples from 1343 until her death. She was also Countess of Provence and Forcalquier, Queen consort of Majorca and titular Queen of Jerusalem and Sicily 1343–82, and Princess of Achaea 1373/5–81....

. Both Jews and neofiti who again settled in Apulia in the 15th century, were subjected to mob attacks occurring in Bari and Lecce in 1463. The invasion of Otranto by the Ottoman Turks in 1480 led to a large massacre of Jews who lived in the area. In 1492, after the expulsion of the Jews from Spain, many Spanish, and Portuguese Jews settled in Apulia. This led to a small revival of Jewish life in the area.
Isaac Abrabanel

Isaac Abrabanel

Isaac ben Judah Abrabanel, , commonly referred to just as Abarbanel, was a Portuguese Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier.-Biography:...

 lived in Apulia at this time after leaving Spain. However, the revival was short lived. In 1495, the Kingdom of Naples fell to the French and King Charles VIII

Charles VIII of France

Charles VIII, called the Affable, , was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498. Charles was a member of the House of Valois...

 ordered more restrictions to placed on the Jews of Apulia. Also in 1495, the Jews Lecce

Lecce

Lecce is a historic city of 95,200 inhabitants in southern Italy, the capital of the province of Lecce, the second province in the region by population, as well as one of the most important cities of Puglia...

 were massacred and the Jewish quarter was burned to the ground. Lecce was the birthplace of
Abraham de Balmes

Abraham de Balmes

Abraham de Balmes ben Meir Abraham de Balmes ben Meir Abraham de Balmes ben Meir (born at Lecce, in the kingdom of Naples; died at Venice, 1523 was Italian Jewish physician and translator of the early 16th century....

 a noted Hebrew expert. One Balmes' pupils was Daniel Bomberg

Daniel Bomberg

Daniel Bomberg was an early printer of Hebrew language books. A Christian, born in Antwerp, he was primarily active in Venice between 1516 and 1549....

.

When Apulia fell to the Spanish in 1510 and the beginning of the end was in sight for the Apulian Jews. The Spanish Inquisition

Spanish Inquisition

The Tribunal of the Holy Office of the Inquisition , commonly known as the Spanish Inquisition , was a tribunal established in 1480 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the Medieval...

 reached Apulia because of the large number of Jews, Crypto-Jews and Neofiti living in the area. A series of expulsions started 1511. Most Jews and Neofiti were expelled and or tortured to death. Most Jewish property was seized and all remaining Synogoues were rededicated as Catholic Churches.

By 1540, the last expulsion finally ended Jewish life in Apulia. Most remaining Crypto-Jews were driven so deep underground their presence finally came to an end as well. Some of the Apulian Jewish refugees fled north. However, most of them settled in Greece

Greece

Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 or the Aegean islands. The Apulian Jews set up new congregations in Corfu

Corfu

Corfu is a Greek island in the Ionian Sea. It is the second largest of the Ionian Islands, and, including its small satellite islands, forms the edge of the northwestern frontier of Greece. The island is part of the Corfu regional unit, and is administered as a single municipality. The...

, Arta

Arta, Greece

Arta is a city with a rich history in northwestern Greece, capital of the peripheral unit of Arta, which is part of Epirus region. The city was known in ancient times as Ambracia . Arta is famous for its old bridge located over the Arachthos River, situated west of downtown...

 and Salonika. Sadly, the last remants of the Apulian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.

Modern times

In 2006, the orthodox Scolanova Synagogue

Scolanova Synagogue

The Scolanova Synagogue is a synagogue in Trani, Italy. It was built as a medieval synagogue, confiscated by the church during a wave of antisemitism around the year 1380, and converted for use as a church known as Santa Maria in Scolanova...

 was rededicated and opened for worship in Apulian city of Trani

Trani

Trani is a seaport of Apulia, southern Italy, on the Adriatic Sea, in the new Province of Barletta-Andria-Trani , and 40 km by railway West-Northwest of Bari.- History :...

. The synagogue was built in the 13th century but seized by the Roman Catholic Church in 1380 and converted into a church. A congregation of Jews of San Nicandro

Jews of San Nicandro

The Jews of San Nicandro are a small community of Jews from San Nicandro Garganico, Italy. All of the San Nicandro Jews are descended from local neofiti families from the 15th century...

 and Apulian Gerim descended from Neofiti families, worship in the synagogue regularly. In addition, the former Scolagrande Synagogue, which is now the St. Anne's Church, Trani

St. Anne's Church, Trani

St. Anne's Church located in Trani, Apulia in Italy, was built as the Scolagrande Synagogue during the medieval period; the structure houses now the Jewish Section of the Diocesan Museum of Trani.-History:...

, has a Jewish museum.

Language and culture

It is known that the early Jewish inhabitants in southern Italy including Apulia, spoke mostly Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 as their vernacular. Later this evolved into a hybrid language known as Judeo-Latin

Judeo-Latin

Judeo-Latin, or La‘az is the presumed Jewish language of the many scattered Jewish communities of the former Roman Empire, but especially by the Jewish communities of the Italian Peninsula and Transalpine Gaul...

. After the fall of the Roman Empire, Judeo-Latin gave way to a form of Judeo-Italian known as "Italki". After the expulsion of the Jews from southern Italy, Italki remained their mother tongue in their new settlements in Greece. Some of the best known examples of spoken Italki were the Jews of Corfu

Corfiot Italians

Corfiot Italians are a population from the Greek island of Corfu with ethnic and linguistic ties to the Republic of Venice. Their name was specifically established by Niccolò Tommaseo during the Italian Risorgimento...

. Italki is now virtually extinct as a spoken language with the deaths of the Italian Jews as a result of the Holocaust.

Astrology

Despite Mosiac prohibitions, Astrology was widely practiced in Apulia. An Apulian Jew by the name of Paltiel, a descendant of Hananeel ben Amittai and owing his distinction to astrology, became the friend and counselor of the calif Abu Tamim Maad, conqueror of Egypt and builder of Cairo. The friendship began in Italy on the occasion of one of the Apulian invasions led by Abu Tamim Maad. Paltiel achieved distinction among the Jews of Egypt in the second half of the tenth century and was given the title of "Naggid."

Star of David

The earliest known depiction of the Star of David

Star of David

The Star of David, known in Hebrew as the Shield of David or Magen David is a generally recognized symbol of Jewish identity and Judaism.Its shape is that of a hexagram, the compound of two equilateral triangles...

 as a Jewish symbol appears on a Jewish tombstone in the Apulian town of Taranto

Taranto

Taranto is a coastal city in Apulia, Southern Italy. It is the capital of the Province of Taranto and is an important commercial port as well as the main Italian naval base....

. The Jews of Apulia were noted for their scholarship in Kabbalah

Kabbalah

Kabbalah/Kabala is a discipline and school of thought concerned with the esoteric aspect of Rabbinic Judaism. It was systematized in 11th-13th century Hachmei Provence and Spain, and again after the Expulsion from Spain, in 16th century Ottoman Palestine...

, which has been assumed to be the genesis of the Star of David.

External list

• http://escholarship.org/uc/item/91z342hv#page-1
• http://www.traniweb.it/trani/informa/10492.html