Venice Jews work to preserve the world's first ghetto as 500th anniversary nears

[silvershadow]

On a cold, blue winter's day, Shaul Bassi stood shivering in the main square of an ancient Venetian neighborhood as he tried to explain how this was not just a ghetto, it was the ghetto.

"The concept of the ghetto was born here in Venice," he said. "And that is why we must never forget this place."

Set up by Venice's rulers in 1516 on the site of an old metal foundry, and probably the first community in Europe to be segregated by religious belief, the neighborhood took its name from getar, a word in the Venetian dialect meaning "to smelt."

For the next 300 years, the Jews of Venice, about 5,000 in all, were forced to pay the salaries of the guards who locked them in from midnight to 5 a.m. and patrolled the canal circling the area.

The rest: http://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-italy-venice-ghetto-20160307-story.html

[JonLeibowitz]

1. I read this in my paper this morning, it is a timely article. Recommend.