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Calabria, (קלבריה) is at the very south of the Italian peninsula. Jews have had a presence in Calabria for at least 1600 years and possibly as much as 2300 years. Calabrian Jews have had notable influence on many areas of Jewish life and culture.
However, legends state that many Jewish captive slaves were brought to Calabria after the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70.
Other legends state that it was the Hellenized Jews from Egypt who introduced the Etrog to Calabria during the time of Magna Graecia. In fact, the prized Etrog known as the Diamante Citron also known as the, "Yanover Esrog, is still grown in Calabria to this day.
The first dated mentioning of Jewish communities in Calabria were by Roman officials in the service of the Western Emperor Honorius in the year 398. Some ancient towns known to have had a Jewish community were Reggio (Rhegion) and Catanzaro (Katantheros). Today some physical remnants of the ancient Calabrian Jewish community still survives. For example, the remains of the 4th century, Bova Marina Synagogue are located in the town of Bova Marina.
Another example is an inscription that mentions Calabria in the Jewish catacombs of Monteverde in Rome. These catacombs were in use from the first to the 3rd century.
In the year 925, an army of Fatimite Muslims, led by Ja'far ibn Ubaid, invaded Calabria which devastated the Jewish population. It was during this time that Shabbethai Donnolo, was made captive. He would later become the Byzantine court physician in Calabria, and wrote many of his most famous works on medicine and theology while in Calabria.
During the early period of the Middle Ages, Calabria then under Byzantine rule, was an important commercial center. During this time the Calabrian Jewish population, estimated at around 12,000, flourished. According to some sources, some areas of Calabria may have had a Jewish population of up to fifty percent. Many Jews were prosperous merchants dominating such industries as silk trading and cloth dyeing. Money lending was also an important source of revenue for the Calabrian Jews.
During the First Crusade, southern Italy, including both Sicily and Calabria fell to the Normans. For a time, this resulted in uniting both Jewish populations, as well as other Jewish communities in southern Italy under the flag of the Kingdom of Sicily. Norman conqueror, Robert Guiscard governed Calabria in 1061. Guiscard encouraged the Jews of Catanzaro to engage in several agricultural trades.
In fact, unlike many of the Jewish communities of Western Europe, the Jews of Calabria largely escaped the atrocities associated with that period. Benjamin of Tudela mentioned the Jews of Calabria on his return trip to Spain around 1175.
Under Charles II of Anjou with the assistance of the friars of the Dominican Order, the decline of the Calabrian Jewish communities began. During this time many Calabrian Jews and their wealth began to move to other Jewish communities of France and Northern Italy. Meanwhile other Calabrian Jews were pressured to convert to Christianity. These Jewish converts to Christianity in Southern Italy were known as Neofiti.
The first type set Hebrew books in Europe were printed in Reggio by Abraham Garton in 1475. Garton did not use movable type, but used a block page format known as Incunabulum to print his material. Garton's works were printed in a Hebrew style known as Rashi Script. Some historians ponder the connection between Garton's pioneering mass production revolution of Hebrew books and the raise of Ashkenazi prominence in religious scholarship.
It is interesting to note that in the former Jewish quarter of Reggio there is a street named, "Via Ashkenaz". In addition to the first printed Hebrew book, the first Hebrew commentary on the Hagaddah also appeared in Reggio, in 1482.
A short-lived revival of the Calabrian Jewish communities began after Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish expulsion arrived in 1492. Another wave of Jewish refugees also arrived in Calabria fleeing from the Expulsion of the Jews from Sicily in 1493. And Jews from the island of Sardinia also resettled in Calabria after their expulsion as well.
In 1510, the first in a series of Jewish expulsions began in Calabria. The final blow to the Calabrian Jews culminated when the Spanish inquisition at last reached Calabria. By 1541, the Roman Catholic Church ordered the last Jews of Calabria to either leave or to convert to Catholicism. For those who could afford to leave, most went to the Greek cities of Arta, Corfu and Thessaloniki, The Calabrian Jews were a sizable block in the Jewish community of Thessaloniki where they constituted four of the 30 synagogues in the city. Four hundred years later, the last direct descendants of the Calabrian Jews living in Greece would perish in the Holocaust .
During the Middle Ages, Calabria contributed much to the culture of the Jewish people in Europe. Many Jewish scholars, such as Rabbi Hayyim ben Joseph Vital and descendants of the Isaac Abarbanel were known to have come from or resided in Calabria. Also, the 15th-century Christian Hebraist, Agathius Guidacerius, a well regarded Greek and Hebrew grammatical expert was born in the Calabrian town of Rocca-Coragio.
Margherita Sarfatti a wealthy Jewish woman who had a love affair with the Italian Dictator, Benito Mussolini then escaped Italy during the German occupation returned to Italy in 1947. She resided in Calabria until her death in 1961.
Today, over 50 descendants of Calabrian neofiti have revived a small Jewish community in Calabria. In 2007, Calabria consecrated the opening of its first synagogue in 500 years. The Ner Tamid del Sud Synagogue in the town of Serrastretta, serves the regional Jewish community. However, the community has not yet received formal recognition by the Italian government or the Israeli Rabbinate because it is not within the framework of Orthodox Judaism. This community began with the efforts of progressive Rabbi, Barbara Aiello.
Language and culture
From about the 1st century to the 16th century, it is presumed that most native Calabrian Jews spoke a dialect of Judeo-Italian known as Italki or Italkian. However, with the arrival of the Iberian Jews after 1492, Ladino was also spoken throughout Calabria.
Most Calabrian Jews followed the Italian rite (nusach). Later, with the arrival of Iberian Jews, the Sephardic rite was also practiced in Calabria.
Christopher Marlowe's play, The Jew of Malta mentions Calabria.
DNA
The Haplogroup G2c (Y-DNA) which is associated with about 40% of the Ashkenazi Jewish population has been linked to the Jews of Sicily who in part migrated to Calabria then onto other parts of Europe.
In addition to the Ashkenazi, Haplogroup G2c is also present in the population of modern Calabrians and their descendants, indicating a common ancestry between the two groups.
Notables
- Haim ben Joseph Vital (1534 - 1620)
- Margherita Sarfatti (Grassini) (April 8, 1880 – October 30, 1961)
- Barbara Aiello Rabbi
- Don Isaac Abarbanel Descendants
Links
- The Jews of Sicily and Calabria
- Still Jewish after all these years
- Calabria, Italy Encyclopedia Judaica