History
Italian Jews can be traced back as far as the 2nd century BCE: tombstones and dedicatory inscriptions survive from this period. At that time they mostly lived in the far South of Italy, with a branch community in Rome, and were generally Greek-speaking. It is thought that some families (for example the Adolescenti) are descendants of Jews deported from Judaea by the emperor Titus in 70 CE. In early medieval times there were major communities in southern Italian cities such as Bari and Otranto. Medieval Italian Jews also produced important halachic works such as Shibbole ha-Leket. Following the expulsion of the Jews from the Kingdom of Naples in 1533, the centre of gravity shifted to Rome and the north.
One of the most famous of Italy's Jews was Rabbi 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. Some 7,000 Italian Jews were deported and murdered during the Holocaust.
Read more about this topic: Italian Jews
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