Israel in Europe

by G. F. Abbott

In the seventeenth century we hear of more Papal Bulls, barring the Italian Jews from all honourable professions and limiting their commercial activity to trade in cast-off clothes.

It was during this black period of Jewish history that an English gentleman came to Rome. He was a traveller who had an eye for other things than picturesque ruins, and a heart in which there was room for other people than those whom chance had made his compatriots and co-religionists. His name was John Evelyn. Among the things which he saw in Rome was the Jewish quarter, and he records his impressions in the following words, under date January 7, 1645:

“A sermon was preached to the Jews at Ponte Sisto, who are constrained to sit till the hour is done; but it is with so much malice in their countenances, spitting, humming, coughing, and motion, that it is almost impossible they should hear a word from the preacher. A conversion is very rare.”[80]

Again under date January 15, 1645:

“I went to the Ghetto, where the Jewes dwell as in a suburbe by themselves; being invited by a Jew of my acquaintance to see a circumcision. I passed by the Piazza Judea, where their Seraglio begins; for being inviron’d with walls, they are lock’d up every night. In this place remaines yet part of a stately fabric, which my Jew told me had been a palace of theirs for the ambassador of their nation when their country was subject to the Romans. Being led through the Synagogue into a private house, I found a world of people in a chamber: by and by came an old man, who prepared and layd in order divers instruments brought by a little child of about 7 yeares old in a box. These the man lay’d in a silver bason; the knife was much like a short razor to shut into the haft. Then they burnt some incense in a censer, which perfum’d the rome all the while the ceremony was performing. In the basin was a little cap made of white paper like a capuchin’s hood, not bigger than the finger.... Whilst the ceremony was performing, all the company fell a singing an Hebrew hymn in a barbarous tone, waving themselves to and fro, a ceremony they observe in all their devotions. The Jewes in Rome all wear yellow hatts, live only upon brokage and usury, very poore and despicable beyond what they are in other territories of Princes where they are permitted.”

And again under date May 6, 1645:

“The Jewes in Rome wore red hatts til the Card. of Lions, being short-sighted, lately saluted one of them thinking him to be a Cardinal as he pass’d by his coach; on which an order was made that they should use only the yellow colour.”

Next year Evelyn visited the Jewish quarter at Venice:

“The next day I was conducted to the Ghetta, where the Jewes dwell together as in a tribe or ward, where I was present at a marriage. The bride was clad in white, sitting in a lofty chaire, and cover’d with a white vaile; then two old Rabbies joyned them together, one of them holding a glasse of wine in his hand, which in the midst of the ceremony, pretending to deliver to the woman, he let fall, the breaking whereof was to signify the frailty of our nature, and that we must expect disasters and crosses amidst all enjoyments. This don, we had a fine banquet, and were brought into the bride-chamber, where the bed was dress’d up with flowers, and the counterpan strewed in workes. At this ceremony we saw divers very beautiful Portuguez Jewesses with whom we had some conversation.”[81]

These two little pictures, which, like the portraits on ancient Egyptian mummy cases, preserve for us in undimmed freshness the features of the dead past, show that not even the gloom and the filth of the Ghetto were potent enough to kill the Jew’s attachment to his traditions and his love for symbolism, or to befoul the poetry of his inner life. But, ere we enter upon that phase of the subject, we must record another oppressive law, passed in Rome at a time when the century that was to witness the downfall of ancient dynasties, the death of despotism, and the awakening of the popular soul was already far advanced. This eighteenth century Edict, in forty-four Articles, codifies all the prohibitions which had been decreed during the foregoing ages: it forms the epilogue to the sordid tragedy. One of the articles runs as follows: “Jews and Christians are forbidden to play, eat, drink, hold intercourse, or exchange confidences of ever so trifling a nature with one another. Such shall not be allowed in palaces, houses, or vineyards, in the streets, in taverns, in neither shops nor any other place.... The Jews who offend in this matter shall incur the penalties of a fine of 10 Scudi and imprisonment; Christians, a similar fine and corporal punishment.”[82]