SICILIAN JEWS
Prior to and After 1492
An E-Mail Interview With Susan Kikoler1
By Judith Roumani 2

Photo Curtesy of Barbara Weibel. https://holeinthedonut.com/

Jewish Quarter in the old town of Syracuse, Sicily (Photo courtesy of Barbara Weibel).

1.  PLEASE GIVE US AN OVERVIEW OF SICILIAN JEWISH HISTORY

From Roman times, (in 70 CBE Cicero referred to a Jew involved in the corruption trial of the Governor Verres), until the Edict of Expulsion in 1492, for 1600 years Jews survived every new invader – Visigoths, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Swabians, Angevins, and Aragonese Spanish – and thrived both commercially and culturally. By 1492 the Sicilian Jews numbered over 30,000 representing 5% of the island’s population. They had arrived from all areas of the Mediterranean. In good times Sicily was a magnet for trade. In bad times it was a haven of freedom. They lived in relative safety, considering how Jews were expelled from France and England etc and by 1492 the Jewish community was one of the most vibrant culturally and commercially of the whole Mediterranean. With their knowledge of Arabic, among other languages, they played a unique role in the early Renaissance as translators and teachers of Kabbalah to Christians as well as developing international trade links with Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.

 

2.  CAN YOU NAME AN IMPORTANT HISTORIAN OF THE SUBJECT?

The pre-eminent historian is Shlomo Simonsohn.

 

3.  WHAT ARE THE MAIN CONTROVERSIES IN THE FIELD OF SICILIAN JEWISH STUDIES? HOW MANY JEWS LIVED ON THE ISLAND OF SICILY?

I am not in a position to answer this. The serious study of Sicilian Jewish history is a very recent development and there is still much to be investigated. There have been differences of opinion over the number of Jews on the island. Today I believe 30,000 is the usual conservative estimate but some researchers have given a much higher figure – up to 100,000 in one case!

 

4.  WAS THERE PERSECUTION? WAS JEWISH LIFE PRECARIOUS?

Jewish life has always been precarious. For the Romans, Jews were just another religion. Under the Arabs both Jews and Christians were taxed on their property and for the right to practice their religion. They couldn’t build new synagogues but could repair the old. Jews had to wear a special red cord when visiting the baths to distinguish them from the circumcised Arabs. The Normans, however, gave Jews full civil rights, except for owning Christian slaves, and incorporated Judaic law into the four recognized legal codes on the island. Jews inevitably served as a milch-cow, to be heavily taxed whenever the ruler needed money. At times discriminatory laws were passed, i.e. Jews had to wear a special badge, but were inconsistently enforced. Jews could be doctors but at times were forbidden to treat Christians – this was generally ignored.

Jews were forced to hear sermons, especially at Easter and Saint Stephen’s Day, and sometimes attacked, but usually this was at the behest of the church rather than instigated by the local people. In 1392 there was one episode of forced conversion at Monte San Giuliano (Erice). The 1470s were difficult times after the fall of Constantinople and the ensuing economic crisis. Friars roamed preaching against Jews. In 1474, 360 Jews were killed on August 15 at Modica and also at Noto (but the king intervened via the viceroy to round up and punish the attackers).

A very important fact was that. since the time of Federick II, Jews were regarded as being SERVI CAMERAE REGIS i.e. they were direct subjects of the King, not of any local nobleman. An attack on the Jews was therefore an attack on the king. Every May, each Jewish community elected its own council, which then organized all aspects of life for the community.

Sometime the Jews were pawns in a power-play between the church and the king, or the barons and the king.

 

5.  HOW DID THEY MAKE A LIVING AND WHAT WAS THEIR CULTURAL LEVEL?

The unique aspect of Jewish Sicilian life was the freedom from restrictions on their activities (unlike the 16th century law enforcing ghettos and restricting Jews of Rome to being money lenders and dealers in rags).

There were poor Jews – dyers and tanners, port workers, agricultural laborers, carpenters, shipbuilders and iron workers. There were famous craftsmen, especially Jewish carvers of coral in Marsala, and goldsmiths. In 1147 King Roger II conquered Corinth & brought back the Jewish community from there. who introduced silk weaving into Sicily. Even today Della Seta (of the silk) is a typical Italian Jewish name.

They were famed as doctors, helped by the fact that Arabic-speaking Jews from Egypt and North Africa settled there and continued to speak and read Arabic, among other languages. giving them access to the Arabs’ advanced medical studies (and later to the teachings of Aristotle in the early Renaissance). There were dynasties of doctors. In 1376 Virdimura became the first woman doctor in Catania. A certain Moshe Benavoglia was even sent to Padua University at King Alfonso’s behest to study medicine in 1419. On his return he became the king’s ambassador to Spain, Naples etc., and influenced the king on behalf of fellow Jews who were being forced to hear sermons. He and his family were exempt from the usual heavy taxes. It was not unusual for successful Jews as traders and bankers to go into partnership with non-Jews.

Women also worked –bakers, silk weavers, shop keepers. One Ricca kept an emporium in Palermo, frequented by Pisan and Genovese merchants.

Money lending, as such, was not so important, as all trades were open to Jews. In May 1363 the Jews of Syracuse voted to have nothing to do with usury, for example.

However there is a fine line between money lending & usury. Federick II allowed money lending if the return was under 10%. Certainly some families became rich - Samuel Sala helped to negotiate the ransom of the Bishop of Syracuse captured by the Saracens.

In 1447 in Sciacca there was a court case when a Jewish couple wanted to endow a Talmudic school there and were opposed by Jews in Palermo. Both husband and wife testified and she, Stella, is called La Magnifica, a term of praise usually applied only to Christian women.

Jews were also involved in the slave trade. They often went into business with non-Jews i.e. the cordmakers of Randazzo.

 

6.  WHAT WAS THE INTELLECTUAL LIFE OF THE JEWS?

We know from the account given by Ovadia Bertinoro who visited Sicily in 1487 that Jews spoke Sicilian, Arabic, Hebrew and sometimes also studied Latin and Greek.

Federick II had encouraged Jewish scholars to come to his court from Spain, Provence and Sicily as translators.

Jewish schools often imported teachers from Spain.

In the early Renaissance FLAVIUS MITHRADITE, provided texts for Pico Della Mirandola, translating the Koran into Latin and books on the Kabbalah for Pope Sixtus IV.

Sicily is the place where the Spanish and Italian study of Kabbalah meet. Joseph of Saragossa (Syracuse) left Sicily to be one of the founders of the Kabbalah movement at Safed, Israel. It is believed Abramo Abulafia spent much time in Sicily writing about Kabbalah and some believed he is buried somewhere in Syracuse. Syracuse was also an important centre for poetry, astronomy and alchemy.

There are records of individuals with significant libraries – in 1478 Nissim of Randazzo had 72 volumes of texts (Sicily was an important centre for copying manuscripts).

Ovadia di Bertinoro also observes that, although the synagogue in Palermo was the most beautiful he had seen, attendance was sparse.

 

7.  HOW DID THE EXPULSION OF 1492 COME ABOUT?

As far as I am aware, the impetus was entirely from Spain, and the order to expel the Jews arrived in Sicily unexpectedly – a total shock. The expulsion in Spain was to deal with the problem of the conversos but this was not a problem in Sicily.

Even up to 1491, Jews were still fleeing to Sicily from Provence to escape forced conversion and Ferdinand of Aragon vaunted his generosity in accepting them. The viceroy had renewed the rights of the Jews in Sicily only a year before.

Spain issued the Edict in March and Jews had to leave Spain by July. However the Edict then had to be translated from Castilian to Sicilian and be sent on. It arrived in June 1492. Jews were told initially to leave by September 18, but later this was extended to January 1493.

 

8.  HOW DID THE JEWS REACT?

Firstly it is significant that Sicilian Christians protested against this edict. In Syracuse, where Jews were 5% of the population, the locals protested to the king, refuting the accusations made against Jews, and stating that they did not try to convert Christians, that the local economy would be impoverished without them, and that “they are poor creatures just like us.”

As far as the Jews were concerned, it is not clear how many decided to leave. At the moment it is calculated that about half decided to go. It was a different situation from Spain for Sicilian Jews who wished to leave. Whereas in Spain their goods were confiscated, this was not so in Sicily. Jews had to sell everything, pay debts and outstanding taxes to the king, including for future years (!). Initially, they were allowed to take little on board the ships, but this was later expanded. They could take all manuscripts, and letters of credit, and provision was made for a Shabbat room on board. Provisions were made in Palermo for 800 poor who could not afford the fare. Inevitably non-Jews took advantage of the situation to buy Jewish goods/property at a low price. Some Jews were robbed on the journey to port. Once embarked, some Jews were thrown overboard or made to land in inhospitable areas.

It appears that often it was the poorer Jews and women who decided to leave. Some families were split. A descendent of Samuel Sala (Samuel Lorenzo Sala) decided to stay while his wife and oldest son chose to go. She was pregnant and was only allowed to leave on condition that her child once born would be returned to the father.

Why did people stay? Paris is worth a Mass – not all Jews were religious (see Bertinoro), others thought the King might change his mind, as had happened before. Some left and then returned claiming to have converted to Christianity. (Those who stayed had to convert.)

The Inquisition did not arrive until 1500 and did not start putting Jews on trial until 1510, practically a generation later. However, in the interim there were mass conversions, and within a generation no Jewish life as such remained on the island.

 

9.  WHAT WERE THE REPERCUSSIONS?

Sicily became impoverished in certain areas. Whereas coral carving continued, as it is thought those Jews converted, shipbuilding ceased. The silk trade ended. I can’t add more than this.

 

10.  WHAT WERE THE EFFECTS ON JEWISH CULTURE IN THE REST OF ITALY?

Again, I don’t feel capable of answering since the fleeing Jews went to so many different areas. In Italy itself, Jews were welcomed into the Kingdom of Naples by King Ferrante, (cousin of Ferdinand) but were later expelled when plague arrived, and many went to Rome, where the then pope was encouraging Jews to settle. Many poor port workers went there, to Trastevere, and became port workers there.

 

11.  WHERE DID THE JEWS GO?

A few went to North Africa but at least 7,000, it is thought, went East to the Ottoman lands, first to the Dalmatian coast where there were Venetian colonies, and then to Salonika (where they formed their own religious community with traditions and festivities that existed until World War II, such as the Purim of Saragossa), and further East to Istanbul, Damascus, Corfu, Beirut, Aleppo etc.

 

12.  WERE THERE JEWS OF TUNISIAN ORIGIN?

I have no knowledge of this.

 

13.  DID SICILIAN JEWS ESTABLISH SYNAGOGUES ELSEWHERE?

Again I don’t have much information. I believe this occurred in Rome. It certainly happened in Salonika (see 11).

 

14.  DID ANY VESTIGES OF JEWISH LIFE SURVIVE IN SICILY?

It can certainly be said that since 1493 there has never been a significant Jewish community on the island of Sicily. At the time of Mussolini’s Racial Laws in 1938, when a census was made on the island, about 202 people were cited as being Jews but they were not Sicilian born – Northern Italian professors at university, Italian and German businessmen, Yugoslav refugees etc. Times were difficult when the Germans invaded. They were put under house arrest. Some fled to the USA. Others were helped by the monks of the Sant’Anna Hermitage in Catania, but none was harmed.

Today one needs imagination to discover Jewish Sicily. There is much to see, but one has to travel far around the island and so often there is only a street name left, such as Cartelloni – the Jewish area of Modica, still called that even though Jews left 500 years ago, or Via della Meschita (the street of the synagogue) in Taormina.

But there are some very special artefacts. Thirty years ago in Syracuse the oldest mikva in Europe was discovered, dating from the seventh century, in the Palestinian style. (Perhaps we should say rediscovered because the pools were found in the nineteenth cnetury but never defined). In Syracuse there are further Jewish relics –tombstones at the entrance to the Catacombs of Vigna Cassia , generally closed to the public. At Noto the inscription at Grotto del Carciofo is not in fact an artichoke but a menorah – another of which is stencilled into the wall of the Ursino Castle at Catania. In Central Sicily at Agira, about 40 years ago pieces of the oldest stone Aron Kodesh (1454) in Europe were unearthed and the complete Aron Kodesh is now in the Church of San Salvatore. There are continuing discoveries – about 30 years ago an inscribed basin was found in a field near Siculania. It is now the baptismal font in the main church. Who knows what else lies hidden?

The Jewish culinary heritage remains strong. Jews were the first to use the aubergine & when they left Sicily took it with them and introduced it to mainland Italy. Pane con la milza –bread stuffed with spleen is acknowledged to be a Jewish dish dating from the fourteenth century. Jews were supposed to have originated the way of preserving tuna by cooking it and putting it in oil.
But the enduring legacy of the Jews of Sicily is in the DNA of the Sicilians. Today you will still find Sicilians with surnames such as Abramo (Abraham), Isaia (Isaiah), Salamone (Solomon), Lo Presti (Priest) or Giudice/Lo Giudice – not meaning a judge (as today, Italian surnames don’t usually denote professions) but from Giudeo – Jew.

Some years ago DNA research was undertaken on the island to trace Phoenician roots – about 17% of the people had some DNA. If a similar project was undertaken to explore Jewish ancestry who knows how many thousands of Sicilians would rediscover their Jewish heritage?

BIBLIOGRAPHY – JEWS OF SICILY provided by Susan Kikoler

1 Susan Kikoler is Honorary Director of the British-Italian Society in London. She lectures frequently on the Jews of Sicily and has lived for many years in Syracuse and London. She translated Jewish Itineraries in Syracuse, Florence: Giuntina, 2017 from the original Italian.

2 Judith Roumani is the editor of Sephardic Horizons.

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