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One of the most captivating tours we took in Venice was the tour of synagogues in the Venetian Ghetto offered by the Jewish Museum (Museo Ebraico). The Venetian Ghetto is located in the Cannaregio district of the UNESCO World Heritage city.
Synagogue Tour
The tour, which is conducted daily from Sunday to Friday, currently only visits one synagogue and one midrash. It costs €15 and includes admission to the museum (as of January 2024). On our tour, which lasted about 40 minutes, we visited three of the five historic synagogues in the Ghetto. Currently, tours from Sunday to Thursday include the Levantine Synagogue and the Spanish Synagogue, while tours on Friday include the Spanish Synagogue and the Italian Synagogue (as of January 2024). Additional tour information can be found on the official Venetian Ghetto website.
Great German Synagogue
After visiting the museum, we met the tour guide and the rest of the group and headed to the first stop, the Great German Synagogue (Scola Grande Tedesca). It’s an Ashkenazi synagogue built starting in 1527 by Jews from Germany. The synagogue is hard to spot from the exterior, except for the Hebrew lettering at the top of the building. It’s accessed through an entrance in the museum.
The interior of the Great German Synagogue is in a trapezoidal shape. The bimah used to sit in the center but it was moved in the 1800s and now sits at the end opposite the ark. When it was moved, it resulted in the permanent closure of three of the five windows from the inside.
Canton Synagogue
Next was the Canton Synagogue (Scola Canton). It was founded in 1531 for private use and is an Ashkenazi synagogue, sitting on the southern corner of the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo (New Ghetto) and attached to the museum. Only the wooden dome of the bimah is visible from the exterior.
The Canton Synagogue is considered unique in Europe because it contains eight wooden panels with bas-reliefs depicting biblical events.
Italian Synagogue
From there, we walked out of the museum onto Campo di Ghetto Nuovo where the guide pointed out the Italian Synagogue (Scola Italiana). It was established in 1575 by Italian Jews, who were the poorest Jewish community in Venice. The Italian Synagogue was closed to visitors during our tour.
Spanish Synagogue
We walked through the Campo di Ghetto Nuovo and into the Ghetto Vecchio (Old Ghetto), listening to the guide’s stories along the way. We then entered the Spanish Synagogue (Scola Spagnola), founded in 1581 by Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain and Portugal in 1492. It’s the largest of the synagogues in Venice and was probably restored by Baldassare Longhena in the 17th century.
The Spanish Synagogue has a beautiful wooden interior with three large chandeliers. It’s used for worship in the spring and summer.
Levantine Synagogue
Across from the Spanish Synagogue is the Levantine Synagogue (Scola Levantina). It was established in 1541 by Ottoman Jews from Turkey and Greece as the first Sephardic synagogue in Venice. As was the case with the Spanish Synagogue, the building was probably restored by Longhena in the 17th century. The Levantine Synagogue is in use when the Spanish Synagogue is closed during the autumn and winter.
Conclusion
Overall, we felt the tour was excellent. We not only visited some beautiful synagogues, but we were also given an in-depth look at life in the Venetian Ghetto and learned a lot about the Jewish community of Venice.
