Jewish Venice Tour

A private Jewish tour of Venice in the place that gave the world the word. On 29 March 1516 the Venetian Senate ordered the city’s Jews to live on a single small island where a copper foundry had once stood — geto, in Venetian. Every ghetto since takes its name from that patch of ground.

What the Venice ghetto actually looks like

It is the one Italian ghetto still physically standing, and the constraint is written into the architecture. Confined to an island that could not grow outwards, the community built upwards: the buildings around Campo di Ghetto Nuovo are the tallest residential blocks in Venice, with ceilings low enough that you notice.

The synagogues are on the top floors, above the apartments, which is why you can stand in the square and not see them. There are five, built by communities that arrived from different places and never merged — German, Italian, Levantine, Spanish, and the Canton. They are still distinguishable by rite and by decoration.

What the tour covers

• Ghetto Nuovo, the original island of 1516, and the later Ghetto Vecchio and Ghetto Novissimo
• The five Scole — which ones can be entered depends on the day and on the museum’s schedule
• The Jewish Museum of Venice in Campo di Ghetto Nuovo
• The Holocaust memorial reliefs by Arbit Blatas, and the deportation of the Venetian Jews in 1943 and 1944
• The city’s role as an international centre of Hebrew printing in the sixteenth century — the first complete printed Talmud came out of a Venetian press

Before you book

• The synagogues cannot be visited independently. Access is by guided visit only, in fixed slots, and the schedule changes seasonally
• Everything is closed on Shabbat and Jewish holidays
• Shoulders and knees covered; head covering provided for men
• The ghetto is in Cannaregio, roughly ten minutes on foot from the station — far enough from San Marco that most visitors never reach it

About 450 Jews live in Venice today, a handful of them in the ghetto itself. The full history is in the guide to Jewish Venice.

Questions people ask about Jewish Venice

Can you enter the synagogues of the Venice ghetto?
Only on guided visits arranged through the Jewish Museum — which is exactly what this tour includes. The historic Scuole are among the most beautiful Jewish interiors in Europe, hidden in the upper floors of ordinary buildings.

Why is the Venice ghetto called the first in the world?
Because the word was born here: in 1516 the Republic confined its Jews to the island of the disused foundry — the geto — and the name travelled to every enclosure that came after. The full story is here.

How long does the tour take, and when?
About three hours — the campo, the museum and a selection of synagogues. Late afternoon is the beautiful slot: the groups thin out, and the tour ends in the ghetto at dinner time, steps from Venice’s kosher table.

Is kosher food available in Venice?
Yes, in and around the ghetto itself — restaurant, bakery, Shabbat meals — but it is small and books out. I arrange dinner with the tour.