Kosher and Jewish Life in Genoa

GENOA, seaport in N. Italy. There were Jews living in Genoa before 511, since in that year Theodoric the Ostrogoth confirmed through his minister Cassiodorus the Jewish privilege of restoring, but not enlarging, the synagogue, which had been destroyed by Christian fanatics. At some point between then and 1134 (when Jews could only live there if they paid towards the illumination of the cathedral discouraging Jewish settlement) Jews were banned from the City. Jewish communities were subject to the whims of the local Doges, who either allowed them or not. By 1660 the 200 Jewish population was confined to living in the ghetto. The population was never large until the middle of the 19thC when it was around 1000. At the end of World War II, 1,108 Jews were left in Genoa. Subsequently, the Jewish population maintained its size, notwithstanding a constant outnumbering of deaths over births, and in 1965 it numbered 1,036 persons. In early 2000s the community numbered a few hundred, operating a synagogue and a Jewish school.