Jews have lived in Venice for more than a millennium. In 1516 the Jewish community of Venice was restricted to one area of the city, and this came to be known as the Ghetto, the first of its kind in Europe. Jewish life flourished, and it became a pioneering center of the printing of Hebrew books, most famously in the printing press of the Christian Daniel Bomberg.
Though there were many famous Jewish personalities of Venice, including Don Yitzchak Abarbanel who lived out his last years in the city, the most famous Venetian Jew never even existed at all. Shylock is a fictional character and the primary antagonist in Shakespeare’s play The Merchant of Venice. While Shakespeare used - and to a certain extent created - anti-Semitic tropes which unfortunately were perpetuated by subsequent anti-Semites over the ensuing centuries, in many ways the character reflects the restricted reality of Venice’s Jews at the time.
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The Machine Matzah Controversy
Beyond the Pale: Russian Jewry outside the Pale of Settlement
The Yeshiva Elite in 19th Century Lithuania
Censorship in Czarist Russia
Cantonists & The Czarist Military (+ Recap of a Trip to Ashkenaz/Germany) Featuring Dovi Safier
The Chassidic Movement in the Russian Empire
Russian Jewry under the Czars 1881-1914
Russian Jewry under the Czars 1772-1881
Galician Greatness: Rav Shlomo Kluger
The Legacy & Impact of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch
The Life & Legacy of the Aruch Hashulchan
A Dream to Rebuild: The Early Years of Ponovezh Yeshiva
The Machal Fighters of 1948
The Great Shanghai Escape Part X
The Great Shanghai Escape Part IX
The Great Shanghai Escape Part VIII Featuring Dovi Safier
The Great Shanghai Escape Part VII
The Great Shanghai Escape Part VI
The Great Shanghai Escape Part V
The Great Shanghai Escape Part IV
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