The disastrous flooding that swept most of Venice Tuesday night due to an exceptional “acqua alta” — high tide — toppled trees and caused some damage at the Jewish cemeteries on the Lido island. It left the main square of the historic ghetto — the Ghetto Nuovo — under water, but did not appear to have caused damage to the historic synagogues (located on upper floors of ghetto buildings) or the Jewish community’s library and archives.
The Venice Jewish Museum closed temporarily on Wednesday and posted on its Facebook page this dramatic picture of the flooded Ghetto Nuovo. It indicated that there had been water damage to its ground-floor bookstore.
A Jewish community source told JHE that the high winds that exacerbated the acqua alta toppled a number of trees both in the Old Jewish Cemetery, which was founded in the 14th century, and in the adjoining New Jewish Cemetery, founded in the 1760s.
The Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI) posted a photo showing fallen trees in the Old Jewish Cemetery.
It said damage was still being assessed.
It was known that one gravestone dating from the 1830s in the New Jewish Cemetery was damaged by falling trees.