Central Italy’s Marche Region now has an official Jewish Heritage Route that takes in 25 towns and cities around the region.
The Marche Regional Council formally set it up with legislation passed unanimously on July 27.
The route forms “a cultural, touristic and memorial itinerary” whose aim is to “connect and promote all the municipalities where important artistic and cultural traces of the Marche Jews have remained,” according to regional councilor Giacomo Rossi, who promoted the initiatives with the support of the Ancona Jewish Community and the Rabbinical Court of Central and Northern Italy.
The places on the Route were chosen based on the research by Maria Luisa Moscati Benigni, the author of a guidebook to Jewish Marche published in 1997. Other municipalities can also apply to be part of the itinerary, by sending their application to the regional council.
“I personally contacted each municipality before presenting the legislation proposal to ask for their support and opinion, and all of them were enthusiastic,” Rossi told JHE. “For the moment we decided to only include those cities and towns where the Jewish presence is tangible through material heritage, but we don’t exclude enlarging it in the future to include immaterial heritage too, and also to those municipalities whose libraries contain Jewish historical material.”
For 2021, the Marche region allocated €15,000 for the project, which can be expanded by applying to European, state, and regional grants.
Rossi told JHE that the funds will be used “to create a brochure, to install informational panels, promote Jewish tourism in the Marche Region from within the country and abroad, and organize educational and cultural programs and field trips for school students.”
The 25 towns and cities on the itinerary include: Apecchio, Barchi, Fano, Mondavio, Mondolfo, Pergola, Pesaro, Sant’Angelo in Vado, Urbania, Urbino, Ancona, Castelleone di Suasa, Jesi, Osimo, Senigallia, Camerino, Corridonia, Macerata, Recanati, San Severino, Tolentino, Ascoli Piceno, Ripatransone, Fermo, and Monterubbiano.
Jews have lived in the Marche region for more than 1,000 years. In 1555 Pope Paul IV imposed a ghetto in Ancona and instituted severe anti-Jewish measures. After 1569 Ancona and Rome were the only cities in the Papal States where Jews were permitted to live.
Most of the sites on the itinerary date back to medieval and renaissance periods and were transformed for other use, though they maintain some original features. There are also examples of post-emancipation Jewish life.
Today, the Ancona Jewish community is the only active one in the region. In the city there are two synagogues, of Levantine and Italian rites, both housed in a building from 1876. There are also two Jewish cemeteries, the ancient and picturesque Old Jewish Cemetery, which dates to the 15th century, and the Jewish section of the Municipal cemetery, dating back to the 19th century.
Jewish cemeteries and synagogues that are not used for services anymore can be found in Pesaro, Senigallia and Urbino.
Watch an Italian TV report on the itinerary, posted by Rossi on Facebook:
Rossi said he first presented a motion to the regional government to create a Jewish heritage route in January, on the occasion of International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
The new law establishing the route also foresees the creation of a committee for the Jewish Route by the end of October, that will see the participation of 2 representatives from each province, six regional councilors, and one representative from the Ancona Jewish community and another from the North and Central Italy Rabbinical Court.
You can take online virtual tours of several sites on the itinerary, prepared by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Nick the links below:
Virtual tour Old Jewish Cemetery Ancona
Virtual Tour Sinagoga Levantina in Ancona
Virtual Tour Jewish cemetery Pesaro
3 comments on “Italy: Jewish heritage travel — new Jewish Heritage Route established in Italy’s Marche region”
I am very grateful to Giacomo Rossi and his team for having taken the trouble to create and promote this project. It is wonderful that the funds have been provided and the time taken to document so much of Jewish interest and to establish the Jewish heritage route. It is remarkable that Jews settled in 25 different towns in Marche.
This initiative is particularly impressive given that so few Jews remain in Marche today.
I thank you so much for restoring the heritage of the Jews of Italy. For too long they have been forgotten, but of greater importance is that the “orphan” generation and the youth can perhaps regain a sense of pride, the healing sense of belonging and even see the achievement and enrichment that our people left behind despite the hardship they went through. May the young learn from the past that being an agent of good wherever we live shall be recorded in the future history.
I toured Italy with motor home for 5 years from 2004 on an extended retirement adventure. I
Finding so much current and histories Jewish culture was an absolute delight.
This new initiative would have made our adventure even more exciting.
Thank yo