{"id":873,"date":"2018-05-26T10:30:45","date_gmt":"2018-05-26T08:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/?post_type=listing&p=873"},"modified":"2020-12-30T12:13:43","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T11:13:43","slug":"ghetto-of-catania","status":"publish","type":"listing","link":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/listing\/ghetto-of-catania\/","title":{"rendered":"The Jewish neighborhoods of Catania"},"content":{"rendered":"

An early Jewish quarter in this city dates back to the 4th century. However, the community became more substantial, and comprised 200 families in the 15th<\/sup> century, not long before the expulsions. Numerous documents provide evidence that the Jews of Catania were experts in silk-making and fabric-dyeing, as well as being pawn merchants. The first Jew from Catania (and indeed Sicily) whose name is known, Amachios, was buried at the age of just twenty-two in the Jewish catacomb of Villa Torlonia<\/a> in Rome.<\/p>\n

The Jews lived in the north-western area of the city in two separate areas: the first was known as \u201cJudeca Suprana\u201d<\/strong>, and was between the Bastione degli Infetti, the Bastione del Tindaro and the bastions of San Giovanni and San Euplio (now called Santa Barbara and Recupero). The second was \u201cJudeca Suctana\u201d <\/strong>and was situated along the Amenano river, known as the Judicello, in the area between Via degli Orfanelli, Via Pozzo Canale, Vicolo degli Angeli, S. Giovanni dei Barilari and the d\u2019Immezzo quarter, now called Piazza San Francesco d\u2019Assisi. They each had their respective synagogues:<\/strong> the \u201cMeskita di Suso\u201d (between Vicolo D\u2019Urso and Vicolo Avola), which was the older of the two and was visited by the poorer members of the community, was near the Church of San Giovanni (lu Palumbaru<\/em>) and annexed to the building of the Jews\u2019 hospital (possibly what is now called Via Ospedale vecchio or Via Spedaletto); and the \u201cMeskita Picciula\u201d, in the city centre. The latter seems to have become the larger of the two, thanks to the commercial development of the surrounding streets, with banks, the Loggia di Citt\u00e0 and the \u201cforo lunare\u201d (Monday market); the area extended as far as the Porto Saraceno. The cemetery <\/strong>lay outside the Tonnaro bastion. The city, and the entire Jewish area with it, was buried in lava when Mount Etna erupted in 1669, and completely destroyed by the subsequent earthquake in 1693.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":876,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","listing-category":[4],"list-tags":[],"location":[18,193],"acf":[],"cubewp_post_meta":[],"taxonomies":["Jewish neighborhoods","Catania","Sicily","Optional"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing\/873"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/listing"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"listing-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/listing-category?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"list-tags","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/list-tags?post=873"},{"taxonomy":"location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.visitjewishitaly.it\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/location?post=873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}