Les Juifs de Split (Spalato)

Split (Spalato), under Venetian dominion, welcomed a Sephardic community whose merchants animated Adriatic trade, particularly after the development of a commercial entrepôt linking the city to the Ottoman hinterland. The Jews were confined to a ghetto there but participated actively in the port city's maritime growth. The community subsequently passed under Austrian administration, which gradually brought emancipation. During the Second World War, Dalmatia occupied by Italy offered relative respite to the Jews, but after the Italian capitulation of 1943 and the arrival of German forces, part of the community was deported while others joined the partisans or sought safer areas. A Jewish presence survived after the war.

Sources & resources

• Encyclopaedia Judaica — 2e éd., Keter/Macmillan
• Jewish Virtual Library ↗