Les Juifs de Trieste

The community of Trieste developed after the city was established as a free port by the Habsburgs in the early eighteenth century, attracting Sephardic, Ashkenazi, and Levantine merchants. The Edicts of Toleration of Joseph II at the end of the eighteenth century fostered early emancipation and deep integration into the merchant and financial bourgeoisie of the Adriatic, notably in insurance and maritime shipping. The community, prosperous and cultured, was a notable center of intellectual and literary life in the Austro-Hungarian city. A large, monumental synagogue was built there at the beginning of the twentieth century. Under German occupation after 1943, Trieste was the site of the only Nazi extermination camp on Italian soil (the Risiera di San Sabba) and part of the community was deported.

Sources & resources

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