Former Jewish School: A Center of Jewish Education in Ferrara
Site at a Glance
- Rating
- 3.2
- Popularity
- Very Low
- Country
- Italy
- Primary era
- Medieval
- External website
- Open
- Eras represented
- Medieval
- Civilizations
- Papal States
- Site type
- Civic
- Remains
- School
On this page4 sections
History
Commission and school use
The Former Jewish School is a fifteenth-century building in the former Jewish ghetto of Ferrara, Italy, commissioned by the city’s Jewish community. From the mid-nineteenth century, it housed a Jewish nursery and elementary school.
School under persecution
After Italy’s Fascist racial laws of 1938 imposed restrictions on Jewish people, including barring Jewish pupils from public schools, the school took in Ferrara’s Jewish children who had previously attended those schools. Among them were the sons of Renzo Ravenna, a Jewish politician who had been Ferrara’s podestà, or chief municipal official. Ravenna had been forced from office, and his sons were excluded from public education.
The teaching staff included recent graduate Giorgio Bassani and Matilde Bassani, both dismissed from public schools, as well as Chief Rabbi Leone Leoni, who taught religion. Other teachers included artist Isa Magrini, boxer Primo Lampronti, an Italian champion stripped of his title, and Professor Veneziani, who had also been dismissed from a public school in 1938.
Emigration prompted by persecution reduced the number of boys at the school. It closed permanently in 1943, when deportations severely affected Ferrara’s Jewish community and the state dissolved the institution. Giorgio and Matilde Bassani had already been arrested.
Remains
The three-story building has a simple exterior, with a terracotta façade characteristic of Ferrara and a large marble entrance door. Its exterior has changed little over the centuries, while the interior has been converted into private apartments. A stone plaque beside the entrance commemorates the building’s long educational use and its association with the persecution of the Jewish people.
