“Native Kindliness" and Carnival

This month, many Catholic communities around the world celebrate Carnival. The festival is seen as a harmless interlude of feasting, drinking and having fun before Lent – the 40 days reflecting the Passion of Christ, during which no meat is eaten. The word ‘Carnival’ is derived from ‘carnevale’ – to put away the meat.

It was during the Middle Ages (1066 – 1485) that the Catholic Church, unable to suppress the often immoral Carnival parades and masquerades, decided to adapt it to its own traditions.  

The Carnival in Venice, famous for its masks, was first mentioned in 1268. While the Italian Catholics looked forward to their merry Carnival, the Jewish communities dreaded it.

Living in the Papal States meant that the Jews, a minority of 15,000 living amongst an Italian population of 11,000,000, were also subjected to the Pope’s political, commercial and social rulings. Compared to other countries in Europe, the Papal States never slaughtered its Jews, but they didn’t like the fact that not far from Rome’s Vatican, lived a very stubborn community of Jewish non-believers.

A large number of poor, Greek-speaking Jews already lived in Rome during the Roman Republic (509 – 27 B.C). They established synagogues, and from archeological finds we know their tombstones were decorated with the menorah – seven branched candelabra.

Proselytizing, pre-Christian Rome saw many converts to Judaism, while others believed in the Jewish God and adopted Jewish practices.

In 313 A.D. Constantine I made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. By calling Jews “Christ killers” and issuing the first anti-Jewish edicts, life changed drastically for the Italian Jewish community.

Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great) (590-604) was seen as the natural protector of the Roman population (including the Jews) at that time. By offering material advantages and condemning forced baptisms, he hoped to win the Jews for Christianity.

In 1215, harsher measures were enforced through Pope Innocent III’s Fourth Lateran Council. “We decree that Jews of both sexes in every Christian province at all times shall be distinguished in the eyes of the public from other peoples by the character of their dress.”

Jews were excluded from public office, and forced to wear yellow badges on their clothes, and a pointed or funnel shaped hat. Up until that time, it was common for medieval society to wear ‘social status’ badges. 

Guild members were revered, while lepers, reformed heretics and prostitutes were ostracized by their specific colors. Unwilling to be labeled as outcasts, by receiving bribes the kings granted the Jews temporary “exemptions”. However, when the king needed money, they had to pay additional sums.

Wearing the cone-shaped pointed hat at first was the European Jews’ own choice. But when it became compulsory, Jews became outcasts.

Between 1305-1378, the period known as the “Babylonian Captivity”, Popes resided in Avignon (France). Italy’s Papal States however remained under Papal control.

During the Renaissance (1400 – 1700), which began in Italy, the Pope became Italy’s secular (albeit often contested) ruler as well as the head of the Church.

It was Pope Paul II (1464-1471) who introduced footraces to the Roman Carnival. The 1^st “Race of the Jews” took place on February 9, 1466. All over Italy the Jews had to participate in the Carnival races, and at first liked the activity where boys, old men, buffaloes, and they themselves had to run on different days. Florence knew a ‘Golden Age’ (1464 – 1492) with peaceful coexistence and interactions between Christians and Jews.  In 1488 the first complete Hebrew Bible was printed in Soncino.

During the late 15^th century however, the status of Italy’s Jews had reverted to ‘nobodies’, with local rulers confiscating their belongings and taxing them at will.  The Italian population stood at 12,000,000, with 80,000 Jews.

Before the Reformation began, known for her vicious persecutions, the Jewish communities enjoyed a ‘peaceful’ period, in which Rabbis were able to teach Hebrew and Kabbalah. Their exegesis, cultivated throughout the centuries, equipped the Jews against Catholicism.

Even though Pope Leo X (1513-1521) employed Jewish physicians and artists at his court, he also condoned humiliating practices during Carnival. A Jew was marched through the city, mounted backwards on a donkey while holding the animal’s tail in his hand. The jeering crowds loved this parody of a Rabbi’s burial. 

The Reformation (1500 – 1599) enforced book censorship, and Pope Julius III, believing the Talmud hostile to Christianity, demanded many to be publicly burned.

          

Ghetto Nuova, Venice, today

  In 1516 the Jews of Venice, since 1290 under payment of taxes allowed to work there, were threatened with expulsion. In the end they could remain, but confined to “Ghetto Nuova”, a small dirty island. Getto (Italian) means ‘casting’; geto (Venetian) means ‘foundry’.

Pope Paul IV’s bull of 1555, entitled “Cum nimis absurdum”, begins thus: “Since it is absurd and utterly inappropriate that the Jews, who through their own fault were condemned by God to eternal slavery….”

His renewed anti-Jewish measures forced men to wear the ‘Judenhut’ and females a

yellow, sometimes red ring-shaped piece of fabric. 

Rome Jewish Ghetto

Rome’s Jewish community of 3,000 was forced into a “Jew’s enclosure”, a Ghetto measuring about 8 acres, whose gates were closed at night. 

On Shabbat, adults were forced to attend Catholic sermons, meant to convert them to Christianity. Similar laws were issued throughout Italy, creating many hardships. Jews were enticed to convert to Catholicism by promises of being able to chose their career (possibly a high position in the Vatican), receive a generous pension and the right to move out of the Ghetto. Unmarried female converts received ample dowries and Christian husbands. However, to the chagrin of the Catholic clergy, converts were few.

Catholic sources state that most edicts, e.g. the “Cum nimis absurdum” represented the prejudices and ill-will of the individual pontiff; prominent priests using Paul’s Epistles and the Gospels as Biblical justification to persecute “unbelievers”, not only persecuted Jews, but also heretics, like Wycliffe and Hus.

While some popes alleviated the enactments of their predecessors, others, like Pope Pius V (1566-1572) repealed all concessions - e.g. again “Shabbas Goys” were prohibited to kindle the fires of the Jews on the Sabbath and in 1570 another Ghetto was established in Florence.

It was in 1584 that Gregory XIII decreed that each Saturday, 155 Jews over the age of 12 had to listen to a Dominican friar preaching about their theological errors. A heavy fine had to be paid if the required number didn’t show up. Some of the Jews attended the compulsory services with cotton-stuffed ears. A hired bailiff, patrolling the church, whacked sleeping Jews with a stick.

It is during Gregory XIII’s pontificate that for the first time we read about ‘the old custom’ – the “Race of the Jews”. Because old men were being found more amusing, age limitations had been removed. In the course of time, with the deterioration of the general atmosphere, these races changed into humiliating abuses, sometimes even ending in death. In preparation for the race, and to give the jeering crowd more to laugh about, Jewish men had been imprisoned and fattened. Spurred on by mounted soldiers behind them, the Jewish men (wearing only a loin-cloth) had to run through jeering crowds who pelted them with mud, eggs, vegetables and dead cats. Often the race had to be repeated, on the pretext that there had been some slight irregularity.  

It was only in 1668 that Pope Clement IX, for the sake of public order, not humanity, abolished the “Race of the Jews”. Instead, representatives of the Jewish community on the first day of the Carnival had to pay a special tax of 300 scudi. In addition to that, before the eyes of the jeering public, these Jewish men, dressed in short breeches and floating capes, had to pay homage to the city’s ‘conservatori’.

And then, on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, the boisterous revelers returned to being pious Catholics. They wore funeral black, abstained from eating meat, didn’t attend festivities and meditated on Christ’s sacrifice for them.

“Even when Jewish misery had touched its depths, Italy was still Italy, and Italians were still Italians, with all the native kindliness of their people.” 

Cecil Roth – “The History of the Jews of Italy”

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Unfortunately, anti-semitism continues to rear it's ugly head. 

Aalst, Belgium 2019; Marburg, Germany 1936

This article, written by Petra van der Zande, was published in the Jerusalem Post Christian Edition of March 2009, titled: "Carnival, Lent and the 'Race of the Jews'. " 

https://jewishcurrents.org/january-23-the-race-of-the-jews/

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-pope-stops-rome-s-sadistic-jews-race-1.5365882