Paper short abstract:

The paper proposes a reexamination of the notion of Ghetto through the singular case of Venice. Its long history is reactivated by the different actors mindful to preserve it as a « jewish area », confronted with the possible missionary and tourist excesses of a Ghetto-to-be.

Paper long abstract:

By bringing particular attention to the semantic trajectory of the word ghetto, the paper aims at demonstrating how the different actors - Venetian Jews, Christian inhabitants, visitors and newly arrived Hassidic Jews - each update its signification with regards to the Ghetto's original function and meaning. Previously neglected by urban policies, the Ghetto is now the subject of renewed interest from the city and above all from the local Jewish community. Confronted with its devitalization and the recent implantation of a new Hassidic Jewish community from the United States, the Venetian Jews are obliged to rethink their genealogical and current relationship with the Ghetto, which has become a place of social stakes implicating both its long history and its materiality.

These different actors thus reclaim the ghetto through the construction of a specific discourse, distinctive usages of the public space and old historical limits. Depending on the perceptions they have of the place, different actors integrate these limits into the city's economy or, on the contrary, they reclaim them by taking the ghetto out of its state of latency. The aim is to report the different modes of this recent reactivation of its history. If the Venetian Jews use the local past and their patrimonial resources to enhance or revitalize the Ghetto and to reaffirm their belonging to it, the newly arrived also intend to legitimize their presence in the place. The Ghetto thus becomes a place of power where each Jewish community mobilizes strategies to construct its visibility and represent Jewishness in this "emblematic" location.