Academia.eduAcademia.edu

Una famiglia romaniota a Venezia

A Romaniota family in Venice: ‘God is salvation’ ‘God is salvation’ from the Hebrew יהושע (Joshua); this is the meaning of the surname ‘Jesua’, which then became ‘Gesuà’ and finally ‘Gesuà sive Salvadori’. The Jews who settled in the lands of the present-day Greece from the time of the destruction of the second temple by Titus in 70 CE were known as Romanioti. The courageous decision of the two thirty-year-old brothers to leave their native Corfu and seek their fortunes in Venice in the very early nineteenth century due to the changed political conditions and the repeated cases of antisemitism that took place on the Greek island. The settling in Venice and their difficult survival in a period marked by extreme poverty. The generous help of the Jewish Brotherhood and the many havuroth (charitable works) that had a decisive role in easing the difficult everyday life of many families, giving them material support and spiritual assistance. The determination of the Gesuà, in the end rewarded by the satisfaction of having created a great family that more than two centuries after its arrival in the city could still boast a close connection with the fundamental values of Judaism and look with unconcealed pride at the road taken from the time of their itinerant forefathers to the present. From the ‘reassuring’ Ghetto to the uncertainty of the city by a pathway fraught with difficulties, but also rich in significant growth.