Outsiders on the Inside: Italian Jewish Ghettos and Cholera in the 1830s

Abstract

This article analyses the initial encounter with epidemic cholera in the Italian cities of Florence, Ferrara and Modena. The large body of scholarship that explores themes related to medical theory, urban infrastructure, and political and social change across the nineteenth century demonstrates the importance of the historical evaluation of cholera epidemics. There is, however, minimal scholarship exploring the relationship between dominant social structures and minority groups. This article illuminates previously unexplored connections between Jews and Christians in relation to urban disease management efforts. Scapegoating Jewish population groups during times of crisis has a long tradition in Europe. A traditional ‘outsider’ subjected to highly institutionalized segregation, the Jews of Italy were readily identifiable. As such, societal anxiety surrounding the horrors of cholera could have easily found release in violence against the Jews. Yet this did not happen during the 1830s. This article seeks to determine why this was the case. Bureaucratic records contained in the municipal archives of these cities shed light on the dynamics of both urban disease management in the early nineteenth century and the interactions between Jews and Christians during this relatively understudied period of Italian history. Analysing the traditional understanding of both disease origin and transmission, in conjunction with the realities of the urban environment, this article concludes that both of these factors mitigated the potential for scapegoating Italian Jews. Jews had been resident ‘outsiders’ in these cities for centuries. However, the quotidian realities of urban life created strong administrative connections between the Jews and the Christian authorities that ultimately overruled the confessional divisions expressed in the walls and gates of the ghettos.