Jewish life in the ancient Diaspora: southern Italy

My dissertation involved much study of non-Christian (and heterodox) imagery in late antique burials; I haven't really kept up with the literature in the last several years, so this morning's NY Times article on what sounds to be a resurgence of interest in the Jewish past of southern Italy caught my eye:

The [Venosa] catacomb is only one of dozens of Jewish sites, artifacts, documents, rare books and manuscripts being discovered, analyzed and restored in southern Italy and Sicily. This work by scholars and government authorities is beginning to flesh out the largely unknown story of vibrant yet long-lost communities of Jews that inhabited the region from Roman times to the end of the Middle Ages. Jews were expelled from southern Italy, known then as the Kingdom of Naples, in the 16th century. Few returned even after the ban was lifted in the 18th century.

Historians associated with the excavation believe the catacomb may be the largest ever found in Western Europe. Hundreds of niches have already been cleared, the bones either looted or reburied according to ritual law. What is striking is that the inscriptions on the burial slabs found to date are almost totally in Greek. There is little or no Hebrew. When Hebrew is used, the characters mostly spell out Greek or Latin words. Both Greek and Latin were commonly used in that part of Italy at the time. This suggests an assimilated life for the Jews who may have lived here outside Venosa between the third and seventh centuries A.D. "Our Jews were not separated from everyone else in those early centuries," said Dr. Cesare Colafemmina, visiting professor of Hebrew and Hebraic literature at the University of Calabria.

Documents indicate that Emperor Titus brought 5,000 captives to the region after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Dr. Colafemmina said. But hundreds more are thought to have settled here before and after that time, simply because it was a prosperous crossroads of maritime trade. And Jews played a vital role in Mediterranean commerce. By the end of the fourth century many towns were dominated by Jews. They even became political and community leaders, he said.

The article notes that much of the work is being done by Italian scholars who are not Jewish, but it does not really go deep enough into the background to the previous neglect. At least in Rome, many Jewish sites were not well treated; the story of the Villa Tolonia catacomb is but one example, and luckily one with what seems to be a reasonably happy ending.

This is an interesting find that I had not been aware of:

. . . there is a first-century travertine tombstone now in the basement of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, yet another example of vibrant Jewish life here during the first millennium. It was found in 1996 in the museum's storehouses by Dr. Giancarlo Lacerenza of the Oriental Institute in Naples and a specialist in ancient Near Eastern history. Its emotionally charged Latin inscription is now regarded by scholars as the first archaeological corroboration of the plight of the Jewish captives being herded by the Romans into Italy from Jerusalem in the late first century A.D.

This is the headstone of Claudia Aster, a 25-year-old Jew brought to the area, probably as a girl, and sold as a household slave. The inscription reads: "Claudia Aster, captive from Jerusalem. Tiberius Claudius Proculus, imperial freedman, took care of this epitaph. I ask you to make sure through the law that you take care that no one casts down my inscription."

Posted by David on May 15, 2003 7:26 PM