Save Venice launched its campaign for the Italian Synagogue in 2021 to mark the milestone of the organization’s 50th Anniversary. 830,000 euro ($900,000) was raised for the restoration thanks to major contributions from Grand Benefactors Mary & Howard S. Frank, Lead Benefactors Shari & Ed Glazer, Tina & Jeffrey Bolton, and Barbara & Amos Hostetter, and many other generous supporters listed below.

The project is an integral part of the Jewish Community of Venice’s ambitious campaign to restore and revitalize the Jewish Museum and historic synagogues of the Ghetto. Thanks to major grants from the Jerome Levy Foundation and Leon Levy Foundation, Save Venice proudly also continues to support the ongoing renovation of the museum, its expansion, and permanent collection reinstallation, contributing over $2.2 million dollars towards the museum campaign to date.

Save Venice gratefully acknowledges the donors to the 50th Anniversary Campaign for the Italian Synagogue

GRAND BENEFACTORS
Mary and Howard S. Frank

LEAD BENEFACTORS
Shari and Ed Glazer
Tina and Jeffrey Bolton
Barbara and Amos Hostetter

PRINCIPAL FUNDERS
The Blavatnik Family Foundation; The Prism Charitable Trust/AlanHoward Fund; and Sandra Rotman

BENEFACTORS
Christopher Todd Page in Memory of Jeremy Freeman
Lizzie Asher

PATRONS
Bruce and Barbara Berger; Merle Chambers in honor of Tina Walls; Sherry and Larry S. Davis; Mr. & Mrs. José A. Esteve; Richard and Patricia Jesurum Jay; Henry & Elaine Kaufman Foundation, Inc.; Cat Jagger Pollon in memory of Arbit Blatas and Regina Resnick; and WDF Director Discretionary Philanthropic Fund

SUPPORTERS
Hy Bloom; The Husock-Henschel DAF Fund, Babette Henschel and Bernard Husock; The Lunder Foundation through Peter and Paula Lunder in honor of Frederick Ilchman; and Connie Simmons and James D. Krugman

With additional support from the Young Friends of Save Venice; The Bar-Levav Family Foundation; The Gottsegen Family Foundation; Albert Kalimian in honor of Manda Kalimian; Dr. Alice T. Friedman; Lauren Gross; Julianne and Gregory Markow; Barbara Smith; and John H. Wilson III and Annasue McCleave Wilson

On the occasion of Save Venice’s 50th Anniversary in 2021, major conservation campaigns are underway at the Italian Synagogue in the Ghetto of Venice and the basilica of Santa Maria Assunta on Torcello. 50th Anniversary Campaign donors generously provided support for both projects.

LEAD BENEFACTORS
The Manitou Fund through Nora McNeely Hurley Silo

PRINCIPAL FUNDERS
Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg; Amy Harmon; and Tina Walls

BENEFACTORS
Amy and David Abrams in honor of Anne Hawley and her impressive efforts to support the conservation of Venice art and architecture; and BVLGARI

PATRONS
Molly and David Borthwick; and Mary Ellen Oldenburg

One can easily recognize the synagogue from the outside by its small baroque dome and five large arched windows, similar to those of the nearby Scuola Tedesca. The interior of the synagogue is a slightly elongated rectangular shape, with its Holy Ark (aron kodesh) decorated with wood ornaments and culminating in a heavy pinnacle and an 18th-century bimah pulpit projecting from a polygonal apse. The pulpit stairs are decorated with elegant banisters embellished with a crossed arch motif typical of 18th-century Venetian furniture. A small women’s gallery is visible behind wooden lattices. The atrium and the elevated bimah have elaborate terrazzo flooring, while modern flooring covers the main body of the synagogue. Gilded inscriptions on the walls commemorate renovations and donations, the first in 1740. Under the teva (pulpit) one reads «the tower of the House of our Lord was renovated in 5549 (1789)».  Further remodeling is recorded in 1842.

Work undertaken by the Lares Restauri firm began in December 2021 and addressed structural issues, the renovation of the building’s brick and plaster exterior, followed by the restoration of the synagogue’s interior decoration including the recovery of the original terrazzo veneziano pavement, as well as the conservation of the 16th-century Holy Ark (aron kodesh), pulpit (bimah) in wood, and 18th-century decoration and inscriptions in stucco.

The campaign was completed in May 2023 and presented to the public on June 7, 2023.

Comune di Venezia
Il Gazzettino
Gente Veneta
La Nuova di Venezia
Moked

Calabi, Donatella, ed. Venice, the Jews and Europe, 1516-2016. Venice: Marsilio, 2016

Calimani, Riccardo. Storia del ghetto di Venezia. Milan: Rusconi, 1985

Concina, Ennio, Ugo Camerino and Donatella Calabi, eds. La città degli ebrei: il ghetto di Venezia. Venice: Marsilio, 1991

Davis, Robert C. and Benjamin Ravid. The Jews of Early Modern Venice. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001

Katz, Dana E. The Jewish Ghetto and the Visual Imagination of Early Modern Venice. New York & Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017

Ravid, Benjamin. Studies on the Jews of Venice, 1382-1797. Aldershot, Burlington: Ashgate, 2003