Memorandum On The Situation in Italy

The Italian Jewry can trace its origins back more than 2000 years until the 2nd century before Christ. Like no other Jewish community in Europe it has suffered less from persecution and disenfranchisement, due to the comparatively more tolerant but not necessarily benevolent attitude of native Italian rulers towards Jews in Italy. Persecutions or severe violent anti-Jewish outbreaks were usually induced by outside potentates and foreign powers. Discrimination held in Italy until the foundation of the unified Italian state in 1861, which granted Italian Jewry toleration. From toleration onward the Italian Jewry strived to make a positive contribution to Italian society in culture, politics, industry, economy and the sciences. Toleration also led to negative effects such as assimilation and numerous mixed marriages. Even the advent of fascism in Italy did not in the beginning diminish the Jews, as Italian fascism was not as anti-Semitic as German Nazism. Also Benito Mussolini did not share in the same anti-Semitic worldviews as Adolf Hitler. With the alignment of Fascist Italy and Nazism in Germany the Italian fascists have assimilated the anti-Semitic attitudes of Nazism, including the disenfranchisement of Italian Jewry according to the German model.