The Venice Ghetto

To mark the 500th anniversary of the Venice Ghetto, Jerry Brotton travels to the city to discover how this ghetto became to be the first of its kind in the world.

He finds that rather than living in isolation, the Jewish community of Venice was open to cultural exchange with Christian neighbours. It became a place of refuge and attracted Jewish migrants from other parts of Europe to live on the island in the city.

Jerry Brotton brings the story up to date with an examination of what the word 'ghetto' means to us today, in a North American context and with reference to contemporary events in Europe.