This museum explores the history of Venice’s Jewish community through everyday artefacts, and showcases its pivotal contributions to Venetian, Italian and world history. Opened in 1955, the museum has a small collection of finely worked silverware and other Judaica art objects used in private prayer and to decorate synagogues, as well as early books published in the Ghetto during the Renaissance.
Enquire at the museum for guided synagogue tours (adult/reduced €10/8 incl museum; 4 tours daily from 10.30am) lead inside three of the ghetto's seven tiny synagogues: the 1528 Schola Tedescha (German Synagogue), with a gilded, elliptical women's gallery modelled after an opera balcony; the 1531 Schola Canton (French Synagogue), with eight charming landscapes taken from the biblical parables; and either the simple, darkwood Schola Italiana (Italian Synagogue) or the still-active Schola Spagnola (Spanish Synagogue), with interiors attributed to Baldassare Longhena.
Tours are also possible to the Antico Cimitero Israelitico (Old Jewish Cemetery) on the Lido.
