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Opening Ceremony of the Great Synagogue of Trieste, Italy, summer 1945
Opening Ceremony of the Great Synagogue of Trieste, Italy, summer 1945

The Jewish Community of Trieste

Trieste

A city in Friuli Venezia Giulia region in northeastern Italy. 

Jews may have lived there before the end of the 14th century, but there is no authoritative information. After the city's annexation to Austria in 1382 Jews from Germany settled there; some were subject to the dukes of Austria and some to the local rulers. Jews soon took the place of Tuscan moneylenders in the economic life of the city. During the middle ages they were engaged in loan-banking and trade; in the 14th century one of them served as the official city banker in the town hall. The Jewish banker Moses and his brother Cazino, who lived in the Rione del Mercato, are mentioned in 1359. The Jews tended to live in the Riborgo neighborhood, then the civic and commercial center. During the middle ages they were

The 15th century was a period of development for the small Jewish community. Two Jewish bankers dominated the period; Salomone D'oro and Isacco da Trieste. In 1509 the emperor Maximilian I granted to Isacco the position of schutzjude, or the protected Jew. It is important to stress the position of Jewish women, who sometimes directed the family's banking establishment. As in the other imperial possessions, Jews were obliged to wear the yellow badge. In 1583 there was an abortive attempt to expel the Jews.

During the 17th century Trieste's patriciate took an unfavorable stand towards the Jews, asking the imperial authorities for their expulsion. The imperial authorities resisted the pressure and the Jews were not expelled. However, in 1695 the 11 Jewish families in the city, around 70 people, were enclosed in the so-called Old Ghetto, or Trauner Ghetto. The Jews petitioned the authorities successfully for healthier site, and in 1696 the Jewish ghetto was erected in the Riborgo neighborhood, near the harbor.

However, by the middle of the 18th century Jews had again begun to live outside the ghetto. At that time they were traders and craftsmen and some of them were factors to the Austrian court. Emperor Joseph II's Toleranzpatent of 1781 gave legal sanction to the gradually improving condition of the Jews in Trieste, and in 1785 the gates of the ghetto were destroyed. In 1746 the Universita degli Ebrei, or Jewish community, was constituted. In this period there were 120 Jews living in Trieste. The most important families were the Morpurgo, Parente, Levi, and Luzzatto. In the same year the first synagogue was erected, the so-called Scuola Piccola. Maria Theresa permitted the richest Jewish families to live outside the ghetto. Moreover, Marco Levi, head of the community, received the title of Hoffaktor in 1765. In 1771 Maria Theresa granted a series of privileges to the Nazione Ebrea.

In the 18th century Jews were traders and craftsmen and some of them were factors to the Austrian court. One of the most distinguished scholars of the mid-18 century was Rabbi Isacco Formiggini. Emperor Joseph II in 1782 gave legal sanction to the gradually improving conditions of the Jews in Trieste, and in 1785 the gates of the ghetto were destroyed. There were around 670 Jews in 1788. In 1775 the Scuola Grande or the Great Synagogue was erected, the building also included a Sephardi synagogue.

The rabbis and scholars of the community, from the 17th to Isaac Formiggini, Mordechai Luzzatto, Raphael Nathan Tedeschi, joseph Hezekiah Gallico, Abraham Eliezer Levi, Rahel Morpurgo (the poetess), Vittorio Castiglioni, A. Curiel, and H. P. Chajes. Samuel David Luzzatto ("shadal"), was a native of Trieste. The writer Italo Svevo lived in Trieste which was the locale of his novels. Il Corriere Israelitico, a Jewish newspaper in Italian, was published in Trieste from 1862 to 1915.

In 1796 the community inaugurated a Jewish school under the chief rabbi Raffael Nathan Tedesco. This school was in part inspired by the proposals of N.H. Wessely. The first Hebrew work printed in Trieste was Samuel Romanelli's Italian-Hebrew grammar, published in 1799. Tedesco was followed by Abramo Eliezer Levi, who was the chief rabbi of Trieste between 1802 and 1825. In 1800 1,200 Jews lived in Trieste.

The 19th century was the golden age of Trieste Jewry. During that time, some members of the community played an active part in the Risorgimento and the irredentist struggle which culminated in Trieste becoming part of Italy in 1919. Trieste Jews, such as writer Italo Svevo and the poet Umberto Saba, were central in creation of the Italian intellectual world. Il Corriere Israeliticom, a Jewish newspaper in Italian, was published in Trieste from 1862 to 1915. In the 1850s some Hebrew books were printed, including Ghirondi –Neppi's 'Toledot Gedolei Yisrael' (1853). The Jewish printer Jonah Cohen was active in the 1860s. His illustrated Passover Haggadah with and without Italian translation (1864) was a memorable production.

The number of Jews increased gradually in the 19th century. In 1848 there were around 3,000 Jews, in 1869 there were 4,421, and in 1910, 5,160 Jews lived in Trieste. The monumental new synagogue in Via Donizzetti opened in 1912 and it was inaugurated by chief rabbi Zvi Perez Chajes. It followed the Ashkenazi rite. After World War I Trieste was the main port for Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who immigrated to Erez Israel.

According to the census of 193, the Jewish community of Trieste had 4,671 members. Census data for 1938 recorded 5,381 Jews in Trieste, belonging for the most part to the lower and middle sectors of the middle class. The racial laws at the end of 1938 caused an initial period of disorientation, including many conversions, the withdrawal of membership of many community leaders and members, and the emigration of most foreign Jews. In October 1941, the first visible acts of intimidation occurred. Temples were defaced with anti-Semitic slogans and red ink. Vandalism and violence recurred in July 1942 when several fascist squads devastated the temple and assaulted defenseless passers-by, shops were sacked, and by then, the Jewish community of Trieste had no more than 2,500 members.

During the holocaust the Nazis executed raids against the Jewish population on October 9, 1943 and January 20, 1944, the latter against aged and ill people in the gentilome home. Jews who were recovering in hospitals throughout the city, including a hospital for the chronically ill were seized. After being arrested, the Jews were taken to the Coroneo prison and to the Risiera di San Sabba, the only concentration camp with a crematorium in Italy. From October 1943 to February 1945, about 60 convoys left Trieste, all headed for the concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe. According to estimates, 708 Jews were from Trieste, and only 23 returned. Some Jews from Trieste joined the partisans and died in combat. The number of those who were converted to Catholicism in that period was very high, in comparison with other Jewish communities in Italy. During the struggle to liberate Italy, Rita Rosani, a Trieste-born Jewish partisan was particularly distinguished.

After the war about 1,500 Jews remained in Trieste; by 1965 the number had fallen to 1,052, out of a total of 280,000 inhabitants, partly because of the excess of deaths over births. In 1969 the community, numbering about 1,000, had a synagogue and a prayer house of Ashkenazi rite, school, as well as a home for the aged.

In the early 21st century the Jewish population of Trieste was around 600.

Hugo Friedler (1908-1959), Jewish youth organizer, who was born in Trieste, Italy (then part of Austria-Hunagay), became a Zionist in his youth and was influenced by Rabbi Z.P. Chajes when his parents moved to Leoben, a small university town 70 km to the the south west of Vienna, which in those days was a stronghold of anti-Semitic activity. There were several foreign Jews who studied at the local university who were associated with Zionist activities in the town and helped sustain a strong Jewish life in this provincial centre.

In 1918, Friedler joined the youth group and also the Hakoach Jewish sports club. In 1921 his parents went to live in Vienna where the young Friedler immediately joined the Jung Juda ("Young Judeans") Zionist youth group, which later amalgamated into the Blau Weiss ("Blue White") movement of which he was soon became a group leader. In 1928 he joined a group of Radical Zionists and two years later the Union of Jabotinsky's Revisionists. In 1930 he returned to Leoben, where to took on the full-time task of being responsible for all the youth Zionist activities of the Jewish communities of the towns of the province of Styria. In the 1930s the situation of Jews throughout Austria deteriorated and his work was concentrated in maintaining the morale of his young charges. After the anexation of Austria by Nazi Germany the situation deteriorated still further. All public pro-Zionist activities ceased. Friedler became involved in helping to arrange illegal emigration to Palestine. Many Jewish youngsters took advantage of the possibility. He himself began to consider and then organize his own emigration. In 1939, at almost the last moment, he obtained a Certificate of Emigration and came to Palestine.

He settled in Haifa. Friedler held a number of minor positions but never really established himself in Israeli society.

Rachel Luzzatto Morpurgo (1790-1871), Hebrew poet, born in Trieste, Italy (then part of Austria), in 1790, into a famous Jewish Italian family who numbered many scholars. She was educated at home, studied Hebrew, and already at the age of fourteen could read the Bible and various Jewish commentaries in original. Her studies also included the Talmud and at the age of eighteen, she started composing Hebrew poetry. Rachel Luzzatto married Jacob Morpurgo when she was twenty-nine, after many years during which her parents opposed the marriage to a modest merchant. Rachel wrote Hebrew poetry during her entire life, many of her poems were published in Kochvei Yitzhak (Stars of Isaac), a Hebrew journal published in Vienna. Rachel Morpurgo's poems echo motifs taken from the Jewish traditions as well as ideas of the age of Enlightenment, while her old age work is more centered on mystic contemplation of the love of God and Messianic ideas. Her poems were collected and published in 1890.

Ezekiel David Ben Mordecai Abulafia (Bolaffi) (18th century), poet, born to a family which originated in Aquileia, Italy. He lived first in Leghorn (Livorno) and then in Trieste, Italy. Ezekiel began to write at the age of thirteen but his early writings were lost. His only published work is Ben Zekunim (1793). Its first part, entitled Yesod Olam, is an introduction to the Talmud for young people and its third part is a selection of commentaries on the Talmud by gentile scholars. The second part, Mizmor le-David, includes poems and elegies which reveal their author’s fair knowledge of classical mythology and literature.

Emanuel Carasso (1862-1934), lawyer and statesman born in Salonika, Greece (than part of the Ottoman Empire). Carasso taught criminal law at the University of Salonika. He was one of the first non-Moslems members of the Ottoman Freedom Society which became part of the Committee of Union and Progress. As such he joined the Young Turks movement and in 1908 was elected one of the six deputies who represented the city of Salonika in the Ottoman parliament. When asked to become a member of the government he refused. He was one of the three members of the parliamentary committee which informed Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the last Ottoman sultan to rule with absolute power, of his deposition in 1909. In 1910 he was invited to direct the ministry of Commerce and Public Affairs, but once again he declined. He was a member of the committee which negotiated the peace treaty between Italy and Turkey after the 1912 war and was also closely involved in the negotiations which were designed to internationalize Salonika. In recognition of his services he was awarded a concession to export Turkish goods to Germany.

Carasso was one of the founders of the Macedonian Risorta Masonic Lodge in Thessaloniki. Later he became president of the Lodge. The Masonic Lodges and other secret societies became the meeting places for sympathizers of the Young Turk movement. He worked for the coordination of the activities of Jewish organizations in Turkey. Strenuously opposing Zionist settlement in Ottoman Palestine, he believed that Jews should be Turks first and Jews only second.

After Kemal Ataturk came to power in 1923, Carasso lost influence. He went to live in Italy an died in Trieste in 1934. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Arnvutkoy, Istanbul. His nephew Isaac Carasso was the founder of the Danone food group.

MUGGIA

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birthplace, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

This family name is derived from Muggia, the name of n Italian town in the extreme south-east of the Province of Trieste in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia.

Places, regions and countries of origin or residence are some of the sources of Jewish family names. But, unless the family has reliable records, names based on toponymics cannot prove the exact origin of the family.

Muggia is documented as a Jewish family name with Franca Muggia, a resident of Venice, Italy, who was born in 1909 and perished in the Holocaust.

TRIESTE

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birthplace, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

This family name is derived from Trieste, a port city and the capital city of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. Jews may have lived there before the end of the 14th century.

Places, regions and countries of origin or residence are some of the sources of Jewish family names. But, unless the family has reliable records, names based on toponymics cannot prove the exact origin of the family.

Trieste is documented as a Jewish family name with Celina Trieste, a resient of Venice, Italy, who was born in Padova, Italy, in 1906 and perished in the Holocaust.

Opening Ceremony of the Great Synagogue of Trieste,
Italy, summer 1945.
Rabbi Lipscitz, rabbi of the 2ND Regiment of the Jewish Brigade, in uniform reading The Torah.
The Synagogue was built in the 19th century.
During WW.II it served the German Army as a warehouse.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
Courtesy of Hannah Gil, Israel)
First Conference of Jewish Military Chaplains,
Trieste, 1917.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot)

Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838), poet and librettist, born Emanuele Conegliano in Ceneda (now Vittorio Veneto), Italy. He was given the family name of his sponsor upon the family’s baptism. Though educated for priesthood and ordained, he started his career as a writer and was banished from Venice. He escaped to Goerz, was a spy in the service of Venice, went to Dresden and in 1783, came to Vienna, where he was appointed librettist to the Imperial Opera. Da Ponte wrote libretti for Mozart’s operas Le Nozze di Figaro (1784), Don Giovanni (1787) and Cosi Fan Tutte (1789). Don Giovanni is based, in some part, upon Da Ponte’ friendship with Casanova, whom he had known in Venice. In 1790, after Emperor Joseph II’s death, Da Ponte was forced to leave Vienna. In Trieste he married and later wandered further. He went to London, where he was engaged as a librettist at the Drury Lane Theater. In 1805 he went to the U.S., where he eventually settled in New York. There he was involved in commercial ventures and taught Italian at Columbia College. He wrote his autobiography Storia compendiosa della vita di Lorenzo da Ponte (1900). Da Ponte died in New York.

Oskar Danon (1913-2009), composer and conductor, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied music in his native Yugoslavia, then in Prague, Czech Republic, earning a PhD in musicology from Charles University. He was a conductor in Sarajevo until Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941.

During the war, Danon joined the partisan forces led by Josip Broz Tito. He served as deputy commander in a number of partisan battalions and reached the rank of major. In 1944 he was transferred to the Cultural Department of the Partisan General Staff and was one of the founders of the partisan theater and choir. He composed several songs, including Uz Maršala Tita ("Together with Marshal Tito"), the Yugoslav partisan anthem which became popular in German occupied Yugoslavia.

After the war he served as the musical director of the Belgrade Opera between 1944-1965. He was director of Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra in Ljubljana from 1970 to 1974, of the Radio Zagreb Symphony Orchestra, and of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. Danon conducted the festive concert celebrating 400-year of Sarajevo Jewry held on October 14, 1966 in Sarajevo, attended by representatives of the local government and representatives from Israel.

Danon directed various orchestras in the world, among them the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London (1962-1963), Vienna State Opera (1964), the Verdi Theatre in Trieste, Italy. He recorded a large number of works by Smetana, Enescu, Dvořák, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky Saint-Saëns, Wagner, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Puccini, Kalman, Stravinsky, Cesar Franck and others.

Danon was a professor at the Belgrade Music Academy. He was a member and president of the Association of Music Artists of Serbia. Danon was awarded the October Award of the City of Belgrade. He died in Belgrade, Serbia.

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The Jewish Community of Trieste

Trieste

A city in Friuli Venezia Giulia region in northeastern Italy. 

Jews may have lived there before the end of the 14th century, but there is no authoritative information. After the city's annexation to Austria in 1382 Jews from Germany settled there; some were subject to the dukes of Austria and some to the local rulers. Jews soon took the place of Tuscan moneylenders in the economic life of the city. During the middle ages they were engaged in loan-banking and trade; in the 14th century one of them served as the official city banker in the town hall. The Jewish banker Moses and his brother Cazino, who lived in the Rione del Mercato, are mentioned in 1359. The Jews tended to live in the Riborgo neighborhood, then the civic and commercial center. During the middle ages they were

The 15th century was a period of development for the small Jewish community. Two Jewish bankers dominated the period; Salomone D'oro and Isacco da Trieste. In 1509 the emperor Maximilian I granted to Isacco the position of schutzjude, or the protected Jew. It is important to stress the position of Jewish women, who sometimes directed the family's banking establishment. As in the other imperial possessions, Jews were obliged to wear the yellow badge. In 1583 there was an abortive attempt to expel the Jews.

During the 17th century Trieste's patriciate took an unfavorable stand towards the Jews, asking the imperial authorities for their expulsion. The imperial authorities resisted the pressure and the Jews were not expelled. However, in 1695 the 11 Jewish families in the city, around 70 people, were enclosed in the so-called Old Ghetto, or Trauner Ghetto. The Jews petitioned the authorities successfully for healthier site, and in 1696 the Jewish ghetto was erected in the Riborgo neighborhood, near the harbor.

However, by the middle of the 18th century Jews had again begun to live outside the ghetto. At that time they were traders and craftsmen and some of them were factors to the Austrian court. Emperor Joseph II's Toleranzpatent of 1781 gave legal sanction to the gradually improving condition of the Jews in Trieste, and in 1785 the gates of the ghetto were destroyed. In 1746 the Universita degli Ebrei, or Jewish community, was constituted. In this period there were 120 Jews living in Trieste. The most important families were the Morpurgo, Parente, Levi, and Luzzatto. In the same year the first synagogue was erected, the so-called Scuola Piccola. Maria Theresa permitted the richest Jewish families to live outside the ghetto. Moreover, Marco Levi, head of the community, received the title of Hoffaktor in 1765. In 1771 Maria Theresa granted a series of privileges to the Nazione Ebrea.

In the 18th century Jews were traders and craftsmen and some of them were factors to the Austrian court. One of the most distinguished scholars of the mid-18 century was Rabbi Isacco Formiggini. Emperor Joseph II in 1782 gave legal sanction to the gradually improving conditions of the Jews in Trieste, and in 1785 the gates of the ghetto were destroyed. There were around 670 Jews in 1788. In 1775 the Scuola Grande or the Great Synagogue was erected, the building also included a Sephardi synagogue.

The rabbis and scholars of the community, from the 17th to Isaac Formiggini, Mordechai Luzzatto, Raphael Nathan Tedeschi, joseph Hezekiah Gallico, Abraham Eliezer Levi, Rahel Morpurgo (the poetess), Vittorio Castiglioni, A. Curiel, and H. P. Chajes. Samuel David Luzzatto ("shadal"), was a native of Trieste. The writer Italo Svevo lived in Trieste which was the locale of his novels. Il Corriere Israelitico, a Jewish newspaper in Italian, was published in Trieste from 1862 to 1915.

In 1796 the community inaugurated a Jewish school under the chief rabbi Raffael Nathan Tedesco. This school was in part inspired by the proposals of N.H. Wessely. The first Hebrew work printed in Trieste was Samuel Romanelli's Italian-Hebrew grammar, published in 1799. Tedesco was followed by Abramo Eliezer Levi, who was the chief rabbi of Trieste between 1802 and 1825. In 1800 1,200 Jews lived in Trieste.

The 19th century was the golden age of Trieste Jewry. During that time, some members of the community played an active part in the Risorgimento and the irredentist struggle which culminated in Trieste becoming part of Italy in 1919. Trieste Jews, such as writer Italo Svevo and the poet Umberto Saba, were central in creation of the Italian intellectual world. Il Corriere Israeliticom, a Jewish newspaper in Italian, was published in Trieste from 1862 to 1915. In the 1850s some Hebrew books were printed, including Ghirondi –Neppi's 'Toledot Gedolei Yisrael' (1853). The Jewish printer Jonah Cohen was active in the 1860s. His illustrated Passover Haggadah with and without Italian translation (1864) was a memorable production.

The number of Jews increased gradually in the 19th century. In 1848 there were around 3,000 Jews, in 1869 there were 4,421, and in 1910, 5,160 Jews lived in Trieste. The monumental new synagogue in Via Donizzetti opened in 1912 and it was inaugurated by chief rabbi Zvi Perez Chajes. It followed the Ashkenazi rite. After World War I Trieste was the main port for Jews from Central and Eastern Europe who immigrated to Erez Israel.

According to the census of 193, the Jewish community of Trieste had 4,671 members. Census data for 1938 recorded 5,381 Jews in Trieste, belonging for the most part to the lower and middle sectors of the middle class. The racial laws at the end of 1938 caused an initial period of disorientation, including many conversions, the withdrawal of membership of many community leaders and members, and the emigration of most foreign Jews. In October 1941, the first visible acts of intimidation occurred. Temples were defaced with anti-Semitic slogans and red ink. Vandalism and violence recurred in July 1942 when several fascist squads devastated the temple and assaulted defenseless passers-by, shops were sacked, and by then, the Jewish community of Trieste had no more than 2,500 members.

During the holocaust the Nazis executed raids against the Jewish population on October 9, 1943 and January 20, 1944, the latter against aged and ill people in the gentilome home. Jews who were recovering in hospitals throughout the city, including a hospital for the chronically ill were seized. After being arrested, the Jews were taken to the Coroneo prison and to the Risiera di San Sabba, the only concentration camp with a crematorium in Italy. From October 1943 to February 1945, about 60 convoys left Trieste, all headed for the concentration camps of Central and Eastern Europe. According to estimates, 708 Jews were from Trieste, and only 23 returned. Some Jews from Trieste joined the partisans and died in combat. The number of those who were converted to Catholicism in that period was very high, in comparison with other Jewish communities in Italy. During the struggle to liberate Italy, Rita Rosani, a Trieste-born Jewish partisan was particularly distinguished.

After the war about 1,500 Jews remained in Trieste; by 1965 the number had fallen to 1,052, out of a total of 280,000 inhabitants, partly because of the excess of deaths over births. In 1969 the community, numbering about 1,000, had a synagogue and a prayer house of Ashkenazi rite, school, as well as a home for the aged.

In the early 21st century the Jewish population of Trieste was around 600.

Written by researchers of ANU Museum of the Jewish People
Hugo Friedler

Hugo Friedler (1908-1959), Jewish youth organizer, who was born in Trieste, Italy (then part of Austria-Hunagay), became a Zionist in his youth and was influenced by Rabbi Z.P. Chajes when his parents moved to Leoben, a small university town 70 km to the the south west of Vienna, which in those days was a stronghold of anti-Semitic activity. There were several foreign Jews who studied at the local university who were associated with Zionist activities in the town and helped sustain a strong Jewish life in this provincial centre.

In 1918, Friedler joined the youth group and also the Hakoach Jewish sports club. In 1921 his parents went to live in Vienna where the young Friedler immediately joined the Jung Juda ("Young Judeans") Zionist youth group, which later amalgamated into the Blau Weiss ("Blue White") movement of which he was soon became a group leader. In 1928 he joined a group of Radical Zionists and two years later the Union of Jabotinsky's Revisionists. In 1930 he returned to Leoben, where to took on the full-time task of being responsible for all the youth Zionist activities of the Jewish communities of the towns of the province of Styria. In the 1930s the situation of Jews throughout Austria deteriorated and his work was concentrated in maintaining the morale of his young charges. After the anexation of Austria by Nazi Germany the situation deteriorated still further. All public pro-Zionist activities ceased. Friedler became involved in helping to arrange illegal emigration to Palestine. Many Jewish youngsters took advantage of the possibility. He himself began to consider and then organize his own emigration. In 1939, at almost the last moment, he obtained a Certificate of Emigration and came to Palestine.

He settled in Haifa. Friedler held a number of minor positions but never really established himself in Israeli society.

Rachel Luzzatto Morpurgo

Rachel Luzzatto Morpurgo (1790-1871), Hebrew poet, born in Trieste, Italy (then part of Austria), in 1790, into a famous Jewish Italian family who numbered many scholars. She was educated at home, studied Hebrew, and already at the age of fourteen could read the Bible and various Jewish commentaries in original. Her studies also included the Talmud and at the age of eighteen, she started composing Hebrew poetry. Rachel Luzzatto married Jacob Morpurgo when she was twenty-nine, after many years during which her parents opposed the marriage to a modest merchant. Rachel wrote Hebrew poetry during her entire life, many of her poems were published in Kochvei Yitzhak (Stars of Isaac), a Hebrew journal published in Vienna. Rachel Morpurgo's poems echo motifs taken from the Jewish traditions as well as ideas of the age of Enlightenment, while her old age work is more centered on mystic contemplation of the love of God and Messianic ideas. Her poems were collected and published in 1890.

Ezekiel David Ben Mordecai Abulafia

Ezekiel David Ben Mordecai Abulafia (Bolaffi) (18th century), poet, born to a family which originated in Aquileia, Italy. He lived first in Leghorn (Livorno) and then in Trieste, Italy. Ezekiel began to write at the age of thirteen but his early writings were lost. His only published work is Ben Zekunim (1793). Its first part, entitled Yesod Olam, is an introduction to the Talmud for young people and its third part is a selection of commentaries on the Talmud by gentile scholars. The second part, Mizmor le-David, includes poems and elegies which reveal their author’s fair knowledge of classical mythology and literature.

Emanuel Carasso

Emanuel Carasso (1862-1934), lawyer and statesman born in Salonika, Greece (than part of the Ottoman Empire). Carasso taught criminal law at the University of Salonika. He was one of the first non-Moslems members of the Ottoman Freedom Society which became part of the Committee of Union and Progress. As such he joined the Young Turks movement and in 1908 was elected one of the six deputies who represented the city of Salonika in the Ottoman parliament. When asked to become a member of the government he refused. He was one of the three members of the parliamentary committee which informed Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the last Ottoman sultan to rule with absolute power, of his deposition in 1909. In 1910 he was invited to direct the ministry of Commerce and Public Affairs, but once again he declined. He was a member of the committee which negotiated the peace treaty between Italy and Turkey after the 1912 war and was also closely involved in the negotiations which were designed to internationalize Salonika. In recognition of his services he was awarded a concession to export Turkish goods to Germany.

Carasso was one of the founders of the Macedonian Risorta Masonic Lodge in Thessaloniki. Later he became president of the Lodge. The Masonic Lodges and other secret societies became the meeting places for sympathizers of the Young Turk movement. He worked for the coordination of the activities of Jewish organizations in Turkey. Strenuously opposing Zionist settlement in Ottoman Palestine, he believed that Jews should be Turks first and Jews only second.

After Kemal Ataturk came to power in 1923, Carasso lost influence. He went to live in Italy an died in Trieste in 1934. He was buried in the Jewish cemetery in Arnvutkoy, Istanbul. His nephew Isaac Carasso was the founder of the Danone food group.

MUGGIA

MUGGIA

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birthplace, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

This family name is derived from Muggia, the name of n Italian town in the extreme south-east of the Province of Trieste in the region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia on the border with Slovenia.

Places, regions and countries of origin or residence are some of the sources of Jewish family names. But, unless the family has reliable records, names based on toponymics cannot prove the exact origin of the family.

Muggia is documented as a Jewish family name with Franca Muggia, a resident of Venice, Italy, who was born in 1909 and perished in the Holocaust.

TRIESTE

TRIESTE

Surnames derive from one of many different origins. Sometimes there may be more than one explanation for the same name. This family name is a toponymic (derived from a geographic name of a town, city, region or country). Surnames that are based on place names do not always testify to direct origin from that place, but may indicate an indirect relation between the name-bearer or his ancestors and the place, such as birthplace, temporary residence, trade, or family-relatives.

This family name is derived from Trieste, a port city and the capital city of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy. Jews may have lived there before the end of the 14th century.

Places, regions and countries of origin or residence are some of the sources of Jewish family names. But, unless the family has reliable records, names based on toponymics cannot prove the exact origin of the family.

Trieste is documented as a Jewish family name with Celina Trieste, a resient of Venice, Italy, who was born in Padova, Italy, in 1906 and perished in the Holocaust.

Opening Ceremony of the Great Synagogue of Trieste, Italy, summer 1945
Opening Ceremony of the Great Synagogue of Trieste,
Italy, summer 1945.
Rabbi Lipscitz, rabbi of the 2ND Regiment of the Jewish Brigade, in uniform reading The Torah.
The Synagogue was built in the 19th century.
During WW.II it served the German Army as a warehouse.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot,
Courtesy of Hannah Gil, Israel)
First Conference of Jewish Military Chaplains, Trieste, 1917
First Conference of Jewish Military Chaplains,
Trieste, 1917.
(The Oster Visual Documentation Center, Beit Hatfutsot)
Lorenzo Da Ponte

Lorenzo Da Ponte (1749-1838), poet and librettist, born Emanuele Conegliano in Ceneda (now Vittorio Veneto), Italy. He was given the family name of his sponsor upon the family’s baptism. Though educated for priesthood and ordained, he started his career as a writer and was banished from Venice. He escaped to Goerz, was a spy in the service of Venice, went to Dresden and in 1783, came to Vienna, where he was appointed librettist to the Imperial Opera. Da Ponte wrote libretti for Mozart’s operas Le Nozze di Figaro (1784), Don Giovanni (1787) and Cosi Fan Tutte (1789). Don Giovanni is based, in some part, upon Da Ponte’ friendship with Casanova, whom he had known in Venice. In 1790, after Emperor Joseph II’s death, Da Ponte was forced to leave Vienna. In Trieste he married and later wandered further. He went to London, where he was engaged as a librettist at the Drury Lane Theater. In 1805 he went to the U.S., where he eventually settled in New York. There he was involved in commercial ventures and taught Italian at Columbia College. He wrote his autobiography Storia compendiosa della vita di Lorenzo da Ponte (1900). Da Ponte died in New York.

Oskar Danon

Oskar Danon (1913-2009), composer and conductor, born in Sarajevo, Bosnia (then part of Austria-Hungary). He studied music in his native Yugoslavia, then in Prague, Czech Republic, earning a PhD in musicology from Charles University. He was a conductor in Sarajevo until Yugoslavia was invaded by Nazi Germany and its allies in 1941.

During the war, Danon joined the partisan forces led by Josip Broz Tito. He served as deputy commander in a number of partisan battalions and reached the rank of major. In 1944 he was transferred to the Cultural Department of the Partisan General Staff and was one of the founders of the partisan theater and choir. He composed several songs, including Uz Maršala Tita ("Together with Marshal Tito"), the Yugoslav partisan anthem which became popular in German occupied Yugoslavia.

After the war he served as the musical director of the Belgrade Opera between 1944-1965. He was director of Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra in Ljubljana from 1970 to 1974, of the Radio Zagreb Symphony Orchestra, and of the Belgrade Philharmonic Orchestra. Danon conducted the festive concert celebrating 400-year of Sarajevo Jewry held on October 14, 1966 in Sarajevo, attended by representatives of the local government and representatives from Israel.

Danon directed various orchestras in the world, among them the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London (1962-1963), Vienna State Opera (1964), the Verdi Theatre in Trieste, Italy. He recorded a large number of works by Smetana, Enescu, Dvořák, Rimsky-Korsakov, Prokofiev, Stravinsky Saint-Saëns, Wagner, Verdi, Mussorgsky, Puccini, Kalman, Stravinsky, Cesar Franck and others.

Danon was a professor at the Belgrade Music Academy. He was a member and president of the Association of Music Artists of Serbia. Danon was awarded the October Award of the City of Belgrade. He died in Belgrade, Serbia.