The Venetian Jewish Anthology is a scholarly resource for teaching and research that explores the cultural, intellectual, and historic experience of Venetian Jewry. The Anthology carries forward the work of an institute on "Venice, the Jews, and Italian Culture: Historical Eras and Cultural Representations" that took place June 19-July 21, 2006. This five-week interdisciplinary institute was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and culminated in a three-day conference on "Venice, the Jews, and Italian Culture," sponsored by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, and attended by twenty-eight scholars representing universities in the United States, Canada, and Italy.

Our primary focus in both the conference and the Institute was the Ghetto of Venice, which gave its name to all such subsequent ethnic enclosures. We explored the history of the Ghetto of Venice as built environment, cultural text, and symbolic site. Together we examined various artistic materials representing Italian and Venetian Jewish life, including literary, artistic, and dramatic works. That made it possible for us to reinhabit the Ghetto through the eras of its existence. The Institute began with the Renaissance, while emphasizing the modern experience of Venetian Jewry, a paradigmatic Italian Jewish community.

Some of the materials that follow are available to the general public. The full set of materials of the Venetian Jewish Anthology are password protected and accessible in detail at present only to the Institute participants and sponsors.