p. 11 | JEWS IN ITALY

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Dec 10, 1896

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 22, No. 49.

JEWS IN ITALY.

REV. PAUL DWORKOWICZ, a Protestant missionary among the Jews, has lately visited Italy, and writes as follows: "There are at present 7,000 Jews living in Rome, where they have five synagogues and three rabbis. The celebrated and notorious Ghetto of Rome, where the Jews languished for more than a thousand years, and were subjected to great persecution, exists no longer. With the temporal power of the pope the Ghetto fell. Now in its stead lies a waste and open place. Only the synagogues remain. The Jews are now permitted to live where they like in Rome. There are 366 Roman Catholic churches in Rome. Each church is dedicated to a different saint, so that every pious Catholic visiting a different church each day can, within a year, worship all 366 saints and implore their intercession. Under papal rule, evangelical divine service was barely tolerated at the embassies of the Protestant powers; now in Rome there are 16 evangelical churches and chapels exercising their privilege openly and freely. In Turin there are 4,000 Jews; in Milan 3,000 Jews; in Florence are 6,000 Jews. The Jews in Florence are not as accessible and susceptible as their brethren in Turin and Milan. They prefer to rank first as Italians, and secondly as Jews." Mission work among the Jews is being prosecuted successfully in Europe.—Gospel in All Lands.