Jewish Community of Nizza Monferrato

The Jewish community of Nizza Monferrato is attested between the 16th century and the first decades of the 20th century.

The presence of Jews in the town has been documented since 1539 with the arrival of a first family, to which they soon added others from Asti, Casale Monferrato, Moncalvo and Livorno.

In 1723, with the establishment of the ghetto, the 79 Jews then resident in Nice were forced to move into a few houses in the contrada known as the Hospital, on the current Via Massimo d'Azeglio, where their descendants remained until emancipation in 1848. However, the end of the ghetto also meant the decline of the Jewish community for a strong emigration to major centres in the region.

The synagogue of the community, which was in the Palazzo De Benedetti, in the town hall square, was dismantled before World War II and its furniture transferred to Alessandria, where they are still found today. As evidence of the Jewish presence in Nice, there is also the cemetery which houses a memorial in memory of the Jewish victims of the First World War.^[1]