Carmagnola Synagogue
Carmagnola, Italy

The Carmagnola ghetto was created in 1724, with  the construction of the synagogue shortly thereafter. The Teva and the Ark were carved by a gentile in 1766, because Jews were not allowed to carve wood at that time.

Jews  lived in the ghetto from 1724 to 1848, when emancipation of Jews and other minorities took place. Once freed from the ghetto, the Jewish community dwindled as people moved to bigger cities for more opportunities.

The synagogue was used until 1930 when Italy's Falco Law required small Jewish communities to be incorporated into larger ones. Carmagnola was incorporated into Turin and most of its Jews moved to Turin or other larger cities. For over sixty years the closed Synagogue slowly deteriorated until in the 1990s the Turin Jewish Community decided to restore many of the Piedmont region's synagogues, Carmagnola's among them.  No longer an active synagogue, it serves as a museum and cultural center preserving evidence of centuries of Jewish presence in Carmagnola.

The illustrated gold panels inside the ark doors represent on the right side, the Temple in Jerusalem and a menorah; on the left side, the Ten Commandments with a bread holder above. “In the olden days, it was a tradition for the Piedmontese to put bread on high shelves so the mice wouldn’t eat it,” according to the docent.