Italian Racial Laws

The Italian Racial Laws (Italian: Leggi razziali) were a set of laws promulgated by Fascist Italy from 1938 to 1943 to enforce racial discrimination in Italy, directed mainly against the Italian Jews and the native inhabitants of the colonies.

The first and most important of the leggi razziali was the Regio Decreto 17 Novembre 1938 Nr. 1728. It restricted civil rights of Jews, banned their books and excluded Jews from public office and higher education. Additional laws stripped Jews of their assets, restricted travel and finally provided for their internship in internal exile, as was done for political prisoners.

The promulgation of the racial laws was preceded by a long press campaign and by publication of the "Manifesto of Race" earlier in 1938, a purportedly-scientific report by fascist scientists and supporters that asserted racial principles, including the superiority of Europeans over other races. The final decision about the law was made during the meeting of the Gran Consiglio del Fascismo, which took place on the night between 6 and 7 October 1938 in Rome, Palazzo Venezia. Not all Fascists supported discrimination: while the pro-German, anti-Jewish Roberto Farinacci and Giovanni Preziosi strongly pushed for them, Italo Balbo strongly opposed the laws.

After the fall of Benito Mussolini on July 25, 1943, the Badoglio government suppressed the laws. They remained in force in the territories ruled by the Italian Social Republic until the end of the war (and were made more severe).

The Italian Racial Laws were unpopular with most ordinary Italians; the Jews were a small minority in the country and had integrated deeply into Italian society and culture. Most Jews in Italy were either ancient Italian Jews that practiced the Italian rite and had been living in Italy since Ancient Roman times; Sephardic Jews who had migrated to Italy from the Iberian countries after expulsion in the late 15th century; and a smaller Ashkenazi population that had arrived in the Middle Ages and largely assimilated into the Italian rite Jewish and the Sephardic communities. In any case, Jews in Italy, in general, had assimilated into Italian society and had contributed to Italian culture over the course of two millennia. Most Italians were not widely acquainted with Jews, and Italian society was unaccustomed to the kind of anti-Semitism that had been relatively common and thrived for centuries in German-speaking countries and other parts of northern, northwestern, and eastern Europe, where Jews had a greater presence and lived in large numbers for a long period of time.

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