Who Are the Italkim? Italy's Oldest Jewish Families

Italkim is the Hebrew plural of Italki, which simply means "Italian". The word is used in two ways.

In the narrow sense, the Italkim are the old Jewish community of Italy: Jews whose families lived in Rome and central and southern Italy long before the Middle Ages, with their own rite. They are not Ashkenazi and not Sephardic. They are a third, older branch.

In the broad sense, especially in Israel, Italkim means any Jews who came from Italy, whatever their origin. An Italian Jewish family of Sephardic or Ashkenazi roots who moved to Tel Aviv is also called Italkim there.

In this guide, we use the narrow sense.

Jews have lived in Rome since the 2nd century BCE. The Jewish community of Rome counts more than 2,200 years of continuous life, which makes it one of the oldest Jewish communities outside the Land of Israel. In 59 BCE, the Roman writer Cicero already mentioned the Jews of Rome in one of his speeches.

After the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE, thousands of Jewish captives were brought to Italy. You can still see the Romans carrying the Temple's Menorah on the Arch of Titus, in the Roman Forum.

In the Middle Ages, Jewish life was strong in the south of Italy too, in cities like Bari, Otranto and Oria. A Hebrew saying from that time goes: "From Bari comes forth the Torah, and the word of God from Otranto."

Then the south closed. Sicily and Sardinia were ruled by Spain, and their Jews were expelled in 1492. The Kingdom of Naples expelled its last Jews in 1541. Many families moved north, to Rome and the towns of central Italy.

In 1555, the Pope closed the Jews of Rome into a ghetto. In 1569, another Pope ordered the Jews to leave every town of the Papal States except Rome and Ancona. Families from many small towns in Lazio moved into the Roman ghetto, and many of them carried the name of their town with them. You can still hear those names in Rome today.

Read more in our guide to the Ghetto of Rome.

The Italkim have their own rite, called Nusach Italki in Hebrew, or simply the Italian rite. It has its own order of prayers and its own melodies, different from both the Ashkenazi and the Sephardic ones. It is one of the oldest Jewish rites still in use.

You can hear it in Rome, in the synagogues of the old Jewish quarter. You can also hear it in Jerusalem. In 1952, the interior of an 18th-century synagogue from Conegliano, in the Veneto, was taken to Jerusalem and rebuilt there. Today it is the Italian synagogue on Hillel Street, inside the U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art, and the heart of the Italian Jewish community in Israel.

The Italkim also had their own languages. In Rome, Jews spoke giudeo-romanesco, a Roman dialect mixed with Hebrew words. In other cities, there were other Judeo-Italian dialects. Many families still use a few of these words at home, sometimes without knowing where they come from.

The Italkim are the oldest layer of Italian Jewish surnames. Most of their names fall into three groups.

Old family traditions. A few families, like Anau, De Pomis and De Rossi, kept a tradition that their ancestors were among four families brought from Jerusalem to Rome after the Temple fell. The rabbi and physician David de Pomis wrote it down in the 16th century. It is a family tradition, not a proven fact. Some names are Hebrew words in Italian form: Anau comes from anav, "modest", and the same family also appears as degli Mansi, Piatelli, Pietosi and Umani. The Anau family can be found in Rome documents from the 10th century.

Town names from Lazio and central Italy. Many Roman Jewish families carry the name of the town they left when they moved to Rome, often after 1569: Di Segni (from Segni), Piperno (from Priverno), Sonnino, Terracina, Sermoneta, Tivoli, Dell'Ariccia (from Ariccia), Di Nepi (from Nepi), Di Cori (from Cori), Alatri. Most of these names are found almost only among the Jews of Rome.

Trades and roles. Funaro means rope maker. Della Seta is linked to silk. Orefice means goldsmith. Sacerdote, "priest", marks a family of kohanim.

A surname tells you where to look, not what you will find. Some town names are also common among Christian families, and not every Roman family came to the city in 1569. Our complete guide to Italian Jewish surnames covers the other branches too.

taly has all three branches, and over the centuries they lived side by side.


In real life, the lines are not so clean. In the ghettos, families married across groups. A woman from a Sephardic family who married into a Roman family took her husband's name. Today, most Italian Jewish families have roots in more than one branch.
For the Sephardic story, see our guide to Livorno, Italy's Sephardic capital.

Some signs point that way:

• The family came from Rome, or from a small town in Lazio or central Italy.
• Your surname is the name of one of those towns.
• Your grandparents prayed in an Italian-rite synagogue.
• Someone at home used strange words that turned out to be Judeo-Roman.

But signs are not proof. A surname is a starting point, and a town name can belong to Christian families too. Only records can show where a family really lived.

For Rome, the civil records start in 1871, when the city became part of Italy. Older traces are in the archive of the Jewish community of Rome, in the state archives, and sometimes in Church records, if a family member converted. Our guide to Italian Jewish naming traditions explains how to follow a family through its names.

A DNA test cannot tell you if you are Italkim. It can suggest Jewish ancestry in general, but not which branch or which town. Our guide to DNA tests and Italian Jewish heritage explains why.

Are the Italkim Sephardic? No. Their families were in Italy long before the Sephardim arrived in 1492. They have their own rite.

Are the Italkim Ashkenazi? No. The Ashkenazi branch formed later, in Germany and France. Ashkenazi Jews who came to Italy kept their own rite.

Do the Italkim still exist? Yes. The Jewish community of Rome, the largest in Italy, still prays in the Italian rite. In Israel, the Italkim have their own synagogue in Jerusalem.

What language did the Italkim speak? Italian, and local Judeo-Italian dialects. In Rome, that dialect is giudeo-romanesco.

Is "Italkim" the same as "Italian Jews"? In Israel, yes. In the narrow sense, it means the oldest branch of Italian Jews, with the Italian rite.