Blood Beneath the Giudecca

In the same century that Sicily's Mafia began to take shape in the shadows of feudal collapse, another world was being erased. By 1493, between 25,000 and 37,000 Jews - settled across 52 communities throughout the island - were expelled or forced to convert under the Alhambra Decree of Ferdinand and Isabella, ending fifteen centuries of Sicilian Jewish life. These two histories have rarely been ...