Forlì

FORLÌ, city in N. central Italy. The philosopher *Hillel b. Samuel of Verona wrote his Tagmulei ha-Nefesh there about 1280. By the 14^th century a number of Jewish loan bankers were established in the city and in 1373 Bonaventura Consiglio and a partner lent 8,000 ducats to Amadeo, count of Savoy, on the security of his crown and other valuables. Representatives of the communities of central and northern Italy met in Forlì in 1418 to discuss the raising of a fund for self-defense; they also passed a series of sumptuary regulations to limit shows of luxury and extravagance. Their action was probably decisive in obtaining the protection of Pope *Martin V, which he extended in the bull of Jan. 31, 1419. From the late 14^th and through the 15^th century several Jewish physicians lived in Forlì and a number of Hebrew manuscripts were copied there. In 1488 anti-Jewish disorders broke out: the Jewish loan banks were sacked and the loan bankers were forced to leave the city. Subsequently, however, their activities were resumed. At the beginning of the 16^th century the papal government assumed the administration of the city, and in 1569 the community in Forlì ceased to exist with the expulsion of the Jews from the towns of the Papal States, though some craftsmen also lived there during the 16^th and 17^th centuries. A Jewish presence in the area of Romagna, and also in Forlì, is documented from the Napoleonic era. In 1938, 15 families in Forlì and 98 people in the entire province were considered Jewish. During the Nazi occupation, from 1943 until the liberation of November 13, 1944, a concentration camp operated in Forlì, where the majority of prisoners were Jews from the area or from Rome. In September 1944 the Nazis massacred 33 people at the airport of Forlì, including 19 Jews.

Sources: Encyclopaedia Judaica. © 2007 The Gale Group. All Rights Reserved.