Fascism and the Jews

Some of the Fascist movement's original supporters were Jews. The fervor that captivated Italy also included Jewish Italians.¹ Three of the fifteen jurists who drew up the Fascist constitution were Jews.² Fascism, at least in the beginning, did not exclude Jews from the party.

Below, a Fasces, the symbol of Fascism. Source: Wikipedia

However, this did not mean that there was no affect on the Jewish community as the government shifted to Fascist rule. The leaders of communities were imposed from above under the new government, and the government did not appoint Jewish officials. This meant that the Jewish communities would no longer be led by Jewish officials.³

In 1929, Mussolini enacted a Concordat with the Vatican that restored Roman Catholicism as the state religion.⁴ This had major implications on education, as the public schools would now endorse Catholicism. However, a provision was added that stated that Jews could remove their children from these schools and even open up their own schools.⁵ While Fascism tied itself to Catholicism, there was still some room for Judaism.

In a Fascist society, there is one main binary: friend and foe. To unite a group of people, the government needs a common foe; furthermore, a foe that exists both within and without of the country. "For ideologues in all but the Italian Fascist movement, that enemy was the Jew."⁶ Instead of the Jew as the enemy, Italians saw the Bolshevik as the enemy, and to Italians, that was not a synonym for Jew.⁷

More than once, Mussolini declared that the Italian government would not follow anti-Semitic policies.⁸ Mussolini said, "We too have our Jews. There are many in the Fascist Party, and they are good Fascists and good Italians...A country with a sound system of government has no Jewish problem."⁹ Jews participated in Fascism just like other Italian citizens.

In 1938, the Italian government began to enact anti-Semitic laws. However, Grand Fascist Council made a provision about discrimazione, which was an Italian Jew that was exempt from the limitations written up in the laws. A Jew could become a discrimazione by being a good citizen, like serving in the military.¹⁰ Most citizens appealed directly to Mussolini for their discrimazione, believing the laws to be temporary. Many Jewish citizens thought that the laws were imposed from outside of Italy and that they were simply made to appease the Nazis.¹¹ Mussolini received more than four hundred letters of appeal from Jews who wanted to join the army.¹²

The discrimazione, however, was not exempt from much. No Jew, discrimazione or otherwise, could work in public employment, be in the military service, nor in the National Fascist Party. Banks and other such employment opportunities were also closed to Jews.¹³

The Jews initially worked in the Fascist party, and they were just as supportive of the Fascist government as other Italian citizens. Even when the Fascist government enacted policies against them, some Jews still perceived the government as benign towards them. By 1938, the shift of the enemy of Italian Fascism from the Bolshevik to the Jew. However, the general Italian populous did not respond to this shift as the general German populous.

Footnotes

1. Roth 509
2. Roth 510
3. Roth 510
4. Roth 511
5. Roth 511
6. Bookbinder 100
7. Bookbinder 101
8. Michaelis 24
9. Michaelis 56
10. Nidam-Orvieto 168
11. Nidam-Orvieto 175
12. Nidam-Orvieto 173
13. Levi 72

For more information on these footnotes, please see the sources.

© Kylie McCormick, Mount Holyoke College 2008.