The Cabinet prepared today to adopt a decree expelling Jews, with certain exceptions, from Italy over a period of months and forcing them to wear white badges and suffer other restrictions during the interim in order to spur their departure. The restrictions include exclusion from parks, theaters, cinemas and hospitals and bans on using radio or telephones and engaging servants.
Exceptions are provided (1) for Jewish families containing an “Aryan” member, which families will be “Aryanized,” and (2) Jewish families receiving “favorable discrimination” because of services to the State. All citizenship rights will be restored to the latter, except the privilege of teaching in schools.
The exception for families with “Aryan” members represents a concession to the Vatican, which had come into conflict with the Italian racial laws on several crucial points, particularly on the Government’s refusal to recognize religious marriages between Catholic “Aryans” and converted Jews.
It is a well-known fact that the major existing difference between the Vatican and the State was on the racial question and several incidents had arisen from this schism. After numerous futile attempts to have their religious marriages recognized by the State, several couples abandoned their hopes and contracted civil marriages with different mates. As a result, their status was somewhat baffling, the Church continuing to recognize only the first marriage and the State only the second.
The Pope had never ceased in his efforts to rectify this state of “moral injustice” and to obtain full “Aryan” rights for converted Jews.
Meanwhile, previous racial laws are being vigorously enforced. A recent decree of the Interior Minister forbids Jews to act as real estate agents for property inhabited, even in part, by “Aryans” — even if the property is Jewish-owned.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
