The Italian Cabinet today climaxed its recently-adopted racial and anti-Semitic policy by prohibiting Jewish immigration and ordering all foreign Jews and those who acquired citizenship since Jan. 1, 1919, to leave the country within six months.
The decree forbidding permanent residence by foreign Jews and post-war citizens was introduced at a cabinet meeting by premier Benito Mussolini. It provides that those who do not leave within the specified time will be expelled after punishment according to the laws for public security.
The edict definitely establishes a racial basis, defining as a Jew anyone both of whose parents are of the Jewish race, even if he adheres to a different religion. The decree applies to Italy, Libya and the Aegean Islands, but does not mention Italian East Africa.
In a second decree, the Council of Ministers established a Superior Council for Demography and Race affiliated with the Ministry of Interior. At present there is a special office for Demography and Race Protection attached to the Interior Ministry and headed by Telesio Interlard, editor of the anti-Semitic newspaper, IL Tevere.
Large industrial centers like Milan, Genoa, Turin and Trieste will be particularly affected by the expulsion decree. The important Levantine Jewish colony of about 3,500 Greek and Turkish subjects, formed in Milan after the war and most of them educated in Italian schools in their countries, must leave the country.
Hundreds of British, French and Spanish Jews from Gibraltar, Tunis and French and Spanish Morocco had settled in Libya long before the Italo-Turkish War of 1911. Even during the Ethiopian war foreign Jews in Libya were not expelled, but were only ordered from the border to the center of the province.
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.
