Confinement within a ghetto intensified religious practice and cultural concentration

Evidence

In addition to being both a refuge and a trap in which the Jews were caught, the Venetian ghetto was also an intellectual center for Jewish culture. It became a gathering point for Jews from different places and the dissemination point of the vigorous intellectual activity that took place there. Venice became, for example, a publishing center for Hebrew books. Jewish thought turned inward and came to focus predominantly on searching the biblical and talmudic traditions for clarification of the unique characteristics and destiny of the Jews. … The practice of religion in the Venetian ghetto was also transformed in a way that mirrored the ghettoization process itself. Whereas religious activity previously had often taken place in private homes, now the synagogues and the activities that took place there came to be regarded as more sacred. The space surrounding the synagogue took on a correspondingly more profane character. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2374

Categorization

• XREF: Parallels the way other segregated communities (e.g., African-American ghettos, immigrant enclaves) develop distinctive cultural and intellectual institutions within confinement.