The Museum

The building occupies one side of today’s Vicolo Salomone Olper, formerly Via degli Israeliti. In the past, this narrow street was not a thoroughfare; one had to walk through courtyards, passageways, and corridors along a hidden route to reach it. The synagogue also never had a façade; the entrance was always from the courtyard. This was because, until 1848, it was forbidden for synagogues to be visible from the outside and to have direct access from the public street.
Over time, in addition to the synagogue, the Silver Museum, the Museum of Lights, the exhibitions held in the Carmi Room, numerous concerts, performances, and recitals of texts and poems, another necessary means of development and relationship has found its way: visual and contemporary art, which interacts, even permanently, with the architectural structure and with everyone who passes through it.

In addition to the Jewish complex, two cemeteries (one of them ancient and no longer in use) and the ghetto, which is still partially recognizable by the conformation of the buildings and a hinge visible in Alexandria Street, testify to its presence in the area.

The synagogue of Casale Monferrato was inaugurated in 1595 and has undergone several expansions and renovations since then. Today it presents itself in its late baroque splendor, in the Piedmontese Rococo style (late ‘700 – early ‘800).

The Shoah Memorial is a work by Antonio Recalcati (1938-2022), a non-Jewish artist and friend of the Casale Community who is in constant memory of the victims of the Shoah from Casale and Moncalvo.

The internal courtyard is a large and bright space that allows the community to gather outdoors during moments of celebration with an atmosphere of intimacy and confidentiality. It is crowned with site-specific contemporary works of art.

The Museum of Enlightenment is one of the most fascinating and original spaces in the complex. It displays a collection of Chanukkah lamps that is unique in its kind in Italy and in the world.

The Museum of Ancient Jewish Art and History, also known as the Silver Museum, houses one of the most important collections of Jewish art and history objects in Europe.

The historical archive of the Casale community, dedicated to the memory of Livia Pavia Wollemborg, preserves very useful documents.