Science and the Jewish Question in the Twentieth Century: The Case of Italy and What It Shows

Abstract

The anti-Jewish racial policy introduced by the Fascist regime in Italy in the 1930s is often considered to be marginal in the European context of that period. This paper shows that this thesis is groundless: Fascist racism had a strong impact on the Italian Jewish community and led to a serious crisis in Italian science. Furthermore, Italian "spiritualistic" racism had a peculiar development quite autonomous from German racism and was linked to some basic aspects of the Fascist ideology. This racism included original and even modern elements: it gravitated around the concept of ethnic group, which still has wide currency even today, more than around the concept of race in a strictly biological sense. This paper describes the contribution of the Italian scientific community to the elaboration of this racism, the attitude of Jewish scientists, and the consequences of the anti-Jewish policies for Italian science. It also provides arguments for the rejection of Veblen's thesis about the causes of the Jews' pre-eminence modern science and culture.