With the passage of anti-Jewish racial laws in Italy between September and November 1938, the Fascist regime banned Jews not only from public schools and universities, but also from academies and learned societies. Almost overnight, Italian Jews were completely eliminated from the Italian cultural milieu. Although in the past decade new research has documented the impact of the racial laws on Jewish teachers, professors, and writers, this chapter examines the position of the Italian academies on admittance of Jewish members before and after the racial laws to the onset of racial persecution in Fascist Italy.

In the world of the academies, as well as in universities and schools, enforcement of governmental directives was quick, effective, and accompanied by a “deafening silence” of members of the institutions concerned. Acquiescence, active consent, and concern about exclusion from the cultural milieu made – with a few exceptions – the ban of Jewish intellectuals substantially accepted.

Academies were a major element of Italian cultural organizations. They included many different types: some had a long and well-established tradition, whereas others had been founded more recently, such as societies for historical studies as well as some scientific societies specializing in different subject areas. These academies, institutes, and societies constituted an organizational benchmark that served as sites for cultural exchanges. Their publications (serials, collections, papers, and conference proceedings) functioned as a means of cultural and scientific diffusion.