Wednesday 2 – Sunday 6 September 2026
“Venice is not only a city of fantasy and freedom. It is also a city of joy and pleasure” – Peggy Guggenheim
Join JR in autumn 2026 to explore the rich Jewish history of Venice and its surrounding regions. From Shakespeare to TS Eliot, Brodsky to Proust, Venice has occupied an important place in both the semitic and antisemitic literary imagination: the first ‘modern’ city, home of canals and romance, of mercantile trade, blood feuds and the ghetto. Led by JR’s executive director Dr Aviva Dautch, we’ll trace the landscape of both the real and imagined city, walking in the footsteps of Jewish writers and artists who came to Venice to find themselves.
The connection between Jews and the creative arts in the area goes back to the 16th century. We’ll find out about interesting figures from the past, including the real Venetian musicians who may have influenced the writing of The Merchant of Venice and “the Black-Jewish Messiah”. Plus, we’ll travel to the islands of Murano and Burano by boat to learn about Jewish artisan crafts, meet members of the Jewish community and spend Shabbat in Ferrara’s Ghetto Ebraica. Ferrara is the setting of seminal Italian Jewish film, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, and home to The Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, so we will have plenty to explore.
Since our trip takes place during the opening weekend of the Venice Biennale, we’ll focus particularly on visual culture, thinking about the complex political and artistic history of the Israel Pavilion, which is currently more controversial than ever.
The Peggy Guggenheim Collection is the most important museum of 20th-century European and American art in Italy and is currently hosting a landmark exhibition about Peggy Guggenheim’s time in London. Our trip will include a curator-led private visit plus a chance to meet with Karole Vail, the museum director and Guggenheim’s granddaughter.
This tour is arranged in association with Bespoke Kosher Travel and is for Jewish Renaissance subscribers only. Not currently a subscriber? Click here to subscribe.
REFUNDS DISCLAIMER: Please note that due to the multiple bookings involved in organising a JR tour, we are unable to offer refunds, except in the event that the tour does not go ahead. We recommend that you arrange your own travel insurance to cover any individual circumstances. There is a possibility, but no guarantee, that we might be able to refund you if there is a waiting list for the trip and we can fill your space.
Tour info
Destination: Venice, Ferrara & Padua
Dates*: Wednesday 2 – Sunday 6 September 2026
Cost**: £1,795pp (sharing double/twin room), £2,075pp (inc single supplement)
Deposit required: £725pp due by 20 May 2026. Final Payment - due by 10 June 2026
Booking: To reserve your place, please click the relevant button above and complete the form.
*The trip will begin at 4.30pm on the Wednesday. It will conclude at 2.30pm on the Sunday.
**Price includes:
Comfortable, well-equipped and well-located accommodation in both Venice and Ferrara;
All transport within Venice, Ferrara and surrounding areas throughout the trip. Please note that your return travel to and from Venice is not included and is your own responsibility;
All entrance tickets to museums, including the Peggy Guggenheim Collection and Museo Nazionale dell'Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah (MEIS);
Guided walking tour around the Cannaregio region of Venice;
Boat trip to Murano and Burano islands, learning about the Jewish origins of glassmaking;
Additional expert lectures contextualising our explorations;
All applicable taxes and tips;
All breakfasts, plus two dinners and two lunches (not inclusive of alcohol), including Friday night dinner and Shabbat lunch. All food provided will be vegetarian or pescatarian (no seafood/non-kosher fish). If you require hechschered Kosher food, this is available at a supplemental cost - please email tours@jewishrenaissance.org.uk to discuss before booking.
All single travellers will be given sole occupancy of a double room.
Please note that although Jewish Renaissance is arranging this trip, the travel company you are contracting with is Bespoke Kosher Travel, who are making all the bookings within the above package and providing your package protection (IATA and PTS registered and bonded) – this covers all elements of the tour as described above, but does not include issues caused by your flights or individual circumstances. It is highly important that you also arrange your own individual travel insurance.
This is a high-end tour, in both comfort and quality, however Jewish Renaissance has partially subsidised the single supplement to help lower the cost and overall has set the price as low as possible, so that cost isn’t a barrier. If you would like to support this tour or JR’s work with a voluntary contribution, please donate here.
This tour involves a substantial amount of walking. If you have mobility or accessibility issues, please contact us via tours@jewishrenaissance.org.uk before booking.
ARE YOU A SUBSCRIBER?
JR Tours are open to subscribers only. Subscriptions start at £33/a and can be purchased at subscribe.jewishrenaissance.org.uk.
RESERVE YOUR PLACE
Please complete the form below to reserve a place on this tour. If you require assistance completing the form, please contact the JR office on +44 (0) 7340 137 450 (calls, texts or WhatsApp welcome) or tours@jewishrenaissance.org.uk. Once your form is received and your JR subscription confirmed, you will be contacted regarding payment for your deposit.
Venice Hotel: Carnival Palace
The Carnival Palace is a brand-new hotel, offering ultra-modern rooms. Set in Venice's Jewish Ghetto, it is 10 metres from the Tre Archi vaporetto water bus stop, 7 minutes’ walk from Guglie. A full breakfast is served each morning and can be enjoyed out in the garden in summer. The Carnival Palace Hotel is around 10 minutes' walk from Venice Santa Lucia Train Station. It is well connected to St. Mark's Square by the Vaporetto water bus lines 5.1, 5.2 and 4.2.
Ferrara Hotel: Annunziata
Hotel Annunziata provides comfortable, elegant accommodation in Ferrara’s historic centre, a short distance from Estense Castle and close to Ghetto Ebraica. Each morning an extensive continental breakfast is served. The Annunziata is located within easy walking distance of all the places we intend to visit over Shabbat.
Recommended Flights
Your travel to and from the points of arrival and departure should be arranged independently as many of you are coming from different places. However, several of you have asked for recommended flights. The timing of the tour has been planned to tie in with the following BA flight options:
Wednesday 2 September: 11.50am depart Heathrow – 3.05pm arrive at Venice Marco Polo
Sunday 6 September: 4.30pm depart Venice Marco Polo – 5.50pm arrive at Heathrow
Itinerary
Peggy Guggenheim Collection © Peter Haas
DAY 1 – WEDNESDAY
4.30 – 5.30pm – When you arrive, please check in and put your bags in your room, then be ready to meet in the reception of The Carnival Palace Hotel for the short walk over to the restaurant where we will have a cookery demonstration and our welcome meal.
Aviva, Sybil and Leon will be in the reception of the hotel from 4.30pm to say hello, chat and hand out your Quiet Vox audio guides and print copies of our final itinerary. Join us at your leisure but note that we will leave promptly at 5.30pm for a scenic stroll along the canal and backstreets of the Cannaregio district to the Osteria al Cantinon, which we anticipate will take around 20-25 minutes. (Returning we will take the shorter route along the main boulevards which should take c15-20mins). Both routes are mostly flat although we will have to cross a couple of bridges. However, if you feel that walking this far is beyond you, the reception staff at the Carnival Palace will be happy to help you book private water taxis for one or both ways.
6pm – Osteria al Cantinon: Italian Jewish Cookery Demonstration
Ma’ayan Piazza is a Le Cordon Bleu–trained chef whose passion for food is rooted in classical Italian technique and inspired by the vibrant flavours of the Mediterranean. With an eye for beauty and a commitment to exceptional ingredients, she creates elegant, seasonal cuisine that is both refined and approachable. She will give us an Italian Jewish cookery demonstration, then serve us a delicious meal.
7pm – After a brief comfort break, and to allow an interlude for Ma’ayan to return to the kitchen and do the last preparation for our meal, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan will give a short talk about one of the most interesting Jewish characters in historical Venice, Sara Coppia Sullam, who held cultural salons in her home for writers, artists and intellectuals; frequented by Leon Modena, the gambling rabbi, among other creative figures.
7.45pm – A three-course group dinner, cooked by Ma’ayan.
Over dessert, JR’s executive director Dr Aviva Dautch will tell us a little about the Jewish Venetian family who were friends with Shakespeare, as well as The Merchant in Venice, the performance that marked the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death and the 500th anniversary of the founding of the Venice Ghetto and saw Ruth Bader Ginsburg presiding over Shylock’s trial. We will be joined by Professor Shaul Bassi, literature professor at Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy, who came up with the idea and facilitated the performance.
Venice Ghetto from above © San Marco Venice
DAY 2 – THURSDAY
7am – 9.30am – Breakfast at the hotel
Venice’s Jewish Ghetto is the ancient Jewish quarter in the centre of the city which was Europe’s first official ‘ghetto’. Its origins and historical events have made it glamorous over time, with its tall buildings in warm and welcoming colours overlooking wide spaces, surrounded by canals.
9.30am – 11.30am – Meet at the hotel reception promptly at 9.30am for our Venice Ghetto walking tour led by Moshe Bassali.
Moshe was born in Milan and moved to Venice 30 years ago. He has since forged a career as a jeweller and licensed tour guide whose speciality is in Jewish heritage – the history of the Ghetto, synagogues, cemeteries and living traditions of Venetian Jewish life.
11.30am – Water taxis will take us from the Guglie vaporetto stop to The Avanis Hotel in Calle Ragusei, which will be our base for the middle part of the day.
12 – 1pm – Artist and Jewish studies scholar Leon Fenster will lead an introduction to the history of Jewish printing in Venice and Moshe Bassali will share some historic Jewish manuscripts from his personal collection.
1 – 2.30pm – FREE TIME FOR LUNCH
Directly across the bridge from the hotel, just a few minutes’ walk, you will find Campo Santa Margherita, a beautiful square full of bars and cafés where you will be able to get an independent lunch. Please return to the hotel promptly and be back in our lecture room ready to start the next session at 2.30pm.
2.30pm – 3.30pm – Dr Aviva Dautch will give a lecture on modern Jewish artistic, literary and cultural life in Venice in the 20th century: from Joseph Brodsky to Modigliani, from the beginnings of the Venice Biennale to the amazing life and collections of Peggy Guggenheim.
3.40pm – Water taxis will take us from Calle Ragusei to the Guggenheim Collection.
The Guggenheim Collection is housed in the Palazzo Venier dei Leoni, an 18th-century palace, which was the home of the American heiress Peggy Guggenheim for three decades. Her impressive collection of modern art includes work by all the most important European artists of the 20th century.
4pm – On arrival at the Guggenheim Collection, we will split into two smaller groups and have artist-led private tours of the house and permanent collection. These will last about 50mins, then you will have some free time to explore independently, have a drink in the cafe and visit the current temporary exhibition, which celebrates Peggy Guggenheim’s years in the United Kingdom and her first gallery, Guggenheim Jeune, which was active in London between 1938 and 1939.
6pm – Water taxis will return us to The Carnival Palace Hotel.
Official programme ends
[You might want to eat at one of the lovely little Italian restaurants along the waterfront next to the hotel or return to the Ghetto for a kosher fleishik meal. Ba’Ghetto is the more luxury Italian-style kosher restaurant or GamGam has a more traditional menu including chicken soup, schwarma, hummus and pitta, etc. Alternatively, you can get a vaporetto from Tre Archi or Guglie into the main tourist area for a trip to the iconic Harry’s Bar or another eatery]
Prato della Valle, Padua
DAY 3 – FRIDAY
7 – 9.30am – Breakfast at the hotel
9.30am – Please have checked out and be in reception, ready to board our water taxis, promptly at 9.30am. We will then travel to Tronchetto Island where we will transfer to our coach.
10am – The coach will transfer us from Tronchetto Island to Padua.
11am – When we arrive, our first stop will be the Padua Jewish Cemetery, where we will have a guided tour and talk about its history and those buried there. Established in 1384, the cemetery overlooking Via Wiel, houses the tombs of some renowned Jewish personalities who lived in Padua, including Rabbi Meir Katzenellenbogen and Dr Abram Catalan.
12.15pm – The coach will take us a short hop into the centre of Padua where we will have free time to explore and get an independent light lunch at one of the many restaurants.
2pm – We will reconvene at the coach and from there have a short, guided walk through the Ghetto area where, from 1603 to 1797, four gates were placed to separate the Jewish quarter from the rest of the city. This will take us to the Jewish Museum of Padua, a small museum, housed in a restored 16th-century Ashkenazi synagogue, rebuilt in the late 1990s after being destroyed by a fire set by a group of fascists in the spring of 1943. We will have a guided tour of the synagogue followed by some free time to explore the museum.
4pm – We will reboard the coach for our journey to Ferrara.
5.30pm approx – Arrive in Ferrara.
Ferrara Hotel: Hotel Annunziata
Hotel Annunziata provides comfortable, elegant accommodation in Ferrara’s historic centre, a short distance from Estense Castle and close to Ghetto Ebraica. Each morning an extensive continental breakfast is served. The Annunziata is located within easy walking distance of all the places we intend to visit over Shabbat.
We will have some free time to settle in and change for Shabbat before we reconvene.
We are a group with a wide-range of Jewish praxis. Therefore, we are trying to find a happy medium for everyone over Shabbat. In order to do this, we will enable those who are shomer Shabbat to be comfortable but also recognise that those who are more liberal or, indeed secular, are accommodated for too. So, in terms of ritual, all those things that have halachic requirements will be led by artist and cantor Leon Fenster, plus there will be study provided by Rabbi Sybil (religious) and Dr Aviva (cultural).
7pm – Candle-lighting, followed by a musical Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat service led by Leon Fenster, together with short dvar torah from Aviva drawing on Ferrara’s literary history.
8.30pm – Group dinner at Antica Trattoria Max
Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS) © Nicola Quirico
DAY 4 – SATURDAY
7.30am – 10.30am – Breakfast at the hotel
Free morning for those who wish to explore Ferrara or simply relax at the hotel.
For those who wish to have a Shabbat morning service, we are hoping to join the local community at the Synagogue. Leon will arrange to walk over from the hotel with anyone who wants to attend shul at a time TBC.
1pm – Our Group Shabbat lunch will take place at the Synagogue. For those who don’t wish to attend services, Aviva will arrange to walk over from the hotel with anyone who wishes to join her at around 12.40pm.
After lunch, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan will give a talk about Doña Gracia Nasi (c. 1510–1569) who was among the most formidable figures of the Sephardi world in the 16th century: an incredible Jewish woman who led her family and community. During a short but notable stay in Ferrara, she was an active supporter of the remarkable burst of literary and printing activity among Ferrara’s Jews.
3.30pm – Historic walking tour of Ferrara. Aviva will lead us on a short walking tour through the medieval streets of the ancient ghetto, where the synagogues and Stolpersteine are located, discussing Ferrara’s complicated Jewish cultural life as we go, finishing at the entrance to the Museum of Italian Jewish History and the Shoah, where we will have a little free time to explore the gardens and perhaps watch one of the introductory films, before the guided tour.
4.30pm – Guided tour of the Museum of Italian Jewish History and the Shoah.
6pm – Programme ends, and we will walk back to the hotel.
There will be free time for an independent dinner. For those who are shomer Shabbat, a pre-booked meal will be arranged – please see the logistics email and confirm with Ruth by 28 August.
9.30pm – For those who wish, we will end the day with a short musical and creative group Havdalah ceremony led by Leon and Aviva.
The Glass Cathedral, Murano © The Glass Cathedral
DAY 5 – SUNDAY
9am – Please check out of your room and meet us with your luggage ready to load onto the coach to leave promptly at 9am.
10.45am – The coach will take us to Tronchetto Island where we will board a boat to Murano.
11.15am – At The Glass Cathedral we will have a short demonstration of traditional artisan glass blowing, followed by a little time to explore and shop.
12pm – We will take a short 5-minute walk to La Fornace restaurant where we will have a light lunch. Over lunch, Leon Fenster will lead us in a study session about glass making in traditional texts, which will be the perfect transition from our time in Venice to the upcoming High Holidays.
1.30pm – The boat will take us on its final hop from Murano to Tronchetto Island where we will meet the coach for the short drive to Marco Polo Airport.
2pm – Coach transfer to Marco Polo Airport which, all being well, will arrive by 2.35pm, in order to allow those getting the BA flight to Heathrow at 4.35pm plenty of time to check in.
2.35pm – Tour Ends.
