A Jewish community in an European town during the Middle Ages resembled a colony on an island or on a distant coast. Isolated from the rest of the population, it generally occupied a -district or street which was separated from the town or borough. The Jews, like a troop of lepers, were thrust away and huddled together into the most uncomfortable and most unhealthy quarter of the city, as miserable as it was disgusting. There, in ill-constructed houses, this poor and numerous population was amassed; in some cases high walls enclosed the small and dark narrow streets of the quarter occupied by this branded race, which prevented its extension, though, at the same time it often protected the inhabitants from the fury of the populace.

XREF: Connects to broader history of Jewish diaspora, segregation policies, and the origins of the term 'ghetto' in Venice.

DEFINE: Describes the physical form of the medieval Jewish ghetto: a walled, segregated district in the worst quarter of the city.

Lyn H. Lofland, World of Strangers_ Order a…, loc. 264