Italian Interlude

A few days ago, I returned to Israel from a 9-day vacation in Italy. Billy’s university has a program in Florence and he was dispatched to meet with the program director and various faculty, associates, and students. That was the pretext for our get-together (not that we needed one) and it also was our entre into a glimpse of a not-so-touristic Italy. We did plenty of touring of course, but the brief encounters we had with Jewish people and places is what I want to focus on here.

First, was “cousin Anna”, the Florentine cousin of American friends who graciously made the introductions over email and we agreed to meet Anna at the Kiddush after services on Shabbat. The Florence synagogue is a late 19th century masterpiece with a grand copper dome and magnificent stenciling throughout the interior. The sanctuary must seat well over 500 but on this Shabbat morning, and I suspect on most, there might have been 60 by the time services were drawing to a close. The service was informal with minimal congregational singing and what seemed to be equal parts schmoozing and praying. The women’s section was on the side and separated by an open-weave lattice barrier that allowed plenty of room to view the action on the men’s side. The big event of the morning was a baby naming which took place after the formal close of the service. Then, mother (in slacks), father, and baby approached the bimah and were blessed by the rabbi under the protection of his long tallit. Later, I learned that both parents had recently converted to Judaism.

The hall was unheated and very chilly but thankfully, Kiddush took place in the much warmer school building. We found Anna easily and making small talk after introducing ourselves, we said how beautiful the synagogue was. “It’s too big,” was her blunt retort. “We’re a community of 900 Jews total and the building is just a burden.” We chatted for a while, she introduced us to her father, the rabbi and a few others, and then we made a plan to meet the following day for some touring around town.

Throughout the day in between sightseeing, coffee, and a delicious lunch, Anna shared stories of her family’s history and life in Italy. Her primary concern was about her son who is finishing high school this year. He spent last year as an exchange student in Ann Arbor, Michigan living with a Jewish family. Anna was delighted that it was such a positive experience, because she dearly hopes that he will decide to make his life outside of Italy. “There’s no future here,” she said. “We’re stuck in the past, and the state is so corrupt.” Her attitudes about Italy did not outwardly appear to have anything to do with being Jewish, but that too, emerged as a factor. “Gavriel is the only Jew in his class. He goes to school on Saturdays and is not interested in joining a youth group so he has no Jewish life. It was so wonderful that he was with a family in the US that took Judaism so seriously.”

Anna lived and studied in Israel for five years and owns an apartment in Gilo, a far southern extension (some would say a “settlement”) of Jerusalem. “It’s my foothold,” she said. But, Israel does not seem to be in the cards for Gavriel. His father recently made aliyah from France and Gavriel doesn’t like what Anna called “the French Jewish ghetto scene in Ra’anana.” Rather, he has his sights set on medical school at McGill University in Montreal.

A couple of days later, I met another wonderful woman named Amalia, who is a professor of Peace Education at the University of Florence. We met for lunch at the kosher restaurant right next to the synagogue. When Amalia came in, the owner came up to her and started talking about her brother who is a sports writer for a local newspaper. It seems this small Jewish community keeps tabs on one another, even if worship isn’t a core part of their communal life. Amalia was not so comfortable in English so we spoke in Hebrew. She is divorced and has two teen-age daughters, the elder of whom also just spent a year as a high school exchange student, living with a Jewish family in suburban Chicago. Like Anna, Amalia wants her children to leave Italy. Despite the fact that she thinks her family has been in Italy at least since the expulsion from Spain, she said: “I don’t feel at all connected to this place. It’s not mine.” Amalia also owns an apartment in Israel and visits often. This is where she feels truly connected, truly at home. While neither woman went into great detail about what held them in place, both have elderly parents who are very much part of their lives. While they may feel stuck or committed to stay for parents or careers, it’s clear that they want their children out.

One more experience is worth describing before trying to put together the pieces of this puzzle. We were in Rome the following Shabbat and again went to services at the Great Synagogue of Rome. This is an even more elegant and mammoth building than the one in Florence and is situated on a prime piece of riverfront property just a short way from downtown, in what was for centuries the Jewish ghetto of Rome. The synagogue was built in the 1870s after the unification of Italy and the abolishment of the ghetto. Like many post-World War II synagogues in the US that are built on main thoroughfares in grand style, this building sends a message that the Jews too are part of the Italian social compact and landscape. Rome’s Jewish population is around 15,000, far greater than Florence, but the numbers of worshippers weren’t that different from Florence and the feel of the crowd was more like a shteibl than it was a mega-shul. Our first sign of this was at the entryway where we were sorted – regulars went straight through and all strangers were stopped by the security guard, questioned and searched.

Unlike the side-by-side set up in Florence, the women’s gallery was more like a sky box with stadium style seating that challenged the women to find ways to talk to each other throughout the service, though they managed to do so quite well. Interestingly, there were a few places during the service where they stopped chatting and actually turned to the siddur. Despite their jabbering, they seemed to know exactly what was happening in the service down below.

The service itself was also much more formal than in Florence, though there were plenty of congregants who came in jeans. The hazan wore a flowing black and white tallit over a black robe topped with a four-corner hat that looked like it was straight out of a renaissance painting. There was a men’s choir that sang in a haunting chant reminiscent of medieval church hymns. Italian worship is definitely reflective of its milieu.

The history of Italian Jewry is unique, but its contemporary culture is similar to many other small Jewish communities around the world. The community is highly assimilated, and yet retains strong ties to tradition, even if not particularly strict in their observance. The community is also shrinking through intermarriage and outmigration, notwithstanding the young couple in Florence who had recently converted. Despite a comfortable lifestyle, meaningful work, and deep Italian roots, neither Anna nor Amalia feel there is a Jewish future in Italy. Both feel a strong pull to Israel as their anchor and safe haven. Yet, both seem to think North America is the better option for their children. Since we had just met, I didn’t feel I could probe further to tease out these complex feelings.

The encounter with Jewish space in Italy was both strange and familiar. I felt both at home and distant in these two synagogues where I was a clearly an outsider and where the music and liturgy was quite different even from my rather eclectic routine. But the encounters with Jewish people were filled with warmth and kinship. Even though they didn’t know us at all, both Anna and Amalia went out of their way to spend time with us and share something of their lives. From the moment we met, we were no longer strangers. Even though our family histories are so very different, we share a bond, perhaps based not so much on the past as on our aspirations for a shared future that celebrates Jewish life and a thriving Jewish people.