Sunday, May 29, 2016

Italy - Day 2 - Shul Hopping in Piedmont - Part 2

We got back on the road and drove 35 Kms. south to Saluzzo. From the window of the car, we could see why this area is called Piedmont - at the foot of the mountains - as thenAlps loomed high everywhere we looked.

 
And as it was lunch time, we sat at an outdoor cafe, where they were happy to let us eat our lunches as long as we purchased coffees. 

Across the road there was a small laneway called Via Deportati Ebrei, the street of the Jewish deportees in memory of the 29 Jews from Saluzzo murdered in the Holocaust.

 

The earliest record of Jews in Saluzzo was in the mid 1400s, and by the end of the 1500's there was a cemetery and 13 families with a total population of 68. At its height, the population numbered no more than 200-300 Jews, who were employed mainly as moneylenders, jewellers and traders of fine fabrics. 

 

Again from the street, there was no indication of a shul. It is in the building on the right of the above picture. We entered a small courtyard through an archway and then climbed three floors to enter the shul. The building is from the 1700s and the Aron is from that era. The synagogue was rebuilt in 1832 and was recently restored. 

 

There is a centre raised bimah whose floor level extends to the Aron. It is gold plated sculpted wood with mirror inserts. 

Recently when the restoration was in process, they discovered that the vaulted ceilings were covered in frescos (think Michaelangelo) that depict scenes of Jewish content including a detailed illustration of the order of the encampment of the Israelites in the desert. 

 


 

We were beginning to detect a pattern here. Synagogues hidden away but possessing great artistic value. Synagogues that almost all gave great thanks and kavod to King Carlos Alberto who granted the Jews total freedom to worship and live outside ghetto walls at the time of Emancipation in the mid 1800's. 



 Small communities who dedicated themselves to ensuring that there was a Jewish life and a place in which to gather worship and socialize. Communities that over time dwindled and disappeared. 

We were off to our fourth synagogue of the day in the town of Cuneo, 33 Kms south of Saluzzo.

When we arrived in the old section of the city, we met a Jewish lady who lives in Cuneo and who has been very involved in the restoration of the space in memory of her husband a"h. 

The community began in the early 1400s when a few Jews from Provence were allowed to reside in the city, and by the end of the 1500s descendants of the "Pope's Jews" arrived from Avignon. They were given that name because when the pope was exiled from Rome, he brought his Jewish financiers and bankers with him to Avignon. So well were the Jews of Cuneo accepted that the local market day was changed from Saturday to Friday. 

 

The synagogue unlike the two previous communities was on a Main Street and was clearly visible as a synagogue with the possuk "v'asu li mikdash veshachanti betocham" embossed along the top of the facade of the structure. 

 

We entered a tall rectangular sanctuary, with much gold leaf bordering the panels that lined the walls. In the front of the shul was a very ornate Aron with wood carvings and depictions of the vessels used in the Beit Hamikdash. Once again, we marvelled at the beauty of a shul in such a small Kehilla. 

 

 

 

Some unique things that we saw in this shul was a yartzeit plaque which was different from any we had seen till now as it was hand written on paper. 

 

There was also a list of "Takanot" or rules regarding who can serve as the shaliach tzibbur for the High Holy Days and for Selichot. 

 

And then in the corner of the room was a raised pulpit where the Rav would speak and below it a stone plaque which read "al ha-nes she-naaseh po" (for the miracle that happened here) in memory of the miracle of Purim Della Bomba. 

 

This occasion was celebrated in Cuneo for about 140 years commemorating a miracle which occurred during the Napoleonic war in 1800 on the 4th of Kislev, when a bomb fell on the synagogue where Jews congregated for the evening prayers, but miraculously, no one was hurt. On the anniversary of the day of salvation, which was called Purim Sheni, the community gathered and remembered by reciting Hallel and piyyutim, removing Sifrei Torah from the ark and doing hakafot (circling the bimah), etc. The special celebration of this event was ended when the Holocaust began. 

We then went downstairs to an area that has been totally renovated in recent years to be used as a meeting place and library. It is quite amazing that people are still putting effort into building and renovating Jewish areas of interest when the community has few Jews left. One of the items that we saw in the library was a Pirkei Avot published between 1712 and 1718 in Mantova, Italy. 

 

Our final stop of the day was the beautiful synagogue in Cherasco, 48 Kms away.

The community dates back to the mid 1500s and at its height consisted of 100 Jews. The Synagogue here is on the top floor of a plain residential building and again without a guide, you would never know that there was a shul here. 

 

The shul dates back to the late 1700s and the bimah, with its twisted columns and huppah like roof in the centre of the room facing the ornately carved Aron, resembles a number of the shuls seen earlier in the day. 

 

Once again, plaques adorned the walls of the room with names of donors hidden in Pesukim and phrases. 

 

A beautifully artistic Brich Shemai was painted on the wall. 

 

Behind the parochet were beautifully painted and carved wooden doors of the Aron.

 

And so ended a full day of shul hopping. 

We walked away with mixed feelings. 

On the one hand, these were people who truly cared about their religion and invested heavily, way beyond the ability of their numbers, in creating a mikdash me'at for their tiny communities. We tried to think of anyplace that we had visited where we had seen such beautiful synagogues and so many in one region and we came up blank. It was truly inspiring. 

On the other hand, it was depressing to see a precious heritage and legacy that had almost totally disappeared and was now relegated to museum like displays. Jewish life had seemed to come to an end in all places in Piedmont other than Torino. It was sad. 

We are so happy that we took the time to do this tour. You get one chance to do it and as they say, one must seize the opportunity. 

Tomorrow, Wednesday, we do some more shul hopping, but this time without Baruch Lampronti. We visit three shuls in the northern area of Piedmont, in Casale Monferrato, in Vercelli and in Biella. And yes, there are more surprises and more mixed feelings.

All the best

Fran and David

Italy - Day 2 - Shul Hopping In Piedmont -Part 1

On Tuesday morning we were downstairs in the lobby at 8:15 AM to meet Baruch Lampronti. Baruch is about 30 years old, is trained as an architect, and works for the Jewish community of Turin in cataloging and archiving materials of interest to the Jewish community of the region. 

He is an expert on the shuls in the area and was a great guide. Although there is a shul in Alessandria (close to where we were staying), that shul was still under restoration and as such we could not visit it. The restoration is scheduled to be completed in the next few months. Perhaps for our next visit.

So we drove 38 Kms. to the city of Asti and walked thru the old town until we reached Via Ottolenghi, named for Count Leonetti Ottolenghi who donated the money for the Synagogue's last renovation in 1889. 

 
The street is in the old area of town and is a very recognizable structure on this narrow and small one block street which formed part of the small Jewish ghetto of 136 Jews from 38 families. It is surrounded by a steel picket fence and the entry gate had heavy padlocks. The phrase "karov Hashem l'chol korav" (Hashem is close to all who approach Him) was embossed above the entry. 

The first Jews came to Asti in the 9th century with the majority of the immigration coming in the 1300s from France and Germany. What was quite startling (and this would repeat itself throughout our visits to the other synagogues) was that Asti never had a Jewish population of more than 400 - 450 people and yet this small number of people invested in the creation and maintaining of a very beautiful place of worship. 

There are no regular daily hours for visits and everything must be pre-arranged. I wondered how many visitors must have walked thru Asti, had seen the shul and then had no way to get inside. As the day went on, the same story was repeated over and over again. These are historical gems and yet gaining entry takes work and preparation. Of all the 8 shuls we visited on Tuesday and Wednesday, there was only one in Casale Monferrato that seemed to have regular hours and to be open for visitors who just showed up. 

We met a local woman who is entrusted with allowing pre-arranged visitors in for tours and there was a school visit scheduled that morning.  When we entered the building, there was a small lobby which contained signs from yesteryear indicating the times for weekday prayers and for Shabbat services. Baruch then unlocked the door to the sanctuary and invited us inside the main sanctuary.
 
The first development of the synagogue of Asti on a much smaller scale dates back to 1601 and it was extended to its current footprint between 1838 and 1840. It originally had a central bimah situated in the centre of the four tall marble columns, with seating perpendicular to the Aron which was the style in Italian synagogues of that era. 

 

The Ottolenghi financed remodelling in 1889 changed the form to be more church like with the bimah moved to the front and the seating all facing the Aron. 
 
 

 

Asti together with the nearby communities of Moncalvo and Fossano all shared a similar nussach, called AFAM from the rashei teivot (first letters) of the three communities, which was a combination of French, Provençal and Ashkenazi rituals. They spoke a unique language which was a Hebrew Piedmont dialect. And until today, the tunes used in the various Italian synagogues differ from each other and certainly from the traditional Ashkenazi tunes; the liturgy has its own text called Italki and is unlike Sefardi or Ashkenazi Nussach. 

 

Baruch showed us a major difference in the opening tefillah of Maariv for Friday night prayers. 

We drove to our next community, Carmagnola, 61 Kms from Asti. Unlike Asti, this synagogue was totally unrecognizeable as we walked down the narrow street. 

 

Baruch pointed it out to us as the top floor of a normal three storey residential building. We entered the shul of Carmagnola on the main floor, which contains a museum of all the shuls in Piedmont with building plans, scale models, articles about the shuls and Jewish artifacts from the area. One of the unique items was a small pair of tefillin which appeared to defy the requirement of square lines in the tefillin construction. 

 

Jews first came to Carmagnola in the mid 1400s. The Jewish community reached its peak population in the 1800s with a grand total of 171 members. There was a small Jewish ghetto consisting of two blocks with 10 families. Today there are no Jews but a beautiful classic Italian synagogue. 

We climbed the stairs to the top floor and entered the shul. We were not prepared for the amazing artistry of this shul.
 
 

In the centre of the room is the bimah or tevah, an octagon structure constructed of inlaid and painted wood with twisted columns holding an ornate wooden cupola above it. The Aron has a similar style with gold leafed ornate carvings and twisted columns surrounding the panelled wooden doors of the Aron. 

 

We opened the doors to the Aron and the inside doors were beautiful gold leafed wood carvings depicting the various vessels of the mishkan and the Beit Hamikdash. 

 

Surrounding the room are plaques with intricate carved wooden framing that contain biblical phrases that have hidden in them the names of various donors to the synagogue. 

 

It was a beautiful shul in its time and still is today; unfortunately there is no one in Carmagnola to appreciate its value and beauty.

We will continue our day in our next post, Italy - Day 2 - Shul Hopping in Piedmont Part 2




Thursday, May 26, 2016

Italy Day One

On Sunday evening we flew from Toronto to Zurich on Air Canada and after an early Monday morning arrival, we rented our car and began our trip south through the Alps toward Milan and our ultimate destination, the Piedmont Area of Italy. 

Our drive supposedly took us through one of the prettiest drives ever, because the towering Alps are supposedly everywhere your eye can see. Despite our many travels and numerous times in Europe where we should have seen the Alps by now, every time we have come here it has either been pouring rain, overcast, foggy, or low clouds. We have seen the Austrian Alps and parts of the Italian Alps, but have never seen the Swiss Alps. And today, we kept that record alive. From the moment we began our drive in Zurich until we entered Italy just south of Lugano, it was pouring rain and while you could catch glimpses of some high mountains, we can honestly say that we still have never seen the Swiss Alps. 

We headed south thru the Gottard Tunnel, a 17 km. long tunnel that is an amazing engineering feat, straight as an arrow and very boring, which brings you to the south end of the Alps and Lugano. As soon as we entered Italy, the rains stopped, the sky cleared and the sun emerged. Oh well, we hope that on the way back in two weeks from now, we will finally realize the elusive dream of seeing Hashem's amazing Alps. 

We followed the directions to the western side of Milan, to a residential area dotted with numerous kosher stores and restaurants. Almost all of Milan's kosher options are located in a concentrated area and we headed to Carmel dairy restaurant for a late lunch. 

 We had a light lunch consisting of a hearty vegetable soup, a salad with fried mozzarella, cheese cake and cappuccino and we shared everything. The ladies who ran the restaurant were very helpful in explaining to us the location of all the other kosher places in the area, as well as the hours of operation. It seems that most of the restaurants close between 2:30 and 7 PM, so luckily we arrived at 2 PM and ate. 

We went up the road to Kosher Paradise and then to Eretz, where we stocked up on kosher supplies for the next two days of travel. 

Of the two, Eretz definitely had a wider variety of options and literally anything needed by a kosher traveler could be found here. 

We now headed to the small town of Alessandria, about a 45 minute drive from Milan, and the area of Piedmont which would be our base for the next two days and our hotel just outside of Alessandria, the Hotel Diamente. 

When we began planning this trip, we were going to limit our journey to the Lake District and Venice, inspired by our friends Josh and Liz Gordon, who were there last year and raved about the absolute beauty of the region. 

Then as I began researching the region, I came across the existence of a group of synagogues in the area of Torino (Turin), which is in the Piedmont area of Italy.

 
Piedmont is one of the 20 regions of Italy, and its largest city and capital is Turin. Piedmont is latin for “in the foot of the mountains”, with the Alps just to the north of the region. It is surrounded on three sides by the Alps and it borders Switzerland to the north and France to the west. 

Early Jewish settlement in the region dates back hundreds of years and in the 1500's there was a large influx of Jews to the area from France. And while there was no real concentration in one large city, there emerged dozens of small communities consisting of 100 to 900 Jews dotting the region. 

In many of these communities they established the basics of a community; a shul, an old age home, Talmud Torah etc. The laws at that time restricted Jews from many professions and from owning property and therefore many became money lenders, a position that Jews were good at and an avocation forbidden to Catholics. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Over time, Jews became successful but because they were restricted in owning possessions, they kept a very low profile and therefore their synagogues were hidden in residential like settings and usually on the top floor of a building because of the Halacha that one should not live atop a shul. 

Eventually many of these small communities disappeared or dwindled as a result of relocation, assimilation and the Shoah and what remained was a small number of beautiful abandoned synagogues. A number of organizations, including the Jewish community of Turin, began acquiring and restoring these gems and now with the right connections and arrangements, you can visit and marvel at the beauty of these shuls. 

 
After mapping out a driving route for a two day tour of the shuls, I contacted most of those shuls to no avail. The registry of email addresses is either out of date or there are poor communication skills in those shuls. We finally contacted the Jewish Community of Turin, who, unbeknown yet to us, was the central address of about 12 of the group of 16 shuls in 13 different communities. At the same time we contacted an amazing couple, David and Rebecca Leibowitz, who have a touring company and offer Jewish themed tours in the area. 

We received great responses from both and when the Leibowitzes realized that we only wanted the synagogues, they graciously suggested that we proceed with the official offices of the Turin community. 

That was what brought us Monday night to Piedmont and we caught a good night's sleep and prepared for Tuesday's full day tour of five shuls in the region with Baruch Lampronti of the Turin community. I will tell you, since I am writing this on Thursday, that Tuesday and Wednesday's shul hopping left us awestruck by the dedication and devotion of these small clusters of Jews in decorating and maintaining their shuls, but also saddened by the knowledge that these holy places are now nothing more than museums with few Jewish visitors. 

What was most upsetting (and you will read about this in an upcoming fascinating post of our visit Wednesday to Biella) is that the world's oldest kosher Torah scroll written around the time of the Rambam in the early 1200's now sits in a bank vault in Vercelli Italy, never seeing the light of day and never being used for its intended purpose.

More to come of our great day with Baruch Lampronti on Tuesday.

All the best

Fran and David