"PALERMO, Sicília – Os judeus da Sicília foram banidos desta ilha
em 1492, vítimas de um edital de expulsão que forçou milhares a ir embora e
outros ainda a se converter para o catolicismo romano.
Mais
de 500 anos depois, uma crescente comunidade Judaica está plantando raízes
frescas na capital siciliana, reivindicando uma história perdida e dolorosa –
desta vez, com a ajuda da diocese local.
Corrado
Lorefice, arcebispo de Palermo, concedeu à comunidade emergente o uso de um oratório
que estava sem uso e que será transformado na primeira sinagoga fixa de Palermo
em cinco séculos.
Para
muitos, já estava na hora.
'A
comunidade Judaica é uma parte de Palermo e uma parte da sua história; os
judeus estiveram aqui por 15 séculos', diz Evelyne Aouate, nascida na Algeria,
criada em Paris, cuja busca pelas próprias raízes fez com que encontrasse na
comunidade judaica de Palermo o seu lar."
A história contada neste interessante texto do NY Times se aprofunda nos detalhes e personagens dos judeus da Sicília. Colocamos, abaixo, a íntegra da matéria, original em inglês.
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| The former Baroque oratory known as Santa Maria del Sabato, or Holy Mary of Saturday, in the ancient Jewish quarter of Palermo, Sicily. It will soon become Palermo’s first synagogue in 500 years. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times |
"500 Years After
Expulsion, Sicily’s Jews Reclaim a Lost History
The former Baroque oratory known as Santa
Maria del Sabato, or Holy Mary of Saturday, in the ancient Jewish quarter of
Palermo, Sicily. It will soon become Palermo’s first synagogue in 500 years. CreditGianni
Cipriano for The New York Times
PALERMO, Sicily — Sicily’s
Jews were banished from this island in 1492, the victims of a Spanish edict
that forced thousands to leave and others to convert to Roman Catholicism.
More than 500 years later, a nascent Jewish community is
planting fresh roots in the Sicilian capital, reclaiming a lost, often painful,
history, this time with the aid of the local diocese.
Palermo’s
archbishop, Corrado Lorefice, has granted the emerging community the use of an
unused oratory, to be transformed into Palermo’s first stable synagogue in five
centuries.
And for many, it’s about time.
“The Jewish community is a part of Palermo, part of
its history; Jews were here for 15 centuries,” said Evelyne Aouate, an
Algerian-born, Parisian-raised transplant whose deepening exploration of her
own roots drove the efforts to find the community a home.
Aptly enough, that home will be located in what
once was known as the Giudecca, Palermo’s ancient Jewish quarter. The downtown
warren of yet-to-be-gentrified ramshackle buildings is filled with narrow
streets whose names still recall some of that history, like Piazza Meschita,
the Arabic word for both synagogues and churches, or Via dei Calderai, for the
tinkers and coppersmiths whose shops have lined the street practically forever.
A few years ago, trilingual street signs — in
Italian, Hebrew and Arabic — were put up as markers in the area in a nod to the
city’s rich past. But “the Hebrew is wrong, it’s botched”— a transliteration
that doesn’t read right, according to Maria Antonietta Ancona, a retired
anesthetist who goes by her Jewish name, Miriam. “They didn’t translate, but
just substituted Italian characters with the Hebrew characters, so it doesn’t
make sense,” she said.
She should know, she began studying Hebrew 10 years
ago as part of her conversion to Judaism.
Like other members of the nascent Palermo
community, Ms. Ancona, who was raised as a Roman Catholic though her father was
Jewish, began recovering her roots 30 years ago as part of a “pressing
necessity” to embrace her Jewish identity.
The new synagogue — on the Vicolo Meschita, part of
an area once occupied by Palermo’s Great Synagogue — will be housed in a former
Baroque oratory known as Santa Maria del Sabato, or Holy Mary of Saturday.
It is an unusual name for a church, noted Luciana
Pepi, who teaches Hebrew language, culture and philosophy at the University of
Palermo, and is also a convert and active member of the local Jewish community.
“Some scholars have hypothesized that the name
might be related to the memory of the celebration of Shabbat,” the weekly
Jewish day of rest, she said.
 |
| Palermo’s municipal archives recently exhibited the 1492 edict that barred Jews from the island and mementos of more recent affronts. Gianni Cipriano for The New York Times |
From left, Evelyne Aouate, Luciana Pepi and
Maria Antonietta Ancona — who spearheaded the efforts to get a new synagogue in
Palermo — visiting the oratory. “It’s beautiful, but there is still a lot to
do,” Ms. Aouate said.
On a recent spring morning, Ms. Pepi, Ms. Ancona
and Ms. Aouate — who spearheaded the efforts to open a synagogue — fussed at
the entrance to the oratory, fumbling with a padlock on a cast-iron gate. Using
an oversize key, with some effort, they finally opened a tall, paneled wood
door.
The three women paused at the entrance, taking in a
softly lit nave, where dilapidated wooden seats and peeling yellow paint
betrayed decades of neglect. The ornate altar was still in the apse, but sundry
statues and crucifixes had already been removed.
“Here it is!” said Ms. Aouate, her happiness
palpable. “It’s beautiful, but there is still a lot to do.”
That includes reacquainting Palermo citizens with a
history that many didn’t even know they had.
For many years “history books skipped over the
city’s Jewish presence, as if trying to cancel it,” Ms. Ancona said. Ms. Pepi
added: “Palermo didn’t know its own history.”
That has been changing, mostly as a result of Ms.
Aouate and a small group of enthusiasts, including Catholics, who 25 years ago
founded the Sicilian Institute for Jewish Studies, dedicated to recovering the
island’s Jewish identity.
Palermo’s municipal archives recently
exhibited the 1492 edict that barred Jews from the island and mementos of more
recent affronts.
“A little at a time we are trying to renew that
memory,” Ms. Aouate said.
Scholarship, too, has filled in many of the missing
blanks of Sicily’s Jewish past.
Documents show that Jews were in Sicily at least
since the first century A.D., and remained on the island until the 1492 edict.
At one point, there were 51 communities here, Palermo being the largest and
most important.
Parte inferior do formulário
Historians say the edict affected at least 35,000
Sicilian Jews, including at least 5,000 in Palermo. Some Jews decided to stay,
converting to Catholicism against their will. Some — known here as Marranos —
continued to practice Judaism in secret.
Palermo’s municipal archives — whose
late-19th-century grand hall may have been inspired by the Great Synagogue —
recently exhibited mementos of more recent affronts to Sicily’s Jews.
They included documents from the years following
Mussolini’s 1938 racial laws, showing how the city’s Jews were unceremoniously
fired from jobs at the local university and City Hall, in order to “defend the
Italian race,” one document read.
Via dei Calderai, named for the tinkers and
coppersmiths whose shops have lined the street for years, in Palermo’s ancient
Jewish quarter.
“I first arrived here in 1959, and for 20 years I
thought I was the only Jew in Palermo,” Ms. Aouate said. Over the years, she
met other Jews and in time her elegant Palermo apartment became a point of
reference for the community during the holidays.
The number of Jews currently living in Palermo
remains unclear. “It depends, because if you think of all the people born of a
Jewish mother or a Jewish father, then it’s numerous,” but not everyone
considers themselves Jewish, she said.
Until now, in any case, there haven’t been enough
men to form a regular minyan, the quorum of 10 or more adult male Jews required
for communal worship, as is the case in Orthodoxy, the only recognized Jewish
stream in Italy.
Dedicated tourism may change that because Palermo
offers various Jewish sites around town, some harboring signs of past
suffering.
A mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, was found below
the courtyard of Palazzo Marchesi, which in the 16th century housed the offices
of the Inquisition.
Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri, today part of the
University of Palermo, served as the prison and tribunal of the Inquisition.
Its walls bear the scrawls of past inmates, including some written in Hebrew.
Later, between 1601 and 1782, the Palazzo
Chiaramonte-Steri — today part of the University of Palermo — served as the
prison and tribunal of the Inquisition. Its walls preserve the anguished
scratched scrawls of past inmates, including some in Hebrew.
Just over three years ago, Hanukkah candles
began to be lighted at Palazzo Steri, a tangible sign of the university and the
city’s commitment to the Jewish community.
The community’s spiritual leader, the Rabbi
Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello, who is an emissary of Shavei Israel, an
organization based in Jerusalem that assists those searching for their Jewish
heritage, said that he had noticed a growing interest in the Jewish heritage of
Sicily and other parts of southern Italy.
“Every time I go there I meet new people curious
about their origins, who want to explore them,” the rabbi said.
The synagogue was the natural next step and in June
last year, Ms. Aouate, Ms. Pepi and Ms. Ancona asked the archbishop whether an
unused church might be available.
Three weeks later, Archbishop Lorefice called to
offer the oratory.
The Rev. Pietro Magro, who is responsible for
interreligious dialogue for the archdiocese of Palermo, said that the
archbishop had been pleased to reach out to the community in their search for a
place of prayer.
“The church of the Virgin of the Saturday seemed
right because it’s in the Jewish quarter, and we hope it will be ready soon,”
Father Magro said.
The restoration is expected to begin shortly; the
city will cover most of the costs. The community has another long list of
expenses, from the ark for the Torah scrolls to a sophisticated security
system, Ms. Aouate said. “And
we would like a beautiful Menorah!”
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