A 300-year-old Italian synagogue finds a new home, and a new role, in the Holy Land.
by Lili Eylon
On a windy March day, during the visit of the Pope to Jerusalem, a group of 40 pilgrims from Italy walked into the Umberto Nahon Center of Italian Jewry. They wanted to see a synagogue that had stood for almost two and a half centuries in their hometown of Conegliano Veneto, some 60 kilometers from Venice. It was for them a bit of home far away from home.
The interior of the Conegliano Veneto synagogue had been dismantled and brought to Israel after World War II, together with hundreds of precious ritual and everyday items, no longer in use by a rural Jewish population which, at the beginning of the twentieth century moved to Rome and Milan. Reassembled in Jerusalem, the synagogue now exhibits these treasures, and serves both as a museum for the general public and a community center for the 1300 Jewish families of Italian origin living in Israel.
But the elegant building which houses the synagogue also contains evidence from Ottoman times, when it was used as a German Catholic school for Assyrian orphan girls. The Turkish sultan Abdul Hamid had granted permission for the building to be redecorated, on condition that his portrait occupy a central position. Thus the face of a sultan looks down from the ceiling of the former room of a Mother Superior, among ecumenical frescoes and German, Hebrew and Arabic quotations from the Old and New Testaments. Today this beautiful room often reverberates to the sound of songs and chamber music concerts, often by Italian composers.
According to Nava Kessler, the Center's director, some 40,000 annual visitors - schoolchildren, tourists, new immigrants and veteran Israelis - come to look at the treasures. Among the displays are ancient textiles, colorful ketubot, (marriage contracts), elaborate charity boxes, beautifully crafted furniture and more - all items once owned by opulent Jewish communities. Often suffering from decades of neglect, these pieces undergo a "revival" at the hands of professionals and volunteers before being displayed.
The restoration experts include Moscow-born Olga Neguevitsky, who before coming to Israel worked at the Pushkin Museum in her native city, and Elisabetta Calo, who specializes in the restoration of gilded furniture. Both craftswomen perform their "renaissance magic" in the Center's own wood and textile workshops, paying meticulous attention to every detail.
"We have two big anniversary celebrations coming up," says David Cassuto, a Jerusalem architect who is the former head of the Italian community in Israel and an active leader at the Center. "Later this year, we will mark our own millennium: we will celebrate 2000 years of the uninterrupted existence of the Jewish community in Rome." Rome and Jerusalem will be a didactic exhibition composed of old photographs, manuscripts and printed material, testifying to the changing lifestyles of the Jews of Rome and emphasizing the ties between Rome and Jerusalem today.
"You know," Cassuto adds, "this is the longest-dating cooperation in Rome between two religions. Roman Jews lived harmoniously among the population until 1554 when they were confined to ghettoes. But this was not very strict. Many Jews could leave and circulate freely, and the ghettoes were abolished in 1848. And Italians - a warm, southern society - know little anti-Semitism; Jews and Christians always worked together.
"The other celebration will take place in the spring of 2001," he continues, "to commemorate 300 years of the Conegliano Veneto synagogue, originally built in 1701. We expect a big delegation to come from the town, headed by the mayor."