Re-discovering Jewish Roots in Italy

italicsBy Pagine Ebraiche staff

Last week, Tablet magazine ran two articles about the experience of two people who felt they were able to reconnect to their Jewish roots during their visit to Italy.

“None of these experiences struck me quite as profoundly as the Shoah Memorial in Milan, which is built on platform 21 of the still-operational central train station, from which the city’s Jews were deported in 1944. Every few minutes, departing trains can be heard chugging overhead; the past seems eerily recent. Over the weekend I visited the memorial to hear survivor testimonies during the Milan Jewish community’s 150th anniversary celebrations, called “Jewish in the City.” The three-day event offered visitors music, cooking classes, lectures, and exhibitions all relating to the history of the Milanese Jewish community,” wrote Livia Albeck-Ripka.

“This integration between Milanese Jews and non-Jews was one of the festival’s key aims, Rabbi Roberto Della Rocca told me between mouthfuls of raisin-laden rice and Galilee wine. “In every time and every occasion people speak only about the Shoah – he said – so it’s very important to show people that Jewish culture and life is not just suffering,” she goes on, describing the experience.

“The last thing I expected was for that trip to the Eternal City, the seat of Christianity, to lead me to embrace my Jewishness in a new way, a way that my (very Jewish) home of New York City and even a visit to Israel hadn’t. On that trip and the many that followed, I gradually came to understand that Rome and my Jewish identity were somehow intertwined, twin anchors tethering me to a home and a history I’d only been dimly aware of,” notes Paula Derrow, writing about the way she fell in love with Rome, and from that moment on, the Eternal city felt like home.