Silent Splendor

By Daniela Gross

Today, more than ever, we need to remember how rich the weave of languages, cultures, and habits can be. Journalistic help comes to us from the last issue of the New York Times Style Magazine. With its warm title “Welcome to the World”, the newspaper leads us to Italy: first, to Messner’s new museum in South Tyrol; then, to Venice’s old Jewish Ghetto and to its five synagogues, illustrated by Anthony Cotsifas’s suggestive images.

As reported by James McAuley, “Today a quiet, crumbling corner of a sinking city, the Venetian ghetto was once a microcosm of Venice itself, a tapestry woven of many nations, pasts, traditions, and languages. Venice was a capital of the Mediterranean world, but it was also a capital of Jewish life in Europe, the epitome of the Diaspora’s potential.”

“The most enduring evidence of the cosmopolitan universe that used to exist here – he continued – are the five synagogues that today lie hidden behind the nondescript facades of dilapidated apartments buildings where a few families actually still live: small jewel boxes that quietly preserve an enchanting global artistry.”

The most brilliant jewel preserved in these synagogues is evidence of a thriving international culture, in which a great variety of traditions, habits, and languages, lived side by side. It is not easy to weave this immaterial tapestry of art, spirituality, and beauty. But we can do that, even during history’s worst times.