Religiosity with a smile: Remembering Giovannino (Yohanan) Di Castro z”l
By Yaakov Mascetti*
Two days ago, Giovannino (Yohanan) di Castro passed away in his Kibbutz, Sde Eliyahu, at the age of 96. Together with Nurit (Nora) Ravenna, Giovannino was one of the central pillars of the kibbutz he lived in for most of his life, after having lived through the Fascist regime, the racial laws, the Nazi occupation of Rome and finally the liberation by the hands of the American army. He had, as he used to tell me on the torrid Shabat afternoons we spent together in their apartment, been hidden in a monastery in Rome together with part of his family. Shortly after the liberation he came to Israel and joined already growing Italian group of kibbutznikim in Sde Eliyahu – an awkward and well-concocted marriage between German-born founders who had arrived in Israel in 1934, and Italian Jews who joined the agricultural community with a first group in 1938 (aliyat hanoar) and then in 1945.
Giovannino and his siblings were part of those who arrived after the war. In Sde Eliyahu he met Nurit, who had arrived before the war, sent by her parents immediately after the Racial Laws were passed by Mussolini’s regime – with her he built a family, had a son, Hovav, and two daughters, Deganit and Hagar. He was a strong-minded man, with a very broad knowledge, a well-based understanding of the Jewish tradition, and a penchant for the traditional Italian approach to the Torah, namely rational and modern. We had discussions on the weekly parashah over Seudah Shelishit, and he encouraged me at all times to ask difficult questions and not fear the consequences of those questions. He introduced me to the Torah library, which he administered with aristocratic efficiency in 1996 when I arrived to the kibbutz, and gave me the possibility to meet Eliezer Goldman, the philosopher and professor at Bar Ilan University, and members such as Avraham Oren who taught me Gemara and introduced me to the French school of Philosophy of Halacha. Giovannino was for me a paternal figure, a loving door opened on my behalf into the Israeli reality. He spoke a beautiful Hebrew, introduced me to Haaretz newspaper, and had a visceral intolerance for superficiality.
Recently he would call me on the Sundays following the publication of my thoughts on the parashah in “Shabat Shalom”, the weekly paper published by the leftist religious movement Oz VeShalom. We would discuss shortly of the things I had written, as in the case of Moshe’s punishment following his failure to talk to the stone in the desert – I had written a long reasoning, based on the Maharal’s interpretation of the punishment, that our presence in the land of Israel cannot be perpetually informed by violence and aggressiveness, but must be constructed on well-structured reasonings, words and, most of all, dialogue. “Yes, I agree with you,” Giovannino thundered on the phone, “even with stones. We must talk, not hit!”
I will miss him, and the part of me that goes with him – something of a second youth, following my conversion to Judaism, which he, with his usual elegance and nonchalance, never even wanted to dwell on it was an insignificant detail which said nothing of who I was (and am) and could become. His was a Judaism with a wry smile, an intellectual approach to religiosity which was shaped my understanding of things – I will never forget the impish laughter he would release when he said something particularly provocative.
May Giovannino’s memory be a blessing, and may he rest in peace, with his beloved wife Nurit.
*Yaakov Mascetti (PhD) teaches at Bar Ilan University.