Synagogue of Pisa, if walls could talk

By Hannah Jablonka*

Like any other art form, architecture tells a story. The stories of the different communities of Italy are locked within every stone making up the country’s cities. Not all the stories are happy ones, but there are important lessons to be learned from the bad times that architecture can teach us. While Italy is renowned for its beautiful architecture, buildings do not need to be outwardly beautiful to contain a beautiful story. There are some buildings that stand as symbols of hope and faith that blend into the landscape, and only those who really pay attention will learn the astounding history of a building and its community.
It was 1571 in the hills of Tuscany, when the flourishing Jewish community of Siena was forced into a ghetto. For the next two hundred years the Jews of the ghetto of Siena met by the Ghetto Fountain which was the primary water source, to pray. Finally in 1786, the community decided they wanted to create a bigger, more lavish place of prayer, so in that spot they built the synagogue of Siena. The exterior of the synagogue is nothing to speak of: it offers a red brick four-story facade that blends in with the other ones around it. Nothing distinguished it as Jewish or as a place of prayer from the outside. The inside, however, is anything but ordinary.
The sanctuary is painted in bright blues and greens. It has neoclassical white molding and grates decorating its walls, along with panels of Biblical quotes in Hebrew script written in gold. It is a very bright and joyous space in contrast to what the drab ghetto outside. It was a safe place to pray and rejoice, a place where there was the freedom to be Jewish and proud of it. A place to inspire hope, community, and faith in God. It was a space that was much needed in a ghetto.
The interior decoration is not limited to the wall decor. In the front of the room sits a massive, multi-storied Torah Ark, flanked by marble columns of a deep and variegated purple. This ark matches the marble platform and stairs that lead up to it with a red runner covering the stairs. On either side sit golden menorahs. Above the intricately carved bronze doors of the ark sits a royal blue medallion with the imposing inscription in golden Hebrew letters, “Know before whom you stand,” capped by a giant golden crown. There was no cost spared to make this ark worthy of God’s gift to the Jewish people.
A delicately carved wooden reading platform occupies the middle of the room. It is fitted with a red velvet drape covering the reader’s table. On the center of the ceiling, hovering above the platform, are the twin tablets of the law in royal blue with gold lettering, surrounded by clouds of white stucco and golden beams of light, topped with a golden crown. All these furnishings portray a memory of affluence. Jews had already been living in Siena for hundreds of years when the ghetto was formed. They had founded affluent banking businesses, and even attended the university, with 11 Jews graduated as doctors. The glory of the community was kept safe within the walls of the synagogue, so as not to draw any unwanted attention.
This building was designed and constructed when the community still had few rights, and so its exterior was designed to blend seamlessly into the urban fabric in order to protect its contents from antisemitic attacks. The design worked perfectly. Ten years after its construction, rioters turned their wrath upon the Jews, and burnt down half the ghetto, killing 19 people, but the synagogue and all its contents were spared. While the Jewish community of Siena currently has very few residents left, the synagogue still stands. There have been a few modifications over the years, such as the addition of plaques to the outside in memory of those deported and killed in both World Wars and the Holocaust, but most of the synagogue remains as it was when the Jewish community was thriving. The community that remains in Siena still prays there every Sabbath, and they even host bar and bat mitzvahs there. The community’s history is forever remembered there thanks to the architecture of the synagogue.
The Siena synagogue is not the only one of its kind, as many other Jewish communities hid their synagogues in plain sight within the urban landscape of the ghettos to protect them. These synagogues are important to the history of the Jewish communities in Italy as reminders of the turbulent and tenuous relationships they had with their gentile neighbors for hundreds of years. While it could be argued that the architecture does not compare to that of the stunning and monumental churches of Italy, the synagogues’ architecture is just as meaningful. When a Jew looks at the synagogue of Siena they see the struggle of the community for religious freedom and the trials they had to endure for us to be here. It gives us strength to think that our communities can survive dark times and hope that the future will be better.

* This piece is part of a series of articles written by students of Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania, USA, enrolled in a course on the history and culture of Jewish Italy, taught by Dr. Daniel Leisawitz, Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Muhlenberg College Italian Studies Program.