Sicily’s Jews were banished from this island in 1492, the victims of a Spanish edict that forced thousands to leave and others to convert to Roman Catholicism.
More than 500 years later, a nascent Jewish community is planting fresh roots in the Sicilian capital, reclaiming a lost, often painful, history, this time with the aid of the local diocese.
Palermo’s archbishop, Corrado Lorefice, has granted the emerging community the use of an unused oratory, to be transformed into Palermo’s first stable synagogue in five centuries.
And for many, it’s about time.
“The Jewish community is a part of Palermo, part of its history; Jews were here for 15 centuries,” said Evelyne Aouate, an Algerian-born, Parisian-raised transplant whose deepening exploration of her own roots drove the efforts to find the community a home.
Aptly enough, that home will be located in what once was known as the Giudecca, Palermo’s ancient Jewish quarter. The downtown warren of yet-to-be-gentrified ramshackle buildings is filled with narrow streets whose names still recall some of that history, like Piazza Meschita, the Arabic word for both synagogues and churches, or Via dei Calderai, for the tinkers and coppersmiths whose shops have lined the street practically forever.
A few years ago, trilingual street signs — in Italian, Hebrew and Arabic — were put up as markers in the area in a nod to the city’s rich past. But “the Hebrew is wrong, it’s botched”— a transliteration that doesn’t read right, according to Maria Antonietta Ancona, a retired anesthetist who goes by her Jewish name, Miriam. “They didn’t translate, but just substituted Italian characters with the Hebrew characters, so it doesn’t make sense,” she said.
She should know, she began studying Hebrew 10 years ago as part of her conversion to Judaism.
Like other members of the nascent Palermo community, Ms. Ancona, who was raised as a Roman Catholic though her father was Jewish, began recovering her roots 30 years ago as part of a “pressing necessity” to embrace her Jewish identity.
The new synagogue — on the Vicolo Meschita, part of an area once occupied by Palermo’s Great Synagogue — will be housed in a former Baroque oratory known as Santa Maria del Sabato, or Holy Mary of Saturday.
It is an unusual name for a church, noted Luciana Pepi, who teaches Hebrew language, culture and philosophy at the University of Palermo, and is also a convert and active member of the local Jewish community.
“Some scholars have hypothesized that the name might be related to the memory of the celebration of Shabbat,” the weekly Jewish day of rest, she said.
From left, Evelyne Aouate, Luciana Pepi and Maria Antonietta Ancona — who spearheaded the efforts to get a new synagogue in Palermo — visiting the oratory. “It’s beautiful, but there is still a lot to do,” Ms. Aouate said. CreditGianni Cipriano for The New York Times
On a recent spring morning, Ms. Pepi, Ms. Ancona and Ms. Aouate — who spearheaded the efforts to open a synagogue — fussed at the entrance to the oratory, fumbling with a padlock on a cast-iron gate. Using an oversize key, with some effort, they finally opened a tall, paneled wood door.
The three women paused at the entrance, taking in a softly lit nave, where dilapidated wooden seats and peeling yellow paint betrayed decades of neglect. The ornate altar was still in the apse, but sundry statues and crucifixes had already been removed.
“Here it is!” said Ms. Aouate, her happiness palpable. “It’s beautiful, but there is still a lot to do.”
That includes reacquainting Palermo citizens with a history that many didn’t even know they had.
For many years “history books skipped over the city’s Jewish presence, as if trying to cancel it,” Ms. Ancona said. Ms. Pepi added: “Palermo didn’t know its own history.”
That has been changing, mostly as a result of Ms. Aouate and a small group of enthusiasts, including Catholics, who 25 years ago founded the Sicilian Institute for Jewish Studies, dedicated to recovering the island’s Jewish identity.
“A little at a time we are trying to renew that memory,” Ms. Aouate said.
Scholarship, too, has filled in many of the missing blanks of Sicily’s Jewish past.
Documents show that Jews were in Sicily at least since the first century A.D., and remained on the island until the 1492 edict. At one point, there were 51 communities here, Palermo being the largest and most important.
Historians say the edict affected at least 35,000 Sicilian Jews, including at least 5,000 in Palermo. Some Jews decided to stay, converting to Catholicism against their will. Some — known here as Marranos — continued to practice Judaism in secret.
Palermo’s municipal archives — whose late-19th-century grand hall may have been inspired by the Great Synagogue — recently exhibited mementos of more recent affronts to Sicily’s Jews.
They included documents from the years following Mussolini’s 1938 racial laws, showing how the city’s Jews were unceremoniously fired from jobs at the local university and City Hall, in order to “defend the Italian race,” one document read.
It took time for the community to rebuild.
“I first arrived here in 1959, and for 20 years I thought I was the only Jew in Palermo,” Ms. Aouate said. Over the years, she met other Jews and in time her elegant Palermo apartment became a point of reference for the community during the holidays.
The number of Jews currently living in Palermo remains unclear. “It depends, because if you think of all the people born of a Jewish mother or a Jewish father, then it’s numerous,” but not everyone considers themselves Jewish, she said.
Until now, in any case, there haven’t been enough men to form a regular minyan, the quorum of 10 or more adult male Jews required for communal worship, as is the case in Orthodoxy, the only recognized Jewish stream in Italy.
Dedicated tourism may change that because Palermo offers various Jewish sites around town, some harboring signs of past suffering.
A mikvah, or Jewish ritual bath, was found below the courtyard of Palazzo Marchesi, which in the 16th century housed the offices of the Inquisition.
Later, between 1601 and 1782, the Palazzo Chiaramonte-Steri — today part of the University of Palermo — served as the prison and tribunal of the Inquisition. Its walls preserve the anguished scratched scrawls of past inmates, including some in Hebrew.
Just over three years ago, Hanukkah candles began to be lighted at Palazzo Steri, a tangible sign of the university and the city’s commitment to the Jewish community.
The community’s spiritual leader, the Rabbi Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello, who is an emissary of Shavei Israel, an organization based in Jerusalem that assists those searching for their Jewish heritage, said that he had noticed a growing interest in the Jewish heritage of Sicily and other parts of southern Italy.
“Every time I go there I meet new people curious about their origins, who want to explore them,” the rabbi said.
The synagogue was the natural next step and in June last year, Ms. Aouate, Ms. Pepi and Ms. Ancona asked the archbishop whether an unused church might be available.
Three weeks later, Archbishop Lorefice called to offer the oratory.
The Rev. Pietro Magro, who is responsible for interreligious dialogue for the archdiocese of Palermo, said that the archbishop had been pleased to reach out to the community in their search for a place of prayer.
“The church of the Virgin of the Saturday seemed right because it’s in the Jewish quarter, and we hope it will be ready soon,” Father Magro said.
The restoration is expected to begin shortly; the city will cover most of the costs. The community has another long list of expenses, from the ark for the Torah scrolls to a sophisticated security system, Ms. Aouate said. “And we would like a beautiful Menorah!”