i I Yi&ii ii
l

111

1111111 " r

ra

li ir

' ,; '

• 71

St. Nicolo is a 17th-century church built on the site of the Great Synagogue of

La Giudecca, site of the old Jewish quarter, in Palermo

Palermo.

The great synagogue ... was the center
of the Jewish quarter.

the street names in three languages:
Italian, Hebrew and Arabic. Many streets
were named after the inhabitants' profes-
sions: Via Calderai for boilermakers, or
Via Lamponelli for lantern-makers.

The Meschita

The Great Synagogue, admired by numer-
ous travelers from all corners of the Earth,
was the center of the Jewish quarter.
Architectural historians think that
the synagogue structure most probably
resembled other Norman-Arab buildings
of worship of the time: square in shape,
Romanesque in style, and with graceful
arches and a cupola.
In the 17th century, the church and the
monastery of St. Nicolo Tolentino were
built on the site of the Great Synagogue of
Palermo. In the late 19th century, part of
the synagogue's and the monastery's ruins
were rebuilt as the City Archives.
The street nearby is called Vicola
Meschita or the mosque. Was it ignorance
that prompted Sicilian Christians to name
the synagogue street "the Mosque?" Or
was it a historic memory? The physical
place occupied by the entire La Giudecca

since the 10th century used to be the Arab
quarter.
Darker times began in the 14th cen-
tury with the Aragonese (Spanish) rule.
In 1492, striving to maintain Catholic
orthodoxy and "purify" their kingdom,
Ferdinand and Isabella ordered the forced
expulsion or conversion of all Jews in their
lands on pain of death.
Historians suggest that there were
probably 52 Jewish communities spread
out across Sicily, numbering somewhere
between 35,000 to 100,000 people. The
infamous Edict of Expulsion brought an
end to the flourishing Jewish culture in
Sicily and to the highly important role the
Jews played in the regional economy.

Palazzo Steri: Graffiti,
Tears And Auto-Da-Fe
The imposing 14th-century building
was originally constructed as the private
residence of the powerful Sicilian lord
Manfredi III Chiaramonte. However, the
palace owns its infamous place in history
between 1600 and 1782, when it served as
the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition.
Today, the palace is a museum dedicated

to those who suffered within the Steri
walls, including the converted or neofiti
Jews accused of secretly practicing their old
faith. A generation after the Expulsion, the
Palermian new Christians were still identi-
fied as Jews and persecuted as such.
Graffiti covers walls of several cells
among the 16 open to the public. One draw-
ing shows 16 figures with Jewish names
that identify them as the 12 tribes of Israel,
Abraham, Moses, Aaron, and Adam and
Eve. They come out of a giant menacing-
looking fish (Leviathan?) with a big cross on
its head (the Church?) to possible salvation
impersonated by a strange angel with a dev-
il's tail wearing a Jesus-like crown of thorns
on his head. Was this drawn by an unfortu-
nate neofiti trying to convince his executors
of his supposedly true Christian faith?
It was in a cell empty of graffiti where we
could not hold back our tears. "In December
2013:' said Bianca, "in this cell, we had a
Chanukah candlelighting ceremony accom-
panied by singing of Hebrew liturgy:'
Sentencing the accused, or auto-da-fe,
was staged as a grand public entertainment
and a solemn holy day to impress and teach
the masses. This ceremony took place either

on the Cathedral Square or in front of the
Palazzo Steri. The condemned were burned
at the stake on the square near the Steri,
now a park called Villa Garibaldi. June 6,
2011, explained Bianca, marked the 500-
year anniversary of the first mass execution
by the Inquisition of "Judaizing" heretics on
that very square.
Judaizing heretics were the neofiti sus-
pected of practicing their old faith. In the
late 15th century, a large part of the popu-
lation of Sicily, Spain and Portugal had to
quickly convert to Christianity or otherwise
become a subject of suspicion, persecution
and the Inquisition.
Estimates of how many Sicilian Jews
chose to leave the island and how many
stayed and converted to Christianity vary.
The number was considered threatening
enough, however, to justify decades of
persecution of converts and their descen-
dants. Little is known about the extent and
practices of the crypto-Jews in Palermo
outside of what the Inquisition called the
Judaizing. These "crimes" included adher-
ence to Jewish religious customs, observing
Sabbath on Saturday rather than Sunday
and refusing to eat pork.

September 17 • 2015

35