The Jews of Italy

Every Monday and Thursday in the 1920s Antonio Aiello dutifully traveled 25 kilometers from his Calabrian hometown of Serrastretta to study the Torah, the Jewish holy book, at the home of a man known as the "Rav," or rabbi. He often hitched a ride on an artichoke cart, or so he told his daughter Barbara Aiello, who is now a rabbi.

The darker side of the story is that no Jews were officially said to reside in Calabria at the time. The Spanish Inquisition and subsequent Roman Catholic persecution had decimated a once-flourishing Jewish community. Jews had been expelled or forced to convert. For a time, so-called "new Christians" held onto their Jewish ways closed doors. Jewish holidays were celebrated secretly. Gradually, the "marranos" — or crypto-Jews — were assimilated into Catholic society, eradicating most traces of Jewish life from southern Italy.

Now, signs of a hidden past are emerging. In 1986, archeologists discovered the ruins of a synagogue they speculated was built under the Roman Empire. First signs pointed to a Roman settlement until archeologists found floor mosaic depicting a sevenbranched candelabrum, the Jewish menorah. "No one had any idea a Jewish community existed there," Elio Toaff, the then-chief rabbi of Rome told the New York Times.

Excerped from: Marc Alan Di Martino, “Barbara Aiello: A Rabbi in Changing Calabria” The American: A Monthly for Italy and the World. March 16, 2008