Sometimes, when we’re on family vacations, I don’t look for Jewish sites. It’s not because I have no desire to learn about Jewish life in, say, Annecy. Or Sicily. It’s just that my children have this idea of me that all I think about is JewsJewsJewsJewsJews, and I, obviously, like to prove them wrong.
So, it was hardly my fault that when exploring the tiny island of Ortigia off of Siracusa in Sicily over half-term break last month, we stumbled upon a street called Alla Giudecca. That’s right, Giudecca – as in Judaica – the old Jewish quarter.
Lucky for me, or more realistically, lucky for my teenage sons, who would have shown little interest in our unintended discovery and dragged their feet and complained, my husband and I had, for that one day only, left the boys at our accommodations in Taormina while we set off to see ancient Greek and Roman ruins. By the next day, we’d be back to doing what they considered great fun, like jumping off giant cliffs into freezing water at the Alcantara Gorge (to be precise, they jumped off cliffs, and I did not, though I did endure the freezing water, so I would like a Mother of the Year Award, thank you very much). But on this one day in Sicily, my husband and I found ourselves on Alla Giudecca unusually unharried, and there was a tourist site to visit: an old mikveh.
Admittedly, even for me (JewJewJewJew), a mikveh didn’t sound terribly exciting. I’ve been in one, and let’s be honest. It’s just a pool of water.
As it turns out, the Bagno Ebraico of Siracusa is pretty fantastic. Built in the 6th century, it was carved out of limestone 20 metres below ground level – with five pools, three in the main room, and two in separate, more private spaces. Remarkably, this mikveh was still in use in 1493, almost a millennium later. Can you imagine? One thousand years of women coming monthly as they prepared to physically reconnect with their husbands; one thousand years of men coming during the Days of Awe, their beards combed through before entering the depths; one thousand years of Jews by Choice demonstrating their choice, immersing from root to tip.
It all ended in 1493. We know what happened then. In fact, back in Taormina, on our first stroll around town, we had wandered into a church. It featured a marble statue of a beatific Santa Caterina, her left hand holding a book. Her right hand clutches a sword, which pierces the figure at her feet. We looked at the dying figure on the ground and then looked at the date beneath: 1493. Remember all I think about is JewsJewsJewsJewsJews. Heck, in that case, who wouldn’t? That’s the year the Jews of Sicily – who numbered some 30,000! – were expelled, murdered, or forced to convert.
Let me pause to say that I know this column is meant to be about my breast cancer experience. Don’t worry. I’m getting there. But I didn’t want to dedicate a whole column to my latest complaints: scapular winging and cording. These conditions were driving me nuts for months. They weren’t identified until I ordered bathing suits for the trip and sent photos of myself preening before the mirror to my sister in Canada, asking her which ones to keep. “WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON WITH YOUR SHOULDER?” she demanded. That’s when I realised what I had been feeling – a shoulder that couldn’t seem to get comfortable when I lay down, always digging into the mattress on my bed, the bench when I lifted weights, not to mention the weird tight line that ran like an internal wire down the inside of my arm – were visible and actual problems that needed treatment.
Before they fled Sicily, the Jews did something extraordinary: they filled the mikveh with soil and walled it off. We can only speculate, but it seems clear to me that they thought they only had to hide their ritual bath for a few years, and when the reign of terror blew over – and surely at some point it would have to end, right? – they would come back, knock down their wall, dig out the soil, and reclaim it. Instead, the Inquisition lasted for hundreds of years. The surviving Jewish community of Sicily, like those communities in the lands surrounding it, scattered. Who knows where their descendants are today? According to 23andme, I have a not-so-small per cent of Italian ancestry myself.
The journey from discovering the lump on my chest to my latest shoulder problem, a consequence of auxiliary lymph node dissection that can appear many months after surgery, has been long and rocky. Every time I think it’s all behind me, I realise it isn’t. But I can’t help but be inspired by the hope of those medieval Jews in Sicily, who said: yeah, it’s OK. We’ll get through this. One day, this mikveh will come to light again. We Jews aren’t going to disappear.
Well, we didn’t. And neither did the mikveh. It was rediscovered in the 1980s by a woman who bought the property, wondered about the odd wall, and, over two years, excavated the site. Now, for a mere seven euros, you, like me, can go see it.
