It is dazzling, this tempietto, this little chapel, tucked underneath the grand arches in the basement of Tempio Israelitico in Turin. The Ark and bima are like something out of a fairy tale, glowing golden in the electric candlelight. The liturgy of the Shabbat morning service is Italian rite. Outside, where it is merely Saturday, Turin's grace is more evident than on weekdays when commerce takes over. One notices the wide, tree-lined avenues and balconied apartment buildings; the colonnaded promenades and, rising above all, the most famous landmark: the Mole (rhymes with "olay") Antonelliana, which started out as a synagogue.
But today Jewish life is found mainly within Tempio Israelitico. After services comes Kiddush in the synagogue library. The elegant kosher Barbera from nearby La Morra is a reminder that Turin is the capital of Piedmont, a region renowned for its noble red wines. Chieri, Fossano, Moncalvo, Savigliano, Trino, Nizza Monferrato, Acqui — their synagogues have been dismantled, the furnishings moved elsewhere. But in Asti, Casale Monferrato, Cuneo and several other Piedmont towns and cities, tiny Jewish communities still maintain their historic synagogues, each a silent tribute to the gift the Jews brought to those places — "literacy, culture, religious and lay, felt as a duty, a right, a necessity, and a joy of life," according to Primo Levi, Turinese Jew and one of Italy's greatest writers.
History: It was from Piedmont that the Risorgimento — the 100-year struggle to liberate and unify Italy — was orchestrated. Turin, on the banks of the River Po, was the first capital of the new Italy. And nobody flourished more than the Jews newly freed from the ghettos. This exhilarating era dawned only after centuries of guarded existence.
The first Jews to settle in Turin fled from France and Spain in the early part of the fifteenth century; many were bankers who financed the battles of the Savoy monarchs. For the next 400 years Jewish fortunes rose and fell according to the whim of whoever was in power.
By 1624 there were nine Jewish banks in Turin. Jews became leading traders in silks and wool, the women renowned for needlework. Another rich tradition perpetuated by women, Giudaico-Piedmontese — the language of the hearth — came in handy as a code among Jewish merchants.
Turin's ghetto was established in 1723, and by 1732 Jews in other Piedmontese cities were living in ghettos built around central courtyards. Second- or even third-floor synagogues were common, windows onto the street were rare. These were not merely security measures; sometimes it was forbidden for Jewish prayers to reach Christian ears.
When the French Revolution spilled over into Piedmont in 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte opened the ghettos of every town he entered, including Turin's. But Liberté, egalité, fraternité were short-lived; in 1814 Napoleon fell. But by then, writers and politicians were clamoring for Jewish emancipation, which finally was granted on March 19, 1848, by King Carlo Alberto. The Jews became the strongest advocates of unification. Isaac Artom, secretary to Camillo Cavour, architect of the Risorgimento, was Jewish, as was Giacomo Dina, editor of Opinione, Cavour's publication.
On May 14, 1861, in the courtyard of Carignano Palace in Turin, the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed. By then the migration from smaller towns had brought the city's Jewish population to nearly 4,500, and their degree of wealth and influence was unmatched in Europe. So was their nationalism. When Mussolini came to power in 1922, there were Jews who glommed onto Fascism as avidly as they had supported unification. But most were anti-Fascists and many became resistance fighters. Some survived the war by fleeing to the mountains, to convents and to small villages where non-Jews kept their secret.
On November 20, 1942, American bombs accidently hit the Tempio Israelitico. Only the outside walls and two towers were left; on July 22, 1945, three months after Italy was liberated, the wedding of Lina de Leon and Giorgio Treves took place amid the rubble. The Jews were witnessing the rebirth of their community.
Community: Today, Turin's 1,100 or so Jews live all over the city. But the synagogue, rebuilt soon after the war, and its adjoining buildings are the hub of Jewish life. In addition to the community offices (telephone
The Casa di Riposa can arrange kosher meals if you call the comunity offices a week ahead. For kosher delicacies from Israel, France, the United States and Italy, as well as wine, go to Luna, 23A via Berthollet
Sightseeing: You are strolling down Via Montebello and there it is: la Mole Antonelliana. In 1860, the Jewish community commissioned Alessandro Antonelli to create an architectural ode to their emancipation and to their beloved city. By 1876, it is said, they were melting down gold from tapestries to finance Antonelli's efforts to realize his ever more grandiose visions. The following year, to the relief of the community, the city bought what by then was known as la Mole Antonelliana — Antonelli's Pile. It was completed in 1889. Now in restauro, it will emerge as a museum of the cinema and visitors again will be able to go to the top for the most astounding panorama.
Ironically, the building the Jewish community had commissioned to answer its need for "a place to pray to God in, not a tower to go up and see Him," as one rabbi put it, was inaugurated five years earlier. Recently, the area in front of Tempio Israelitico became Piazzetta Primo Levi. With onion domes, the tempio was in sync with Moorish synagogues going up elsewhere at the time. The insistence on only Italian stone and brick and the choice of a local architect, Enrico Petiti, reflected intense patriotism. When the building was resurrected from the ashes of World War II the façade was reconstructed with the addition of memorials to the six million in Hebrew and Italian.
The main sanctuary is used only for major holidays. Services are held in the tempietto, created in 1972 by architect Giorgio Olivetti, who juxtaposed bare brick foundations with the baroque Ark and bima. It is easy to believe these treasures are wrought of marble and gold, but it's an illusion of painted wood that lends enchantment to many Piedmontese synagogues, churches and castles.
In the tiny chapel is a seventeenth-century Ark depicting Jerusalem, an heirloom from Turin's ghetto days, painted black upon the death of King Carlo Alberto. On the second floor is a small museum displaying Judaica and memorabilia assembled for the synagogue's centennial. Visiting is from 9 to 1 weekdays, Shabbat morning services at 9, but call first
Nearby in the Porta Nuova train station is a memorial to the "political deportees" who left here in boxcars. The artist, Corrado Cagli, a Jew born in Ancona, fled Italy because of the racial laws of 1938 and became an American citizen. In 1944, he was among the troops who liberated Buchenwald.
Personalities: The Jewish intellectual aristocracy included not only Primo Levi but the fiction writer Natalia Ginzburg; her husband, Leone Ginzburg, a writer and resistance fighter killed during the occupation; Carlo Levi, the artist and author of Christ Stopped at Eboli (Farrar, Straus & Giroux); artist Paola Levi Montalcini and her twin sister, Rita Levi Montalcini, winner of the 1986 Nobel prize in medicine.
In 1908, Camillo Olivetti founded the Olivetti Corporation. He was a great anti-Fascist, as was his son, Adriano. Olivetti headquarters in Ivrea, just north of Turin, became a partisan center during the war.
Reading: Primo Levi's Periodic Table (Random) begins with a fascinating linguistic odyssey, and his Survival at Auschwitz (MacMillan) should not be missed. Nor should Ginzburg's Family Sayings (Little, Brown). Vittorio Segre's Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew (Jason Aronson) depicts a Piedmontese Jewish childhood under Fascism. Alexander Stille's Benevolence and Betrayal (Penguin) and Susan Zuccotti's The Italians and the Holocaust (University of Nebraska Press) focus strongly on Piedmont. Italy: Jewish Travel Guide (Israelowitz) is by Annie Sacerdoti and Luca Fiorentino.
Side Trips:
CUNEO: Outdoor markets are a big attraction, along with skiing in the winter and the chocolate scatole di attrezzi (tool boxes) sold at Confetteria Botasso on Via Roma, the main street.
This Jewish community is the oldest in Piedmont, in a neighborhood called the angolo (corner) nearly a century before Venice gave the world "ghetto."
A short ride east is Mondovi and north is Cherasco, in each a synagogue with a sanctuary in the classic Italian style, in which a central octagonal bima reflects a baroque Ark.
To visit Cuneo and Borgo San Dalmazzo, call the head of the Jewish community, Enzo Cavaglion
ASTI: The home of the famous wine — and of one of Italy's loveliest synagogues — at Via Ottolenghi 8. Of the three shuls where the Appam rite was practiced for 600 years, only this one survives; the others were in nearby Fossano and Moncalvo. Appam (from the Hebrew initials of the three towns) derived from French and Ashkenazic ritual.
The sanctuary, with its towering marble columns, is splendid. Carved in 1809 and gilded seven years later, the doors of the great golden Ark depict an altar with objects of the Temple in Jerusalem.
Piazza Roma was built by Leonetto Ottolenghi, whose father, Zaccaria, built the Teatro Alfieri. On Corso Alfieri is the Palazzo Ottolenghi and the Palazzo Alfieri; at Via Cavour and Via Brofferio is the palazzo of Cavour's secretary, Isaac Artom. A half block from the synagogue is Via Aliberti, the heart of Asti's ghetto. On the wall of what is now a pharmacy is a painting of the Madonna which the inhabitants of this house had to paint as punishment for having windows facing outside the ghetto. To arrange for a visit, call the APT
CASALE MONFERRATO: The Hebrew letters in gold on the ceiling of the sanctuary in Casale spell "This is the gate to Heaven." The walls are adorned with stone cameos engraved with Hebrew sayings and set off by carved ribbons of gilded stucco. This is the crown jewel of Italy's synagogues, built in 1595, extensively embellished during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, sacked by the Germans, but restored in 1968 under the supervision of architect Giulio Bourbon. The cameos contain historical data and are an intrinsic part of the synagogue archives.
In the museum on the second floor is a collection of Judaica crafted by local women. To arrange a visit, call the APT at
Other communities have magnificent synagogues. Call the APT in each town to find out the visiting procedure: Ivria
Recommendations: Rail connections in Piedmont are good, and distances between cities and towns are small, but for a grand tour you're better off renting a car. Asti has a central location, charm, numerous Jewish sights and one of Italy's best outdoor markets. Autumn is wine festival and white truffle season. But you can sample la vita ebraica any time. And getting to that Shabbat service in Turin will make it more memorable.