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Monday, May 20, 2013
Sivan 11, 5773
9:54 pm IDT
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Barbara Aiello

Rabbi Barbara Aiello is the first woman and first non-orthodox rabbi in Italy… [More]
Barbara's website

May 20, 2013
9:32 pm

Becca’s Wooden Box – A Story of Sicily’s Lost Jews

She arrived on Sunday morning, having received an announcement of our meeting several days before. At first she was not certain that the gathering would be appropriate for her,......

April 25, 2013
11:34 pm

Lag B’Omer message for Sicily’s bnai anousim

In a few short weeks I will board the train at the station in Lamezia Terme, the biggest town closest to my mountain village in Calabria, and head toward......

March 22, 2013
10:08 pm

Italy’s first woman rabbi suggests that married priests and women priests could revive the Catholic Church

His journey takes place in the mountains of Calabria, the “toe of the Italian “boot,” and spans two days and several hundred kilometers. For my dear friend and colleague,......

February 18, 2013
5:25 pm

A candelabra comes home for shabbat

For thousands of Italians who live in the southern Italian region of Calabria, the island of Sicily and the Aeolian Islands, connecting family traditions......

February 4, 2013
6:47 am

“Cavalluccio” – After liberal Jewish movement puts in ten years work, Orthodox rabbis “discover” Italian B’nei Anousim!

Charles Caleb Cotton said it first. “Imitation is the highest form of flattery.” But it is the orthodox who have come to the deep south of Italy who put......

January 20, 2013
10:58 pm

Zachor! Memories of my first Holocaust Memorial Day in Italy

January 27, 1945 marks the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp where one million Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Sixty years later, in November 2005 the United Nations......

December 31, 2012
12:34 am

Tales from Jewish Italy – the midnight shofar

It is New Year’s Eve in Calabria, the deep south of the Italian peninsula. At the stroke of midnight the bells in the church tower......

December 21, 2012
6:21 pm

Jewish wisdom at the Christmas Pageant

The year was 1955 and I was eight years old. Christmas back then was a magical time, even for us Jews. I recall that nearly every school held a......

December 13, 2012
3:14 pm

The Cat that ate the cannoli

Tales from Jewish Italy - The cat that ate the cannoli During the warm summer months our little synagogue in Bella Italia springs to life. Both my home......

December 3, 2012
5:20 am

The ingathering of the meshpucha – Jewish Pluralism

When our sages taught about the destruction of the First and Second Temples, they made it clear that these tragedies occurred for vastly different reasons (Talmud,......

November 8, 2012
11:10 am

A lesson from Italy

Emma D. (not her real name) is a Bat Anousim – a Hebrew term which translates as “the daughter of the forced ones.” Her Italian Jewish roots, tangled as......