Pictures from candle-lighting in Palermo’s infamous Steri prison
Candle-lighting in Palermo
We have one final batch of photos from Shavei Israel’s Hanukah celebrations this year. The return of light to the infamous Steri prison in Palermo, Sicily, attracted significant media attention (see this article on our website). Shavei Israel’s emissary to the Bnei Anousim in southern Italy and Sicily, Rabbi Pinchas Punturello, led a candle-lighting ceremony on the last night of Hanukah in the building that served as the headquarters of the Inquisition from 1601-1782 and a holding cell for Jews awaiting their fate in the terrible auto-da-fe – execution by burning.
Following the lighting, which took place in the Steri’s dungeon, Rabbi Punturello participated in a seminar that was attended by some 200 Italian Bnei Anousim, local Jewish community members and other dignitaries. The highlight was a panel discussion which featured Prof. Roberto La Galla, Chancellor of Palermo University; Roberto Jarach, the vice president of UCEI (the Union of Italian Jewish Communities); and Evelyn Aouta, leader of Palermo’s Jewish community. After the panel, soprano Victoria Menashy sang several traditional Sephardic Jewish songs for the holiday.
The persecution of Jews in Sicily reached its climax in 1492, when the Jews of Spain – including those in Spanish-controlled Sicily – were forcibly expelled. There were at least 37,000 Jews living in 52 communities on the island at the time. Many were forced to convert but nonetheless continued to suffer under the Inquisition for generations.
The true measure of the Hanukah event was not the candle-lighting or seminar itself, but what happened afterward. Rabbi Punturello reports that he was barely able to return home at the conclusion of the session, as “dozens of people stopped to talk to me about their identity and origins. These include descendants of Jews in Sicily who had assimilated, as well as grandchildren of Holocaust survivors who returned to Sicily after the War and tried to ‘cancel’ their Judaism, so to speak. We have a big job to complete in Sicily!”
Here are a few more pictures:
Lighting the Hanukiah in Sicily
Lighting candles in the Steri
At the seminar in Palermo