Showing posts with label Italian. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Italian. Show all posts

Sunday, June 9, 2019

I Dieci Comandamenti

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Happy Shavuot today! 
It's the Jewish festival celebrating the giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai (and also the grain harvest). 
Just before my recent trip to Italy I bought this little Holy Land olive wood Tablets of the Covenant, in a Jerusalem church. 
The Ten Commandments -- in Italian!

Chag sameach, happy holiday! 

And to the Christian friends, happy Pentecost! 
Same day.
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More posts about the Ten Commandments are here:
http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/search/label/Ten%20Commandments

More about Shavuot:
http://jerusalemhillsdailyphoto.blogspot.com/search/label/Shavuot
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Sunday, February 9, 2014

The Vittorio Veneto Synagogue

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From inside, looking out.


From outside, looking in.


Enough desert and Beer Sheva Brutalism; let's see some Italian Baroque style beauty!
This 17th century interior of a small synagogue in the town of Vittorio Veneto near Venice was transferred to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 1965 and was faithfully reconstructed.
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(Linking to Toby's meme  Whimsical Windows, Delirious Doors.)
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Monday, September 16, 2013

Watch salvage LIVE, now, of Costa Concordia!!

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The big day is here!
They are  attempting  to raise the capsized Costa Concordia today, now,
and we can follow it LIVE at  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/10311659/Costa-Concordia-salvage-operation-live.html

Praying for safety for the workers in this dangerous unprecedented operation.

Amazing still photos also now coming in:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/worldnews/10312039/Costa-Concordia-salvage-operation-begins-off-the-coast-of-the-island-of-Giglio.html

The Telegraph's live blog states

"...some of the debris inside the cruise ship which may spill out over the course of the day:
Trapped inside the upturned hull are more than 24,000lbs of fish, nearly 5,500lbs of cheese, 1,500 gallons of ice cream in tubs, 24,000lbs of pasta, 2,000lbs of onions, more than 2,000 pots of jam and nearly 17,000 tea bags.
Rotting beneath the waterline are more than 17,000lbs of raw beef, nearly 11,000 eggs, 2,346 hot dog buns, 815lbs of rabbit meat and more than 1,000 gallons of milk.
Some of the food and drink is sealed, presenting less of a pollution risk, including 18,000 bottles of wine, 22,000 cans of Coca-Cola, 1,000 bottles of extra virgin olive oil, 46,000 miniature bottles of spirits and 10 bottles of communion wine for the ship's chapel"
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Friday, August 30, 2013

Mirror envy

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So far I have found no reflections in Meitar.
So for today's Weekend Reflections let's go back to some images I secretly took in the Israel Museum.


The guard came around the corner just as I was going to photograph the explanatory sign.
So all I can tell you about the unusual exhibit is that it is called a "Venetian 18th century room."


Mirror tiles everywhere!
Maybe our blog friends in Versailles and Italy can tell us more.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia has this curious story:
In the 17th century, mirrors were among the most expensive items to possess and at the time, the Venetian Republic held the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors.
In order to maintain the integrity of his philosophy of mercantilism, which required that all items used in the decoration of Versailles be made in France, Jean-Baptiste Colbert enticed several workers from Venice to make mirrors at the Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs.
 According to legend, in order to keep its monopoly, the government of the Venetian Republic sent agents to France to poison the workers whom Colbert had brought to France.
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Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Long live yeast!

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L is for let's get back to liking leavening!

Passover week, lacking bread, cake, and anything that ever came near leavening, ended last night.
Matza is nice, but not for more than a week. 
I didn't get to our village grocery shop in time this morning--all the fresh bread, rolls, and pitas had been grabbed by bread-starved Israelites.

No bread, no problem.  Let them eat cake!
My nun neighbors had received this special cake in the mail, from Europe, for Easter.
Luckily they saved a slice for me. 

I learned that it is a colomba di Pasqua, a dove-shaped Easter cake that is traditional in Italy.
Inside it looks and tastes like panettone, the Italian Christmas cake.
So good!
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(Linking to L day at ABC Wednesday.)
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Thursday, June 28, 2012

A day of hearing Italian

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Today I went to Mishkenot Shaananim for the second day of a conference on "Italy in Israel: The contribution of Italian Jews to the establishment and development of the State of Israel."
The lecture hall was almost full and I and a handful of others were the only ones who needed earphones to hear simultaneous interpretation from Italian to Hebrew.
(Someday before it's too late I hope to know Italian!)
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The Italian-speakers spoke rapidly (maybe just to get a lot in within their 20 minute allotment).
The poor microphone got quite a few knocks from the Italkim who spoke with lots of hand movement.
(Italkim is apparently the Hebrew word decided upon to refer to Jewish immigrants/olim from Italy.)

Outside the hall was a big exhibit of photos celebrating 60 years of Italian-Israeli relations.
(Italy recognized the young state early in 1949.)

A nice 1988 photo of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Foreign Minister Giulio Andreotti reviewing the honor guard at the airport in Rome.

And a 1958 image of Randolfo Pacciardi taking leave of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion at his kibbutz in the Negev.
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UPDATE: I just started watching the movie "Kingdom of Heaven" about the Crusades.
The opening scene is France, 1184.
The father tries to convince his son to join him and become a Crusader knight.
Before he rides off on his steed, he says,
"Jerusalem is easy to find. Come to where the men speak Italian, then continue until they speak something else. We go by way of Messina. Goodbye!"
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UPDATE 2: Oh dear, just two days after I published his photo, Yitzhak Shamir died this evening, June 30. May he rest in peace after 96 years of life full of devotion to the Jewish people and state.
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Friday, June 15, 2012

Italy at the Jaffa Gate

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An estimated quarter of a million Israelis, Jerusalemites, Old City residents, and tourists flocked to the week-long Festival of Light, and this cupola just outside Jaffa Gate greeted them and elicited many oohs and ahhs!

Against the black night sky (for SkyWatch Friday) and next to the illuminated city wall, the dome truly was spectacular.

Enlarge the photos to see the hundreds of tiny lights.

Especially when you looked upward from the inside.

The Festival website says

Artist: Luminarie De Cagna, Italy

At the Jaffa gate, a dome will rise which resembles a building from the Italian Renaissance, because of its size and shape.

Reaching 25 meters high and spreading over 20 meters wide, the dome in Jerusalem is a true spectacle and an impressive entrance for visitors to the city.

Luminarie De Cagna is an Italian family concern that was founded in 1930. Back then the firm illuminated buildings and squares on festive occasions with oil and carbide lamps. Soon they switched to electric lights and since 2006 they have been using LEDs only for new projects. The LEDs are chained into great curtains of light or mounted on a wooden structure. In this way, whole streets and even squares are fully lit.

Even something for Weekend Reflections!
The tourist bus caught a reflection of the cupola just before it drove under the bridge on which the dome stood.
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There is more about the Light Festival in my previous post and more will be coming.
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Monday, August 22, 2011

A nun at Terra Sancta's door

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I've posted about Terra Sancta College before, but now I want to show its lovely front door for Monday Doorways (where meme host Louis la Vache is showing some nice Biblical scenes on his doors today).
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You normally have to shoot through the locked outer gate, so just believe me that the door bears the words CHARITAS -- FIDES.
Charity/love -- faith.
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Today was my lucky day.
I saw the door open for the first time AND a nun came out!

Enlarge the photo and see she is kneeling not in prayer but rather in service to the plants, watering them on this hot day.
Well, gardening is holy work too, IMHO.
Terra Sancta was designed by the prolific Italian architect Antonio Barluzzi.
This historic photo is from the 1920s, when it was dedicated.
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The heritage sign says that "This monumental building typical of Italian public buildings of the period ... served as a boys college (high school) administered by the Franciscan order."
When the Hebrew University on Mt. Scopus became inaccessible to Israelis in 1949, the university used Terra Santa (aka Terra Sancta) for offices and to store the library collections.
Just a few years ago the entire building finally went back into entirely Franciscan hands.
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I think it is now a college where young Catholic men can study and live.
And the new Franciscan Media Center might be inside that big door as well.
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Monday, April 4, 2011

A tireless and devoted Italian architect

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Antonio Barluzzi (1884-1960) was an Italian architect, a fervent Christian, and a tireless traveler.
He certainly left his mark in the Holy Land.
Between 1912 and 1955 he built or restored 24 churches, hospitals, and schools in Israel and Jordan.

The Christian Information Center in Jerusalem is currently showing an exhibition about his life and works.
The posters, like the one above that you can enlarge and read, are in English and Italian.
Look at the Arab stonemasons at work on the stones to build the Basilica of the Agony on the Mount of Olives.
Look at the arches in the ceiling of the church!

Here is how the arches looked from above while being constructed in the early 1920s!
Please enlarge the picture and feast your eyes!

The church is over Crusader and even earlier foundations.
Right next to it is the Garden of Gethsemane.

The altar is built next to the Rock of the Apostles (where some of them fell asleep instead of watching with Jesus).

What is the Great Seal of the United States of America doing on the ceiling?
Well, the church is also called The Church of All Nations and the symbols of each country that contributed money are incorporated into the inlaid gold ceilings of each of 12 cupolas.

The Franciscans' worship there on Maundy Thursday, April 21, will be broadcast live to the world.

With thanks to Antonio Barluzzi for our That's My World tour today.
Find my other posts about his works here.

UPDATE Oct. 3, 2013:  See how Italian tinsmiths are doing restoration work on the roof of the church.

(Linking to inSPIREd Sunday.)
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Friday, February 25, 2011

Happy scenes from the International Book Fair

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This week's Jerusalem International Book Fair had 100,000 books, with 30 countries exhibiting, and 100,000 visitors were expected during the five days.
As I promised you yesterday, here are some more curiosities from the fair.


Sefer Hazahav! The huge Golden Books list the years and names of donors to the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet leYisrael).
This is more fully explained in my post from the last (2009) fair, along with a glimpse inside the venerable book.



"All roads lead to Italy," I think that's what it says.
And with TWO boots instead of the traditional one boot of Italy's map, I suppose walking those roads is easier.


Germany always has a mega-exhibit of quality books.
But cardboard boxes?! Several stacks of them formed philosophical building blocks.
If you know German, enlarge the photo and enjoy the quotations.


So sweet. The French offered a kid-sized reading corner for little readers.


CDs of Israeli songs, but sung in Esperanto!

Zamenhof, a Jew living in the Russian Empire, published his book about the international language he invented in 1887 under the pseudonym "Doktoro Esperanto" (Doctor Hopeful), from which the name of the language derives.
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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Italian tiles on a Russian roof in Ein Kerem

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So many of you liked the Gornensky Convent that I give you more today.
Please see yesterday's comments for answers to questions raised.
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Enlarge and see that the cathedral's domes were still black in 2007.
You can see the perimeter walls that circle the huge Russian complex.
All those tall dark cypress trees are on the convent grounds.
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April 2009--scaffolding all around and the cathedral domes were plated with gold-colored metal. (Not sure what it is exactly.)
Photo snapped from the bus I take to go into Jerusalem, seen on top of the hill.
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From inside Gornensky, you see the village of Ein Kerem (now part of Jerusalem) nestled in the valley of the Jerusalem Hills.
The top of the ridge on the far horizon is already the West Bank.
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When I visited the convent in October they were building some small new building.
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Italian bloggers especially, enlarge the photo and read the fine print!
Those are stacks of Territalia terracotta roof tiles. Their website says they export a lot of them to the Middle East.
The Cunial family has been making tiles for 120 years and they now produce 25 million tiles per year.
Don't you love that logo of a tortoise with a shingled shell?
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Friday, May 14, 2010

Aldo's Gelateria Italiana

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After a hot afternoon visit to Susita National Park we dig volunteers stopped our convoy of three vehicles at a famous ice cream place near the Jordan River.
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And luckily for James' Weekend Reflections, Janet appears reflected in the glass.
Janet is a Protestant minister serving a church in Ohio who fulfilled her dream of working at an excavation.
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There were more fancy flavors on the other side.
A hard choice! But I never pass up coconut if I can find it.
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The Hebrew sign says "Glidaria Italkit."
That would be a translation of the chain's name, Aldo's Gelateria Italiana.
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Whatever you call it, the ice cream was cold and sweet on a hot day.
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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

An Italian lion in Zion

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The "Jerusalem--The Built Heritage" sign says this corner building, completed in 1936, fuses neo-classicism with modernism and was designed by Marcello Piacentini, a renowned Italian architect of the modern monumentalist style.
It was built by the Italian Generali insurance company. Since the mid 1940s it has housed Israeli government offices and no longer has any connection with Assicurazioni Generali.
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But we still call it the Generali Building and it is a well-loved landmark on Jaffa Road, thanks largely to the sculpted winged lion on the roof.
Enlarge the photo to enjoy the lion with his book!

While reading about the Generali Building today, I was delighted to learn that the symbol of Assicurazioni Generali was derived from the flag of the Most Serene Republic of Venice, (which was dissolved by Napoleon three decades before the company was founded).
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Any Italians or Latin-scholars out there who can tell us what is written in the book?
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Sunday, January 17, 2010

Rome and Jerusalem

UPDATE: I watched all one and a half hours of the live broadcast of the visit and speeches and music. It was all very moving! You can read Pope Benedict's address at
http://cnsblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/17/pope-at-rome-synagogue-may-these-wounds-be-healed-forever/ .
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In a few hours Pope Benedict will make a rare visit inside a synagogue, the Great Synagogue of Rome, and then go outside to plant an olive tree together with his Jewish "brothers and sisters."
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Meanwhile, let me show you our own Italian synagogue here in Jerusalem.

I posted the Italian Festival last summer (click on the tag "Italian" below) that took place in the courtyard, but you still have not seen the Italian Jewish Art Museum or the old synagogue inside the building.
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Above the entrance is written Beit Knesset ke-minhag Bene Roma, Tempio Italiano.
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The rite of the Conegliano Synagogue is technically called "Minhag Bnei Roma" (Children of Rome Prayer Custom), "Loez"(Foreign), or "Italiani."
In modern Hebrew it is called " Minhag Italki" (Italian Prayer Custom).
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Wikipedia says that "Italian Jews can be traced back as far as the second century BCE: tombstones and dedicatory inscriptions survive from this period. At that time they mostly lived in the far South of Italy, with a branch community in Rome, and were generally Greek-speaking. It is thought that some families (for example the Adolescenti) are descendants of Jews deported from Judaea by the emperor Titus in 70 CE."
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Welcome inside the 300-year-old interior of the synagogue.
After World War II it was dismantled in a huge rescue operation in the village of Conegliano in Italy. The furnishings arrived in Jerusalem in 1951 and the restoration began.
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This is the bimah, the platform on which the Torah scroll is read.
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The bimah faces the holy ark or aron kodesh, inside which the Torah scrolls are kept.
Elements of the ornate ark may be from even before 1700.
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The women's gallery is on top.
All in grand Baroque style.
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The men sit on the benches on the main floor.
Services are on Saturday (Shabbat) morning.
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Here is a photo borrowed from photographer Jonathan Sierra.
See more of his good photos of the worshipers at an Israelity Blog recent post.

Wiki on the history of Jews in Italy is here.

About Il Rito Bene Romi prayerbook and liturgy (in Italian).
MP3 of the Shema prayer chanted in Roman rite.

The portal for news of Italy's Jews (in Italian), which will soon have hopefully good news about the visit of il Papa --
or in English and other languages, the Pope's YouTube channel.

UPDATE:  The story of the synagogue, from the Museum of Italian Jewish Art:  http://ijamuseum.org/museum/the-synagogue/the-story/
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Mary in the clouds

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This afternoon the clouds seemed to be pointing to the haloed Madonnina, the patron saint of Milan.
By tradition, no building in Milan is higher than the Madonnina. Not so in Jerusalem.

Mary's hands and gesture look so graceful, even from far below.

This is the Terra Santa building that I showed you last night, across from France Square.
This monumental building typical of Italian public buildings of the period was dedicated in 1927.
It served as a boys' college (high school), administered by the Franciscan order.
From 1949 it was used by the Hebrew University and by the National Library.
At the beginning of this century the Franciscans took it back.
Terra Santa was designed by Antonio Barluzzi, the Italian architect who made many of the newer Catholic churches in Jerusalem.
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The wintery Jerusalem sky says Shalom to all the different skies appearing tonight at SkyWatch Friday. Keep looking up!
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Sunday, August 16, 2009

Italian Festival in Jerusalem

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Summer in Jerusalem means lots of free culture, music, entertainment in the streets.

Every August the Museum of Italian Jewish Art puts on a 3-day festival in their courtyard.
See my last Friday posts for more about it.

Gates opened at 6:00 pm and the crowd grew as the sun and the temperature went down.

The chocolate booth was my favorite. The flag of Italy on fine Belgian chocolate. :)

And tall bottles of chocolate liqueur. Yum!
The roving commedia dell'arte actors raised a big smile from the chocolate girls.

All manner of pasta. Four packages for fifty shekels.
Another counter was offering bowls of steaming pasta in sauce.

Near the Italian-language book stall was a table full of wooden Pinocchio figures.

The pretty young opera singer was accompanied by harpsicord and cello.
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I mostly heard the music from inside the museum (entrance having been reduced to only ten shekels, about $2.60).
Part of the museum is a functioning synagogue with furnishings from the Conegliano Veneto Synagogue, built in 1701 in the small village between Venice and Padua.
More about that in a future post.
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