Rosh Hashanah In Roma: Going To Services

I did it.  I went tonight to services at Rome's main synagogue.  It was awesome.

I've been to the big Rome synagogue before on tours.  I always thought it was pretty nice-looking for a synagogue.  But I'd never been there for an actual service.  There is a world of difference.  With all the lights on, with a couple of hundred people in attendance, and with the cantor and rabbi leading the prayers, the setting was marvelous.  It was quite majestic and moving.

I of course did not understand a word of it.  I obviously didn't understand the prayers -- they are all in Hebrew.  And I did not understand anything that the rabbi said to the congregation in Italian.  But it did not matter.  It was just interesting to watch the Italian Jews celebrate the New Year and the beginning of the 10 Days of Repentance.  The prayer chants were different than the ones I am used to from going to temple in New York as a youth.  Some of the tunes were beautiful.  Women and men sat in different areas -- that too is something I did not grow up with.

As I sat there, I could not help but think about how in this city 460 years ago, on Rosh Hashanah, the Inquisition burned all of the Jewish texts in a fire in Campo de' Fiori.  And, in this city only 70 years ago -- during many of our parents' lifetimes -- the Nazis gathered up and deported all the Jews they could find.  (There was a lot of bad stuff in between too.....)  Tonight, by contrast, dozens of Italian police officers guarded the synagogue and set up barriers all around it at which they questioned every person who wanted to even come close to it.  This is a different world.  (OK, yes, the fact that so much security is necessary is probably not a good thing.  But we will focus on the good!)

I wish I could have taken some pictures.  But I was warned by several of those police officers that photos were not allowed.  I decided to heed those warnings.  

L'shanah Tovah (Happy New Year) to all!