Capodanno Ebreo in Milano

With Passover now upon us, it seems like an appropriate time to review the events of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur…Although we started on our second year in Italy this fall, it was actually our first High Holidays around these parts. Given Trofie Wife’s propensity for online research, we located all possible options for prayer, evaluated (er debated?) them, and then came to a decision with just a few moments to spare.

For Rosh Hashana, we settled on a Progressive community located in Milano, the distance being negotiable due to the holidays falling over the weekend. (For those unfamiliar, Progressive synagogues are affiliated with the Union of Reform Judaism. However, they tend to grow in accordance with the character and practice of the local community and as such, can often appear more conservative than mainline American Reform congregations. In general, they are marketed as an alternative to Orthodoxy with few guidelines other than a commitment to pluralism and egalitarianism.)

We hopped the last regionale train on Friday night (nothing like Chef Express cuisine for an erev meal!) and then settled into a hotel located close enough to the synagogue, though closer to the happening canal- and nightclub-dotted Navigli neighborhood. From the synagogue’s Web site, we had a general sense of what to expect, but we were not prepared for the outpouring of welcome that met us inside. With apologies to any past, present, or future synagogue presidents that might find this post, the community’s president is by far the nicest (and most adorable) that could be created. The rabbi—who incidentally has a family connection to our little neck of the boot and couldn’t understand why in the world we would be living here—is one of those brilliant Renaissance-type characters. Not only is he a skilled orator, but on the side, he’s a classical instrumentalist of some note (with quite the pleasant singing voice), and from what we could understand of his sermon, quite learned (this hunch was eventually backed up by further evidence collected after Trofie Wife joined the synagogue’s e-mail list, where his weekly d’var Torah (which I usually shy away from after a page or so) includes at least 15 citations a pop in about four different languages). 

The room was small, resembling an East Coast synagogue’s library or Hebrew school classroom, yet it was packed with a diverse group of Jews (and likely some non-Jewish family members) singing melodies new and familiar.  We saw some rituals that neither one of us had encountered before (additional blessings around the Torah reading, widespread sheltering under tallits during the Priestly Blessing and other points), which we assumed were Italian traditions. The synagogue appears to mix Ashkenazi Reform, Sephardi, and Italianate practices, making everyone feel like a piece of their heritage is represented. We were not the only Anglophones to wander in—there was an Australian med student who knew even less Italian than we, yet she managed to snag the kind of High Holiday honors usually reserved for only the choicest members back over the ocean. When the rabbi’s gaze fell in our direction, I allowed Martello to take the aliyah alone because it seemed like there was a one-person-from-each-family rule, plus he could understand the Italian instructions better than I, but I’ll get him back next year.

Following kiddush, we took advantage of our time in Milano, enjoying leisurely strolls, finally scaling the Duomo (and incidentally running into one of Martello’s colleagues atop it!) and, unfortunately, making a bad restaurant choice from among the many along the canals, though recovering with some excellent gelato—the first of 5770. And amazingly, we ran into Martello’s colleague yet again that evening! We felt like we got to experience Milano a bit more than in prior short trips. Perhaps the most humorous sighting of the weekend occurred during a Sunday walk, when we viewed the owner of an adorable bulldog clean the via of his uh “pee-ah” with sparkling, bottled mineral water. Only in Milano…

Despite having found this fantastic congregation, we opted to stay closer to home for Yom Kippur, being that it was mid-week, and Trofie Wife does not fast well and prefers to manage the day in familiar (bed, bathroom) surroundings. Martello had visited the local tribe (which happens to be Sephardic in style, if not entirely in membership) before and knew what to expect, but Trofie Wife was expecting the worst (and Martello was waiting with his “I told you so” ready). Yet as much as Martello may have hoped it would, the moment for reciting it never came. An ardent congregation member around our age who Martello had met on his prior voyage was already on our case to come back the next day, and after I said I wasn’t quite sure if I’d be there but Martello probably would, the "Cheerleader" made blatantly clear that my presence was not of any consequence but Martello’s most certainly was. Well, with that, he lost at least one customer for Kol Nidre (yours truly; I stayed there physically but checked out in my mind) and two customers (or by his count, one) for Yom Kippur. 

With a polite smile masking her bitterness, Trofie Wife disengaged from the conversation and climbed the steps to the women’s gallery, sitting next to two Israeli med students, who came and left quickly (some of their male compatriots could be seen smoking outside following official release. Classy). I was then left surrounded by a truly uninspiring group of devotees. The majority of the women up in the nosebleed seats were chattering away (though I noted that pant suits were acceptable should I ever return, so score one) and most of the men below in the privileged seats looked like they’d rather be undergoing a root canal. Martello was surprised that I didn’t storm the main floor and demand that we leave before the end of the service, but I figured that we weren’t going to make an earlier train anyway.

As the droning rabbi thanked everyone from coming from far away to be part of the community, it dawned on me that most congregants under 60 either lived in another city or, if local, never stepped foot in the synagogue any other time of the year and merely returned to pay homage to the congregation of their parents’ or grandparents’ youth, making it truly a memorial instead of a living spiritual home. It was a far cry from the scene in Milano, where everyone present seemed like they had made a conscious decision to be part of this specific community.  

Upon our return from the city, Trofie Wife spent the remainder of Kol Nidre praying along with the online stream from New York’s Central Synagogue. We spent Yom Kippur in a synagogue of our own creation, surrounded by a variety of religious texts, thoughts, and streaming services. Trofie Wife enjoyed a variety of sermons, some from rabbis I once knew back in youth group. While certainly not the way our ancestors celebrated, it worked for me, and allowed me to get a little taste of everything. Speaking of taste, we broke our fast with a nice pesto pizza. (Despite Trofie Wife’s mastery of bagel baking and the local availability of lox and cream cheese, I just cannot bear to be in a kitchen preparing food when I cannot eat it.)

During Martello’s first visit to the community the Cheerleader had lamented that most Jews were leaving the area and that’s why the community was shrinking. Perhaps the shrinking isn’t tied to a geographical exodus but instead a distaste for current communal practices coupled with a typically Genovese (as we’re learning) inability to introduce reforms that mess with traditions of any kind, be they related to food, religion, or paperwork. Incidentally, pluralism has been a growing topic in the Italian Jewish community with a large forum taking place just prior to Pesach, and it looks like our Milan-based synagogue is sprouting a new branch in Rome. Who knows; maybe Genova will be next! In the interim, I have my streaming shuls!

Baci e gelato,

Martello e Trofie

Soggy Times

The above image of a sullen Oscar pretty much sums up our reaction to the events of the last Sunday in aprile. Trofie Wife had successfully convinced Martello to accompany her to Pavia for a vintage clothing fair (the ads for which were spotted in Genoa the same day as Slow Fish). We reviewed our handy guide books and noted that there were other things to do and see in Pavia aside from vintage clothing, so a good time could be had by all parties.

 

Although Saturday had been warm, sunny, and generally lovely, Sunday was a soggy mess that grew messier the closer we got to the city. Pavia is in Lombardy, adjacent to Milan. However, not quite as adjacent as to make life easier for us when we slept through our Pavese train stop and disembarked at one of the lesser-known Milanese railway stops (this is where we encountered Oscar). We had to endure a long wait for a return train (to go only one stop) as well as the mysterious locking of all the bathrooms. We finally emerged from the Pavia train station, several hours behind schedule, to buckets of rainfall and none of the signs Trofie Wife assumed would point us to the famed vintage show. Atop our list of non-vintage-clothing things to see was the Certosa di Pavia, a famous monastery on the outskirts of town. We attempted to find the bus headed in that direction, but after a cold and soggy walk and little success, we hopped into a cab, which dropped us off at the monastery door. Built by the Visconti (an illustrious family including the first Duke of Milan) in the 14th century, it is quite a magnificent site:

In order to see the full campus, you must join a tour, given by a monk (they were originally of the Carthusian order, but the tenants switched hands over the centuries, and today's monks are of the Cistercian order) who has been temporarily released from his vow of silence in order to show you around his pad. Of course, he only spoke Italian, but we were able to pick up a few words here and there and just enjoy the art and architecture (Martello was particularly taken with this monk's vocal stylings, thinking he had a future on the big screen, possibly portraying God). The highlight of the tour was getting to walk through an actual (though currently not in use) monk’s quarters. It included several rooms, outside access, a fireplace, and great closet space; Martello and I tried to assess what it would go for on the New York housing market... .

Just as in Disney World, the tour ends by spitting out visitors directly into the gift shop, where a curiously large collection of monks have been released from their vows of silence in order to hawk the merchandise… . In their lovely gardens, they grow herbs that are mixed into teas for different ailments and preventative care (the one I purchased turned out to be so medicinal as to be undrinkable). They also make beer and license candy, imprinted with the façade of the monastery (as Yogurt wisely said in Spaceballs, “Merchandizing! Merchandizing! Merchandizing!"). Once our shopping was complete, we trudged into the rain in hopes of finding a bus back to the center of town, where we would hopefully find the vintage show. It turned out that the bus didn’t quite run on Sundays. 

With the afternoon fading, and no other transit option seemingly in sight, we tried to find help. After several blocks of fretting, we ultimately walked into a sketchy-looking bar (which Trofie Wife believed to be the seat of a major gambling ring; Martello thought that I was overreacting to a few card tables), where the proprietor gave us the number of a cab company. We sipped caffè while waiting for the taxi, which eventually dropped us right in the center of Pavia. We wandered from duomo to duomo, never quite finding either the famous Romanesque one (but stumbling on the tragic site of a tower collapse at the main cathedral, which killed several people about a decade or so ago) or the vintage show, the impetus for this whole soggy adventure. We returned home, defeated.

Of course after we arrived, Trofie Wife returned to the vintage show Web site which noted that a bus was lined up to take people directly (on the half hour) from the train station to the vintage show, which was located on the outskirts of the city. We saw that bus without knowing what it was. Oh well. Looks like they have a fall edition, should we still be around then…(Martello just can’t wait...).

Baci e gelato,

Martello e Trofie Wife 

The Dampness Won’t Dampen Our Plans and Matzah Milanese

The last weekend of March provided a doozy of a downpour. But rather than stay inside all weekend (well, with the exception of Saturday afternoon), we decided to brave the storm and explore more of Genova and Milano. After buying Martello some pants that actually fit, we treated ourselves to a romantic dinner (a belated Valentine's Day meal, if you will; we're slow) at Enoteca Tiflis, a cavernous wine bar and restaurant that's tucked behind Piazza del Erbe and looks like it stepped out from medieval central casting. Unfortunately, the ambiance bested the meal (there was a weird Asian-spice and kebab thing going on), but the wine Trofie Wife selected (a Sangiovese from the Marché region) was divine.

After dinner we skedaddled home so that we could awake along with Euro Daylight Saving Time and make our way to Milano on the early train. Our main goal was shopping for Passover staples coupled with some sightseeing. Of course, the rain persisted, but we trudged on, easily navigating the Milano metro to reach Eretz, one of the city's kosher grocery stores far from the city center. It was quite small but packed with folks of seemingly various levels of observance greeting each other as they shopped for the upcoming holiday. The store had a good mix of products both familiar and new, with most of them coming from either Israel or France (too many of the Italian products weren't Ashkenazi (Eastern European Jewish)-friendly, sigh...). There were no Streits or Manischewitz products in sight (a welcome change), and Martello was in awe of the kosher salami selection (while I was dubious of the faux, fatty beef proscuitto). We carefully curated a selection of light, non-perishable, and "necessary" items, as we would be forced to lug around everything with us all day. We stopped into the adjacent kosher bakery for a donut (Trofie Wife) and teensy tuna and egg sandwiches (Martello), but Trofie Wife shunned their (non-Lavazza) coffee machine for the output of a proper espresso maker elsewhere.

We made our way back to the city center so we could tour the famed Duomo and imposing Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II. Due to the rain, we didn't scale the Duomo's roof, but we will be back in order to do so. The pictures really speak for themselves, but the Duomo soars into the sky and all the sculpture bedecking it is intricate and impressive.



Within the Galleria, Martello spotted a sign for a beit midrash (Jewish library) curiously situated above a McDonald's (unfortunately, we couldn't get a good shot of them together in one frame).

Our Sunday brunch was eaten at Obikà, a chic mozzarella bar that recently opened its first New York cafe. We had a sampler of three types of buffalo mozzarella, and Martello enjoyed the lighting fixtures while Trofie Wife was fascinated by the automatic kitchen door that opened and closed with perfect timing (we're a couple of simple pleasures).

Obikà is just one eatery within a giant food court situated diagonally behind the Duomo. Security stopped Martello from taking pictures (likely because we'd use them to open our own trendy food court), but among the ridiculously overpriced grocery items was a limited-edition bottle of Bling H20 (sadly, an American product out of LA; the company decorates frosted glass bottles with Swarovski crystals, pumps in purified water, and then sends the crass item to market) decorated in honor of President Obama and priced at 300 euros!

In the afternoon we attempted to attend a Magritte exhibit at Piazza Reale, but it was the last day of the show and the line was hundreds of people long, though you have to give folks a lot of credit for waiting outside in the rain on a long line to see art; I doubt that happens often in the States. We ended the day with a quick stroll through the Brera neighborhood, a bathroom break at the Castello Sforzesco (maybe we'll go back to actually tour the castle next time), and some excellent gelato at La Bottega del Gelato (pignoli ice cream!). Trofie Wife should add that during our Brera stroll we ran into some animal rights activists. I accepted their flier and read and translated it later in the week, learning all the Italian words related to the importance of spaying and neutering a pet (Martello has taken note of my innovative method of learning the language via protest literature). It's funny, because I remember watching an episode of The Dog Whisperer some years back which featured an Italian man and his Standard Boxer who had moved to Southern Florida. Cesar Millan (ha! Sorta like Milan!) explained to the man that the dog really needed to be neutered if he was going to be properly socialized, and the man insisted that it's just not something that's accepted in the machismo Italian culture. I don't recall where in Italy that man was from, but there's definitely a larger movement abreast here to control the domestic animal population (which includes shipping a number of cane randagi (stray dogs) home with me).

Upon boarding the train for home, Trofie Wife realized that we had arrived and were now departing from either Binario 20 or 21 (21 was the infamous platform (its history soon to be chronicled in a station-based museum) from which Italian Jews were shipped to concentration camps during World War II). If it was in fact 21 on which we traveled, oh the irony that it was now being used as a means of transport to kosher for Passover goods!

Baci e gelato,

Martello e Trofie Wife