Florence Undone

Hello Readers!

Christmas Eve

Lots of these

Florence was such a blast.  Half the fun was running around the winding alleys, trying on shoes and drooling over jewelry we could not afford, and eating a LOT of gelato.  One of the unexpected (though not retrospectively surprising) character traits of Florence was the abundance of artistic graffiti!  Between all the ostentatious Christmas decorations, I'm surprised we noticed it at all; after a while, it became a game.

Chalk art

The day of Christmas Eve was certainly interesting: everything was closing early, but because we were staying in the touristy part of town, there were still a lot of people out and about enjoying the strings of lights and the HUGE Christmas trees.

On Christmas Day, Ben and I ventured down to the Great Synagogue of Florence.

I don't think I told you about our Shabbat experience in Paris, so I will do it now and then tell you about the Great Synagogue of Florence.  The synagogue in Paris was really beautiful.  It had high vaulted ceilings with huge columns and incredible stained glass work.  The stone architecture was that of an old European church, but certainly didn't have the feel of a church.  The interesting thing about this particular synagogue was its "salute" to Napoleon Bonaparte.  During the service, one of the men on the bimah (raised floor from which the service is conducted) wears a Napoleonic-shaped hat.  This is because Napoleon gave permission and funds for Parisian Jews to build this beautiful space.  Normally adverse to any type of institution, Napoleon decided that the Jews were better as allies than as enemies -- the Jews never forget, he stated after witnessing the observance of Tisha B'Av (Jewish remembrance day of the destruction of both of the Temples in Jerusalem).  Today, the community is warm and quite an exciting bunch with which to mingle.  However, between French-accented Hebrew, and commentary in French, it was hard to keep pace with what was going on during the service.  Nevertheless, we had a good time.

Great Synagogue of Florence

Community art: vertical cycling!

That was a much different experience from the one we had in Florence.  While this shul had equally impressive architecture and beautiful internal designs, it really served little function other than being a museum and a shell of the past.  The small exhibit there told the history of the Jews in Florence: the area around the synagogue actually used to be a ghetto (a common occurrence in Italy, especially during WWII) and remains the center of what Jewish life is left in Florence (which isn't much).  It wasn't clear, but it seemed that the synagogue only holds services on the High Holidays.  It was Ben who commented that as beautiful as the building was, the fact that it is basically a historical artifact is exactly what Hitler intended.  Fortunately, not all communities are like this, but this is the reality for Florence.

Florence was such a great leg of the trip and I urge you all to go and to soak in all the art, culture, food, etc.!  A Rome post is coming your way soon!