Sights & Sounds of Italian Jewish Culture. By Uncle Monty.

Sights & Sounds of Italian Jewish Culture.

Story By Uncle Monty.

Synagogue Photos By Alex Albion.

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Even their own fellow Jews got searched for weapons upon
entering Milan’s old Heichal David u-Mordechai Sinagoga

Centrale -at the opening of The European Day of Jewish

Culture that was also cast against the disconcerting back-

ground of Italian military soldiers patrolling the nearby

streets with their deadly submachine guns and the armed

Carabinieri. Such then was the visible tight security,

while plainclothes cops presumably scrunitized one and all

who, like me, wanted the rare opportunity of experiencing

first hand some of the sights and sounds of Italian Jewish

Culture inside Milan’s central synagogue.

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Gathering of Jews and Gentiles inside Milan Synagogue.

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I wasn’t disappointed, even with my inward personal

apprehension that perhaps someone might decide to pull

the deadly tigger of their machine gun or a deranged

person decide to come to commit an heinous crime in the

name of anti-semitism or out of extreme political idealogy.
One never quite knows when some one may just act out

against those who they detest or hate for some irrational

or pathological reason or another of their own extreme

religious or radical political thinking and self-making.
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Panoramic View of Milan Sinagogue From Upper Balcony.

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Fortunately for all, everything at the old Milano Synagogue

when off without the slightest hitch or any ugly incident or

any hint of anything untowards. So, I relished the personal

experience of mine with our Italian Jewish friends who I so

much liked. They couldn’t have been more welcoming once

one was actually inside the Rabbinical House of Worship. I

don’t think even my own Anglican Church is as welcoming

to new strangers as I found toward me inside the historic

Sinagoga Centrale di Heichal David u-Mordechai -at

where hundreds of Jews and Gentiles shared a day to-

gether and so pleasantly on equal terms with each other.

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Inside Milan's Central Synagogue.

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As a Gentile and as an avid Anglican, not only did I feel privileged to enter the synagogue, but I also felt entirely comfy and almost at home. I must say, however, that whenever I have visited Islamic Mosques, which I have inside Iran, Morocco, Europe, and America, I have always felt abit at ill-ease no matter how hard I try to feel otherwise. Not that in all fairness did anything happen inside the mosques in anyway to me personally as a visiting Christian. No sir, I was treated with utter courtesy and consideration I must say, except at Casablanca at where I was actually thrown out of a Muslim cemetery for being a visiting "Infidel" and non-Islamic!! They screamed at me like blue murder!! Oh, boy!! Otherwise, all has been, might I say, “rather kosher” with Islam even with some personal and religious unease of mine. As for the Jews and their synagogues, not once have I felt such ill things with them. Actually and ironically, I feel at times I am almost closer to them than with my own faith and fellow Gentiles for reasons I cannot explain nor do I want to!! Especially, when at one time in my then younger life I wasn't exactly pro-Jewish like I am today in my much older life ... My dear and long dead friend Frank Oppenheimer gentlely helped me to change my then negative views about Jews. Glad he did!!
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^ Memorial Corner Inside Milan Synagogue.
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Glimpses of Jewish religious life are best seen inside the synagogue it seems to me. Catching some of the sights and sounds of Italian Jewish culture was my aim in visiting, although for a Gentile like me I am not privy to the inner family life and time-proven social and faith rituals of our Jewish friends. But that is not dissimilar to other religious groups in which those who do not belong by birth or creed or membership as excluded or discouraged from getting too close by those who do belong. Jews cannot afford to unguard themselves from those Gentiles who by history and religion have persecuted them like so many of my fellow Christians have long before the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Tread very carefully then to be sure that words written and spoken do not offend our friends of the Jewish faith!

I would like to see, by the way, as a Gentile, a Bar Mitzvah and to witness a Jewish wedding that is called "Kiddushin" in Hebrew. Perhaps one day. Although I have visited Jewish cemeteries in America and Morocco, I have never attended a Jewish burial service. This reminds me of last week's sad death of Shelia Aaron's beloved Jewish son Brian. I told Shelia that I would say a little prayer for Brian and for her sad loss of him. She was so grateful for my condolences, too. I would have so wished to attend Brian's funeral had I known in time. Such would then have been my first experience of a Yiddish funeral.

.=. ^ Milan folks waiting to visit synagogue on
Giornata Europea Della Ebraica, 2oo9.
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I entered the Milan synagogue on the Christian Sabbath with the Jewish Sabbath having taken place the day before on Saturday. Let me add for you a few interesting facts about Judaism:
“Judaism is an Abrahamic religion -- a faith which recognizes Abraham as a Patriarch. Others include Christianity Islam, and the Baha'i Faith. Although Jews comprise only about 0.2% of the human race, Jewish influence on the world has been vast -- far more than their numbers would indicate. http://www.religioustolerance.org/main_day.htm

“The Jewish people were the first people to organize their life around the weekly cycle. They justified the seven day week on the basis of the verse from the Book of Genesis, where it is stated that G-d created the world in six days and on the seventh day He rested. While in captivity in Babylonia, the Jews began a strict observance of Shabbat, or the Sabbath, which is the period of rest on the seventh day. Since the exiled Jews in Babylonia were unable to pray in their Temple in Jerusalem, it having been destroyed by the Babylonians when they conquered the Kingdom of Judah in 587 B.C.E. or 586 B.C.E., and deporting most of the Jews to Babylonia, the Jews created in time what they lost in space: giving the seventh day of the week (Saturday) to G-d in the form of Shabbat, or the Sabbath. In fact, Shabbat is so holy to the Jewish people that in the Jewish calendar, the days are designated by their position in relation to Shabbat I.E. the sixth day before Shabbat, the fifth day before Shabbat, and so on. Exodus 20:8-11 reflects how the week is deeply embedded in Biblical tradition. The "day of rest", the seventh day, is in fact part of the 10 Commandments: "Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor, and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the L-rd thy G-d; in it thou shalt not do any work... For in six days the L-rd made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested on the seventh day: wherefore the L-rd blessed the Sabbath day, and hallowed it". (Exodus 20:8-11),.” Source: Elimelech David Ha-Levi Website.

Let me say in closing, my day at the Milan Synagogue was wonderful!!

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Uncle Monty with 3 Rabbinical candidates at Sinagoga Milano. .=.

Then there is the Rosh Hashanah pilgrimage:

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/rpSlideshows?articleId=USRTR2848T#a

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US rabbis urged to focus on ethics for high holy days.

In an unusual move, a group of influential Orthodox Jewish leaders has written a letter urging American rabbis to speak during the 2009 High Holidays on the importance of ethical living, in response to some recent high-profile arrests of Jews, including two NewJersey rabbis in July. In the 3 September letter sent to about 2000 rabbis throughout the United States, the leaders of Yeshiva University, the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America cited "the recent scenes of religious Jews being led off in handcuffs, charged with corruption, money laundering, and even organ trafficking". Ecumenical News International (ENI) and Religion News Service(RNS). Sept. 22nd, 2oo9.
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Enscribed By Hebrew Calligraphy.

Updated: Ecumenical News International. 28 September 2009.

Israel rabbis' group seeks forgiveness for behaviour to Palestinians. Jerusalem (ENI). The head of the Israel-based Rabbis for Human Rights group has urged Jews to reflect on the way in which they deal with those those outside their faith and to ask for the forgiveness of God about mistreating people in the name of Judaism. "The way we treat non-Jews reflects on our God and our religion," Rabbi Arik Ascherman, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights, told Ecumenical News International. "And to mistreat people in the name of Judaism defames and desecrate God's name." [ENI-09-0771]

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Honestly, Uncle Monty.
+YOM KIPPUR, Sept. 27th-28th, 2oo9.
The Holiest High Holiday of The Jewish Faith.
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Perhaps one or two congregants will fast on Yom Kippur.
By Rabbi William Wolff.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article6849931.ece

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The VICIOUS ARREST OF ROMAN POLANSKI. By Uncle Monty. Surely this U.S. warrant for Roman Polanski after more than 30 years is a vicious one that the Swiss police should reject without any further ado? And the cunning of it all by the California prosecutor is disgusting! It is time to let him go free, I think. But no, the Americans are always unforgiving to those that cross them like Polanski seems to have done no matter whether he is innocent or not. Over 1 million bench warrants alone are outstanding just in Houston-Dallas, TX. Nationwide, the US is believed to have over 5 million of such warrants for their own citizens and for folks from abroad. The French should be mad not just at the Swiss, but at the American criminal justice system that is so unjust that the US imprisons more than 2 million prisoners and some 400,000 foreigners from almost every nation in the world. Let Mr. Polanski now become free and not a fugitive for some prosecutor to live in glory of his capture in Switzerland and that is now so far away in time and space from California and his then alleged crime of more than 30 years ago ... Forgive and forget, is what I say. (My comments herein are also published in today's timesonline.co.uk, independent.co.uk and Reuter's blog. Sept. 28th, 2oo9.)

UPDATED 30/9/9: Harvey Weinstein: Polanski has served his time and must be freed. It's a shocking way to treat a man who went through the Holocaust and his wife's murder. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/harvey-weinstein-polanski-has-served-his-time-and-must-be-freed-1794699.html

Question in Polanski Arrest: Why Now? By Michael Cieply & David Jolly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/movies/29polanski.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

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THE HUNT FOR ROMAN POLANSKI. By David Gritten.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/6240914/The-hunt-for-Roman-Polanski.html

Polanski arrested as he steps off plane at Swiss airport.
Disbelief after director held on warrant issued by American court 31 years ago.
By Geoffrey MacNab in Zurich.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/polanski-arrested-as-he-steps--off-plane-at-swiss-airport-1794249.html

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