My Sicilian encounter: coincidence, luck or fate?

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Betsey and I love traveling in Italy. In addition to major cities, we have been privileged to visit many smaller towns and out-of-the-way places. It’s difficult to say, however, what most intrigues us: art, architecture, museums, shops, food, wine, the Italian language, friendly people or Jewish history.

 

Nearly 50 years ago, when I spent part of my junior year of college in Florence, I briefly visited Palermo and its environs, but Betsey and I were eager to learn much more about Sicily. In October we spent 10 delightful days exploring much of this fertile island, stopping frequently for glorious views, extraordinary meals and spontaneous conversations with strangers. 

We visited such ancient Greek archaeological sites as Segesta, Selinunte and Taormina to examine temples, theaters, fortifications and dwellings. We also stopped in Agrigento, a major destination for historians and tourists that overlooks the Mediterranean on the island’s southwestern coast.  

While Betsey was focusing her attention on the Temple of Concord, built in the fifth century B.C.E., I was taking photos of a colossal bronze sculpture of a reclining winged creature.  Igor Mitoraj, a Polish-born artist, made this image of Icarus as recently as 2011. According to Greek mythology, both Icarus and his father, Daedalus, had been Agrigento’s founders.

While I was trying to frame a perfect composition, a woman probably in her 50s greeted me in Italian. When she asked where I was from, I responded in Italian that I was an American. So when she asked which state, I explained that Rhode Island is the smallest. Next, when asked about my city or town, I mentioned Providenza.  She then said that she had visited “this historic and beautiful city” with her daughter, who lives in Framingham, Massachusetts.

When I asked my acquaintance where she lived, she explained that she was a Spaniard. When I asked where in Spain, she answered Mallorca. 

I explained that Betsey and I have always wanted to visit there. Not drawn primarily to its beautiful beaches, we are curious to see the former studio of Joan Miró, the celebrated modern painter, printmaker and sculptor, which is now a museum. Like many tourists, we had visited his museum in Barcelona. I’m also interested in Miró’s Mallorca museum because of its design by Rafael Moneo, the major Spanish architect whose notable American buildings include the Chase Wing of our own RISD Museum.

I presumed that my new Spanish friend, who was traveling alone and presumably had some time to linger, might like to learn about a curious connection between Sicily and Mallorca. Deeply concerned about the legal battle between North America’s two oldest Jewish congregations, New York City’s Shearith Israel and Newport’s Jeshuat Israel, and having written a lengthy article about the history of rimonim for the 2015 issue of “Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes,” I delivered a five-minute lecture. 

Probably only a few specialists in Jewish history recall from Cecil Roth’s history of Italian Jewry (published in 1946) that the world’s oldest surviving pair of rimonim was made in the Sicilian town of Cammarata, not far from Agrigento, probably during the fifth century C.E. Because the Kingdom of Aragón had ruled Sicily since the late 13th century, its 30,000 Sephardim also became victims of the Inquisition. While perhaps a third of them converted to Catholicism, the remainder fled the island.  Only within the past few years has a tiny Jewish congregation, which includes descendants of conversos, been established in a former church in Palermo. But the Aragonese stole Cammarata’s rimonim, and they have resided ever after in Mallorca’s cathedral.

At this point, my new Spanish friend, who surely resembled a Sephardic Jew, asked what I thought was an unnecessary question: “Are you Jewish?” I replied, “Yes, of course.”

“What is your Hebrew name?”   she asked. I attempted to explain that, as a Reform Jew, I had not received one. But I did choose a Hebrew name when I married Betsey in 1983. Having been born in 1948, I quite easily selected Yisrael.

So I asked my friend about her Hebrew name. Although she immediately replied Leah, I did not understand if this was also her “Christian” name. It didn’t seem to matter because I suddenly remarked that Betsey’s maternal grandmother was also Leah.

I thought that if my Spanish friend and I sat down for an hour, or had lunch together, we would discover so much more that unites us. Given that so few Jews live on Mallorca, could she have also been an Israeli? Having visited Israel several times, it’s possible that she and I may have some mutual acquaintances as well as abiding concerns.

Unfortunately, I did not ask my new friend for her full name or her email address or suggest that we could visit again when she returns to Framingham. A few minutes later, when I reunited with Betsey, she was more than angry. She thought that I had gotten lost or, following Icarus’s example, suffered a worse calamity.       

So how did an American Jew and a Spanish Jew, speaking Italian and then English, find each other at one of Sicily’s vast archaeological sites? Why did we feel like  cousins?

Given my curiosity, familiarity with genealogical research, and lack of inhibitions, I may be able to find her again through a connection in Framingham or Mallorca. Meanwhile, thank you, Sicily, or whatever benevolent forces brought us together.

GEORGE GOODWIN of Providence edits Rhode Island Jewish Historical Notes.