Fading Jewish Italian identity not helped by Israel
From prosciutto in Florence to hummus in Abu Ghosh - And back

A young Italian Jew comes to Israel, picks up the language, witnesses a terror attack, meets a sabra girl, enlists in the army - and stops worrying about being a Jew

By Shulim Vogelmann
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/851695.html
Mon., April 23, 2007 Iyyar 5, 5767

I open my eyes and the hot sun is flooding the room, as a lovely spring day wishes me good morning. I get out of bed and walk over to open the window. A crisp breeze washes my face and the view warms my heart.

I lean on the windowsill and take up the position of a lecturer. It is no lecture that emerges from my mouth, though, but a satisfied sigh and deep breaths. Across from me is the greenish dome of the synagogue, standing like a mosque in the middle of the quarter. A Sunday of reading and lounging on the sofa awaits, seasoned with a light meal and a short walk to get some air. On my way to the shower, I press the play button on the stereo and a clear female voice takes over the entire apartment. The words penetrate my veins, my soul, and under the flowing water I sing with her: "I lived among you like a wild plant."

From Florence, I fly 10 years back, and longer still, on the wings of my longings. I was born on September 20, 1978, in a hospital in Florence. A few more children came into the world in the same place on that day, but I was almost certainly the only Jew born in the city. I was apparently the only one whose picture was published in the paper, just because he was born. True, it was an insignificant newspaper of the 900-member Jewish community, but all the same - a picture in the paper.

I studied at a Jewish school only until age 10, and then they decided to shut it down because of a shortage of students. We, the students of the sole, and last, class of the school, numbered eight in total. There were only three girls among us. At the gate of my new school, a public school, a stream of girls my age, smiling, passed before me. I couldn't believe my eyes. And as soon as I walked through the gate after them, I left the world in which I had previously been imprisoned, the world of the Jewish community, and found myself surrounded by non-Jewish friends.

At that point, Judaism was a private matter that I tried to keep to myself. I had no desire to reveal it, because I didn't want to feel different from the others, and I really didn't want to find myself the center of attention. And I certainly did not want to become entangled in a thicket of questions, which would inevitably end up with my being forced to talk about my grandfather and the Holocaust.

But you can't stay hidden in Italy with a name like Shulim Vogelmann. I simply had no choice. Every time a question on the subject came up, I would answer the following way, in the hope that my response would not lead to additional inquiries: "I'm Italian just like you, but just as you're Christian, my religion is Judaism." And between the words, images of the Holocaust appeared in my imagination, along with thoughts of my grandfather who survived, and from whom all I have left is his name.

This is what my life as a Jew in the Diaspora was like: a lot of thoughts about the Holocaust, which did not find their way out. I felt that the subject was personal and that there was no one for me to talk to about it, no one who would respond, no one among my friends who would identify. What remained was the nagging presence of one thought: Stay Jewish, because few Jews are left.

But beyond this aspiration of survival, elementary and existential, I didn't know how to explain to myself why it was so important for me to be concerned about my Jewishness. Aside from the meaningless prayers on Yom Kippur and the exhausting Passover seder, I had no decisive reason to cling to our forefathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (and our foremothers, of course). On the contrary, there were reasons to feel dispirited - like the prohibition on eating pig products, the last trace of religious observance that remained in my family. It wasn't easy seeing my friends fill up on prosciutto while my stomach stayed empty.

One bag and a lot of curiosity

Only once did I manage to taste what was then the secret fantasy of my palate. At the birthday party of a Jewish friend I saw a roll with pink meat peeking out. I couldn't imagine that in a Jewish home it would be permissible to eat pig products. It must be salmon, I said to myself. After one bite I realized that something wasn't right here, but as a fervent Jew I saw fit to eat another eight sandwiches, in order to judge whether they really contained non-kosher meat. I strayed from the path that one time, but an incomprehensible, yet utterly clear, thought had clung on all along: I am like others, but also a little bit different.

When I finished high school, I was overtaken by a strong desire to go on a trip instead of heading straight to university. But where? It seemed that the huge picture of the Western Wall that hung in the hallway of my parents' home had influenced me more than I imagined. Certainly it was accompanied by many other signs, sentences that were said and forgotten, and dormant aspirations waiting to rise. All these contributed to the fact that my direction was marked; the writing was on the wall. All that was left for me to do was to decide yes or no. I went on my way.

I landed at Ben-Gurion International Airport in August 1997 with one bag and an invigorated curiosity to discover what it was all about: a Jewish state with outstanding weather. A rude taxi driver dropped me off at the entrance to beginner's ulpan (Hebrew study program), and I plunged right into the alphabet and invested a few good years in learning the language. I met a nice sabra girl, planted a tree on a hilltop while wearing a kova tembel (a bucket hat), embraced good friends, and enjoyed sitting in a living room immersed in smoke and speaking Hebrew all night long.

On Holocaust Remembrance Day I stood during the siren, and for the first time in my life I didn't feel alone with the pain of memory, closed off in sadness within a private, tender ceremony. I was among my own people.

I went to university, witnessed a terror attack, and started to think about death. A few months later, I was already used to such thoughts. At night I drank beer and realized that there are also Palestinians and that we're not just victims, but also know how to shoot, for defensive and offensive needs, for good or for bad. Moreover, I internalized the concept that the state is Jewish but that it does not belong to Jews, because Arabs also live in it.

I saw the Israeli movies "Halfon Hill Doesn't Answer" and "Late Summer Blues," I read Sami Michael and Yehoshua Kenaz, I listened to Matti Caspi and Meir Ariel, I pasted a bumper sticker on my car that read "War is gross," and I traveled in the Galilee and became more and more attached to the scenery that hadn't been part of me but is now mine. On Saturdays I drove to Abu Ghosh to eat hummus and felt secular. I also traveled to the Sinai, stepped on a sea urchin, and felt bad.

I wandered around my neighborhood in clogs and joined the army, because without that I won't really be what I want to be. I fired a few bullets and went on weekend leave. The three yellow letters on my uniform shirt did me good, because I knew that my grandfather would have been proud of me. Sometimes I felt that it was a little pathetic, and all the symbols and ideology weighed heavily on me, didn't suit my personality. But I also knew that this was a transition period, that I was young and would have plenty more time to become more moderate or criticize things.

And finally, I ran up to the third flight of the Interior Ministry building. My heart beat with excitement, but the clerk was indifferent. I realized that here I'm not the only one, and no one will put my picture in the paper just because I moved to Israel. Nonetheless, the feeling was one of rebirth. I left the Interior Ministry with a blue identification card whose number I immediately memorized. I felt complete.

Six years had passed since I landed here, and the world that came before is as distant as the memory of childhood. Now I have friends I can speak to about the Jew within me. Now, when I think of Judaism, I no longer see just the Holocaust. I have a language, I have new music, I have new literature, culture, a country with a lot of problems, but also with a future. I even have a soccer team (Hapoel Jerusalem). My old identity has broken off like a dry twig; a new identity was born, and the noise is that of an egg being cracked open.

By the time Hebrew began rolling off my tongue, I finally understood that there was no need to worry about being a Jew as I did then, in the Diaspora, in Florence. There is one place where my Jewish identity and culture are well-preserved, and even though the most active institution in our community is the nursing home, and even though my grandfather was a Holocaust survivor and it was always made clear to me that my fate was to continue the tradition, there's no need to worry too much, because Israel exists. There is a home for Jewish culture and for Jews themselves. It's something that's self-evident and not always appreciated by those born in it - an astonishing fact, and the most precious of all, for those who come from the outside.

After six years of discovery, self-formation and a lot of fun, I returned to Italy. I decided to go back and work in my family's publishing house, which brings out books on Jewish topics. I didn't want this enterprise, a wellspring of Jewish culture, to stop carrying out its important mission. I chose - and the decision was not easy - to be near the publishing and far from Israel. At least, I tell myself, we are also a Zionist enterprise. True, it's a small publishing house, but it will always be home to Jewish books. In order to retain a tighter connection with Israel and with Hebrew, I am editing a series of Israeli books and translating some of them.

Upon my return to Italy, I felt the need to put all the experiences I underwent in Israel into a book. Through writing, I wanted to organize everything within myself, and perhaps explain to others what the State of Israel is and its significance to the Jews. The book is called "Mentre la citta bruciava" ("While the City Burned"). That is a sentence from my grandfather, whom I never knew. But according to my father's stories, every night at dinner, my grandfather would say: "When I write my autobiography, I'll begin it like this: 'I was born on a train while the city burned.'" He never got the chance to write it.

Now I present the book at all kinds of events and in schools. Through my own personal experience, I try to transmit to young people my perspective on Israel's importance as a Jewish state, the only place in which the future of the Jews is assured.

Do they understand? Do they identify and immediately turn into supporters of Israel, despite all the defamation of the state that they have heard from all sides? I have my methods. Readers have asked me many times: Do you feel more Israeli or more Italian? I respond that that's not the right question. Just as man is one, so, too, his identity is one and cannot be divided into parts or weighed.

Think of a blender that is always turning, grinding and whirling. That is what identity is like. It is made of many components that we throw into it day after day, and each of them contributes to the identity, enriches it and turns a person into who he is. In my case, I am an Italian, a Diaspora Jew, an Israeli and many other things. All these contribute to my identity, and I am a mixture; it's that simple.

Other times they ask me: Why did you return to Italy if you had it so good in Israel? And I respond that ideas are in the head, not on the ground. I tell them that now, now that Israel has freed me from the problematic nature of being a Jew and now that I have become convinced that there is no more need to worry about my survival as a Jew, now I feel like a citizen of the world, and only circumstances determine my location.

But inside, something is screeching and I hear a whisper: You little liar! If you didn't love your books so much, you would now be sitting in a garden beneath the Jerusalem sun.

What can you do? Life is luck and choice. Apparently, they won't let me light a torch on Independence Day. I come out of the shower, towel myself down and sing: "I want to go back to my best days..." - in Israel.

The author is a publisher from Florence.

Labels: Aliyah, Assimilation, Italian Jews

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