On our second Friday in Italy, we took a class trip to Pisa. Our first stop there was the synagogue. One thing that stuck out about this synagogue was the overall sense of comfort I felt sitting in there. It was small, and felt as though if you prayed there, you would be close with the other members of the Jewish community that prayed there with you.
We then passed by the Leaning Tower, which does in fact lean quite a bit, to make our way to the Jewish cemetery. The cemetery is located outside the city walls because during the time which it was constructed, Jews were not allowed to be buried within the city. The cemetery was very interesting because of how far back the stones dated. It was very apparent that this was a place full of Jewish history. The tombstones themselves were very beautiful and ornate. There was one that had a piano and music notes carved into it, which I believe was the tune of the Hatikvah, although I would not bet money on that being correct. The occupant of the grave however was a musician. I thought that was very cool, most tombstones are boring and don't give any visual representation of what the person was like. Our tour guide at the cemetery also told us an interesting story about one of the older tombstones that had fallen. Apparently, some rabbis came to see the cemetery and thought that it was inappropriate for the tombstone to be the way that it was, and then a few days later it fell. We also did grave rubbings in the cemetery, which was a very different experience, but I am glad that we got to do it.
After leaving the cemetery, we proceeded back to the leaning tower to take the typical "hold the tower up" tourist picture, and then made our way to Amsterdam.
No comments:
Post a Comment