Hanukkah Candle-Lighting Ceremony Held at Former Prison in Italy
Image by Shavei Israeli – Facebook
A Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony was held in the Steri Palace Prison in Palermo in Italy, which served as a prison during the Spanish Inquisition.
The candle lighting Wednesday was sponsored by the Shavei Israel organization and led by Rabbi Pinchas Punturello, the organization’s emissary to the Bnei Anousim, or Crypto-Jews, in southern Italy and Sicily. Italian Jewish leaders and about 100 Bnei Anousim from the Palermo area attended the event, according to Shavei Israel.
The organization seeks to bring descendants of hidden Jews back to their roots.
“For 200 years, Jews were tortured within the palace’s walls, and many were then burned at the stake by the Inquisition for secretly practicing Judaism,” said Michael Freund, Shavei Israel’s founder and chairman. “In the place where the darkness of the Inquisition once predominated, the flicker of our Hanukkah candles now prevails.”
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
