The Jewish pizza and Black Lives Matter

Like everyone on social media, I have my share of trolls; people who follow me on Twitter to let me know what a despicable person I am. Or more often than not, to report me to some kind of authority. They write that my Rabbinate is a shame for Reform Judaism and are keen to let me know that that I have stolen the job from someone else, more worthy, perhaps local. Some weeks ago they went all out, with the usual smirks, after it became public that a scholar may have found a mention of pizza in some ancient Hebrew text. The existence of a Jewish pizza and the combining of Italian and Jewish element was probably bizarre for their sensitivity. Real Jews are only Ashkenazi and eat only bagels, you know… If only they tried to look beyond the poster of the homophobic mass murderers, which no doubt adorns the walls of their bedrooms, you know: Che Guevara… they would learn that a Jewish pizza, indeed, does exist.

Just take a walk in Rome, stop by at Portico d’Ottavia, the heart of the Jewish quarter, where Rome Jews meet and socialise: where Rome Jews organised resistance against the Fascists in the 50s and against the provocations of the anti-Zionists in the 90s. Look for the kosher bakery (follow the smell!). Pop in (warning: it’s closed on Shabbat). And ask for pizza de beridde. Beridde means Brit, as in Bris Milah. And pizza means, well, pizza. In this case, the Jewish pizza. A delicious cookie, enriched with candies and dried fruit, usually served for simchas such as indeed Brit Milahs.

You’ll probably have to find your way in a crowd of tourists, because the Ghetto, the Jewish neighbourhood in Rome, has become a tourist attraction over the last 20 years, together with many synagogues all around the Italian Peninsula. Not only that: Italian Jewish history is now acknowledged as part of the general Italian culture.

It used to be that Jews were conspicuously absent from school textbooks, apart from being mentioned before Jesus and in relation to the Holocaust. Not anymore.

Over the last few decades, Italian and Israeli scholars have done impressive researches. Now Italians know if there is a synagogue in their town, are familiar with kosher food, and are also aware of the two thousand years of history of their Jewish co-citizens. To be sure, such a history includes dark pages: pogroms and expulsions, instigated by Franciscan preachers; segregation in ghettoes; centuries of existence as second class citizens; and the Fascist persecutions. Those seemingly enlightened duchies and sovereigns, who had opened and subsidised charitable institutions (for the Christians), gave their names to so many hospitals and alms-houses. But they also had the nasty habit, sometimes, of expelling the Jews from their dominions in order to pocket the money that Jewish moneylenders happened to have at disposal.

When you walk around the ancient building of some Italian Universities, you have to pass in front of the portrait of some academic who had been a Fascist and a racist. Someone who had benefitted from the expulsion of Jewish colleagues during Fascism. Perhaps, Italy being Italy, his son or grandson has since become Chair of something in the same University, and is now a Communist. Which means unleashing against Israel and Liberal Democracy the same empty rhetoric that their Fascist forefathers unleashed against the Jews, and Democracy.

How often, in my academic years, have I had the desire to deface the bust of Agostino Gemelli, a psychologist, but also a rabid anti-Semite? There is a hospital in Rome named after him. Or at least to put a note under the portrait of Amintore Fanfani, a valuable scholar of economic history, who after the war became a prominent politician. As a politician, he built an impressive number of council houses but as a young academic he published horrendous anti-Semitic propaganda. He was a filthy anti-Semite as a young academic. And what a coincidence, as a politician in the 60s he led a pro-Arab caucus in the Italian Parliament.

And so, last Sunday, I followed with some morbid fascination the end of the monument to Edward Colston, which I learnt from Wikipedia that he was a “slave trader and philanthropist”. I could laugh but as I said I am familiar with an expression such as “benefactor and anti-Semite”. I understand that all the previous attempts to move the statue into the slavery museum, or at least to amend the inscription at its base, had been delayed or for some mysterious reason never carried out. I must say that I really, really understand the frustration of the citizens of Bristol who are rightly ashamed of the past of their city. My guts say that Edward Colston does not deserve any honour.

But then I wonder. Abolishing the honour, throwing the statue into the sea… is it going to change anything? Is racism less virulent, or less threatening, as a consequence of the eradication of that statue? Hardly. We could, perhaps, eradicate all the statues and monuments tinged with racism. By the way, the Royal Sussex Regiment, whose roots are here in Brighton, was active during the Boer War and massively present during the Mandate, then Palestine. Not the most glorious pages of British military history. And those soldiers and officers are honoured with monuments all along the wonderful coast of Sussex. What can we do? Shall we go from memorial to memorial to put plaques and amend inscriptions, so that passers-by will know that this soldier of this regiment mounted guard while children starved to death in South Africa, or Jewish refugees were sent back to Germany to die? Perhaps we should. But I fail to see what benefit we are going to achieve.

Let me mention once again Italy, the land of Jewish pizza, Jewish tourism and that Jewish history that eventually became part of the national curriculum. And now I ask: how much African history do we know? I must admit, speaking for myself, very little. The little I ventured to learn about was about Ethiopia, and that was because it was an Italian colony, theatre of horrendous war operations, its wealth depredated is now in some Italian museum, to be studied by Italian academics (white). At least some of the sons of the Ethiopian and Somali women raped by Italian soldiers have reluctantly been granted of Italian citizenship.

But apart from that, what do I know, what I have been taught about the African Empires, their highly sophisticated administration, the cities with thousands of inhabitants. Yes, I know about a Jewish community here or there or a Jewish traveller who had visited this or that African city. But I did not learn at school which kind of sophisticated civilisations had been destroyed by Islamic and Christian slavery, for the benefit of people like Edward Colton. I was not taught about it. And British students are still not taught about these pages of history. I had a look at the national curriculum. It includes “world history and its interconnections with other world developments” and China and India are mentioned. Africa is absent.

Make no mistake. The assumption that Africa is a place without civilisation, without history is a prejudice, is racist and it is wrong. If you entertain such an idea, you end up accepting that Africans are savages, uncivilised and not like us. And you probably begin to accept that slavery was inevitable (after all they were not civilised) or justifiable.

I still have mixed feelings regarding the fate of the monument to Edward Colson. The story seems very similar to those from the American South: City Councils have democratically decided to remove the monuments to Confederate so-called heroes. Those monuments, by the way, were not erected after the War, to honour the fallen, which would be understandable, but they were put in place some decades after the end of the war, as a warning and threats to the Black community. And when eventually those communities decided to get rid of the monuments, countless bureaucratic obstacles were raised, and you can easily see the family of the memorialised slave owner, or the administrators of his estate at work. I don’t know whether this is the case for Bristol, but I would not be surprised if it was. For this reason, I hope that investigations will be carried out regarding what happened on Sunday and how we got there.

So, I’m sorry, if you ask for my opinion you’ve had to accept the very Jewish and very Rabbinic “it’s complicated!”. I really cannot say anymore. But I am a Jew and I believe in education. I am a Rabbi and I know that Judaism has many things to teach. I come from Italy, land of the Jewish pizza (hello, racist trolls!) and where the national curriculum now includes Jewish history. I want my children to grow up in a multicultural Country. I want to live in a society which is not racist anymore, whose leaders are aware of racist tendencies and can, really can, make things better. It’s my hope, and I hope it’s yours too.

Shabbat Shalom. Keep the candle burning.

Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue, 13 June 2020

Originally published at https://www.facebook.com.