A View from the Top

Before moving to Milan, we had seen some snapshots of the views from our windows but I was worried how I would adapt because I’ve spent most of my adult life in green and leafy urban areas.

Of course, I’ve not spent my days with views of the Alps or Milan’s magnificent Duomo, and I needn’t have been concerned about the trees either.  While many Milan streets do not have trees or grass, ours has both.  The most populous tree is the magnificent plane; its leaves turn yellow and then brown but don't fall off so rapidly.

Our 7th floor apartment is in a predominantly residential neighborhood in a block of apartment buildings.  Exceptions:

* on our side of the wide avenue is a gelateria/bakery/bar/snack shop and barber/hairdresser on the ground floor of the building next door

* across the street is a yellow-brick building that takes up an entire city block and is – so far as we can tell – the Milan headquarters of the Italian air force!

Between us and this well-fortified building covered with some pretty fancy electronics is a double row of chestnut trees that reach at least to our 5th floor.  The park-like esplanade down the center of the street is primarily for dog-walking, a popular Milan activity, and for parking.

The balcony on the back of the apartment faces southwest (the center of town and the Duomo) and offers hints not only of the trees on other streets, but a special view of a neighbor’s balcony garden, a very common sight here in Milan.

 And sunsets . . . 

In the fall, mio marito and I typically take a day in the rural parts of Maryland and Virginia to see the fall colors.  This year, friends joined us and we delighted in the change of seasons at Lake Como instead:  not so many jack o’lanterns but the change of seasons is beautiful in its own way.

Perche? Perche.

Our apartment in Milan is on the top floor of a seven-story building near Piazza Novelli, a traffic circle – or round-about – about a three-mile walk from the Duomo, the center of Milan’s concentric circles.

When we arrived in August, half of the Piazza was under construction; the street is torn up and Jersey barriers re-route traffic in both directions around the other side of the circle.  A huge crane is in the center of the piazza.  High fences obstructed our view, so we couldn’t really understand what was happening.  Some days the noise of construction started at 7 A.M.; other days the silence led us to believe nothing was happening. 

In front of our building, we noticed a sign that was easy to translate:  “Work in Piazza Novelli will cause traffic problems from 9/9/2006 to 1/28/09.”

Since it was already 9/15/10, we laughed when we saw the sign, and a few days later, I photographed it.

Perhaps I was photographed in turn by the closed-circuit cameras, because in yet a few more days, we noticed another sign that had been officially altered:  “Diversions caused by work from 9/9/2006 until ... the work is finished.”

Two days after that, the Jersey barriers were completely reconfigured.  The first half of the roadway around the plaza is still fenced in and mostly inaccessible, and it appears that work is about to begin on the other half of the roadway. 

We have learned from neighbors that a 250-space parking lot has been constructed under the Piazza, which will be a great boon to the neighborhood, where people cram cars everywhere, including on the broad sidewalks.

When will it be finished?  When it’s finished!

Last Friday night, about 7:30, huge pieces of machinery arrived and men started to repave the street in front of our building. We suspected this was about to happen because we saw that the next block had been paved the night before, plus “no parking” signs had been tied to all the posts. Nevertheless, it was a bit of a surprise because our street didn’t need repaving, which was pointed out by a letter to the editor the next morning in the Corriere della Sera.

An American who has lived here for 30 years told me that his favorite word in Italian is perche.  Perche means both “why?” and “because.”  One can have an entire conversation using only this word.  Perche?  Perche.

To market, to market, to market

Our professoressa at Casa Italiana, where we studied Italian before coming to Milan, taught us about “il mercato rionale,” the local neighborhood market. A Roman, she wasn’t sure if Milan had such markets and, if it did, they surely weren’t as good as Roman ones!

So we were delighted to discover that within two miles of our apartment are at least three local markets on three different days of the week. On Mondays, the biggest of the three fills four blocks of a wide street that is closed for the day, plus it spreads its tendrils onto three perpendicular side streets. Most of the stalls sell clothing, from underwear and socks to coats, dresses, purses, scarves and – at this time of the year – sweaters of every shape, size, and color imaginable. The fruit and vegetable vendors are on the side streets, and here and there housewares, tablecloths and curtains, a woodcarver one week. Other than the produce, about 75% of the items are produced in China, including many of the sweaters.

On Tuesdays, two blocks to the west of our apartment, il mercato rionale is devoted to food, with a little clothing, flowers, housewares, and jewelry thrown in. That street is not closed to traffic, but the stalls line both sides of a wide sidewalk on one side of the street.

This is “our” market, and as is the custom, we have found “our” vendor: a lovely woman, patient with my stumbling Italian, whose selection is outstanding. Surely I cannot be faulted, knowing the word for “tomato,” that I do not know the word for cherry tomato, and what we call “Roma” tomatoes (not what they are called here), and all the six different types of tomatoes she has available one week.

And being able to call a tomato by its right name is important, because here – unlike at home – the custom is not to pick your own produce. That is, you stand in line near the scale, you tell the vendor what you want, they get it and bag it and weigh it, and then you tell them the next item. “Our” vendor is patient enough to follow me around the stand so I can point to the item whose name I cannot remember. I’ve also learned the hard way to be very specific about quantity. Mio marito and I can eat 4 tomatoes before they spoil, but not a kilo!

Our market is a neighborhood market, not on the tourist circuit. This past weekend while in Florence we visited Sant’ Ambrogio, which includes a kosher butcher and some stands with extraordinary displays of produce.

At some of D.C.’s markets, vendors are limited to selling only what they grow, but in Italy, the world is the limit so while most of the produce is from one part of Italy or another, there are pomegranates from Israel and dates from Morocco.

The third market we stumbled on one Thursday. I was frustrated because I wanted to prepare chicken with tarragon, dragoncello, and in two supermarkets and three specialty food stores, we had drawn a blank look. As we passed through this street market, I spotted a woman selling literally dozens of teas and spices, including dragoncello. We call this “the market we don’t go to” because unfortunately the produce vendors are very aggressive, following us down the row with their wares and urging us to buy from them.

The first two weeks, we overbought; I felt like I was spending every minute preparing and cooking produce. Worse, I didn’t want to eat out, knowing that food was waiting at home in our small refrigerator!

Now I’ve become more savvy. While I’ve described only a couple of special meals on this blog, we’ve sampled some other restaurants as well, including two Chinese (much more delicate than in the U.S.) and a fine Indian one. A couple of times we’ve picked up pizzas, which are incredibly inexpensive and delicious, and eaten them at home with our own salad.

Probably five days a week, we eat lunch at home, listening to NPR’s “Morning Edition” on WAMU, one of our D.C. public radio stations, over our laptop. And at least five nights a week we prepare our own dinners: pasta with vegetables, salads, chicken breasts – just like home – but with more olives and fresher cheeses.

The Treasures of Casale Monferrato

Last week we had the great pleasure of visiting the Piedmontese town of Casale Monferrato, about 75 miles from Milan.

“Casale,” as it’s called locally, was on our list of “must-see’s,” but it’s relatively difficult to reach without a car, so we were delighted when we were invited to go for the day with friends. The occasion was the 90th anniversary of Keren Hayesod, which was being marked by the “Keren” chapter of Torino with a guided tour of Casale’s synagogue during Sukkot.

(Keren Hayesod is the Hebrew name – used internationally – for what we in the U.S. know as the United Jewish Appeal. Internationally, “Keren” almost exclusively raises funds for Israel; the UJA serves as an umbrella organization in the U.S. that raises money both for Israel and for local programs.)

The Jewish community of Casale dates back to the 15th century; the Encyclopedia Judaica says the first Jews arrived in the 1430s, though other sources says the community was established when the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492.

Only two Jewish families remain in Casale, though at its height, the community numbered more than 1,000. We had the pleasure of being given a guided tour of the synagogue, built in 1592, by Adriana Ottolenghi. She and her husband Dr. Giorgio Ottolenghi, as well as a representative of the other family, were on hand to greet visitors, as apparently they are on most Sundays, special groups notwithstanding, when dozens of tourists visit the synagogue and its museum.

Many people consider the synagogue to be the most beautiful in Europe. Finer photos of it than I could ever take, as well as more information about the Casale Jewish community, are at http://www.casalebraica.org/ENG/MainHome/MainHome.html.  Rabbi Louis Kaplan has written a fine essay about his 2000 visit to the synagogue and includes a history of the Jewish community; you can read it at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0411/is_1_49/ai_61887406/.

The highly embellished Baroque interior is a stark contrast to the nondescript exterior. In accordance with the rules of many European towns and villages, the Jews were allowed to build a synagogue so long as no one knew it was there. The building was not to be distinguished from the outside, nor could music or praying be heard by passersby. That was centuries ago. Today, interestingly, everyone whom we asked for directions sent us the wrong way, not purposely but because they themselves didn’t seem to know how to get there. Even the official tourist information signs were unclear.

The website of the community does not show the charming courtyard where the sukkah appropriately stood next to a pomegranate tree loaded with fruit. On the pavement, the motif was bees, givers of sweetness and light, appropriate to Sukkot as well as other holidays.

Nor does the website do justice to what Mrs. Ottolenghi led us to in the basement of the synagogue complex: dozens of the most creative and picturesque modern Chanukiyot we have ever seen. About 40 were on display out of a collection of more than 100 owned by the community/synagogue/museum. They are about to make their first trip together away from Casale, to the Musee d'Art et d'Histoire du Judaisme in Paris (http://www.mahj.org/en/index.php).

You can see a few of these extraordinary menorahs at http://www.casalebraica.org/ENG/Museums/MusLights/AboutMusLights.html.
They were created by both Jewish and non-Jewish artists out of every material, from BIC pens to sterno cans to silver, crystal, brass, acrylic, film: every possible medium that could represent the unlimited imaginations of the artists. My personal favorite, fashioned from gold-plated wire and wax by Jessica R. Carroll of Rome, replicates the bee motif of the synagogue’s courtyard. Her father, sculptor Robert Carroll, a native of Wisconsin, has carved an eight-branch menorah of olivewood with a brass shamash mounted on an Italian granite base. Celebrate Chanukah early by visiting the website!

* * *
The meal

A day in Piedmont must include, our friends assured us, a typical Piedmontese Sunday lunch, which it was our pleasure to share at Osteria Amarotto in Casale Monferrato.  They should know!  David and Carol Ross, retired U.S. foreign service officers, operate Sophisticated Italy, helping travelers get to know the best of Italy, and they are among the founders of our Milan congregation.

Mio marito and our friends took the prix-fixe menu, which began with a “white meat paté” of chicken and veal; I tasted some and it was superb. That was followed by a small vegetable tart; then tagliatelle in a too-salty broth; then bollito misto. This last dish – a mélange of cuts of beef and veal – boiled together, was served from a rolling cart with several sauces.

I went the à la carte route because I wanted lamb chops, which were tiny and fragrant, and I wanted to try the peperoni bagna cauda after our friends described “bagna cauda” as a hot sauce of olive oil and garlic. Unfortunately they forgot the third major ingredient: anchovies. Mio marito liked it very much, and I was happy with his tartine de verdure. (Lest I seem a picky eater . . . it’s just fish, in most forms, for which I’ve never developed a taste.)

Dessert was two kinds of cake, also akin to patés: one chocolate, one nougat. Heavenly.

Our friends chose a lovely red wine, and for once I drank in mid-day, but only a few sips. I did not want to be sleepy for either the synagogue tour or the promised stop at a cashmere outlet on the way home.

From Milan at last

Last year for our 36th anniversary, mio marito (my husband) and I took White’s Ferry across the Potomac, visited a winery for a tasting, hit the Leesburg Prime Outlets, and had a so-so dinner at a restaurant in a converted bank.

This year, we rode a packed rush-hour bus to Stazione Centrale di Milano and 30 minutes later by train we were in Pavia, a town of 75,000 about 25 miles south of Milan.

Pavia has gone through multiple incarnations since its founding in pre-Roman times.

Like the Tuscan town of San Gimignano, Pavia is known for its towers. These towers are not attached to buildings but are freestanding and were built by individual families as assertions of power and wealth. At some point, more than a hundred existed; now, three dominate the campus of the University of Pavia. On March 17, 1989, the tower next to Pavia’s Duomo suddenly collapsed, killing four people and rendering the Duomo unsafe for habitation. It is now partially remodeled, but the tower will not be rebuilt.

Interspersed among the towers are several churches that we visited, each more fascinating than the next.

+ The Duomo, partially restored, is only half a church for now, wide and shallow with a temporary wall completely blocking 2/3 of the nave, the transept, and all the other parts of the building.

+ S. Maria Incoronata di Canepanova, built about 1500 on the site of a miraculous vision of Mary, contains oil paintings of eight heroines from the Hebrew bible.

+ Chiesa di San Francesco, a stark medieval church started in 1228, two years after the death of St. Francis of Assisi, with its interesting though faded frescoes everywhere, towers and brickwork.

+ The Basilica di San Teodoro, with its magnificent mural of the patron saint of Pavia on what is essentially a pictographic map of the city as it was about 1525 with the remaining towers still identifiable in 2010.

San Teodoro is near the River Ticino in the center of what was once the fishermen’s living area, and the Jewish ghetto backs on to the church. Rabbi Moses da Pavia lived there during the 11th Century, but the community was at its height at the end of the 15th Century. On several occasions, the Jews were ordered to leave the entire Milanese territory but always managed to delay their expulsion; in 1597, their time ran out.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia, “The governor then gave the Jews two months in which to depart. He obliged the poor to leave first, giving them an escort of soldiers and 5,000 florins in gold for the expenses of the journey. The majority left the province of Milan after Easter, and the remainder after Pentecost. But two Jewish families were left in Cremona, Lodi, and Alessandria; in Pavia not one Jew remained.”

+ Finally, we visited San Pietro in Ciel d’Oro, a huge basilica named for the gold leaf that formerly covered its ceiling (a “sky of gold”). San Pietro houses the remains of St. Augustine in a magnificent intricately carved marble altarpiece that is the focal point of attention, and the remains of Boethius in a reliquary in the crypt below the altar.

Both of these early Christian philosophers preoccupied me as a graduate student some 40 years ago. Their writings were the centerpiece of a course I took in medieval literature at the University of Cincinnati with Elizabeth Armstrong, who made all these works alive and (most important in those days, “relevant”). In that crypt I thought about how far we were from the Leesburg outlets and how close I was to what moved me.

* * *

“Tell us about the food,” my correspondents plead.

Our special meal that evening was back in Milan, about a mile from our apartment, at Alla Cucina Economica, a slow-food trattoria near the supermercato we visit every Friday. What we hadn’t noticed is that the theme of the restaurant is Barbie. On each table a Barbie doll sits in a soup bowl with a flower; there were various Barbie environments scattered about the dining room; the bathroom had a pile of bloody Barbies!

Like many small restaurants here, this one had only two choices for antipasti, primi (pasta course) and two for secondi (main course). Unfortunately, the two choices for secondi were pork and octopus; fortunately, the octopus had all been consumed by the lunch crowd and replaced by salmon.

Unfortunately, I am not a fish lover and will eat salmon only under conditions of great hunger and/or at a public dinner. Fred was thrilled with the salmon, which he preceded with a dish of barley in some incredibly rich cheese cream sauce; the chef left off the salami garnish.

I took the high-cholesterol vegetarian road, an extraordinary route. My antipasto was a small slice of onion and cheese quiche: surely the best I’ve ever eaten. My main course was risotto with parmesan and a drizzle of balsamic extract.

For dessert, we shared a white chocolate pane cotta. There are people who go from place to place comparing pane cotta; we had never tried it and were swept away by our first taste.

Austin M. Wright, Wayne C. Booth, and the reliable narrator

Dr. Wright (I could never comfortably call him “Austin”) gave me – and any other students who paid attention – nothing less than a way to look at life, not only literature. His method encouraged inquisitiveness and especially critical thinking, and he showed us, rather than told us, how to enter a narrative from any number of points to determine what exactly was the point – or, rather, points. In a way, he spoiled me, ruined forever my ability to look superficially or non-analytically at a short story, a novel, a movie, a play . . . or life.

The stories we tell help us understand and share our lives. We choose our stories, or they choose us. Then we choose the words to describe what we feel and what we think. Our audience matters. When a friend dies, what we say to the family is shaped by whether we are saying it privately or publishing on the Internet. When we listen to others, we judge not only their choice of words but who they are: what we know of them in as many dimensions as we can access. Can we trust their narration?

Dr. Wright’s undergraduate courses at the University of Cincinnati focused on 20th century literature, primarily by American writers. Our judgment was not to be whether they were “good” or “bad” or “interesting” or “boring.” Rather:
• Were they internally consistent?
• Did character, action, setting, dialogue fit together?
• What did they know and when did they know it (a popular question in those Watergate days)?
• Who was telling the story?
• Were the readers getting the whole story?
• Were there elements of the story that made us question or accept what the storyteller was saying?

Later, I came to understand that Dr. Wright’s approach reflected the application of theories of the “Chicago School” of literary criticism. While a graduate student at the University of Chicago after World War II, he taught at Wright Junior College (my father’s alma mater). Wayne Booth taught at Chicago from 1947 to 1950, left, and returned later. In 1961, Wright published The American Short Story in the Twenties; Booth published his landmark The Rhetoric of Fiction, in which he laid out his vision of the relationship between a text and its reader, including the concept of the reliable narrator.

Years later, I joined the administrative staff of the University of Chicago moving, as I noted to Dr. Wright, from one UC to another. My primary responsibility was describing the financial needs of various academic units. I met Wayne Booth, among many others, as I listened to their stories and chose words to shape compelling narratives. That circle of my life closed but has never ended.

Parashat Emor: Who Will Bless the Priests?

My husband, a Reform rabbi, is retiring after 25 years as senior rabbi of Temple Sinai in Washington. Upon the occasion of his retirement (!), the synagogue’s chapter of Women of Reform Judaism invited me to speak for Sisterhood Shabbat. Here is what I said:

When Sisterhood graciously invited me to speak tonight – and I thank you all for this opportunity – it was pretty clear to me that this week’s Torah portion, Emor, part of the Holiness Code, as it is called, has special relevance for me this Shabbat.

This is because Emor spells out certain rules for the priest and his relationship to his family. And it emphasizes that the community’s expectations for the priest are expectations for his family as well. Significantly, it demonstrates that there are two standards: one for the priest and his family, and a different one for everyone else in the community. The punishment for a priest’s daughter who loses her virginity before marriage is a fiery death, because she brings dishonor on the priest. The conventional death for a woman who commits a sexual indiscretion is just plain old stoning.

The priesthood ended when the Temple was destroyed, and rabbis became our teachers and community leaders. A vestige of the special role of priests, however, was and is that rabbis are viewed – and view themselves – as “symbolic exemplars,” in the words of psychologist and rabbi, Jack Bloom, in his 2002 book, The Rabbi as Symbolic Exemplar: By the Power Invested in Me.

As leaders, they retain some semblance of specialness – holiness – if you will.

Most Jews, whether they are affiliated with a congregation or not – unless they are totally hostile to Judaism and the Jewish community – respect rabbis (or at least they should). Most rabbis, in turn, conduct themselves in ways that earn the respect of the community (or at least they should).

This isn’t something I thought much about as I was growing up, and I never thought about rabbis’ families, until I was part of one. Shortly before I married Fred 36 years ago, we attended a rabbis’ meeting in Atlanta, where the only activities for rabbis’ wives were shopping and a tea and tour of Atlanta.

It was 1973. My former roommate, Sally Priesand, had been ordained but was not married. There were no other women rabbis. It was a million years ago!

Dissatisfied with what I perceived to be a stereotyped program, I urged the Central Conference of American Rabbis to introduce substantive options. In true organizational fashion, the rabbis said, “You want it? You do it.” Fortunately, the sympathetic executive vice president of the CCAR, the late Rabbi Joe Glaser, gave me a little budget and some clerical help.

I surveyed the wives; the results were enthusiastic, and we were off! The first program included Dr. Helen Glueck, a renowned research physician – incidentally married to the president of Hebrew Union College – who talked about Jewish genetic diseases.

It also included several panels of wives speaking frankly about issues that troubled them: from congregants’ unrealistic expectations to rabbis’ lack of time off. We had tapped a deep and overflowing well, and rabbis skipped their own sessions and came to ours.

Wisely, the CCAR established a Task Force on Rabbinic Family Relationships, a hotline, and other resources to help rabbis and their families deal with what so many clearly felt were heavy burdens.

Society evolved, and the Jewish community evolved. It took a longer time and a lot more pain than I can reflect in these few minutes. Most strikingly, as more women entered the rabbinate and the cantorate, the emphasis shifted in many ways. The women rabbis made more of a point of carving out time for their families, and their husbands made it clear they were not going to be judged by the same standards as were rabbis’ wives.

The effect was that finally most congregants became more sensitive to the demands on both female and male rabbis, and in most situations, the concept of judging a rabbi by the behavior of the rabbi’s spouse – or partner – or children – became verboten.

Despite the dramatic changes that women rabbis brought to the profession and the congregations, however, I must report to you that rabbis and their families continue to feel external and internal pressure.

The pressure remains because over the centuries, what has not changed is that we – you and I – set high standards for rabbis, and rabbis set high standards for themselves. Some people want them to be God, or at least God-like. (Some rabbis think they are God, but I would not have married – or reared – one of those!)

We want rabbis to be able to heal us when we are sick, forgive us when we make a terrible error, save our marriage, reconcile us with our children. Though we know on some level they cannot perform miracles, we are disappointed when they do not.

We want them to be without blemish, like the priests in Emor. When a rabbi is less than honest, or deceptive, or engages in behaviors that are ethically or morally wrong – or even a little sketchy – we feel ashamed and betrayed. The stain on them justifiably feels like a stain on us.

There are other expectations, however, that are less dramatic and perhaps a little more common. Let me give you an example.

A couple of years after we moved to Washington, when David was about 7 years old, I took him and two friends to a children’s play at Glen Echo on a Saturday morning and afterward, to lunch at McDonald’s. While I was sitting there having lunch with the children, a woman from our neighborhood came in. “The rebbetzin is eating at McDonald’s on Shabbat!” she announced to the entire restaurant.

“Everybody has to eat somewhere,” I said.

The fact that she, a Conservative Jew, was at McDonald’s on Shabbat was not the issue for her, of course. She clearly expected our family to be different – more observant and holier, perhaps – than hers.

Early in our marriage, I recognized that I would need to find a way to navigate this “holiness gap.”

How do you live a daily life that is exemplary in the significant ways while ensuring that you and your spouse and your family are seen as normal human beings, accessible and approachable and worthy of being good friends?

Some say it cannot be done, but I’ve always believed it can, and Fred and I have been so fortunate to have Essie and the late Gene Lipman as our own examples and predecessors.

First and foremost, it requires a thick skin and a sense of humor.

I also believe that Emor begins to show us a way to bridge this “holiness gap.”

In his Introduction to Leviticus in our Plaut Torah Commentary, Bernard Bamberger comments on the evolution of the role of the priests in Leviticus and in Deuteronomy. Originally, priestly obligations and responsibilities – sacrifices and sanctifying – that is, giving a blessing – were entirely in the hands of the priests.

The Torah, however, is aimed at everyone: the priestly laws are not “professional secrets.” Rather, carrying out the responsibilities incumbent upon priests is an obligation of all the people. While some of God’s instructions in Emor are directed to Aaron, others are directed to all the Israelites.

Explains Bamberger, “The concept of a complete Torah, which all may study who have the will to do so, expresses a new democratic spirit (644).”

The Torah tells us, Bamberger says, and Emor emphasizes, that we are all capable of holiness; we are all responsible for meeting the same high standards – making the same ethical and moral choices – that once were exclusively the obligation of the priests.

A message of Emor, then, is that every individual has the potential to be holy. One attains holiness not by birth – as the priests did – but by engaging in acts of personal and social righteousness. Each of us has the power to be exemplary Jews and human beings and to engage in holy acts.

In other words: we can be the kind of people that we hope and want and expect our rabbis to be:

• We can be students of Torah, not necessarily experts but seekers of meaning and value in our texts.

• We can build a better world by giving ourselves, and our time, to individuals and programs that need us.

• We can always speak positively and never harshly of one another. We can be patient with those who tax our patience, who interrupt us, who cut us off, who don’t listen.

• We can forgive those who find fault with us.

• We can look for and find the good in every person; approach all with an open mind and an open heart and respond to all with compassion.

• We can focus on people’s talents and strengths and help them utilize their abilities for the good of the community.

• We can appreciate the work that people do and the risks they take on our behalf, and show our appreciation.

• We can help others heal by being present for them in times of illness, in times of loss, in times of terror and the darkest nights of the soul.

• We can lead by encouraging and helping others to join us on our sacred journey.

If we can fulfill these mitzvot, as we expect our rabbis and our cantors and their families to fulfill them, then we can bless one another. AMEN.