Sicily, Italy – Billed as an historic and first of its kind, Rabbi Pinhas Punturello, emissary for the Shavei Israel organization, held a Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony Wednesday at the Steri prison in Palermo, Sicily. The prison served as headquarters of the Spanish Inquisition between 1601 and 1782.
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Participants of the inaugural ceremony included Professor Roberto La Galla, Chancellor of Palermo University, faculty members and about 100 Bnei Anousim who reside in Sicily.
Bnei Anousim are the descendants of Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity under the Inquisition’s reign. Many of them secretly remained tied to their Jewish roots and passed down their faith to future generations.
“Hundreds of years after the Steri prison palace operated to put out the light of Israel, we came here today to show that the Jewish flame continues to burn,” said Michael Freund, founder and chairman of Shavei Israel, which works to bring the Bnei Anousim back to the Jewish fold. ”For 200 years, Jews were tortured within the walls of the palace, and many of them were burned at the stake by the Inquisition for secretly maintaining their Judaism. And that is why this event is not only historic – it is also symbolic, in that the light of the Hanukkah candles has come to the place where the Inquisition’s darkness once ruled.”
Freund said that there are still graffiti inscriptions on the walls of the prison’s solitary confinement cells, among them two written in Hebrew letters.
Persecution of Jews in Sicily came to a head in 1492, when the Jews of Spain and Sicily were banished by force. Approximately 37,000 Jews living on the island at that time were expelled or forced to convert to Christianity.
Never Again.
At my job not long ago, one of my co-workers always seemed to be “cooking” about something when in my presence (I am standard-issue Jewish religious male with yarmulke, beard & peyos, tzitzith and savor panim yofes). One day he confided that in his family which is from Sicily there is a tradition that they are descended from Jews. I gave him some Jewish reading material. Soon after, he left the company so I do not know if he has been motivated to follow-up in any way yet.
They really shouldn’t call it the “Spanish Inquisition” because that de-emphasizes the magnitude of the persecution. The Inquisition was active in Spain, Portugal, Italy and throughout the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the Americas, including territories now part of the U.S. (New Mexico, especially). BTW, it still formally exists in its current name of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (changed from the Sacred Congregation of the Universal Inquisition). Pope-emeritus Benedict was the head of the Congregation.