Anniversary of Anniversaries Update: 20th Anniversary of the Jewish Museum in Pitigliano, the “Little Jerusalem” of southern Tuscany, Italy

The year 2022 marks the 10th anniversary of Jewish Heritage Europe. The theme of  our  birthday celebrations is the “Anniversary of Anniversaries” — that is, using JHE’s own anniversary to feature other significant or symbolic anniversaries.

We’ve already posted about 2022 being the 400th anniversary of the imposition the ghetto in the stunningly beautiful Tuscan hill town of Pitigliano — now here’s an update: this year also marks the 20th anniversary of the town’s little Jewish museum.

✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎    ✡︎

Located in the historic ghetto area, Pitigliano’s Jewish Museum was founded in 2002 in a complex that includes the synagogue and underground chambers carved into the tufa rock beneath it that once served the Jewish community — these include a mikvah, a matzo bakery, a room to dye textiles, a winery, and a kosher butchery.

The anniversary was marked by a celebratory event November 6 attended by local authorities and other VIPs.

Long known as “La Piccola Gerusalemme” — the “Little Jerusalem” — for its vibrant Jewish past, Pitigliano today has no  Jewish community, aside from individuals. Since the 1990s its long-neglected Jewish heritage has been revitalized both for tourism and education, forming a complex that is one of the Pitigliano’s “must see” attractions.

The complex, including the museum, is managed by the Piccola Gerusalemme Association, which was established in 1996 by two of the few Jews remaining in Pitigliano, Elena Servi, now in her 90s and president of the Association, and her son.

“We were the last Jews in Pitigliano and we felt the responsibility of keeping the memory of the past alive,” local media quoted Elena Servi as saying. “It was an important past: the Jews were present in this town at least from the middle of the 16th century. It was a Jewish community that had everything, from the  hygienic, religious, commercial, social and cultural point of view.” 

These aspects are reflected in the little museum, which has exhibition rooms with displays of (mostly modern) ritual objects, installations, and informational panels, but whose main exhibits are the synagogue and Jewish communal spaces themselves.

Built originally in 1598, the synagogue was abandoned after WW2 and fell into disrepair. An earthquake in the 1960s caused it to collapse almost totally, and for decades it remained a pile of rubble, with only a wall and part of the entrance standing.

The synagogue was rededicated with a gala ceremony in March 1995 following a total reconstruction, financed by the Pitigliano municipality and the European Union, that took nearly ten years to complete. 

“For us, the reconstruction of the synagogue is equal to our culture,” the then-Mayor Augusto Brozzi said at the tme. “The Jewish community here was vibrant and was inserted into our broader community for four centuries. We rebuilt the synagogue in order not to forget the past.”

“Immediately afterward, the rooms beneath the synagogue were restored,” Servi said.

It took a long time but was very well done. Even the matzo oven, which functioned until 1939 and was then abandoned, was restored, along with the butchery and the mikvah. I remember that one day I expressed gratitude to the Municipality for all this; [the cultural assessor] responded that the Municipality had carried out the rebuilding, but we with the work of the Association had restored life to these places.

Read about Jewish heritage (in English) and the Jewish Museum complex on the Pitigliano web site

La Piccola Gerusalemme web site

Read our Anniversary of Anniversaries article about the Pitigliano Ghetto and local Jewish history