Waar de zon de sneeuw raakt

Mélissa Da Costa

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Behind the Gates: My Modern Journey in the Footsteps of Benjamin of Tudela

In the 12th century, a rabbi from the Kingdom of Navarre set out on an extraordinary odyssey. Benjamin of Tudela, merchant, scholar, and intrepid traveler, wandered from Spain across the Mediterranean and deep into the Levant and beyond, meticulously recording the Jewish communities he encountered—their size, their leaders, their trades, their synagogues. His Sefer Masa'ot became one of the most vital snapshots of medieval Jewish life, a luminous map of the Diaspora just before the shadows of enclosure began to fall.
Nine centuries later, I have followed in his spirit. Like Benjamin, I have traveled from city to city, seeking the living echoes of those communities he described. But where his chronicle captured Jews living openly in urban quarters—synagogues visible, scholars debating in the streets, merchants haggling in markets—my own pilgrimage has focused on the next fateful chapter: the era of the ghetto. I have walked through the Jewish quarters of Europe, concentrating on the 22 most significant Italian ghettos, witnessing their stories firsthand—their architecture of confinement, their hidden splendor, their resilient cultures, and above all, their cuisines born of necessity and ingenuity.
This book, Behind the Gates, is that modern journey. It begins where the word itself was born: Venice, the first lock, where the clang of gates in 1516 transformed an open community into the prototype of segregation. From there, the path winds through scholarly Padua with its whispering walls, preserved Verona's perfect tragic stage, Mantua's musical green rooms, Ferrara's cruel double gate, Modena's chilling geometric chessboard, Bologna's haunting phantom absence, Florence's defiant dome rising from confinement, the subterranean Jerusalem of Pitigliano, the hidden jewel of Casale Monferrato, and Turin—the last ghetto built, a modern prison of rational design.
Yet my voyage did not stop at the most famous names. In Benjamin's footsteps, I sought out lesser-known crucibles: the steep secret incline of Siena, the port of no walls in Livorno, the stone stage of Pesaro, the Baroque veils of Lecce, the ancient mikveh depths of Siracusa, the lost Giudecca of Palermo, and more—twenty-one in all, each a distinct chapter of enclosure and endurance.
In every place, I have tasted the living legacy. From Rome's eternal pressure-cooked carciofi alla giudia—crisp leaves shattering to reveal tender hearts, fried in oil that sizzles like whispered defiance—to the pepper-spiced pampapato of Ferrara, the goose salami of Mortara and Modena, the sweet eviction sticks (sfratti) of Pitigliano and Sorano, the etrog-perfumed harvests of Calabria's Riviera dei Cedri, and the fiery brodetto of Ancona and Trieste. These flavors—sweet-sour balances for preservation, fried vegetables elevated to art, goose replacing forbidden pork, citrus linking ritual to land—are not mere recipes; they are acts of cultural persistence, forged in cramped kitchens and hidden courtyards, passed down through centuries of gates and expulsions.
Behind the Gates is a continuation and deepening of Benjamin of Tudela's map. Where he recorded open, vibrant communities, I have traced how those same worlds were compressed by walls—physical, legal, and social—yet produced extraordinary expressions of identity. From the first conceptual lock to the final industrial abyss at Fossoli, this is an itinerary of resilience: how confinement shaped scholarship, art, music, dialect, and above all, cuisine. It is a journey through time that honors the endurance of spirit against oppression, proving that even behind the highest gates, Jewish life in Italy found ways to breathe, create, and sweeten the bitter with unforgettable flavor.
This book is my witness to that story—twenty-one ghettos walked, tasted, and remembered—so the gates may never fully close again.

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