Guided tour to the Jewish Cemetery in via Don Aldo Mei

Weekly visits to Jewish cemeteries continue, thanks to the Livorno Jewish Community and Amaranta Services. On Sunday, May 26 at 11 guided tour of the Jewish Cemetery in via Don Aldo Mei.
This cemetery located along the Cigna stream, behind the municipal cemetery, offers a real journey through time, on the history of Livorno and beyond. It houses the burials of the first Jews who came to Livorno thanks to the Livornine, the great rabbis of the 1700s, the tombs of the Garibaldini, the chapels of the great families who contributed to the prosperity of the port of Livorno. On the walls of the mortuary chamber stand the names of those who died during the First World War, alongside the dead killed in extermination camps, a tribute to Rabbi Bruno Polacco, and one to Amedeo Modigliani. Here rest Roberto Menasci, Provedditore of Livorno studies, dismissed with racist laws, organizer of the clandestine school on via Micali, Guido Menasci, professor at the Naval Academy, librettist with Targioni Tozzetti of Cavalleria Rusticana, Gastone Orefice, journalist at Il Tirreno RAI correspondent from Paris to New York, Isidoro Kahn, Rabbi of Livorno since 1980, Elio Toaf, Chief Rabbi of Rome, loved and appreciated by the Christian community, Frida Misul, a survivor of the extermination camps, author of a diary of great historical and human value; her humanity has been appreciated by many students in Livorno schools who had the opportunity to meet her. Here lies Flaminio Modigliani, Amedeo’s father, a Roman Jew who came to Livorno with his father from Rome after the fall of the Roman Republic.

A place of the soul, strongly identity-oriented, reflecting the history of a dynamic, multicultural city, a crossroads of cultures and exchanges. Walking among the tombstones, we find familiar names, linked to our toponymy, to commercial activities that were once thriving in Livorno, to the cultural, artistic and religious world of Jewish Livorno.