AN ACCIDENTAL BARMITZVAH

ALIWAL
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AN ACCIDENTAL BARMITZVAH


Early in 2002, our daughter, who was then almost seven years old, was highly impressed by a photograph of somewhere in Venice. Her instant reaction was to ask us to take her there. As she was taking swimming lessons at that time we said that we would take her when she had learnt how to swim (in case she fell into a canal). Within a couple of months, she had become a competent little swimmer. She learnt much faster than I did. At her age I would have been reluctant to even consider entering a swimming pool.
When I was a child, my parents took us, my sister and me, to Venice every year until I reached my late teens, which is when I began travelling without the rest of my family. Many years later, in 1982, my friend - and many years later she became my wife - and I spent a few days in Venice. It was during the Falkland’s Crisis, and I remember standing near the Accademia Bridge having an argument with my future wife about the rights and wrongs of the war being waged by the British and the Argentineans. Luckily, we eventually became reconciled to our opposing points of view, and agreed to differ.
Twenty years later, we flew into TrevisoAirport, near Venice, along with our seven year old daughter.
We had rented an apartment near to the Cannareggio sestiere (Venice like some other Italian towns is divided into six districts or boroughs known as ‘sestiere’). It was within walking distance of the railway station and also close to the Ghetto, which was once the quarter of the city in which there were iron foundries and also where Jews were permitted to live. The word ‘ghetto’ is most likely derived from a Venetian word meaning the waste slag produced by iron foundries. The Ghetto Vecchio (old ghetto) is actually newer than the Ghetto Nuovo (new ghetto), which it borders.  The Jews of Venice were required to live in these districts of Venice, and nowhere else. The modern word ‘ghetto’ is derived from the Venetian term. 
When I used to visit Venicewith my parents, we occasionally visited the Ghetto district. This was not because of any sense religious attachment. It was for art historical reasons.

Continued on : http://yameyamey.blogspot.co.uk/2012/...