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Florence yesterday and today has been a chance to rest and walk and catch up. Tonight Shabbat will be with the small Florence liberal synagogue which meets just around the corner from the famous Florence synagogue we attended a few years ago. and not far from the Habad "House" around the corner. We took our "Portrait of the Day" in a lovely piazza filled with families and the dome of the famous synagogue in the background. Important note: no chocolate stores to be found here; chocolate is sold in markets and in pastecerrias??, along with other goodies and pastries, but have yet to see a store devoted to chocolate. Plenty of chocolate seems to be made in Italy, just doesn't seem to be a big thing in Florence.
Shabbat with Shir Chadash group in Florence was lovely. The group of about 15-20 active families started about 5 years ago, created by, as one person explained, "4 American girls and two Italian men." They meet once a month on Friday nights and once a month on Shabbat morning. Services begin at 8:30 PM and are followed by a pot luck dinner. We enjoyed the lay led service; the president, Sarah.… did a lovely job of including members of the congregation and leading the worship. Debbie shared a D'var Torah, Mark said a few words about our trip. Dinner was delicious homemade Italian foods which the group of about 20 people enjoyed. They're planning on about 60 people for Seder. Sarah had just returned from the WUPJ conference in Hanover. We spent time over dinner learning about the community and the challenges it faces--once again no subsidy, politics with other liberal synagogues in the area; website construction, creation of a tikkun olam program that would suit the congregation, attracting members in a setting which is so thoroughly Catholic and Jewishly secular/Orthodox. Fortunately, soon the congregation will have the benefit of retired Rabbi Bob Rothman from Rye, New York, who will spend a year. That should be a big help to the group. Mark and I were very impressed with the dedication and commitment of these folks who keep this small congregation going despite many difficulties. Kol Hakavod to them! We hope they will stay in touch so that we can try to continue to be of assistance.
In SD we had caught a food channel program about a restaurant in Florence which gives you samples of three or four desserts, sounded great so I made Mark add the name of the place to our notes for Florence. Though the Best Western clerk who gave us our Florence map and sent us to "the best gelato" in Florence, thought Aqua al Due is very touristy and not very good, we walked by it on Friday. What do you know--they have a San Diego location.
So, we decided to eat at the place the clerk recommended instead--very good.