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Sicily’s Jews have their first rabbi in 500 years. Italy’s Jewish establishment won’t accept them.
CATANIA, Italy (JTA) — Rabbi Gilberto Ventura believes his synagogue has the most beautiful view in the world. Located in the tower of a century-old castle on the slopes of Mt. Etna in the eastern Sicilian city of Catania, the synagogue is wedged between a snow-capped volcano and the sun-kissed Mediterranean sea.
The 49-year-old Brazil-born rabbi also thinks his congregation is one of the most unique in the world. It’s made up mainly of Bnei Anusim — descendants of Jews forced to hide their religious practice and convert to Catholicism after the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. Before that infamous decree, Sicily was home to tens of thousands of Jews.
The synagogue, which was first inaugurated last fall, is the result of decades of grassroots efforts by those descendants in Catania to find each other and forge a sense of community that had been lacking for centuries.
Hiring a full-time rabbi was the last piece of the puzzle, and Ventura, who has a long history of working with communities of Bnei Anusim in Brazil, was a natural candidate. He arrived in Catania in January.
“I really believe that the future Judaism in the world, especially in some places like Italy and, of course, Brazil, is connected to the Bnei Anusim, and the need to embrace the Bnei Anusim,” Ventura said.
But in an ongoing point of frustration, the formal organization representing Italian Jewry, the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), does not recognize them as Jews.
“In the case of Catania, this strange Jewish community hasn’t passed all the steps the law requires,” said Giulio Di Segni, the vice president of UCEI.
He was referring to the fact that the community did not seek UCEI’s permission before establishing themselves under the name “Jewish community of Catania.” Per Italian law, UCEI has a monopoly on acknowledging and establishing Jewish communal life in Italy — including authority over who can use the term “Jewish community of” in formal ways.
“UCEI can’t accept this because it is too easy,” he added. “We are not against their synagogue or their way of prayer, but they cannot use the name ‘Jewish community of Catania.’”
The rooftop of the Castello Leucatia, where the community meets, has a large menorah and a view of the Mediterranean. (David I. Klein)
Catania’s Jewish community members told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency a variety of stories about their Jewish backgrounds. Some came from families that always outwardly identified as Jewish. Others identified the source of family traditions practiced by parents and grandparents who — as descendants of Jews who faced persecution for practicing Judaism — still felt the need to hide aspects of their Jewishness from the public eye.
In the midst of questions about their ancestry, the majority of the Jewish community members have undergone Orthodox conversions. But that hasn’t led to their acceptance.
Benito Triolo, president of the Catania Jewish community, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that he first came to Judaism at the age of 40, thanks to the insight of a Jewish friend in Palermo, Sicily’s capital and most populous city. Working together, they established a Charter of Sicilian Jewry, which aimed to identify and highlight the Jewish heritage of neighborhoods across the island.
While working on that project, Triolo came closer to his own Jewish heritage, and after years of study, he completed an Orthodox conversion through a rabbi in Miami 25 years ago.
Another community member, who was born Alessandro Scuderi but today goes by the name of Yoram Nathan, first felt drawn to Judaism as a child watching news of the Six-Day War in 1967. At first, he was laughed at by other members of his family — except his grandmother, who happened to have a tradition of lighting eight candles in early winter and baking flat unleavened bread around Easter time.
Decades of study later, Scuderi also completed a formal conversion to Judaism before an Orthodox rabbinic court, or beit din.
Others had more straightforward backgrounds.
“I was born in a Jewish family,” said David Scibilia, the community’s secretary. “Frankly speaking, we were not hiding or deep in the shadows in this part of the country.”
Scibilia said that his father explained to him that he was a Jew as early as the age of four. Within their own home, they observed holidays and kept Shabbat — no easy task since Italian schools at the time of his childhood in the 1970s had class on Saturdays. He did not eat meat until he was an adult and was able to acquire kosher meat.
He said that his family had maintained their Jewish identity since the days of the Inquisition and married amongst a small group of other similar families.
“I was a Jew, but not part of any community,” Scibilia said. “Just my family was my community.”
An aerial view of the city of Catania shows the Mt. Etna volcano in the background, Jan. 28, 28, 2022. (Fabrizio Villa/Getty Images)
Scibilia explained that once he had a child of his own, he realized he did not want her to have the same lonely Jewish experience. But when he reached out to UCEI, he said he found the proverbial door to organized Jewish life shut. Earning membership in Jewish community organizations across Western Europe involves a strict vetting process, and many groups require applicants to prove their mothers’ Jewishness according to varying standards.
Scibilia’s experience was echoed by Jews outside of the community in Catania and across Italy’s south who talked to JTA — a feeling of neglect or rejection by UCEI for those who fall outside of the norms of Italian Judaism.
UCEI currently recognizes 19 Jewish communities across northern Italy and just one in the south, in Naples, which has jurisdiction over the rest of the southern half of the peninsula and the island of Sicily. The organization recognizes around 28,000 Jews in total across the country.
Scibilia noted that despite his Jewish upbringing, he has multiple certificates of conversion from Orthodox rabbis. The first came from a beit din of American rabbis from who traveled to Syracuse, Sicily, to assess Scibilia and others like him in Sicily. His second comes from the conversion court of the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, which is known for its exacting Orthodox standards.
Both were rejected by Italy’s own Orthodox rabbinate, and he was forced to stand before another rabbinic court in Italy.
“I have at this moment — don’t start to laugh — three documents that prove that I am a Jew, two Ketubah [marriage contracts] for my wedding, and so on, again and again and again,” Scibilia said.
Others’ experiences in the region have been even more fraught, he said.
“The problem in Italy, that if you try to study with any rabbi here, you can study for 20 years, maybe you can die even before you reach the end of the tunnel,” he said. “From my point of view, they are playing with the spirituality of these people.”
In a statement last year, UCEI called the the Catanians “a phantom ‘Jewish community’” and accused them of “misleading the local institutions and deluding believers and sympathizers into adhering to traditional religious rites, never actually recognized or authorized by the Italian rabbinical authority.”
“Between UCEI and the Italian republic is an agreement signed in ‘87,” Di Segni said. “This law means everything about Jewish communities in Italy is through the Union Jewish community in Italy (UCEI).”
Noemi Di Segni, shown in Rome in 2017, is president of the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy. (Stefano Montesi/Corbis via Getty Images)
Triolo said he isn’t too concerned about UCEI’s recognition.
“Ours is a process of refounding old communities that existed as early as 200 and up to 1492,” Triolo said. “Our recognition is already in our history. At that time the UCEI did not exist. We were there and we simply returned!”
No one knows when Jews first arrived in Sicily, but the Talmud tells a story that claims Rabbi Akiva, a well-known early rabbinic sage, visited the island in the early second century and told of a small Jewish community in Syracuse. Some historians believe the Roman writer Caecilius Calactinus — who was born in a town near Messina in the first century B.C.E — to have been of Jewish origin.
All agree that over the course of history, Sicily’s Jews watched as the island was traded between Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Arabs, Normans and half a dozen other empires. The narrative has also long been that Jewish life there ended five centuries ago, under Spanish rule.
The Spanish empire’s Jews suffered the same fate as Jews from the Iberian peninsula, who would become known to the world as Sephardim when they were expelled in 1492.
The descendents of Spain — and Sicily — spread throughout the world, establishing communities in North Africa, throughout the Ottoman empire, in the Netherlands and ultimately the British Isles and North America, as it was believed that Judaism faded away in their homelands.
Catania’s Jews disagree, arguing that many Jews practiced their religion over the centuries, in secret.
Triolo and others in the community formally inaugurated their synagogue in October. It was furnished with Torah scrolls donated by the Ohev Sholom synagogue in Washington, D.C.
The synagogue is situated in the tower of the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. The building was granted to the community by the city’s municipality.
“So they had the people, they had a synagogue, but they needed somebody to teach,” Ventura said.
The community meets in the Castello Luecatia, an early 20th-century structure built by a merchant believed to be of Jewish origin. (David I. Klein)
Ventura, who is Orthodox, may be the island’s first permanent working rabbi in over 500 years, but it’s not his first time working with Bnei Anusim.
Back in his native Brazil, Ventura was the leader of the Synagogue Without Borders, an organization through which he served 15 communities in Brazil’s north that were made up of descendants of Jews who came with the first Portuguese colonists to South America and who ultimately had to hide their identity as the Inquisition spread to the New World.
His work there put him in conflict with Brazil’s Jewish establishment, too. But Ventura is unfazed.
In Brazil, he founded synagogues and summer camps and built mikvahs and yeshivas across the country’s north. Since 2015, he has facilitated the conversion of hundreds of Bnei Anusim, bringing them back into the fold of mainstream Orthodox Judaism.
“I am a teacher since I was 21 years old,” he said. “Now I am 49, along with my wife. It’s one of the things we love to do, and know how to do. To teach Jewish philosophy, to teach Torah, to teach Tanakh, to teach the story of the Jews in Brazil, and now we are starting to teach the story of the Jews in Italy, the story of the Inquisition etcetera.”
In Castello Leucatia, he leads Shabbat services with the energy of a gospel preacher, pausing between prayers to explain a verse, teach a new tune, welcome latecomers, or simply to allow the congregation to talk.
Catania community members are shown at a recent gathering. (David I. Klein)
“This is what’s most important,” he remarked during one such lull on a recent Friday night. “That they get to talk and be a community.”
Ventura had organized a Shabbat event for other Jews across Italy — from Naples to Turin — who shared his belief that the future of Judaism was in communities like the one in Catania.
“Our point of view of Judaism is that we have to be a part of society, we don’t have to insulate ourselves, we believe that Judaism has a lot to contribute to society,” Ventura said. “In Brazil, we have a lot of connections with people from the periphery, in the favela and other communities, immigrants, Indians, etcetera. So that is something we want to establish here, to teach the people a Judaism that brings good things to the wider society.”
Ventura isn’t the only one working with such communities in southern Italy. Across the Strait of Messina, Jewish life has also been on the rise in Calabria — the toe of Italy’s boot — thanks to an American-born rabbi named Barbara Aiello.
Aiello, though raised in Pittsburgh, is of Calabrian descent. She returned to the land of her ancestors in the early 2000s and began working with the Bnei Anusim there, ultimately establishing a synagogue called Ner Tamid del Sud, meaning “eternal light of the south.”
“Until now, nobody took care of Judaism in the south of Italy,” Scibilia said while looking out at the Mediterranean from the terrace of Castello Leucatia.
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Israel Helps Somaliland Tackle Water Crisis, Welcomes First Ambassador After Recognition
Israel’s special envoy for water issues, Ambassador Rony Yedidia Clein, center, stands with Somaliland’s director-general at the Ministry of Water Development, Aden Abdela Abdule, second from the right, and other officials at a waste treatment facility in Israel, Feb. 25, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Israel has initiated a multi-prong approach to aid Somaliland in overcoming a series of droughts which have plagued the Horn of Africa region for years, lending its support in water management and other areas as the two sides formally establish diplomatic relations.
On Monday, the first official delegation from Somaliland — 25 water sector workers — arrived in Israel following Jerusalem’s decision in December to become the first country to officially recognize the Republic of Somaliland as an independent and sovereign state
Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, MASHAV, is spearheading the collaboration effort.
“Honored to welcome this morning the participants of the 1st [MASHAV] tailor-made course for Somaliland’s National Water Authority (SNWA) ‘National Water Resources Planning and Management,’ building capabilities and bilateral cooperation,” the Israeli agency’s head, Eynat Shlein, posted on social media.
Israel’s envoy for water issues, Ambassador Rony Yedidia Clein, and the Somaliland visitors toured the National Center for Water Education and Innovation at the Shafdan wastewater treatment complex in Rishon LeZion.
Despite being largely arid and having limited natural freshwater supply, Israel has emerged as a global leader in water management, recycling nearly 90 percent of its wastewater, primarily for agricultural irrigation.
Aden Abdela Abdule, who serves as director general of Somaliland’s Ministry of Water Development, met with Eden Bar Tal, director general of Israel’s Foreign Ministry. According to Shlein, the two officials “stressed the importance of the bilateral relations and the joint partnership. During the meeting and a separate discussion with the MASHAV team, we discussed the vast potential to cooperation between the two states.”
The situation has become dire for Somaliland’s farmers struggling with thirsty crops.
“We are desperate,” Faysal Omar Salah, who operates a family farm near the village of Lallays, told AFP, describing how his children survive on milk from his cattle. “If the rain crisis continues, we will just leave this land and go to a town. We hope Israel will help us cultivate our dry land.”
Israeli experts will reportedly visit Somaliland soon to aid in installing technology to counter a variety of water challenges which have hit the African country’s 6.2 million inhabitants. Over the last five years, the rainy seasons in the region have arrived late and diminished, causing shortages, regular droughts, and a need to rely on groundwater. In addition, Somaliland has seen water losses in its city regions and lacks major monitoring technology.
“Inshallah, Israel is going to help us changing our practices. Because if you want to change practices, you need to have knowledge,” Agriculture Ministry official Mokhtar Dahir Ahmed told AFP.
Meanwhile, Israel and Somaliland have moved to formalize their diplomatic relations.
On Wednesday, Israel’s Foreign Ministry announced it had formally welcomed Dr. Mohamed Haji, recognizing him as the fully accredited Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Republic of Somaliland to Israel. Israel will reciprocate by naming its ambassador to Somaliland in the coming weeks.
Somaliland’s President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdillahi is scheduled to make his first official visit to Israel at the end of March, the Jerusalem Post reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. He had previously visited in December for discreet negotiations that led to the partnership with the Jewish state.
According to experts, the growing Israel-Somaliland partnership could be a “game changer” for Israel, boosting the Jewish state’s ability to counter the Yemen-based Houthi terrorist group while offering strategic and geographic advantages amid shifting regional power dynamics.
Unlike most other states in the region, Somaliland has relative security, regular elections, and a degree of political stability — qualities that make it a valuable partner for international allies and a key player in regional cooperation.
Somaliland, which has claimed independence for decades in East Africa but remains largely unrecognized, is situated on the southern coast of the Gulf of Aden and bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Ethiopia to the south and west, and Somalia to the south and east. It has sought to break off from Somalia since 1991 and utilized its own passports, currency, military, and law enforcement. The region remains distinct from the rest of Somalia due to the dominance of the Isaaq clan.
However, several Arab, Islamic, and African countries, including regional powers, publicly rejected the move, as did other states such as China.
Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud warned Israel at the Al Jazeera Forum in Doha on Feb. 7 against establishing a military base in Somaliland.
“We will confront any Israeli forces that enter, because we oppose this and will never allow it,” he said.
That same day, the Somali president blasted Israel’s decision to recognize Somaliland in an interview with Iran’s PressTV propaganda network. Mohamud labeled Israel’s recognition as “reckless, fundamentally wrong, and illegal action under international law.”
The European Union also opposed the decision, saying it “reaffirms the importance of respecting the unity, the sovereignty, and the territorial integrity” of Somalia.
US President Donald Trump has said he opposes recognition of Somaliland, but his administration defended Israel’s decision, saying Jerusalem “has the same right to conduct diplomatic relations as any other sovereign state.”
Somaliland’s minister of the presidency, Khadar Hussein Abdi, told AFP on Saturday that the government is prepared to offer mineral rights and military infrastructure in exchange for recognition from the United States. The region includes significant lithium deposits, putting it in potential competition with China which currently dominates the market, controlling roughly 65-70 percent of the world’s lithium refining capacities and 60 percent of rare earthing mining.
“Situated along the Gulf of Aden near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait – a chokepoint linking the Red Sea to the Suez Canal and carrying roughly 10 percent of global seaborne trade – the territory [Somaliland] offers not only resource potential but strategic logistics leverage,” Anne-Laure Klein, managing director in the portfolio operations group for Rothschild and Company, wrote on Thursday in Energy Capital & Power, a publication which encourages energy investments in Africa.
“For Washington, combining mineral access with positioning along a key maritime corridor could strengthen both supply chain security and transatlantic export routes at a time of intensifying geopolitical competition,” she added. “The question now is whether diplomatic recognition will follow – and if strategic geography and untapped minerals together are enough to tip the balance.”
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Young Republicans Flock to Anti-Israel Candidate in Florida Governor’s Race
Florida gubernatorial candidate James Fishback. Photo: Screenshot
A radically anti-Israel candidate in Florida’s Republican primary for governor is by far the most popular choice for young voters, despite being accused of antisemitism, a new poll has found.
The University of North Florida poll, released on Tuesday, showed 31-year-old James Fishback, the founder and chief executive of the investment firm Azoria, leading comfortably among Republican voters aged 18–34.
While Fishback remains a long-shot contender overall, the results found he captured 32 percent support among younger Republicans surveyed, compared to just 8 percent for US Rep. Byron Donalds, who continues to lead the broader primary field. Another 46 percent said they were not sure.
Overall, Donalds leads the field with 31 percent support, followed by Fishback far behind at 6 percent. More than half of those polled, 51 percent, said they were not sure who to support.
Fishback has drawn criticism for relentlessly attacking Israel and, according to some critics, veering into antisemitic discourse.
While addressing students at the University of Central Florida earlier this month, Fishback said he “will not visit the country of Israel under any circumstances.” The candidate went on to mock the Western Wall, calling it a “stupid wall.”
“This is how antisemitism rebrands itself in 2026,” Rabbi Steven Burg, the CEO of Aish, a global Jewish educational organization, wrote of Fishback’s comments in a recent op-ed for the Sun Sentinel.
Fishback has also criticized Donalds for arranging a forum at a south Florida synagogue, accusing the congressman of expressing favoritism toward Jewish people. The insurgent candidate also came under fire for praising supporters of antisemitic social media personality Nick Fuentes as “patriots” and “civil.”
“We had a great conversation, and they have a real pulse for what is going on in the country,” Fishback said of Fuentes’s supporters.
In December, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) released a report analyzing online support for Fuentes, suggesting he has received a major boost from inauthentic amplification by anonymous actors in foreign countries such as India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
If elected, Fishback has vowed to direct all state government entities to “divest” from bonds issued by the Israeli government on his first day in office. He has also accused Israel of committing “genocide” in Gaza and stated that the supposed “genocide” should be taught in Florida public schools.
Donalds, a stalwart conservative and strident ally of US President Donald Trump, has established himself as a firm supporter of Israel. The lawmaker expressed support for Israel’s right to self-defense in the wake of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel. As skepticism about Israel has surged within the Republican Party in recent months, Donalds has maintained strong vocal support for the Jewish state.
During an interview with Fox Business in December, Donalds lamented rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment within the country and around the world.
“This level of antisemitism, this hatred against Jewish people and against Israel, it’s out of control. It’s insane,” Donalds said.
The latest University of North Florida poll, conducted among likely Republican voters in Florida, included a small sample of 39 respondents in the 18–34 age bracket. Though limited in scope, the findings reflect a broader trend seen in some national surveys, indicating a generational shift among parts of the Republican Party, with younger voters expressing more skepticism toward both Israel and American Jews than their older counterparts.
For example, the Manhattan Institute, a prominent US-based think tank, released a major poll in December examining the evolving makeup of the Republican Party (GOP) and its current attitudes toward Israel and Jewish Americans.
According to the results, newer entrants to the GOP are more likely to be antisemitic
“Anti-Jewish Republicans are typically younger, disproportionately male, more likely to be college-educated, and significantly more likely to be New Entrant Republicans,” the survey found. “They are also more racially diverse. Consistent church attendance is one of the strongest predictors of rejecting these attitudes; infrequent church attendance is, all else equal, one of the strongest predictors of falling into this segment.”
This group is also in general more politically liberal, according to the survey: “Given that many of these voters are younger and former Democrats, more progressive policy tendencies are unsurprising.”
The data also showed that older GOP voters are much more supportive of Israel and less likely to express antisemitic views than their younger cohorts.
According to the data, 25 percent of GOP voters under 50 openly express antisemitic views as opposed to just 4 percent over the age of 50.
Startlingly, a substantial amount, 37 percent, of GOP voters indicate belief in Holocaust denialism. These figures are more pronounced among young men under 50, with a majority, 54 percent, agreeing that the Holocaust “was greatly exaggerated or did not happen as historians describe.” Among men over 50, 41 percent agree with the sentiment.
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Fetterman Hosts AIPAC, Bondi Survivor in DC Office, Voices Support for ‘Jewish Community and Our Special Ally’
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) gives an interview in his office in the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 18, 2024. Photo: Rod Lamkey / CNP/Sipa USA for NY Post via Reuters Connect
US Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) welcomed representatives from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre to his Washington, DC office on Tuesday, expressing support for the “global Jewish community” and the longstanding strategic partnership between the US and Israel.
“Proudly welcomed AIPAC and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre — a living reminder of the global scourge of antisemitism. My voice and vote will always stand with and support the global Jewish community and our special ally,” Fetterman posted on the social media platform X.
Proudly welcomed @AIPAC and a survivor of the Bondi Beach massacre—a living reminder of the global scourge of antisemitism.
My voice and vote will always stand with and support the global Jewish community and our special ally. pic.twitter.com/mz5damSvV9
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) February 24, 2026
Fetterman, who has emerged as a prominent pro-Israel voice among Democrats on Capitol Hill, has signaled unwavering support for the Jewish state as its standing among liberal voters and progressive lawmakers has cratered.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker has repeatedly affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself from the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza and has defended the Jewish state from unsubstantiated claims of “genocide.” He also displayed the photos of the hostages captured by Hamas-led terrorists during their Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel in his office, drawing praise from pro-Israel Americans.
Despite his party’s increasing opposition to US military support for Israel, Fetterman has repeatedly vowed to vote in favor of such support for the Jewish state, rankling the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
“I’m a really strong, unapologetic supporter of Israel and it’s really not going to change for me when [Donald] Trump becomes [president]. My vote and voice is going to follow Israel,” Fetterman said during an interview in December 2024.
One year later, Fetterman lamented the deadly attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach in December that killed 15 people who attended the Jewish gathering and wounded at least 40 others, expressing alarm about the global rise in antisemitism.
“After years of anti-Israel protests in Australia, at least 11 Jews were just gunned down at a Hanukkah event. Tree of Life to 10/07 to Bondi Beach: antisemitism is a rising and deadly global scourge. I stand and grieve with Israel and the Jewish global community,” he posted shortly after the shooting, using a figure based on an early death toll.
Though American lawmakers from both major political parties roundly condemned the Bondi Beach massacre, Fetterman’s decision this week to publicly meet with AIPAC, the premier pro-Israel lobbying group in the US, will likely raise eyebrows among his liberal supporters.
In the two years following the breakout of the Israel-Hamas war, AIPAC’s standing among the Democratic party has plummeted dramatically. In primary races across the country, Democratic hopefuls are being pressed on their connections to AIPAC and facing demands to pledge not to accept funding from the group, which seeks to foster bipartisan support for the US-Israel relationship. The emergence of AIPAC support as a kind of litmus test has raised concerns among Jewish Democrats that the party is becoming increasingly inhospitable to Jews and Zionists.
According to polls, Fetterman is unpopular among Democratic primary voters, making him vulnerable in a primary competition. Numerous progressives in the Keystone State have signaled they are gearing up to challenge Fetterman for the party nomination in 2028.
However, Fetterman maintains shockingly high approval ratings among Republicans and strong approval ratings among independents, potentially injecting a significant degree of uncertainty into the Pennsylvania Senate race if he were to run as an independent in the general election.