Month: April 2023

Acharei (אחרי – after) Qedoshim (קדושים – saints), Leviticus from verse 16, 1 to 20, 27.
After the Yom Kippur ceremony, the text lists sexual prohibitions and proclaims: Be holy to Me, for I am Holy – וִהְיִיתֶם לִי קְדֹשִׁים, כִּי קָדוֹשׁ (Leviticus 20, 24)

Leviticus 16, 24
ורחץ את‑בשרו במים
he will bathe his body in water…

After saints:
The Mikvah, a purifying bath allowing a rebirth.

Rebirth:
Luxembourg’s third synagogue and its mikvah on Avenue Monterey, designed by Victor Engels and René Mailliet, were inaugurated in 1953 by Chief Rabbi Charles Lehrmann. The stained glass windows are by Frantz Kinnen.

Tazria, (תזריע – she will conceive) and Metzor’a (מצורע – person afflicted with tzara’at (kind of leprosy) Leviticus from verse 12, 1 to verse 15,33

The text enumerates the laws of ritual impurity and sets out the purification rites to be performed once the evil has disappeared.

The presence of Jews in Sicily has been attested since the 1st century. In the Middle Ages in Syracuse, the community was mainly devoted to trade. In 1492, the Jews were expelled from Sicily, because the island depended on the Spanish crown¹.

The Mikveh of Syracuse² dates from the 6th century and is located under the Hotel Alla Giudecca³, in the heart of what was once the Jewish quarter of Syracuse

1 Spanish territory in 1492, The Canary Islands, the Kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and Malta.
2 See the article in french on the Lamed.fr website
3 Hotel Judaica.

Shemini (שמיני – eighth), Leviticus verses 9, 1 to 11, 47

Leviticus verse 10, 16
ִִִִִִִִִִֵ וְאֵת שְׂעִיר הַחַטָּאת
About the expiatory goat

A little over 20 years ago, a young community settled in Bouc (Goat). This town of 15,000 people, located at 8 km from the internment camp and of French deportation, opened in September 1939, in a disused tile factory, in the hamlet of Milles.