(ITALY).

Chieri, Italy

End 18th-century

I: Prayers for Hoshanah Rabah, Shemini Atzereth, and Simchath Torah. * II: Lattes, Joseph. Shir Mizmor [A Hymn to be Recited Annually on the 29th March in the Synagogue of Chieri]. * III: Ranei Phaleit [Hymn Recited by the Community of Chieri to Commemorate their Redemption on the Night of Rosh Chodesh Menachem (Av), 1797]

This companion for the Holidays commences with the Birkath Kohanim or Priestly Benediction, followed by the Meditation for Beating the Willows on Hoshanah Rabbah, the Prayer for Removing the Sepher Torah from the Ark on Shemini Atzereth, and finally, an Aschkenazic song for the Hakaphoth of the night of Simchath Torah. All these rituals are thoroughly suffused with the spirit of the Kabbalah, typical for Italy of the day. These universal Jewish prayers are followed by two hymns unique to the community of Chieri in the Piedmont region of Northern Italy. The background to these local hymns was the invasion of the ghetto in 1797 by a local mob at the height of the Napoleonic Wars. The hoodlums were subsequently subdued by the municipal authorities, sparing the lives of the ghetto’s Jewish inhabitants. Thereafter the day of deliverance, Rosh Chodesh Menachem Av, was observed as a local "Purim." Ranei Phaleit was subsequently published in Turin in 1797. See EJ, Vol. V, col. 422