Power Blog!

It's currently 7:45 am and I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to write.  That kind of bums me out.  I'm leaving in 45 minutes for Florence!  I reached out to a bunch of friends and they were more then happy to provide me with a laundry list of must-see.

Jewish Ghetto
We had a guest lecture given by Shaul Bossi.  He's a professor of english and literature at the University of Venice.  He specializes in Shakespeare and had a really great alternative approach to it.  It was much approachable and easy to understand.  As far as we know, Shakespeare never visited Venice.  Venice was a "city of the present" back then.  It was the equivalent of New York and London currently.  One thing that stuck out in my mind was that Shakespeare was used as a tool in let's say India, to teal morality through theatre (and the sub context was to educate in the christian way).

He also discussed a French Sociologist which who studied the importance of one's culture.  I couldn't catch his name but it was something to the effect of Bourdius.  He found that financial capital is not the only way to survive.  It's intertwined with social capitol which is essentially who you know and who you network.  Cultural capital is the class of people who are intellects, and symbolic capitol is more along the lines of prestige.  Today, American society is a fusion of a few.  It's who you know, if you're an actor, you have cultural capitol, and from there you become wealthy.

Venice is known for its symbolic capitolism.  In the 16th century, Venice goes to battle with Rome.  They loose, and territory was lost.  Venetians start to cultivate their image.  Since usury was prohibited by the church, who was going to lend?  Well, the Jews of course!  They lived on the mainland and after this, Venice needed to step up their game.  Essentially it was a 16th Century Bailout and illusion to make it look like all was well despite their defeat.  A revamped image emerged.  There was one catch, the Jews could only live in one restricted and gated area.  

I thought this wreath was a bit funny, considering it was in the middle of the ghetto.

We stopped for lunch at an awesome little kosher restaurant named gam gam on the outskirts of the ghetto.  THIS WAS GREAT FOOD.  We split some potato latkas which were gently fried and served with wholesome applesauce.  I ordered cous cous con pesce pecante.  It was tasty.  The sauce wasn't so much spicy, but had a peppery kick.  The fish was fresh and flaky but had a few little bones.  It also had some peppers and onions and was one of the best meals I've had to date here.

The ghetto is no longer inhabited by jews, but a few are there  to this day.  We visited 3 synagogues.  They were all uniquely different from one another.  What a shocking change from the churches that I've seen.  These were modest with crooked floors.  Jews were not allowed to use marble in their construction, nor where they trained as architects or designers.  So they still had a christian feel to them because they were crafted by christians.  The substance that they used instead of marble was called marbleita.  It was pretty interesting looking.  Ironically, this stone is now valued higher than marble.  Only 2 synagogues are in current practice.  One has central heat, and the other is larger.  During the summer they use the large one and switch during the winter.  The winter one was a bit bigger then the first two that we visited.  Al Pacino filmed the opening scene of The Merchant of Venice in it.  It's on the right in this pic.

Here is a "Venetian Skyscraper."  Ceilings were low and the Jews were forced to live in such tiny tenements.

This made me laugh, only because the people I've been meeting are pro Lega Nord (they want to succeed from the south...) :

A few steps away:

Contradictions everywhere!

I'm afraid that's all I have time for fight now.  Power blog over, and I have about 15 minutes to get ready for my trip to florence.  More to come, I assure you!