And photographing my son, who will be a bar mitzva in the year 2000. I am taking pictures in this otherworldly place, determined to capture each clue to the light yet firmly rooted way it makes me feel. Meanwhile Dr. Levi is giving Herb documents to read, a wooden tzedaka box to examine and, finally, a shofar . Herb lifts it to his lips. Beaming, Dr. Levi removes his hat and puts on a kippa .
Herb blows the shofar and for a few moments the synagogue is filled with more than ghosts.
The next morning we are welcomed at the hill town of Cherasco by Giacomo Debenedetti, head of its only remaining Jewish family. He has come from Turin, where he resides most of the time, to show us la bella sinagoga, as he always calls it. The synagogue, off Via Vittorio Emanuele, is one of the few to retain more than traces of the beehive-like structure typical of Piedmont ghettos. Behind the heavy wooden door in the anonymous facade, long stairs of crumbling stucco edged with wood lead up through a thick-walled, unlit passageway. Debenedetti opens the door onto a dark room.