SICILY: Mikveh

 

I hadn’t heard of a mikveh, but one day, in Ortygia, I visited two, in each case descending a large number of worn and slippery stone steps to access them. The first was discovered 18 metres beneath the ground as a hotelier was renovating her ancient building.  The second was deep beneath what is now a church but was once a synagogue. In Siracusa there was once a population of c. 3,000 Jews before the Inquisition had them converted or expelled in the 1490s

These mikveh’s were plunge baths with steps leading into the water.  They were used by Jewish women for purifying themselves following menstruation and childbirth. They must immerse completely, just for a short time.

These subterranean pools were fed by natural clear springs and I found myself thinking that a ritual bath may have been quite a delightful thing for those long-ago women to do, particularly in the heat of the Sicilian summer.

Except that then our guide explained that the window above the bath was for each woman’s mother-in-law to watch and to check that the woman immersed herself correctly. 

No, that would certainly put a damper on it as far as I was concerned. I no longer have mikveh envy.

(Photographs of these ancient mikvehs were not allowed, so you’ll just have to imagine.)