Postcard from Bella Roma

by Phyllis Chesler
Pajamas Media
September 8, 2009

http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/616/postcard-from-bella-roma

Excerpt:

I have been traveling to Italy for nearly fifty years now and I am blessed to be here again – this time for an international conference sponsored by the Italian government.

The tomb of Augustus, the Emperor of all Rome, lies in ruins and is unkempt, unclean. The ancient Roman Senate (pernhaps where Julius Caesar was assassinated) has, for a long time, been taken over by cats. The lesson? Carpe diem, seize the day, it is all we mere mortals may have.

Where the church burned Giordano Bruno at the stake for heresy – cafes, mimes, music, tourists abound, verily as merry a place as the Tower of London. What is it in us that needs to turn the gallows into gaiety? Similarly, the Jewish ghetto in Rome, once a stinking, fetid, narrow alley of tenements ringed round by churches and by nunneries where Jewish babies were taken for baptism – is now the "coolest" place in town. It is gentrified, modern art galleries flourish, the price of apartments are beyond most people's reach.

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