Menorot

A modest limestone stele, its surface softened by time, preserves a rare and poignant fragment of Bari’s early medieval Jewish community. The stone is a funerary marker, once set within a burial ground that may have been in use since the Roman imperial era, a Latin inscription found nearby suggests the site at Contrada San Lorenzo served as a cemetery long before.

The stele commemorates an illustrious figure: Mošeh Ben Eliyyah, a synagogue poet. Its decoration is restrained, yet eloquent. On one face, a five-branched menorah is carved, accompanied by faint traces of a shofar. The left side bears a six-branched menorah, and it seems likely the right side once carried a matching design. The menorah, a symbol of Jewish identity and continuity, here appears in variant forms, perhaps reflecting local artistic tradition, or simply the stonecutter’s improvisation. The monument is a quiet witness to a community that lived, prayed, and buried its poets in this corner of southern Italy, long before the city’s medieval walls rose.

Description via source. Coordinates and heritage data from the Atika atlas.