MARCH 21, 2025: We managed to leave our apartment in Trapani fairly early, out the door by 9:00 a.m. Surprisingly, the street that we needed along the harbor was closed. Hundreds of people filled the area, and dozens of buses were parked nearby, with more arriving by the minute. It quickly became clear that this was not an ordinary morning.
Today Trapani was hosting the Day of Remembrance and Commitment to honor innocent victims of the mafia. Thousands participated in the march, including hundreds of family members of victims. The procession began early, winding through much of the city before ending in the main square. We watched the scene unfold briefly, then worked our way out of the city.
From Trapani we drove an hour to the city Mazara, on Sicily’s southwestern coast. Once again, along the way we were enchanted by the rural Sicilian landscape.
Mazara (also known as Mazara del Vallo) faces Tunisia across a narrow stretch of the Mediterranean and is often described as the most Arab city in Italy. Walking through its streets, the North African influence is easy to sense; Arabic is commonly heard. In the historic center, the former Jewish quarter lies close to the large Kasbah—the Arab quarter—and not far from Christian neighborhoods, reflecting a period when these communities lived side by side.
We began our exploration in what was once the Jewish quarter, the Giudecca, entering through Rua della Giudecca. In many towns, only a street name remains to mark a former Jewish presence. That was not the case here.
We soon reached Cortile della Giudecca—the courtyard of the former Jewish quarter—and were surprised to find a large ceramic mural depicting Jews praying at the Western Wall, clearly labeled in English as “HaKotel HaMa’aravi.”
Nearby, a colorful tile explained that Mazara’s Jewish quarter once began near the eastern city walls and consisted of modest, single-story homes built of tufa stone, with low entrances, whitewashed walls, clay-tile roofs, and vine-shaded terraces. Its narrow streets, recalled cities of the biblical East, and defined it as a residential neighborhood rather than a segregated ghetto.
From another tile we learned
“After 475 years since the expulsion of the Jews from our land, through the work of some dedicated individuals, the street name ‘Rua della Giudecca’ (formerly Via Cortigliazzo) was restored, precisely in that area where the children of the Diaspora once lived for centuries, in peace, together with Latins, Greeks, and Muslims.”
As we moved deeper into the historic center, on Via Goti, we encountered many more colorful ceramic tiles and murals decorating both sides of the narrow lane. Many had a Jewish theme.
Alongside them were works depicting the historical coexistence of Jewish, Christian, and Muslim populations in the city.
Other tiles depicted scenes from daily life in medieval times.
These pieces are all part of a municipality-supported urban art project intended to revitalize the historic center and acknowledge Mazara’s multi-cultural history. The tiles and murals were commissioned by the city, created by invited artists, and installed on private buildings with the owners’ permission, forming a unique record of the city’s past.
We continued wandering through the narrow lanes. The city was quiet, empty of tourists. Most shops were closed, and the few people we saw were locals, many of them Muslim women wearing head coverings and speaking Arabic.
On the way back to the car, walking on Via Bagno through what is now the Kasbah, we stumbled upon a ceramic plaque in Piazza Bagno marking the location of a former Jewish mikveh. Turns out that Via Bagno takes its name from the Jewish ritual bath that once stood nearby (bagno is bath in Italian). The ceramic plaque explains that this area, together with Piazza Chinea, formed the heart of the Giudecca and that the ritual bath dated back to the earliest Jewish presence in Sicily, traditionally linked to the period after 70 CE. The structure survived until 1492, when the Jews of Mazara were expelled under Spanish rule,
From Mazara we continued driving westward towards our next destination, the Selinunte Archaeological Park. The landscape was flat and open, with the coastal water visible in the distance.
Selinunte is the largest archaeological park in Sicily – 270 hectares (667 acres). This makes it not only Sicily’s largest archeological park, but it is also the largest archeological park in all of Europe. In comparison, Pompeii Archaeological Park, the second largest archeological site in Europe, is 170 hectares. Selinunte preserves the ruins of a Greek city that thrived from the 7th century BC until its destruction in 409 BC by the Carthaginians. At its peak, it possibly housed tens of thousands of inhabitants.
The park is divided into several sections, each with many things to see. Since it was Friday and we needed time to prepare for Shabbat, we visited only two, using a golf cart to move between them. The first was an area near the entrance, known as the Eastern Temples. It holds the ruins of three Greek temples, including one, the Temple of Hera, that has been partially reconstructed.
From there, we went to the Acropolis. Perched on a hill overlooking the sea, this area contains fortifications, scattered temple remains (including early Doric temples), and remnants of the ancient urban core.
We left the archaeological park and began the 90-minute drive to Agrigento, which would be our base for the next few days.
With nearly 60,000 residents, Agrigento felt large and dense, spread across a hill and dominated by tall apartment buildings. The city is confusing to navigate, so we were relieved when our Airbnb host suggested meeting at a gas station near the city entrance. From there, we followed her to the historic center. Being in the heart of the historic district and having a parking spot felt too good to be true – which, as it turned out, it was. The apartment was located a few hundred meters down a steep pedestrian walkway from the parking area. It wasn’t easy, but we managed.
More about Agrigento in the upcoming blogs.
Mazara was really special.
Lovely tile paintings and quaint town