Tikvah
Editors’ Pick

January 6, 2026

Sicily’s First Bris in Over 500 Years

Once home to one of Europe’s oldest Jewish communities.

In 1492, when Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain ordered the expulsion or conversion of Jews in their realm, Sicily was one of their hereditary territories, and thus its Jews fled or went into hiding. The ceremony of brit milah has not been performed on the island since, at least not publicly—until, that is, Ari Greenspan was asked to come to the island to circumcise the child of an Israeli couple studying there: 

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