NEWS

Venice Ready to Mark the 500th Anniversary
of Its Ghetto

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

After years of preparations, on March 29, 2016, the initiatives to mark the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the Venice Ghetto will have its official inauguration.
Jewish leaders along with Italian leaders will gather at the historic Teatro La Fenice to commemorate the event and its meaning in the contemporary world. Welcoming the audience will be the president of the Jewish Community of Venice Paolo Gnignati, the mayor Luigi Brugnaro and the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities Renzo Gattegna. The president of the World Jewish Congress, Ronald Lauder, will be speaking on the behalf of Jewish communities all over the world.
During the evening ceremony British historian Simon Schama will deliver a lecture focusing on the anniversary. The Israeli conductor, Omer Meir Wellber will then conduct the La Fenice Orchestra in a performance of Symphony No. 1 in D major by Gustav Mahler.

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venice and the ghetto

"A Unique Occasion to Understand
Both History and the Present"

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VENICE AND the GHETTO

The Right Occasion to Recall Our Denied Rights

By Dario Calimani*

The history of Judaism is sprinkled with recurrent harassment and persecutions, whose dreadful peak was the Shoah. In part, Jewish people's recollection of prejudice and discrimination has strengthened their Jewish identity; I believe that no other community has counted on recollection as ours has. Our memory is not celebration, meaning exaltation or glorification; it has to be considered as the act of coming together so as to recall the past, ending with a kaddish.
The establishment of the first official ghetto in history makes us reflect on different matters. Indeed, Venice Ghetto was not the fist place in which Jewish people had been relegated: in Morocco there were mellahs, which were called hira in Tunis, harrah in Algeria, harat al yahud in Cairo, juderías in Spain. None ever thought that isolation, segregation, could be considered a privilege, a source of pride to celebrate with concerts and touching opening speeches. None ever thought that living in a subordinate position is an opportunity, a way of reaching joy and success. Just a few eccentric revisionist historians try to make people believe that Jewish people used to enjoy their lifestyle and the way they were treated during the 16th, 17th and 18 centuries.

*Dario Calimani is a professor at Università Ca’ Foscari in Venice. This article has been translated by Ilaria Modena, student at the Scuola superiore interpreti e traduttori di Trieste, ‎who is doing her apprenticeship in the newsroom of Pagine Ebraiche.

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VENICE AND the GHETTO

A Bright and Colored Microcosm

By Enrico Levis*

March 29, 1516 is an important date for the Jewish History. The decree issued by the Senate of the Republic of Venice, which assigned an area of the city in the San Girolamo district –the previous location of a semi-abandoned foundry (called “geto”) - to the Jewish Community, was a turning point not just for the lives of the Jewish people in Venice, but for all the Jews. In fact, after all the expulsions and forced conversions, the “Ghettos” started to emerge all over the Mediterranean countries, following the example of Venice. They granted asylum to anyone who was obliged to live in a well-defined fenced area of the city.
The Jews lived in Venice also before the decree, but their admission to the city was persistently opposed both by the religious authorities (who feared the contamination of their devotees) and by the patricians, who wanted to defend the Rialto market from their potential competitors. During the Middle Ages, any group of Jews must be small and temporary; however, on March 29, 1516 a new, uncertain balance between two contrasting forces, between a gateway to Venice and a barrier to prevent the Jewish people to enter the city was reach.

*Enrico Levis is a psychotherapist. This article has been translated by Isabella Favero, student at the Scuola superiore interpreti e traduttori di Trieste, ‎who is doing her apprenticeship in the newsroom of Pagine Ebraiche.


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VENICE AND THE GHETTO

At 'La Fenice' Theatre for the Great Symphony

By Ada Treves*

The theater “La Fenice” is a central institution of Venice recent history, and it is also an important place for everyone who loves music, a place with a highly symbolic name. The images of the fire that, twenty years ago, made people believe that one of the most beautiful theaters of the world was lost forever, and the story of its rebirth from its own ashes can be compared to the rediscovery and the new fame that the Ghetto is experiencing, thanks to the five hundredth anniversary of its establishment.
“We are very proud of having been chosen for the inauguration of the celebrations, this is going to be an unmissable event and we have decided to support it without any hesitation,” says Fortunato Ortombrina, artistic director of the theater.

*This article has been translated by Ilaria Modena, student at the Scuola superiore interpreti e traduttori di Trieste, ‎who is doing her apprenticeship in the newsroom of Pagine Ebraiche. 

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BECHOL LASHON - Français

Changement

de Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello*

Car si tu restes silencieux à ce moment, l'aide et la délivrance surgiront pour les Juifs d'un autre endroit (Ester, 4, 14). Cet avertissement de Mordechai à Esther est tranchant et directe : "Tu peux choisir d'agir au nom du salut de ton peuple ou de rester ferme dans ta sécurité apparente et fragile, et de ne rien faire: le salut viendra d'un autre endroit".
La première leçon de ce verset dans la Méguila d'Esther, le Livre d'Esther, est la modestie en rapport à l'horizon des événements et des jours du monde. Personne n'est indispensable, personne n'est un sauveur, personne est irremplaçable: le salut vient de toute façon de “un autre endroit”. Ce n'est pas à toi, reine ou servante, prince ou pauvre, de décider le destin du monde, de la société, des communautés. Tu es un moyen et les moyens peuvent être différents et tous utiles ou inutiles selon le cas.









*Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello est rabbin. La traduction est de Francesca Matalon.


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pilpul - double life

Time to Leave Egypt

By Daniela Fubini*

Israelis at this time of the year get a little confused. The weather is still moody, hot chamsin waves share the week with chilly nights and even rain at times. The trees are blossoming everywhere, but rather often you can see new leaves, flowers and fruit on the same tree. Is it Mother Nature singing "I want it all, and I want it now?" Maybe. It would match the personality of this corner of the Middle East, for sure.
So, humans, mostly the Jews among them, try to navigate the unstable season and get a bit confused with timing and directions. And within weeks from Pesach, instead of focusing on making a suitable use of the impossible amounts of flour and pasta they brought clearly by mistake, or not coordinating between spouses; instead of planning the seasonal cleanings room by room, and cursing the help who all of a sudden starts not showing up on time on those two short hours you had fought for like a lion; instead of repeating the spring inspired songs with the children and making sure they catch the festive atmosphere connecting directly Purim and Pesach, well, Israelis take a walk on the wild side and lose it.



*Daniela Fubini (Twitter @d_fubini) lives and writes in Tel Aviv, where she arrived in 2008 from Turin via New York.

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IT HAPPENED TOMORROW

Life in Venice

By Guido Vitale

"There is no normal life in Venice. Here everything and everyone floats”. (Peggy Guggenheim).
































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altrove/elsewhere

Esther, Mordechai,
and Simone Luzzatto

By Daniel Leisawitz*

This past week, Jews around the world celebrated the festive holiday of Purim, which celebrates our escape from imminent destruction thanks to the intelligence and bravery of a young Jewish woman, Esther, and her uncle Mordechai. Among the many interpretations of this curious story, I’d like to consider one suggested by Rabbi David Wilensky of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Rabbi Wilensky points out the striking similarities between the story of Esther and the story of Joseph, which both involve a young Jew who finds him/herself close to the seat of power of a strange land, and uses that power for good: “Perhaps one can suggest that both stories are looking to teach us that when Jews are living in the diaspora, although the initial instinct for the Jew is to recoil form the surrounding society and be unnoticed, in the end, the Jew must learn the lesson that intimate involvement in the on goings of the surrounding politics and culture will be necessary.”
This idea led me to think of another Jew in quite different circumstances who, also sought to make a case for the necessary integration (which is not the same as assimilation) of Jews into the larger world.  Rabbi Simone Luzzatto (c.1580-1663) lived at Venice where he served as rabbi of the Ashkenazi-rite Scola Tedesco synagogue in the Ghetto.

*Daniel Leisawitz, professor at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA). The artwork is by Abraham Cresques a 14th-century Jewish Spanish cartographer.

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