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July 30, 2018 - Av 18, 5778

news

With the 80th Anniversary of the Fascist Anti-Jewish Laws, Italian President Mattarella Sends a Warning Against Racism

By Adam Smulevich

Episodes of racism and xenophobia are increasingly affecting Italy. A few weeks before the 80th anniversary of the promulgation of the Racist Laws through which Fascism segregated Italian Jews from society, the President of the Republic Sergio Mattarella chose to mark the anniversary by sending a message to the entire nation.
"The poison of racism is still penetrating our society," stressed Mattarella. He then added, "The Racial Laws were tested with measures implemented in the African colonies. They led to the ferocious persecution of the Jews and were a preamble for the Holocaust, despite their deep roots in a thousand-year-old Italian civilization. In the same way persecution was unleashed against Roma and Sinti, those monstrous discriminations led to the extermination of the ‘porrajmos’ Gypsies.”

news

A Secret Garden in Venice

By Rossella Tercatin*

Olive, fig, almond, palm trees and many more: a garden featuring over 450 species of plants, trees and bushes mentioned in the Bible was inaugurated last week in Venice. The new “Secret Garden” extends for about 110 square meters and stands behind the “Scola Spagnola” synagogue.
“It’s a small dream finally coming true: a secret place in the heart of the ghetto to find peace, colors and scents,” commented Gaia Ravà, a member of the Council of the Jewish Community of Venice.
The garden also includes a Sukkah, the typical cabin built each year for the festival of Sukkot. It will be open to the public starting from September 2, 2018.

Technology

Israel and the Water Strategy

By Roberto Jona*

The issue of water was in the foreground during the trip to Israel of a group of professors from four different universities in northwestern Italy. Italy is periodically confronted with drought, but in Israel this is a common problem. Therefore, it was interesting and instructive to learn how it was dealt with and solved in different – but always remarkable ways.
The first occurrence of the issue was in a public park in the city of Herzliya. During winter rains, a great quantity of stagnant water accumulated right under the surface of the ground, making the area unhealthy and troublesome. Obviously, this problem has existed since ancient times – indeed the Talmud reports that the Cohen Gadol begged the Lord not to let the winter rains harm the people of the Sharon. Today the water is funneled into a plumbing system to create lakes, ponds, and creeks of landscape and environmental value. It was decided to keep the area’s “humid” nature, but – instead of abandoning it – water currents and circuits were wisely and skillfully created by means of phytodepuration. It is an unexpected situation in such a dry country, but do not forget that between the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, chalutzim really had to fight against swamps and the resulting plague of malaria.

*Roberto Jona is an agronomist. The article was translated by Federica Alabiso, student at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, intern at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.

bechol lashon - Français

Remonter le temps

par Rossella Tercatin*

Il y a près de 2 000 ans, une jeune fille prénommée Aster vivait à Jérusalem. Elle n’était qu’une enfant quand la ville est tombée aux mains des Romains et qu’elle a été déportée vers Rome en tant qu’esclave.
“Claudia Aster, captiva ierosolimitana”, ou, “Claudia Aster, prisonnière de Jérusalem”, peut-on lire sur sa pierre funéraire, l’un des 200 objets faisant partie de l’exposition « Jews, An Italian Story: The First Thousand Years » (Les Juifs, une histoire italienne : les mille premières années). C’est la première pièce d’une exposition permanente au Museo dell’Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah (Musée italien du Judaïsme et de la Shoah), ou MEIS, inauguré il y a quelques mois dans la ville de Ferrara, au nord de l’Italie.

*Times of Israel Français 30.07.18.

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pilpul

The Navel of the World

By Yaakov Mascetti*

These are times of childish narratives, characterized by waves of infantile religious geist , and immature lexica fill the mouths of leaders and of those who are led. As Netanyahu cheers the Jewish state law as a ‘pivotal moment’ in Zionist history, and other politicians and members of the government look to the Temple Mount as to the center of the Jewish nation and the source of our historical consciousness, there are few who see in all this urge for centralized narratives and geographical foundationalism a clear demonstration of political insecurity and of cultural immaturity. And although I usually try not to engage matters of political actuality in this column, I do wish to address this tendency or trend from a theological and partly psychological perspective.

*Yaakov Mascetti holds a Ph.D. and teaches at the Department of Comparative Literature, Bar Ilan University.

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ITALICS

Busting Italy's myths about the Holocaust

By Michael Curtis*

Two coins in the fountain of the historical analysis of Italy's role in the Holocaust jostle for which one will be blessed. It remains controversial.
The familiar and prevalent view is a positive one of the "good", benevolent and generous Italians, who sheltered Jews in their country from the "bad" German Nazis.
This view is challenged in a brilliant and important, authoritative new book, The Italian Executioners: The Genocide of the Jews of Italy, (Princeton University Press) written by Simon Levis Sullam, professor at the University of Venice. He regards the positive view as a myth and a misrepresentation of the reality.
He contrasts the increasing attention paid to the Italian Righteous, of whom Yad Vashem in Israel names 671, with the neglect of the story of Italian executioners of Jews which should be placed in the forefront of the narrative. His main aim is to direct attention to the role of Italians in the genocide of Jews in Italy.
Jews have had a long uneven history in Italy, with extended periods of persecution and discrimination. Simon Maccebeus sent an embasy to Rome in 139 B.C. to help the Romans in the fight against the Hellenistic kingdom. A Jewish contingent is said to have attended the funeral of Julius Caesar in 44 B.C. However, with the rise of Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire, the position of Jews declined rapidly, especially during the papacies of Paul IV in 1554, Gregory XIII in 1577, and Urban VIII in 1625.

*Michael Curtis is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in political science at Rutgers University. Curtis is the author of 30 books, and in 2014 was awarded the French Legion d'Honneur. The article was published in The Commentator on July 27, 2018.

moked è il portale dell'ebraismo italiano

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