IT HAPPENED TOMORROW Vittorio Dan Segre (1922-2014)

By Guido Vitale

Jewish Italy is mourning the passing away of Vittorio Dan Segre, one of its great protagonists. Before Rosh Hashanah, immediately after the release of “Storia di un ebreo che voleva essere eroe” (The History of a Jew who wanted to be a hero), his latest book, we talked for a last goodbye and he asked me to read his recent analysis on the situation in Israel.
Here are some of his words: “The war in Gaza, in addition to strengthen national solidarity, is raising the awareness of the true Israeli weakness: too small domestic market, social imbalance, low level of formal education, language barriers and above all an unbridled confidence in the capacity of the military technology to replace human imagination and inventiveness. Where will this lead? It is impossible even to imagine it because of the international turmoil and the collapse of American leadership. After all, as Keynes used to say, in the end we will all be dead. It is true, but the choice of how to live is ours, because – as the Kabbalah teaches – in each of us everything is decided through the conscious evolution from selfishness to altruism.”