LEADERS Vittorio Dan Segre, the Jew Who Wanted to be a Hero
By Rossella Tercatin
Vittorio Dan Segre, Zionist pioneer, political scientist and journalist whose sharpness, courage and honesty on paper and in life made one of the most prominent Italian intellectuals of the twentieth century, died on Saturday after a long illness. He was 92.
In 1974, when the Italian journalistic legend Indro Montanelli decided to start his own newspaper, “Il Giornale”, he made sure to have Mr. Segre at his side, not only as one of the founders, but also as the Middle East correspondent.
Israel has always been one of the main focuses of his life.
Born in a small village in Piedmont (a region located north-west of Italy) in 1922, Vittorio Dan Segre left Italy for the then British Mandatory Palestine after the promulgation of the Racial Laws in 1938. During the Second World War, he fought for the Liberation of Italy from Nazi-fascism in the Jewish Brigade established within the British Army. In 1948 he was back in Israel, where he joined the Palmach. “At the time it gained its freedom, Israel was a daring audacious dream. Back then, everything was difficult. Nowadays we have reasons to be optimist.” he said in an interview to Pagine Ebraiche in January 2013. As an Israeli citizen, he started a career in the Foreign Service, which brought him to Paris as attaché at the Israeli embassy and then to Madagascar as ambassador.
But the diplomatic service represented only one of his many achievements. At the end of the sixties he started to teach International relations and Political philosophy. Among his tenures have been Oxford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, University of Haifa, and in 1998 he founded the Institute of Mediterranean Studies at the Università della Svizzera Italiana.
Writing has also been more than a passion. Alongside his reports and analysis, he authored several books, including the most recent “Storia dell’ebreo che voleva essere eroe” (“Story of the Jew who wanted to be a hero” published by Bollati Boringhieri), his second auto-biographical work, that came out last week, only days before Segre passed away. “As a passionate reader of adventure fiction, I developed an epic romanticism that had lead me to join the fascist youth fencing and riding organizations. Afterwards, these sports helped me to overcome the shock of racial laws who ended my care-free life”, reads the incipit of the book.
And really Mr. Segre’s life can be read as a novel, set between Jerusalem and Govone (the small Piedmontese village where Segre was born and where he still maintained his family residence), France and Africa. He did yoga with David Ben Gurion and escorted the then Fiat legendary president Gianni Agnelli to meet Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin after the 1967 war.
He was also a passionate reader and a contributor to Pagine Ebraiche, the magazine of Italian Jewry, which he supported since the beginning.
“I will have to learn how to do without your monthly phone call after the postman in Govone or in Jerusalem brought you the latest issue of Pagine Ebraiche, without commenting it together, without receiving your critics and your rare praises” reads the editorial by the editor in chief Guido Vitale published today on Pagine Ebraiche 24, the Italian daily newsletter.
In the interview Mr. Segre gave to Pagine Ebraiche in January 2013 he spoke about the book he was still working on, back then. “I have written another book, perhaps the conclusion of this last chapter of my long existence. I wanted to express some of my ideas in complete freedom, using literature and I ventured myself in this ground. Because literature is the only form of prophecy that is allowed to us today. I wanted to narrate some passages of a life full of the reality of miracles, and not because of my own merits. I wanted to leave a message to my children and grandchildren, but I do not know if it will be understood because the content of a book is always threefold: there is what the author wrote, there is what the reader thinks he has read, and there is what the author thinks he has written.”
“Vittorio Dan Segre was one the most passionate and subtle observers of our times – said the president of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities Renzo Gattegna, who was personal friends with Mr. Segre – He wrote some of the most memorable pages, projecting the awareness of his identity as an Italian Jew”.
Condolences have been offered to the family by the President Giorgio Napolitano.
(Artwork by Giorgio Albertini)