MEDIA New Year Wishes on Pagine Ebraiche

By Rossella Tercatin

Fifteen Italian rabbis explain their hopes and wishes for the new Jewish year in the October issue of Pagine Ebraiche. The President of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly, rav Giuseppe Momigliano, pointed out his concern for “the situations of suffering and crisis on many fronts”. He wishes Italian Jews to reflect, pray, rediscover their values and feelings and to act according to mitzvot. The new issue of Pagine Ebriache also offers a recollection of Jewish initiatives before the current crisis of the migrants in this month’s special section, all devoted to the topic of “migrations”.

The culture section of the paper looks into “Via San Nicolò 30. Traditori e traditi nella Trieste nazista” (Via San Nicolò 30. Traitors and betrayed in Nazi Trieste), a new book by journalist Roberto Curci which reconstructs the story of a Jewish informer of the Nazi regime.
“A single story does not make history,” points out the editor in chief Guido Vitale, who reminds us of how Italy has so far avoided looking into the mirror when it comes to its responsibilities during the Holocaust, which include thousands and thousands of people who sold Jewish citizens for money or power. Among the thousands, two happened to be Jewish. “Why should we be surprised? Two out of 39,000 Italian Jews, two out of thousands and thousands of Catholic informers. It does not prove anything, but the evil that Fascism brought to Italy,” writes Vitale, who also remembers how very little has been studied and written on the general phenomenon, while the story of the two Jewish spies has been object of many books and studies.

Reviewing “Via San Nicolò 30” are also historians Anna Foa, Simon Levis Sullam, and Marco Coslovich. The October issue also presents an interview with Mario Cerne, whose father Carlo was assistant to prominent Italian (and Jewish) poet Umberto Saba, who is widely mentioned in the book.

Demographer Sergio Della Pergola analyzes the latest statistics on the world’s Jewish population.

The new Italian kosher certification K.it is taking off, with many Italian food industries applying to obtain the stamp.