“The Five-Star movement
should expel the Councilwoman
for her antisemitic post”

“I deem the published and subsequently removed post very grave and unacceptable. We distance ourselves from it.” That is Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs Luigi Di Maio’s comment on the incident concerning Turin’s Councilwoman Monica Amore, a member of the Five Star Movement, who posted on her social media a picture containing squalid antisemitic cartoons: all the publications from press group Gedi depicted in a single block, surrounded by some caricatures typical of the twentieth-century antisemitic propaganda. The picture Amore used was first diffused on the negationist Telegram channel Libera Espressione (Free expression), allegedly.
The President of the local Jewish Community Dario Disegni was the first to point out the incompatibility of the Councilwoman’s public role with intemperance as such. “Those are cartoons from the antisemitic, Nazi-Fascist propaganda”, he said. The Councilwoman would be “unworthily filling a post in public institutions.” If she cannot understand it, Disegni added, “then the Movement which nominated and elected her should.”
Turin’s Jews President said so to Mayor Chiara Appendino, who called him to express solidarity. It was reiterated, actions must follow words. The Mayor wrote in a post: “Councilwoman Monica Amore apologized for posting a very grave and completely unacceptable post, which she has already deleted. I restate the strictest distancing, on mine and the City’s behalf.”
The Councilwoman is apparently refusing to step down, at the moment. In a surreal interview with newspaper “La Stampa” she stated: “I posted that at night. I was naive. I was tired. There is no ill intent.”

Translated by Silvia Bozzo and revised by Antonella Losavio, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities