Many prestigious guests and the Y-TAL-YA project at the upcoming Jewish Book Festival in Ferrara

Many significant guests will characterize the 12th edition of the Jewish Book Festival organized in Ferrara, from Thursday 23 to Friday 26 September by the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah. The theme of this edition – which will also see the preview presentation of I-TAL-YA Books, the international digital census project of about 35,000 Jewish books coordinated by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – will be “home”. A central topic for an identity like Judaism, which has made the house “an instrument of choice for the transmission of identity and values; a resource that has allowed the survival of a people in diaspora”.
From this perspective, the festival will confront the many challenges of the present. “Over the years, – explained the president of MEIS Dario Disegni – we have had the honor of hosting some of the most representative Italian and international authors of contemporary literature in Ferrara. For the second consecutive year, despite the difficulties and limits imposed by the pandemic, we did not want to give up a festival that brings with itself the inestimable value of culture”.
All the meetings will take place under the sukkah, the traditional hut built on the occasion of Sukkot festivity which commemorates the years that the Jews spent in the desert on their way to the Promised Land. It is an evocative and stimulating choice. “The hut with the roof made of branches in which, according to the Torah, Jews must reside in for seven days, represents the precariousness on which humanity must reflect in the most intimate context of the dwelling”, stressed the director of MEIS rabbi Amedeo Spagnoletto. “But it is also the symbol of a space open to hospitality, a welcoming place, precisely because it is simple and essential and everyone can recognize oneself and participate”.
Events are free, and reservation are suggested. Info here. Many events will be streamed via Facebook on the page @MEISMuseum.