“David Sassoli, an example to cherish”

An example for his constant commitment to building a united Europe in the name of democratic values and the fight against all forms of discrimination. So the Jewish world remembers the President of the European Parliament David Sassoli, who died last week at 65.
Journalist, TV presenter, and deputy director of Tg1, he entered politics as an MEP of the Democratic Party in 2009. After being appointed vice president of the EU Parliament in 2014, in 2019 he was elected to the presidency. In that role, he has left a profound mark, as remarked by various voices of the Jewish Italian world. “His action for democracy and the construction of Europe was immense and stood out for its consistency”, said the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni, expressing the condolences of Italian Judaism.
“As he reminded us – she pointed out – united Europe is not a gift from heaven, but the result of a luminous commitment of great protagonists of which he is part. A heritage of imperatives of narrating, of doing, and knowing how to do for the good of humanity that we are all called not to disperse. We remember him with gratitude and devotion also for his closeness to the Jewish world expressed not only in words but with the force of actions”.
The Chief Rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, spoke of “particular friendship with the Jewish world,” remarking that during his European parliamentary mandate Sassoli “several times firmly expressed his position in defense of the values of coexistence and religious rights”.
From defending the Memory of the Holocaust to the fight against antisemitismto working with the Conference of European Rabbis to protect the rights of the Jewish minority in Europe, his work in Strasbourg has touched many areas of importance to Judaism. “Freedom of religion is a founding value of Europe. The contribution of the Jewish people is the contribution to the greater good of our continent”, he declared in 2020, speaking at a meeting of the Conference of European Rabbis.
In the same year, he committed to bring the voice of Life senator and Holocaust witness Liliana Segre to the European Parliament. “It is a great honor to have you here with us today, Senator Liliana Segre, and a great gift”, he said. “We will never forget your words about the horrors of the Shoah. With you, we will be stronger in supporting our testimony against indifference”.
“I had already known David Sassoli for some years and saw him again in January 2020, on the occasion of his invitation to speak in the European Parliament. I remember his handsome shy actor face, his warm welcome, the tears streaming down his face as he listened to me”, remembers Segre. “We have lost a European patriot, a representative of the best of Italy”.
UCEI Councilor Guido Coen, who says that between the two families there was “a friendship consolidated over time”, recounts to Pagine Ebraiche his private side. “I can call him a brother since with him I have shared many of the most important moments of my life”. “He was a generous person, never over the top, committed to the front line for the defense of human rights”, says Coen.
“Both as a journalist and as a politician he fought with fairness and professionalism for what he believed in. A true gentleman with many passions, including nature and mountaineering “. Among the objects he would carry with him, he remembers, there was a kippah received when he attended the funeral of former President of Israel Shimon Peres. “He always had it with him. He had worn it, for example, during his visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome in 2019. He was very attached to that kippah, but in particular to the memory of Peres. Above all to the idea of peace that he embodied and that he shared”.
Sassoli’s concern as president of the EU parliament, adds Coen, recently was related to the resurgence of extremism, in particular for the strengthening of the sovereigntist and Eurosceptic right.
“A danger to everything he believed in: a united Europe, without borders, without barriers. For David, it was not just an ideal but a concrete project as demonstrated by his desire to create a European train, which would move across the continent, from east to west. In his office in Brussels, he kept a model of this project”.
In many years of acquaintance, he had also not missed important public occasions related to Memory. “When we affixed the stumbling stone in memory of my uncle Giulio Della Pergola in L’Aquila, from where he was deported on January 16, 1944, David was present. As well as when in 2020 the bench in memory of the Jewish journalists and printers deported from Rome was inaugurated in Portico d’Ottavia. He was there too. A tangible demonstration of his sensitivity “.
Had it not been for the pandemic, Sassoli would also have attended the inauguration of the third major exhibition at the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah, points out the president of Meis Dario Disegni. “He had agreed to inaugurate the exhibition dedicated to the period of the Ghettos and Emancipation with a speech on Jews and Europe. It would certainly have been a significant contribution. Unfortunately, the circumstances – first the pandemic, then his disease – did not allow this to happen. However, his great availability remains, and so the esteem of the MEIS towards a person committed to carrying out the process of unification of Europe, with great sensitivity to the rights of all the many components of the multifaceted European society. I think it is an extraordinary example that must be cherished and to which our gratitude goes”.