UCEI President, “Dialectics should reflect Jewish values”

“Italian Jews have been following the Israeli reality day by day, minute by minute, for months, years, decades, forever, as they feel part of the great Zionist dream and the building of the Jewish State which we witness passionately. Israel is part of our identity and destiny”.
These are the words of Noemi Di Segni, President of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, in welcoming the Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu to the Great Synagogue of Rome. She greeted him on behalf of the 21 Italian Communities “with the hope that the meetings scheduled with the representatives of the Italian government will be productive and that the prolific cooperation between Italy and Israel will continue to bear fruit for the benefit of both our countries”.
During her speech, among other things, Di Segni highlighted: “I can assure you, mister Prime Minister, that the feeling of transport, visceral identification and the desire to defend the rights and the valorisation of Israel is shared by every one of my coreligionists, in every community. Precisely for this reason, the scrutiny over the decisions that are being made – that translate into legislative proposals and ministerial guidelines – is strict and felt as a moral duty. As a Jewish duty”.
“Just as in Israel there are different opinions on what the right thing to do is, based on the love for one’s homeland for the homeland and on the specific life experiences and contexts, – continued Di Segni – here too there are differences and no unanimous assessment with respect to the choices made by the leading government. I do not intend to go into the merits of the individual proposals for reform of the legal system, but I do as far as the values and the posture to be maintained are concerned”.
In this regard, Di Segni said: “I cannot help but share the deep feeling of concern regarding the split that is emerging within Israel and that inevitably is also reflected in our Communities, accentuating in our contexts of reference the distorted judgment on the morality of the State of Israel of those who are systematically prone to criticising”.
“The recognition that has matured in favour of Israel as an enlightened and democratic country is an absolute value that we wish to defend together with you, as far as we can within the relationships cultivated with organisations and institutions and within the Italian public opinion. But this is only possible if the political dialectics reflects Jewish values”.
“The behaviour of those who incite hatred and violence towards their neighbours – hilonim, left-wing, Arabs or Palestinians –, of those who take justice into their own hands, cannot be proudly Jewish”.
“One cannot be proudly Israeli, nor proudly Jewish, if in the name of a Jewish identity, the violence of the individual and the ministerial legitimization of acts of revenge are offered as a response to terror and mourning”.
Di Segni then added: “I think it is our obligation, as Jewish institutions in the diaspora, to make those who as outsiders do not possess the deep knowledge of Israel and degree of identification understand the focal issues that have been the subject of voting in the last weeks. At the same time, we must not lend ourselves to situations that accentuate accusations and hatred towards Israel as a whole”.

Translated by Annadora Zuanel, revised by Alida Caccia, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.