Around 100 cities across Italy participated in the European Day of Jewish Culture on September 6, highlighting the complexity, diversity, and vitality of Jewish culture, history, and traditions. This year’s event, one of Italy’s most widely attended cultural initiatives, was themed around love. The program included guided tours, art performances, music, and conferences. For the first time, Bologna, in the Emilia-Romagna Region, served as Italy’s lead city. During the opening ceremony, the president of the Bologna Jewish Community Daniel De Paz emphasized: “Opening synagogues and Jewish sites to a largely non-Jewish public means showing the cultural richness and contributions of Jewish communities to their cities. It promotes knowledge, dialogue, and coexistence while actively combating antisemitism.”
Minister of Interior Matteo Piantedosi participated in the ceremony. “We are all affected by the ongoing pain and divisions surrounding the situation in the Middle East. This suffering must not lead us to ignore the pain of others,” De Paz stressed. “I wish a simple, strong, and universal message could rise from Bologna on this day dedicated to love. No sense of belonging should blind us to others’ pain. We must continue to have the courage to meet and get to know each other. We must talk to each other and acknowledge that, above all else, we are all human.”
Livia Ottolenghi: Jewish culture as part of national destiny
Livia Ottolenghi, the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), recalled that for Jews, being a minority has never meant being strangers to the national destiny. She also stressed the importance of studying and knowledge. “The Jewish presence does not ask for privileges; it wants to be fully part of society. It asks for cultural spaces in universities and public discourse to remain open to all,” said Ottolenghi. She denounced the tightening of spaces for expression for Jews, Jewish communities, and Israeli citizens, although not always “explicitly.” “We can’t and we don’t want to ignore this phenomenon, which particularly affects young people,” she continued. Therefore, she hopes the bill proposal against antisemitism will soon be approved by the Chamber. It would send “a strong and necessary signal,” she concluded.
“We recognize ourselves in a common history,” said Bologna’s mayor, Matteo Lepore. “Love should be a political commitment in the broadest sense possible. We should not allow the normalization of hate speech,” he added. He described how antisemitism is on the rise in Italy and Europe, defending the need “to choose love, not as a consolation,” against the idea that “strength is the way to solve controversies among peoples and states” in a time when the idea that “all lives are not equal” is being openly discussed. For Lepore, this principle “must first be defended through words and then through actions.”
Ambassador Peled and Minister Piantedosi Speak Out
“We are just days away from Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year,” said Jonathan Peled, Israel’s ambassador to Italy. “As we look toward the new year, we cannot remain silent about the exponential rise in antisemitism, including its new guise as anti-Zionism. We must continue to work together to combat this hateful phenomenon and engage every sector of Italian society.”
Peled condemned what he described as an “unacceptable attempt to silence” voices from Israel’s cultural world. He argued that such actions had “brutally violated freedom of expression, at times escalating into physical violence.” The ambassador also spoke about love as being inseparable from “action, justice, solidarity, and collective responsibility,” and reaffirmed Israel’s commitment to “peace and coexistence with its neighbors.”
“Jewish culture represents one of the deep-rooted foundations of Western society,” said Interior Minister Matteo Piantedosi, praising the Jewish community’s ability “to preserve memory, to remain a living presence, and to assume responsibility for the present.” According to Piantedosi, “It is impossible to tell the history of Europe without telling the history of European Jews.” He added that this history must also be protected from violence and intimidation.
“Ensuring the security of Jewish communities has always been a priority for this government,” Piantedosi said. “That responsibility has become even greater since October 7 and the outbreak of the war in Gaza, prompting increased security and surveillance measures.”
The full speech of UCEI president Livia Ottolenghi in Italian is available at https://www.ucei.it/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/Discorso-Livia-Ottolenghi-GECE-2026-1.pdf
Adam Smulevich