Livia Ottolenghi Is the New President of the UCEI
Livia Ottolenghi has been elected president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities. She is the third woman to serve in this role, following Tullia Zevi and Noemi Di Segni. She is taking the reins from Di Segni. A 63-year-old professor of dental medicine at La Sapienza University in Rome, she previously served as a UCEI councilor of education. On February 15, the council of the Italian Jewish Communities elected her with 42 votes in favor and four blank votes.
“My candidacy is based on a key point: openness, identity, and cultural growth. From this, a new season should be built in dynamic balance,” Ottolenghi explained. She will lead a unitary executive board with a specific mandate: “Now, we must work together to find a new rhythm and respond to different needs.” The UCEI board, she announced, “will represent all sensibilities with clear and strong responsibilities and transparent communication for a Jewish community capable of uniting and making choices to deal with difficult times.”
Ottolenghi explained that achieving shared governance “had been complex because we had to reach a synthesis starting from different points.” However, she said it was the right way to go and “that it was also for the other lists, as emerged in the first meeting of the newly elected Council in January. Some people talked about it in critical tones as a stalemate. But it was actually an opportunity to confront each other and begin building the result we reached on February 15.”
“Staying together and harmonizing different visions “is not the easiest choice, but it sends an important message within the Jewish world and to society,” said Ottolenghi. Internally, it may help improve knowledge of and appreciation for the UCEI’s activities, fostering wider respect for its work. Externally, the challenges are numerous, and we should respond with initiatives and proactivity, reinforcing what is being done.”
Ottolenghi accepted the mandate with emotion, expressing a sense of gratitude and responsibility. After the election, she first hugged her father, Enzo, who had attended the vote. Married to Massimo Gai and a mother of three, Livia Ottolenghi has long been active in the Italian Jewish community. She promoted the 16 fact sheets designed to help young readers learn about Judaism, created by the UCEI in collaboration with the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI). She supported an agreement between the UCEI and Hevrat Yehudei Italia, the organization representing the Israelis of Italian origin, for projects in Israel aimed at students and teachers of the Italian Rabbinical College. Ottolenghi also worked to strengthen the UCEI’s collaboration with the Israel National Library. “The Union of Italian Jewish Communities should be a common house for the communities, based on listening and pluralism. It should be an authoritative voice in Italian society, in continuity with the previous term, and a bridge toward Israel and the international Jewish world,” Ottolenghi told Pagine Ebraiche. Her appointment follows nine and a half years of Noemi Di Segni’s presidency. Di Segni led the UCEI during a particularly complex and transformative period for the Italian Jewish community.
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