By Rossella Tercatin*
In the early 1990s, a member of the tiny Jewish community of Casale Monferrato in Piedmont, Italy, pondered what could be done to ensure the community’s future.
“Currently there are two Jewish families who reside in our …
By Bonny Wolf*
It’s all about the oil.
Through the eight days of Hanukkah, it almost doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as it’s cooked in oil. A good case could be made for eating potato chips with every …
By Ben Sales*
Although Poopa Dweck has never been to Aleppo, her New Jersey home evokes the smells of a kitchen in the now-ravaged Syrian city.
Dweck was born after her parents left the once-bustling metropolis in 1947, but she …
By Daniela Fubini
In my personal crossroads of nationalities, languages and political or cultural affiliations, it has been a heavy duty month. Let’s put it flat out there: a little over one month ago many, possibly most of my closest …
By Daniel Leisawitz*
Politics around the world, from the U.S. to Italy to the Philippines, have taken some troubling turns recently. Much virtual ink has already been spilt in an effort to get at the root of what has led …
By Rossella Tercatin
On the morning of Friday, November 4, 1966, 18-year-old Andrea Belgrado was fast asleep in his family’s home across the street from the Great Synagogue of Florence. It was the Italian national holiday marking the World War …
“Vielen ist bewusst geworden, dass Wahlen kein Spiel sind. Sie sind viel zu wichtig”. (Christian Oxonitsch,Wiener Sozialdemokraten)…
by Susan Miron*
It was a colorful affair last Thursday in Harvard’s Paine Hall in many senses. “Italian Baroque Music from the Jewish Ghetto” (mostly Salamone Rossi) featured scholar Christoph Wolff and conductor and harpsichordist Nicholas McGegan joined by an …
By Eli Kavon*
Azariah dei Rossi, a pioneer of Jewish scholarship born into a distinguished family in Mantua, earned the condemnation of the rabbis of his time. The rabbinic leadership in the 16th century in Italy, Central Europe, and the …
By Daniel Leisawitz
The morning following the US election, my college campus was eerily quiet. An almost funereal air permeated the quad and halls (and the cold steady rain didn’t help). In class, some students were visibly distraught, others quietly …