By Yaakov Mascetti* Identity is an implanted concept in my formation which has caused me many, many problems in the last few years. When my father was diagnosed with cancer in 2008 and it looked like, in 2010, he was going to die, I had rabbis tell me that for the halacha he was not …
By David Bidussa* In memory of Paul Celan, who is not wrong to re-read every now and then. “Black milk of daybreak we drink it at sundown we drink it at noon in the morning we drink it at night we drink it and drink it we dig a grave in the breezes there one …
By David Bidussa* I learned many things by listening to a 13-year-old teenager giving a speech for his Bar mitzvah in my synagogue. I summarize some of the things he said. In the scene of the ten commandments, three things count. The first is the expectation or the belief that without a fundamental principle there …
By Adam Smulevich Women from various cultural and religious identities and traditions accepted the invitation of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, together with the Interreligious Table in Rome and the Italian Jewish Center Il Pitigliani, to meet and knead bread together. Symbol of traditions and sharing, bread has always been the main element on …
By David Bidussa Jewish memory has defined two paradigms of the danger of annihilation and the defeat of the annihilator. Both are in Shemot a few chapters away. The first is the liberation from Egypt; the second the episode of Amalek. The first entered the civil calendar with a history of liberation. The second one …
By Yaakov Mascetti* With respect to the Divine commandment of “Lech Lecha” in the Book of Genesis I have argued here that Abraham imposed abandonment of his home, his culture and his father’s embrace is really an act of foundation of a new national model – a nation, the Abrahamic one, that is based on …
By David Bidussa “The provocateurs, the abusers, all those who, in any way, do wrong to others are guilty’ not only of the evil they commit, but of the perversion to which they lead the souls of the offended.” (Alessandro Manzoni, «The betrothed », Chapter II). remembrance for tomorrow. Maybe even for today. *David Bidussa …
By David Bidussa I happened to read by chance some pages by Michel de Montaigne, pages dedicated to cannibals (Essays, Book I, chap. XXXI). The philosopher reflects on the episodes of cannibalism that characterized the religious war between Catholics and Protestants. When it comes to brutality, civilized Europe has nothing to learn from the savages …
By David Bidussa* It is time to take stock. The Holocaust Remembrance Day turns 20. I ask myself many questions, two often come back to me. The first: in these 20 years the Shoah has been the most remembered event, the subject of commemorative, educational and television projects. #NeverAgain is a viral hashtag. The second: …
By Yaakov Mascetti* The Biblical act of seeing is never univocal, never simple. Rather, seeing is, by and large, a matter of will – perception entails a degree of preparation and of focus. To see is to know – and to know is to see. This kind of conception of sight is quite distant from …
By David Bidussa* “The fanatic is a walking exclamation mark. The fight against fanaticism would do well not to reply with an opposite exclamation mark. Fighting fanaticism does not mean annihilating all fanatics but, perhaps, putting in place a cautious therapy on the little fanatic who more or less hides inside the soul of most …
By David Bidussa* Many years ago, in the late 1950s, Hannah Arendt argued that the only painful fragment of reality granted to a pariah was the reality of persecution. I have a feeling that, made sixty years in advance, this reflection concerns us. *David Bidussa is a historian of social ideas.
By David Bidussa In next week’s Torah portion, we will read this verse: “The chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.” [Gen. 40.23]. Was it not enough to say that he forgot him? Why is it also written that he “did not remember him”? Because oblivion is never only the effect of a …
By David Bidussa* Every now and then I have the feeling, but maybe I’m wrong, of being a fortuitous survivor of a flood. Therefore, wherever I am, I’m forced, as Sisifo by Albert Camus, to endlessly push the boulder of memory and understanding up to the ungrateful mountain of public oblivion. Or perhaps, more simply, …
By David Bidussa* “One-sided” has become a way of saying that will probably mark our time (just as “ce n’est qu’un début, continuons le combat” was in 1968). It is not the symptom of a residual phenomenon, but of a common cliché that was dormant for a long time and has now risen to new …
By David Bidussa* “The Affaire Dreyfus” is a fairy tale with a happy ending only in appearance. With “The officer and the spy,” Roman Polanski opened up a reading of the present through the past. Once the credits finished rolling, it was time to go out on the street and go beyond the story. I’m …
By David Bidussa* “Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it” (George Santayana). On November 16, 1940, 79 years ago, the gates to the Warsaw Ghetto were definitely closed, and a wall was erected around it. No one wrote about it. What if Santayana was right? *David Bidussa is a historian …
By David Bidussa* For the second time in a few months, the “Pecora Elettrica” bookstore in the Centocelle neighborhood in Rome has been set on fire. This time it was the evening before its new reopening. “Nothing like arson embodies total destruction. Earthquakes, as natural events, or the destruction of a city, as a historical …
By David Bidussa* The last one hundred years (more or less) in 60 characters, spaces included: 1917-2019, from “hate toward the indifferent” to “hate toward the different.” *David Bidussa is a historian of social ideas.
By David Bidussa More or less 79 years later, once again in Dunkerque, Britain and Europe discover what the last resort is. Now, unlike June 1940, there has been no “homeland” on the horizon, ready to bring the last survivors to safety. *David Bidussa is a historian of social ideas.