By David Bidussa Free will is the only power that humankind possesses. Thanks to Oscar Sebastian Lelo, who, with “Disobedience,” tells us that we can choose, in a time where affiliation to a group is back to be lived and proposed as a destiny. *David Bidussa is a historian of social ideas.
By Jonathan A. Greenblatt* This has been a very difficult few days for the Jewish community — and for America. What started as a normal Sabbath for Jews — a time to be with family and community, celebrate bar and bat mitzvahs, hold baby namings, pray to God — ended with news of the massacre …
By Daniela Fubini* When I did my pilot in Israel in the summer of 2006, and the country was at war with Lebanon, I remember that I felt a bit uncomfortable when I was sitting on a bus and across me or at my side I had a cold and shiny barrel of rifle, usually …
By Yaakov Mascetti* When it comes to the weekly Torah portion of Haye Sarah, it is arduous for me to ignore the growing rhetorical emphasis placed on the topic of the Cave of Mahpelah and its role as the first acquisition of land made by a Jew in the Promised Land of Canaan. In Genesis …
By David Bidussa* A reminder: “Cursed be he who Subverts the Rights of the stranger” [Dt., 27,19]. Fundamental human rights demand the rescue and welcome of the stranger; they do not demand the inclusion. Dehumanizing in order to legitimize the non-rescue is the first act on the path whose end is extermination. *David Bidussa is …
By Daniela Fubini* When written words are your line of business, but most of your day is spent among people (in my case, on a rather long commute and in a small but highly interactive office) you have two options in front of you: either you embrace the noise or you look for quiet – …
By Yaakov Mascetti* I’m not ready for another batch of High Holidays in the light of Divine judgment, ten days of introspection followed by twenty-five hours of fast and prayer, fear and sorrow for sins committed, and then a whole week of transience inside the Sukkah. I’m not ready for the annual reiteration of the …
By Jacqueline McKenna* The Holocaust was a horrendous tragedy that threatens to diminish our faith in humanity. All over Europe families, children, mothers were separated and killed, revealing the utmost barbaric and inhumane side of our society. However, during this time there occurred events that may restore our faith in the goodness and compassion of …
By Daniela Fubini* The World Cup is over and the summer can start now, finally. It’s too bad the Cup didn’t go to Croatia, the typical underdog who collected fans all around the globe by ending up in a finale with an overwhelmingly lucky France who cannot be anyone’s underdog but had instead the charm …
By Yaakov Mascetti* My friend Mendel, who refuses to be boxed into the term haredi so I will refrain from doing so, is one of a kind – he lacks, from what I can see from outside, the internal struggles, the vicious strife between more than one force driving his actions. Of course he has …
By Anna Foa On June 9, 1937, 81 years ago, two antifascist Jews, the Rosselli brothers, were killed by hit men belonging to the right-wing extremist French movement La Cagoule in Bagnoles-de-l’Orne, Normandy. It was the Italian fascist regime which commissioned the murder, first and foremost Ciano e Roatta. Carlo Rosselli had been living in …
By David Bidussa* While trying to understand what is happening right now, I re-read the “Letter concerning fanaticism” by Shaftesbury (1708, Chiarelettere publisher), in which the author states that refusing to be in a good mood means that there is no mercy among one’s feelings and gives rise to two elements. These both express an …
By Daniela Fubini* One of the things that keeps new and old immigrants connected with the original country, especially when you are an Italian and you live anywhere else on the globe is naturally the food. Luckily, Italian food is a cult in many countries around the world; unluckily, about 99% of the times it …
By Yaakov Mascetti* When I was recently asked to write something on the weekly Torah portion (parashah) of Balak, the moment came when I had to face one of the most difficult sections in the Scriptures from the point of view of the literary structure and the motifs tackled in it. The story is structured, …
By David Bidussa* I think that, in her latest book (Marranos, Einaudi), Donatella Di Cesare sees Marranism as an issue concerning modernity and anyone, Jewish or not, when she writes that “the marrano becomes the matrix of the modern Jew in his various figures. ‘What do I have to do?’ is the question that characterized …
By Daniela Fubini* How truly wonderful it is to have multiple nationalities and sometimes almost parallel lives across the continents and the seas. One of the great advantages is that you can tune out one of the nationalities and feel the other with much more intensity in particularly happy or interesting times in the international …
By Sandro De Bernardin* “As Chair of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, I was dismayed and very worried by the comments made by Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, on 2 May in which he used antisemitic stereotypes in public discourse, falsely claiming that the Holocaust was a result of Jews’ “social function” and purported association …
By Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello* When the Jews are invited to read or to bless a Torah passage, at the end of the reading the audience says goodbye with the expression: “Hazak!”. Usually the full expression is “Hazak veEmatz, be strong and brave”. The sentence is taken from Deuteronomy 31,7, using one of Moshe’s recommendations to …
By Daniel Leisawitz Last Thursday and Friday, the State of Israel celebrated its 70th anniversary. On the one hand seventy years is a long time and major milestone for a small country that started out so precariously. On the other hand, three score and ten– the number of years prescribed for a full human life …
By Daniela Fubini* Commuting by train gives undeniable advantages. Even on the Israeli railways, where the longest possible ride is about four hours long, in the complete absence of fast trains, and with a route map as simple as the drawing of a stick man made by a four year old. First of all, there …