“This historical era has one problem among many: prophets are missing.” Marek Halter is one of Europe’s most influential intellectuals. Born in Warsaw in 1936, he fled with his parents from the horror of the ghetto established by Nazis along the Vistula River and after many vicissitudes landed in Kokand, in what was then the …
By Daniel Reichel One of the hardest times for Rabbi Mayer Stambler, head of the Federation of Jewish Communities in Ukraine, was March 2022. Russia’s aggression had just started. The gloomiest predictions – back then considered the most credible ones – envisioned a swift conquest by Putin’s army. In Dnipro, the city where the Rabbi …
Von Adam Smulevich “La piuma del ghetto” (Die Feder des Ghettos) ist ein Buch, das man verschlingt. Dies erscheint beim Gallucci Verlag und ist das letzte Werk von Antonello Capurso. Er ist ein Journalist, Schriftsteller und Bühnenautor, der viele Streifzüge durch die Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts unternommen hat. Sein neuer Roman liest sich nicht nur …
By Daniel Reichel A patient reading of hundreds of letters that Ri – this was Rita Levi-Montalcini’s nickname as a child – sent to her family. In particular the correspondence with her father Adamo, an engineer who moved from Turin to Bari to design ice factories, but also the missives to her siblings Gino, Anna, …
Soixante-treize ans pour faire face à son passé. Ce sont ceux que Israel Corrado De Benedetti, juif de Ferrare né en 1927, a dû attendre pour remettre pied dans la cellule où, à l’âge de quinze ans, a été enfermé la nuit du 14 novembre 1943. L’occasion est arrivée avec la conférence “Les juifs italiens …
“Je me sentais trahi par l’Italie: c’était pas deux fascistes qui m’avaient arrêté, mais deux gendarmes en uniforme. Et puis, en Israël on voulait construire une société et un Pays meilleurs.” Israel Corrado De Benedetti racontait ainsi à Pagine Ebraiche, journal de la communauté Juive italienne, sa décision, prise en 1947, de faire l’Aliyah en …
Renzo Gattegna, former president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities – UCEI, died in Rome last week. A civil lawyer, he was born in 1939 in Rome and had been president of UCEI from 2006 to 2016 for three terms. His death leaves an immense void in the Italian Jewish world and in Italian society …
By Pagine Ebraiche staff Aged 92, Alberto Mieli, also known as Zi Pucchio, passed away last week. He was among the last Italian witnesses of the Shoah. Born in Rome on December 22, 1925, he was caught by the Fascists and the Nazis in February 1944 and then, after being held in Regina Coeli (Rome …
By Pagine Ebraiche staff Eliezer Tritto, a leader of the Jewish community from Sannicandro di Puglia just passed away a few days ago. He was 89 years old. Tritto, who lived in Zfat where he ran a legendary falafel kiosk, was in the group of people that embraced Judaism inspired by fellow villager Donato Manduzio …
By Danielle Rockman* Once in an interview, Primo Levi said, “I am a chemist. But my existence was marked by two fundamental facts. The first is imprisonment at Auschwitz. The second is having written about my imprisonment at Auschwitz.” In January 1945, Primo Levi was finally liberated from Auschwitz after eleven months in the death …
By Colby Robbins Throughout the course of history some of the greatest works of art and literature have been overlooked by the public when they were first created. This is certainly the case for Italo Svevo whose most well-known work, “La coscienza di Zeno” (published in 1923), was at first largely ignored and did not …
By Lindsay Shedlin Gillo Pontecorvo did not go to synagogue every Friday, or observe all the holidays. He was not a “perfect Jew,” but he was an innovative one. Gillo was born in 1919 in Pisa, Italy, into a large Jewish family, with nine brothers and sisters. Instead of following family traditions and pursuing an …
By Michael Sierra Menashe Kadishman, a major Israeli artist also known in Italy as “the shepherd of the Venice Biennale” passed away on Friday at the age of 82. Kadishman’s artworks are exhibited in central locations and in many galleries in Israel. He is most famous for his colorful portraits of sheep and metallic sculptures. …
By Michael Sierra It is said that there is always a first time. And the first few times it is also said that they are special: the first love, the first kiss, the first child, the first word. In this election I voted for the first time! It really is not exactly the first time: …
By Francesca Matalon The new board of the Italian Union of Jewish Students (UGEI) elected last week in Milan is a breath of fresh air for Italian Jewish youth (there had not been a board since the Congress which took place in Florence last year which had no candidates to take over the organization). The …
By Jazmine Pignatello* Rita Levi-Montalcini was born to a wealthy Italian Jewish family in Turin in 1909. Although she had literary aspirations early in life, she was inspired to become a doctor after the loss of a close family friend to stomach cancer. Her father advised all of his children against going to college, but …
By Lauren Waldman* “Historians are supposed to be discoverers of truths,” this simple adage by Arnaldo Momigliano can help us understand his drive to investigate the history of the ancient world. Momigliano was an Italian Jew, which already gave him a unique view on the world. The Jewish communities of Italy are diverse and distinctive …
By Sabina Muccigrosso* “In life, if one wants seriously to understand how the world works, he must die at least once” (Garden of the Finzi-Continis, 1962). And die more than once was what Giorgio Bassani did, if you consider each book a new life. Born in Bologna in 1916, Bassani became best known for his …