The TGM, the Tunis-Goulette-Marsa train, travels along the Tunisian coasts and effectively represents nostalgia for a life made up of days on the beach, carefree living and an idealised past that no longer exists. Instead, the TGV is the symbol of a life rebuilt on new tracks, in an unknown France, painfully uprooted from their …
Por Roberto Jona Con respecto a la inauguración del Beit Hakneset de Alejandría (Piemonte, Italia), quiero compartir un acontecimiento que me contó personalmente Peppino Vitale. Cabe empezar diciendo que Vitale era el mayor representante de la pequeña comunidad judía de la región italiana Piemonte, muy famoso y bien recibido sobretodo en la ciudad de Alejandría. …
At the dawn of 16 October 1943, over a thousand Roman Jews were rounded up in the building of the former Military Academy in via della Lungara, from which two days later they were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. It is a place of remembrance where the project of the association Ricordiamo insieme (Remember together), now in …
Last week, Italian general elections made news on the international press and Jewish media has been covering with special attention the success of right-winger Giorgia Meloni and the Brothers of Italy. The prospect of the right-wing government elicited many reactions and raised a few concerns. Italy’s Jewish community isn’t worried about new ‘fascist’ PM is …
By Laura Mincer* Mojsej Abramovyč Fišbejn (1946-2020) is considered among the most important Jewish Ukrainians poets. In 1970, as a dissident, he was forced to exile by the soviets and until 2003 he lived in Israel and Germany but continued to write almost exclusively in Ukrainian. In 2003, he came back to Ukraine and took …
By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera* On the occasion of the European Day of Jewish Culture, which this is year is dedicated to the topic of renewal, some statements have appeared that reiterated a call for attention not to confuse the concept of renewal with that of reform. We are talking about a recurring topic, in which …
Renewing oneself as an individual, as a community, as a country. It was the central theme of the 23rd edition of the European Days of Jewish Culture that took place Saturday in Italy. Promoted by the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, the event kicked off in Ferrara, the leading city in Italy, and over …
Von Anna Foa* In Sesto San Giovanni haben die Wähler die Wahl zwischen dem Sohn eines Überlebenden der Shoah und der Tochter eines jener Anhänger der Italienischen Sozialrepublik, die einem Regime, das die Juden jagte und deportierte, treu ergeben waren. Beide sind Politiker, allerdings nicht in dieser Rolle als Nachkommen von Deportierten oder Salò-Soldaten, sondern …
This year Ferrara will be the leading city for Italy for the European Days of Jewish Culture, which will take place next Sunday. More than a hundred Italian locations, all across the country, will participate by opening to the general public synagogues, museums Jewish sites, conferences, concerts, performances, guided tours, and other activities. In Ferrara, …
Para Daniela Fubini Vivimos en una época de fuertes confusiones climáticas y esto vale para todos, en todas las latitudes y longitudes. Sin embargo voy a reírle en la cara al próximo europeo que me diga: “pero qué calor terrible hace este verano, ni hablemos de dónde vivís vosotros que estáis en el desierto”. Ese …
By Emanuele Calò* On 23rd May 2022, the Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported: “‘To the synagogue you go pray/ I will always make you run away’. That was chanted loudly in the Ponte Milvio square in Rome during the pregame, then the chorus raised powerfully from the steps of the North stand, followed by the …
By David Bidussa* In New York, Friday 19 August, a week after the attack, intellectuals gathered on the steps of the New York Public Library to give public readings of Salman Rushdie’s work to show solidarity, but also because they were concerned about the ongoing process. Paul Auster intervened and said: “We have the right …
By Alberto Cavaglion* I would like to talk about Eshkol Nevo’s latest novel, which has been keeping me company this week (“Le vie dell’Eden”, Einaudi). As for the previous novels, I was not disappointed by it: the three stories of which the book is composed keep you on the edge, expect for the last one, …
By Anna Segre Ius sanguis, ius soli, ius scholae: the right of the blood, the right of the soil, the right of the school. If we look at the literal translation, aside from the current use of this terminology to classify laws concerning citizenship, there is no doubt that “right of the school” sounds much …
“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 …
By Laura Mincer* In an essay soon to be published, the Franco-Bulgarian art historian and scholar Neli Dobreva subjects the 9/11 memorials in New York to rigorous criticism (not without reason). A criticism also due to their, more or less evident, use of models of representation of the Shoah. Dobreva argues (not without reason) that …
By Anna Foa* It may seem strange, perhaps, but one of the most debated problems in the Jewish world, at least since emancipation and the encounter with modernity but even before, if we think of Josephus or Spinoza, is that of the nature of Jewish identity. What makes a Jew such? What are, as a …
By David Bidussa* “We cannot expect newcomers to integrate into existing cultural practices without having the opportunity to contribute”. So Yasha Mounk, in his book “The great experiment: Why diverse democracies fall apart and how they can endure” (recently translated into Italian and published by Feltrinelli). The mass arrival of Jews from Arab countries in …
By Laura Mincer* At the end of 1920s, Mojżesz Kanfer and Wilhelm Berkelhammer, two great Polish-Jewish intellectuals and critics, wrote: “Jews are the Ukraine of peoples, they live at the boundaries f peoples” and also: “You can find all the other peoples peripheries, more or less clearly geographically defined, where they meet other peoples and …
Par Alberto Cavaglion* Le dernier livre de Daniel Mendelsohn, “Trois anneaux : un conte d’exils” (Flammarion), est un vrai chef-d’œuvre. Un livre si lié aux deux précédents (Les Disparus, 2007 ; Une Odyssée, 2017) qui on peut penser qu’il s’agit d’une œuvre unique, un commentaire qui se développe sur lui-même. Ici la réflexion se déroule …