\u201cCulture, dialogue and respect are the foundations of our coexistence\u201d. Intolerance and racism must never be underestimated, and it is up to every one of us \u201cto bring to life, through confrontation and encounter, the values of civility and solidarity upon which the republican Constitution is based\u201d. This was the message sent yesterday by the Italian President Sergio Mattarella to the President of UCEI \u2013 Union of Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni on the occasion of the European Jewish Culture Day.
\nThe event, which involved over 90 Italian cities and towns, kicked off at the Palace of Culture in Rome, the oldest Jewish community in the Diaspora and this year the leading city. \u201cOur history dates back 22 centuries. So, the theme Jewish Journeys on which the 2020 edition is focused, immediately caught our attention, and we tried to develop this idea in all its facets\u201d, said the President of Rome Jewish Community Ruth Dureghello in the welcome address.
\n\u201cWe are glad and proud to celebrate a new edition of the Day and to emphasize, year after year, that Jewish culture is part of the Italian cultural context\u201d said the President of UCEI Noemi Di Segni. Along with our duty to remember the Holocaust, we have the duty to never forget that \u201cJudaism is not only the Shoah, the pogroms, the persecutions. It is life, yesterday as today\u201d. In the wake of Covid 19, restrictions were in place, and many events were streamed online.
\nIn Rome, the program included visits to the synagogues, a bike tour through historical Jewish sites, a guided tour to the Jewish neighborhood in Jewish Roman dialect, cultural meetings, and the donation of the sculpture Three sisters by Antonietta Rapha\u00ebl to the Foundation of the Shoah Museum.
\nIn Milan, the events were streamed online. The most symbolic was the concert at the Central synagogue, in which a group of musicians of La Scala Theater honored the memory of Vittore Veneziani, the choir director of La Scala expelled in 1938 after the racial laws.
\nBe it real or virtual, it is important to have a path to follow in our life, even we don\u2019t fully know its final destination, said the Chief Rabbi of Milan Alfonso Arbib, in the opening ceremony. \u201cWe could say that Jewish history started with a road, with G-d telling Abraham to leave his country and his father\u2019s household. He tells him to leave a place and the negative element with which it is identified to go towards what? It is not known. G-d tells Abraham to go \u2018to the land I will show you\u2019. And so Abraham does not know then his final destination\u201d. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"