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February 22, 2016 - Adar I 13, 5776

NEWS

Italy Discloses Thousands of Documents
about the Nazi-Fascist Crimes

By Adam Smulevich

The president of the Chamber of Deputies of Italy, Laura Boldrini, released thousand of documents related to crimes committed by Nazis and Fascists in Italy during the Second World War. Published in the historical archives of the Chamber website, the material includes some significant revelations acquired by a parliamentary committee in charge of the so-called "armadio della vergogna" (the armoire of shame), a secret cabinet discovered in 1994 which contained an archive of 695 files documenting what happened during those months on Italian soil.
"A truly democratic country should not be afraid of its past," said president Boldrini. "Opening the armoire fills a serious gap and announces the start of a new season of awareness about the crimes and responsibilities of Fascism and Nazism in Italy," stressed the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities Renzo Gattegna.
Many historians shared with Pagine Ebraiche their first impressions about the material published online.

newS

Italian Minister of Education Opposes
Boycott against Israel

By Ada Treves

"Science and culture have the power to build dialogue and to prevent conflicts. We need a fluid and constant relationship between the scientific communities of all the different countries." The words of the Minister of Education, Universities and Research Stefania Giannini have resounded strong and clear on the occasion of the conferment of the honorary degree in International Relations and Cooperation for Development to Irina Giorgieva Bokova, Unesco Director General.
Moreover, Minister Giannini has decided to explicitly emphasize the official response that the Conference of Rectors of Italian Universities has given to the appeal signed by several hundred teachers and researchers, a call to action for a boycott of the Technion. They have decided to simply ignore those who want the boycott.

BOOKS

A New Venice Haggadah

By Rossella Tercatin

Among the ancient early printed Haggadot, the Venice Haggadah of 1609 is one of the most beautiful and fascinating. Over 400 years later, a group of international Jewish artists are working on a new Venice Haggadah. It is one of the initiatives marking the 500th anniversary of the establishment of the city’s Ghetto, the first in history.
“In 1609 the printer Israel ha-Zifroni of Guastalla designed an edition of the Passover Haggadah with completely new illustrations. The Haggadah was printed for him in the printing house of Giovanni da Gara in Venice. The Haggadah appeared simultaneously with translations in Judeo-Italian, Judeo-Spanish and Judeo-German, the languages of the Jewish communities living in Venice at the time,” as it is explained during the presentation at the Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art in Jerusalem, where a copy of the Haggadah is on exhibit.
The project of The New Venice Haggadah has been launched by the organization Beit Venezia, devoted to preserve and promote the city’s Jewish cultural heritage, with the cooperation of the Scuola Internazionale di Grafica di Venezia (International School of Design of Venice).

CULTURE

The Meaning of Jewish Resistance

By Daniel Reichel

What is the meaning of Resistance? Are we to consider part of Resistance as just the people that actively fought against the Nazis and the fascists during Second World War? Or is surviving, fighting for one’s own life, also a kind of Resistance? Is it possible to use the term “Jewish” connected to the concept of Resistance? These were just a few of the questions that came out during last week’s international conference on “The Jewish Resistance in Europe,” organized in Ferrara by the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS), together with the Ferrara Contemporary History Institute and the Memorial de la Shoah de Paris.

BECHOL LASHOn - Português A natureza da oração por Eliezer Di Martino* Nesta perashá o nome de Moshé nem sequer aparece, e é a única em que tal acontece, desde o Êxodo até o Deuteronómio. O lugar de honra é aqui ocupado por Aharon e seus filhos, os Cohanim. Quero analisar uma controvérsia entre dois gigantes, Maimónides e Nahmânides, sobre qual é a natureza da oração no Judaísmo. Sobre a obrigação de rezar, Maimónides escreve: "É preceito positivo [da Torá] o rezar todos os dias, conforme está escrito: "Servireis a H’ teu Deus..." - Ex 23:25. Ensina-nos a Tradição que este "servir" é "o serviço do coração" – ou seja, a oração. Nem a fórmula da oração nem a quantidade de orações a efectuar se encontram explicitadas na Torá. A Torá tampouco determina o tempo que se deverá dedicar à oração… O cumprimento deste preceito é assim: que todos os dias a pessoa [judia] reze e suplique, louve a Deus, e depois relate suas necessidades conforme o que precisa, por petição e súplica." (Mishneh Torah, Leis da Oração, 1: 1-2). *O rabino Eliezer di Martino é o rabino-chefe de Trieste. Leia mais	PILPUL The Feeling of Loneliness By Yaakov Mascetti* I write this article on February 21st 2016, twenty years after my conversion: for this reason I wish to address a central characteristic of the religious and psychological persona which I have become over the years. Solitude. While I have written about this various times here on this platform, this time I would like to give it some kind of theological justification, even though I do realize that it goes a lot deeper and is a very personal and intimate matter. And maybe exposing it to the few readers who take the time to go through my monthly blabber is something of a therapeutic engagement of this solitude. Because while I certainly do feel, very often, the pain and angst of solitude, there is also something purifying and uplifting in that state of consciousness, where nothing really has meaning. In his Lonely Man of Faith Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik formulates what to me is one of the sharpest and precise definitions of solitude. *Yaakov Mascetti holds a Ph.D. and teaches at the Department of Comparative Literature, Bar Ilan University. Read more

IT HAPPENED TOMORROW The Enemy By Guido Vitale "It is a weak identity that creates the need for an enemy.” (Umberto Eco - Pagine Ebraiche) Read more	italics Umberto Eco (1932-2016) By Pagine Ebraiche staff Umberto Eco, Italian scholar and author, died on Friday in Milan. Tributes to his person and his work have since appeared in papers all over the world. “As a semiotician, Mr. Eco sought to interpret cultures through their signs and symbols — words, religious icons, banners, clothing, musical scores, even cartoons — and published more than 20 nonfiction books on these subjects while teaching at the University of Bologna, Europe’s oldest university,” wrote the New York Times. Many newspapers remembered Eco’s interest in the fight against racism and anti-Semitism, which the author had vastly covered in his interview with Pagine Ebraiche on the eve of the release of his masterwork, The Prague Cemetery in 2010. Read more

moked è il portale dell'ebraismo italiano

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© UCEI - All rights reserved - The articles may only be reproduced after obtaining the written permission of the editor-in-chief. Pagine Ebraiche - Reg Rome Court 199/2009 – Editor in Chief: Guido Vitale - Managing Editor: Daniela Gross.
Special thanks to: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, Arlindo José Nicau Castanho, Eliezer Di Martino, Alain Elkann, Dori Fleekop, Daniela Fubini, Benedetta Guetta, Sarah Kaminski, Daniel Leisawitz, Annette Leckart, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Yaakov Mascetti, Francesca Matalon, Jonathan Misrachi, Anna Momigliano, Giovanni Montenero, Elèna Mortara, Sabina Muccigrosso, Lisa Palmieri Billig, Jazmine Pignatello, Shirley Piperno, Giandomenico Pozzi, Daniel Reichel, Colby Robbins, Danielle Rockman, Lindsay Shedlin, Michael Sierra, Rachel Silvera, Adam Smulevich, Simone Somekh, Rossella Tercatin, Ada Treves, Lauren Waldman, Sahar Zivan.

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Realizzato con il contributo di: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, Arlindo José Nicau Castanho, Eliezer Di Martino, Alain Elkann, Dori Fleekop, Daniela Fubini, Benedetta Guetta, Sarah Kaminski, Daniel Leisawitz, Annette Leckart, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Yaakov Mascetti, Francesca Matalon, Jonathan Misrachi, Anna Momigliano, Giovanni Montenero, Elèna Mortara, Sabina Muccigrosso, Lisa Palmieri Billig, Jazmine Pignatello, Shirley Piperno, Giandomenico Pozzi, Daniel Reichel, Colby Robbins, Danielle Rockman, Lindsay Shedlin, Michael Sierra, Rachel Silvera, Adam Smulevich, Simone Somekh, Rossella Tercatin, Ada Treves, Lauren Waldman, Sahar Zivan.