NEWS

The Union of Italian Jewish Communities
at the Final Meeting before Elections

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

On June 19, the Italian Jews all over the country will be called to the polls to elect the new Council of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI). The last meeting of the current Council was held last Sunday. President Renzo Gattegna, who has held the post for the last 10 years and will not run again, presented the final report of his term. The report was also an opportunity to go over the experience of his ten years in office, and the challenges that lay ahead for the new Council and the whole Italian Jewish world.
“If we were to elude openness and dialogue, two things that are deeply different, if not opposite, to assimilation, it would be an illusion against history, a fatal mistake, it would mean to miss a unique opportunity. Openness and dialogue are proof of the trust in ourselves and they are a stimulus that will strengthen our culture and identity in order to be able to face any challenge or confrontation, and be able to defeat, once and for all, the contempt that has not been completely eradicated,” Gattegna said.

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NEWS

Pagine Ebraiche at the Turin Book Fair

By Pagine Ebraiche staff
 
Thousands of copies of Pagine Ebraiche have been handed out at the Salone del Libro di Torino, the most important book fair in Italy, which is currently taking place in Turin. The Italian Jewish paper has also organized several events at the fair, including one devoted to translation and translators on opening day, and a public interview of the Iranian poet Payam Feili on closing day. Feili, will be recounting his experience in Israel, interviewed by Pagine Ebraiche contributor Daniela Fubini and editor-in-chief Guido Vitale.

The artwork is by Giorgio Albertini.

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FOOd

New App Lists Kosher Products in Italy

By Francesca Matalon

To speak about kasherut is also to speak about quality, according to Jacqueline Fellus, responsible for K.it, the Italian national kosher certification initials released by the Union of Italian Jewish Communities (UCEI), of whose board Fellus is a member. K.it was a protagonist at Cibus, the prominent food and agriculture fair held in Parma last week.
The exhibition featured a special new section devoted to kosher food, promoted by the Ministry of Economic Development. From this cooperation, and together with the association “Federalimentare", a new app was created, called Kosher Italian Guide, which provides a list of all kosher products already available and alerts users about new ones when they come on the market.
Fellus presented the app at Cibus, together with Marcella Pedroni, general secretary of Fiere di Parma, Elena Toselli, from the Ministry of Economic Development and Sergio Auricchio from the firm Agra Editrice which is in charge of the design.

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culture

From the Ghetto of Venice to New Media
Pagine Ebraiche Joins History Festival

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

The Ghetto of Venice and the risks entailed by the use of new media will be the themes of two events organized by the Italian Jewish paper Pagine Ebraiche at the prominent History Festival èStoria. 
Every year, the History Festival èStoria held in Gorizia, a northeastern Italian town bordering Slovenia, gathers historians, writers and journalists from all over the world and connects them with an audience which is not only passionate about history, but truly believes that history is the tool to better reflect and understand the issues of the contemporary world.
The main theme of this year’s edition (May 19-May 22) will be “Slaves”, liberties denied, the struggle for freedom.

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BECHOL LASHON - Français

Normalité

par Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello*

Une famille italienne d’olim chadashim a quitté Jérusalem et a fait son retour en Italie. Pourquoi ? Les raisons sont plusieurs, comme par exemple la difficulté de commencer une nouvelle vie en Israël, des évaluations économiques, la complexité de la décodification de la société israélienne dans la vie de chaque jour et le besoin de rythmes de vie différents. Une famille italienne d’olim chadashim a quitté Jérusalem et « de petits vents et de petites brises très gentilles » de pensées, de critiques, de murmures et d’autres chuchotements se sont tout de suite soulevés. Pourquoi ? Parce que parmi les italkim qui les ont connus certains se sont demandés jusqu’à quel point la klità (l’insertion) est dure dans la société d’Israël, d’autres se sont demandés si la panacée de tous les problèmes économiques, identitaires ou sociaux est vraiment Israël, d’autres encore ne se sont rien demandé et ont considéré cette «yeridot» comme les autres: une trahison, un abandon, aussi éventuellement une abjuration.

*Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello est rabbin. La traduction est de Giulia Castelnovo, élève de la Scuola superiore traduttori e interpreti di Trieste, stagiaire chez Pagine Ebraiche.

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pilpul

Redemption Narratives

By Yaakov Mascetti*

Jewish holidays do not take place in an historical vacuum, ever – Pesach, together with Purim, is one of the more problematic holidays, at least so I think it is for those people who, to quote Milton, do wish to "be govern'd by reason, and not generally give up thir understanding to a double tyrannie, of Custom from without, and blind affections within." Pesach is a story of redemption, delineating the trajectory from a hic et nunc of slavery and misery, to an illic et tunc of freedom – the readers, or better those who participate in the ritual meal of the Seder, are called to locate themselves on this trajectory, to fashion themselves into veritable participants in the narrative even though they will also always already be extraneous to it. The story we are called to see is, to put it in a univocal and very digestible way, how the People of Israel were freed from the chains of slavery by the direct intervention of God, and led through a process of cleansing / purification as they passed through the open waters of the Red Sea.

*Yaakov Mascetti holds a Ph.D. and teaches at the Department of Comparative Literature, Bar Ilan University.


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IT HAPPENED TOMORROW

Enemy of Zionism

By Guido Vitale

“It might seem odd to view the vileness that the Labour Party has disclosed over these last few days as an opportunity. But I'm tempted to believe that Ken Livingstone has done the Jews a service - after years of dodging and weaving, he has finally laid his cards on the table.
He doesn't know it, of course, and never will. To understand one's actions requires self-knowledge, and to understand their effect on others requires imagination, and Mr. Livingstone is a stranger to both. But he has, once and for all, bust the big lie that you can be an enemy of Zionism and not an enemy of Jews.
I choose my words carefully. An enemy of Zionism. Finding fault with Israel is something else. Who doesn't find fault with Israel? Jews are themselves born fault-finders. We find fault with everything." (Howard Jacobson)










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Altrove/Elsewhere

Sadiq Khan

By Daniel Leisawitz*

The victory of Sadiq Khan (Labour) in the London mayoral race means that he will become the British capital’s first Muslim mayor. His margin of victory (he won 56.8% of the vote) and the sheer number of votes that he garnered (1,310,143: more than any previous London mayoral candidate) demonstrate that his support runs well beyond the 12.5% of Londoners who identify as Muslim. 
Regardless of this strong show of support, Khan’s election has elicited consternation among some commentators and observers in the UK and beyond, who don’t quite know what to make of the fact that a British Muslim man will soon become the leading citizen of London.  Khan is viewed by some to be somehow foreign or even threatening to the culture (and security!) of the UK. In its last desperate moments, the campaign of his Conservative opponent attempted to take advantage of these reservations by insinuating that Khan had secret links to and sympathies for Muslim extremists.

*Daniel Leisawitz, professor at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA). The artwork is by Abraham Cresques a 14th-century Jewish Spanish cartographer.

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