NEWS

The Waldensian Bonfire for Freedom: Celebrating Freedoms in Turin

By Ada Treves

The expectation was strong, as were the curiosity and excitement that in Turin brought a huge crowd in the central Piazza Castello for the "Freedom bonfire for everyone's rights" organized by the Waldensian Church together with the Jewish community and the City Council. The choice to bring in the city center an event traditionally organized in the Waldensian valleys has been a strong reaffirmation of a commitment shared by the two communities, that in Turin have a long story of mutual support and cooperation.
Pastor Paolo Ribet, who moderated the many representatives of the institution who participated, reminded the public the origins of the tradition to hold a bonfire on February 16: "In the Waldensian valleys every year, on the eve of February 17 we gather around bonfires to commemorate when in 1848 Waldensians were finally granted civil and political rights by king Carlo Alberto. The same rights were granted to Jews a few weeks later."
The President of the Jewish Community, Dario Disegni, underlined, a few minutes later, how Jews have obviously responded with enthusiasm to support the Waldensian Consistory in a real celebration of freedom and for the freedom of all, to reaffirm a strong refusal of any discrimination.

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NEWS

First Building of Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah to Be Inaugurated in 2017

By Pagine Ebraiche Staff
 
The Board of the Foundation of the Museum of the Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara (MEIS) announced that the building hosting part of the permanent exhibition will be inaugurated on December 13, 2017.
The Museum is located in the former prison on Via Piangipane and is due to be fully completed in 2020.
“This is an important first step in the direction of the completion of the museum. The exhibit, curated by Anna Foa, Giancarlo Lacerenza and Daniela Jalla, will reconstruct part of the millenary Jewish presence in Italy (up to the 10th century). It will show the beginning of the narration that the museum will focus on: the deep interweaving between Jewish and Italian history, between light and shadow,” explained MEIS president Dario Disegni.

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NEWS

Major Project Aims at Reconstructing
the Ancient Florentine Ghetto

By Pagine Ebraiche staff
 
A major research project aiming at reconstructing the geo-economic and social physiognomy of the Florentine ghetto is due to be completed in March.
The “Ghetto Mapping Project” is being carried out by the Medici Archive Project and coordinated by the director of the Eugene Grant Research Program on Jewish History and Culture in Early Modern Europe, Gabriele Mancuso.
The ghetto of Florence was established in 1570 by Cosimo I, the first grand duke of Florence, near the area of Mercato Vecchio (Old Market). Its’ location, in the very center of the city, entailed a number of legal and logistical problems.

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bECHOL LASHON - español

Peligra el legado de Bartali

Ismael Monzon*

En Ponte a Ema, una pedanía con cuatro casas en los campos de la Toscana, hay espacio para dos templos: la parroquia que lleva el mismo nombre de la población y el museo dedicado a Gino Bartali, el auténtico patrón local. Devoto como pocos, el empeñado ciclista probablemente no hubiera tolerado el símil, pero en una tierra de santos y beatos, todavía quedan fieles que acuden a honrar al último corredor de los de antes. A un ciclista que tiene en casa un santuario bien modesto, y amenazado de cierre, de olvido, arrastrando una leyenda que trasciende el deporte. Si uno todavía no ha entrado en el culto a Bartali, al llegar se sorprenderá con un edificio con pinta de biblioteca de barrio y un misterioso tendedero abandonado en una de las puertas.

*El Pais 7/2/2017


Leia mas

pilpul

My Mezuza

By Susanna Calimani*

The other day I realized that I should put a Mezuza in the flat I am renting, because although it is temporary, although it is not mine, although I'm often travelling, that is, nevertheless, where I live.
When I was a kid, I was told that the Mezuza is there to remind us of the blood sign on the doorposts that Jews had to make so that the Angel of Death seeking for the firstborns could spare them. The Mezuza reminds us that we were spared and saved, that we escaped from death and slavery, that we then crossed an infinite desert of sorrows, to look for a better place, for a future, and a new life. And after 40 years we arrived, as refugees, to the land of milk and honey.

*Susanna Calimani is a wandering economist currently based in Frankfurt.

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IT HAPPENED TOMORROW

Ich traume

Guido Vitale

"Bei der Premiere in Berlin sagten Sie, dass Sie geweint hätten, als Sie sich das erste Mal auf der Leinwand sahen. Es sind die Menschen im Kino, die mich bewegen. Jedes Mal lachen sie an anderen Stellen und verstehen auch Szenen, bei denen man es nicht erwarten würde. Und manchmal weine ich auch jetzt noch bei den Vorstellungen, dann aber einfach aus Freude, und ich frage mich, ob ich gerade träume. Ich glaube, erst wenn ich zurück zu Hause bin, werde ich das alles richtig verstehen können" (Menachem Lustig, Berlinale 2017)












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italics

The Italian Chazanut Roundtable

Each year, Centro Primo Levi invites a guest cantor to lead a ceremony of music and singing from the Italian and Mediterranean Jewish traditions.
This program features one of Italy’s leading cantors, Rabbi Elia Richetti, performing a selection of Ashkenazi synagogue songs from an array of Jewish communities in Northern Italy. Throughout his life, Rabbi Richetti has preserved the music of Gorizia, where part of his family came from, and learned the traditions of Trieste and Verona. The performance, presented in conversation with musicologist Francesco Spagnolo (UC Berkeley), will also include excerpts of other Italian traditions of Ashkenazi origin, such as Venice and Casale Monferrato. Ashkenazi Jews settled in Italy since the early modern period, and preserved original musical traditions documented in written and recorded sources since the 18th century.

*This article was published in New York Transatlantic.

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