rosh hashanah 5778

One Year to Decide Our Future

By Guido Vitale
 
This 5778 which is now to begin is the year of some decisions that will leave their mark on the Italian Jewish institutions. The whole Jewish world is confused: it isn’t ready enough to act in a context where old divisions between conservatives and progressives have little relevance and where the essencial thing is to face up to a line of globalists and internationalists, which actually opposes to a strong nationalist and glib group resurgence. Beneath big global problems, we can see that there is plenty of unresolved issues in the Italian Jewish agenda.
The crisis of values and ideas
It’s harder and harder for Italian Judaism to establish what message it actually wants to convey to its sorrounding society and what role it wants to play in the Italy of our days. Considered the current situation, we shouldn’t settle for general ideas and customary expressions. On the contrary, we should define a more specific content the whole of Italian people could clearly understand. Being limited to initiatives which are reserved for narrow contexts, reproducing pieces of historical talks in a society where ordinary people are living new and serious problems very badly just means certifying a kind of marginalisation.
The crisis of the Holocaust commemoration
The sense of commemorating the Holocaust has been drammatically deteriorating during the last few years. The growing distance in time, the death of the last witnesses and the dangerous tendency to ritualize and institutionalize run the risk of depriving Memory of its key role for people’s lives, making it part of a purely formal dimension. During next year, our Country will guide the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the whole of us will have the opportunity to contribute to redefining and keeping Memory alive.

*Translation made by Anna Pagetti, student at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, intern at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.

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NEWS

The Next Giro D’Italia to Start From Jerusalem

By Adam Smulevich
 
The next edition of Giro d'Italia, one of the prestigious three-week-long bicycle Grand Tours held every year along with the Tour de France and Vuelta, will start from Jerusalem. The official announcement, as Pagine Ebraiche anticipated few weeks ago, was announced today during a press conference in Jerusalem.
At the heart of this project, there is the figure of Gino Bartali (1914-2000), a great Florentine cyclist who had been awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" by Yad Vashem for his efforts to aid Jews during World War II. The key witness was Giorgio Goldenberg, a Jew from Fiume that was hidden together with his family in an apartment owned by Gino. "Gino Bartali saved my life and the life of my family," he revealed in December 2010 to Pagine Ebraiche. His words quickly spread around the world.

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culture

An Exhibit Brings a Taste of Jewish Rome
in New York

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kultur

Meis und Miur, gemeinsames Engagement
für Kultur und Didaktik

Ada Treves

Die erste Tat der Podiumsrunde mit dem Titel “Teilnahme und Staatsbürgerschaft heute: die Herausforderungen der Aufnahme“, die eine zentrale Veranstaltung des Festes des Jüdischen Buches von Ferrara 2017 war, war die Unterzeichnung des Vereinbarungsprotokolls durch das Meis, das Nationale Museum des Italienischen Judentums und der Shoah und durch das Miur, das Ministerium für Bildung, Universität und Forschung in Italien. Das Protokoll trägt den Titel „Kollaborationsaktivitäten zu didaktischen und erzieherischen Initiativen für Schüler, Studenten und Dozenten im gesamten Bereich der Primär-, Sekundär- und Hochschulbildung“.

*Übersetzung von Clara Ehret, Studentin der Universität Regensburg und Praktikantin bei der Zeitungsredaktion der Union der Jüdischen Gemeinden in Italien (UCEI).

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bechol lashon - Español

Pregunta

Pierpaolo Pinhas Punturello*

El mes de Elul llega y hace una simple pregunta: “¿Dónde estás?”
La misma que en Génesis Dios hace a Adán (3,9): “¿Dónde estás?”
Nos da tiempo hasta Rosh Hashaná para encontrar una respuesta que dé sentido a nosotros mismos, a nuestras familias, a nuestras comunidades y al mundo que nos rodea.








*Pieraolo Pinhas Punturello es rabino. Traducción de Anna Zanette, estudiante de la Escuela Superior para Intérpretes y Traductores de la Universidad de Trieste, en prácticas en la oficina del periódico de la Unión de las Comunidades Judías Italianas..

Leia mas

pilpul

The Importance
of Listening

By Susanna Calimani*

Last week, Piero Terracina was in town. Invited by Italia-Altrove Frankfurt, a local Italian organization, he told us a bit about himself and about his experiences, about his life before and after Auschwitz. He tried to condense everything in less than two hours, but actually it was less than one hour, since half of the time was devoted to the German translation of his sober words.
The audience was mainly made of Italian expats with their sons and daughters, and I started to wonder if they were old enough to listen to those words, what they knew already, whether they could imagine or understand what even we, adults can hardly realize.

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




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IT HAPPENED TOMORROW

Our Mission

By Guido Vitale

To be faithful to our mission and to the spiritual inheritance we took over, we have to demonstrate to be able to speak frankly and peacefully, to be open and attached to tradition at the same time. We have to trust our tomorrow, despite all.









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italics

Giro d’Italia set to start 2018 cycling race with three stages in Israel

By AP*

The Giro d’Italia cycling race will begin in Israel next year, marking the first time any leg of the sport’s three Grand Tours will take place outside of Europe.
Organisers said on Thursday that details of the exact route of the three stages to be held in Israel will be announced next week, with Italian and Israeli ministers making the announcement in Jerusalem along with the recently retired Spanish cyclist and two-times Giro winner Alberto Contador.

*This article was published in The Guardian on September 18, 2017.

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