culture

The Museum of Italian Judaism
and the Shoah Ready to Debut

The following article was published in the special section on the December issue of Pagine Ebraiche devoted to Museums. The special section was edited by Ada Treves.

By Ada Treves*

A complex and multi-shaped reality, comprising national authorities as well as smaller local organizations. A rich heritage including over a hundred institutions from all over Europe. This is the reality that Brigitte Sion depicted in her “Survey of Jewish Museums in Europe”. The survey, published by the Rothschild Foundation (Hanadiv) Europe in 2016, was the result of a long research. Since the very beginning, during the collection of the addresses to which the survey would be sent, the topic proved to be a complex one: it was not easy to define what a Jewish museum was. It was also a difficult choice to exclude Holocaust memorials and museums, whose main goals differed from the purpose of the research.
The transition from relic repositories to public educational, informative and cultural centres is not homogeneous. Moreover, not everybody agrees on using the Jewish experience in Europe as a bastion against antisemitism, and as an educational model toward intercultural inclusion and respect. How could – or should – Jewish museums fulfill their initial role of telling the history, traditions and culture of the Jewish minority, while also contributing to the general education of the public, as expected of all museums in contemporary Europe?
In this complex picture, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Holocaust (MEIS) is currently hosting its latest exhibition, called “Ebrei, una storia italiana. I primi mille anni” (“History of Italian Jews – The first thousand years”).

Translated by Federica Alabiso, 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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FEATURES

Luisella Ottolenghi Mortara, an Art Historian

By Julie Carbonara*

Studying the past doesn’t exclude being fully involved in the present, as the life of Luisella Ottolenghi Mortara, who has died aged 87, demonstrated. An art historian who specialised in illuminated manuscripts, Ottolenghi Mortara is credited with almost single-handedly reviving interest in the wonderful illuminations featured in many Jewish biblical manuscripts from the Middle Ages.
Not only did she unearth a treasure trove of masterpieces often lying forgotten on dusty library shelves, she also made a point of finding out the stories behind the works. In so doing she brought back to life the people and communities who had commissioned and manufactured them and succeeded in creating a snapshot of their era. She also discovered intriguing connections between Christian and Jewish illuminations.

*This article was published in The Jewish Chronicle on November 30, 2017.

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bechol lashon - Deutsch

Mann

David Bidussa*

Nach 70 Jahren kehrt Thomas Mann mit seiner Schriftensammlung „Achtung, Europa!“, in die Buchhandlungen zurück. Anhand dieses Werkes vereinte er die deutschen Exilanten zur gemeinsamen Aufrechterhaltung ihrer Kultur. Dies erfolgte vor allem durch die Wiederaufnahme der eigenen Sprache, um infolge deren Schwindens nicht die Kenntnis der vaterländischen Geschichte des autoritären Nationalsozialismus abhandenkommen zu lassen. Dies war der lange Beginn unserer unruhigen Gegenwart.










*Übersetzung von Milena Porsch, Studentin der Universität von Regensburg und Praktikantin bei der Zeitungsredaktion der Union der jüdischen Gemeinden von Italien (UCEI).







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Altrove/Elsewhere

"Benvenuti, Maccabei!"

By Daniel Leisawitz*

As the holiday of Hanukkah approaches, our minds turn to pleasant images of warmly flickering candles, steaming latkes, sweet sufganiyot, and spinning dreidels.  We may also reflect back on the 2nd-century BCE battles of the Maccabees against the Seleucids for control of Judea, or the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem once the Seleucids had been chased away. However, we may also want to think of Italy, and specifically of Rome, as we remember all that took place “in those days at this time.”
It is in the first book of Maccabees (which was included in the Septuagint, but not in the canonical Hebrew Bible), that we find the first documented evidence of a Jewish presence on the Italian peninsula. In chapter 8 it is stated that Judah Maccabee sent ambassadors to Rome in order to shore up support for the Jewish rebellion against the Seleucid Empire
Comparisons Suggest an Answer”.

*Daniel Leisawitz is the Director of the Italian Studies Program at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA). The artwork is by Abraham Cresques a 14th-century Jewish Spanish cartographer.

**This translation of the Septuagint is from the electronic edition of A New English Translation of the Septuagint (Oxford UP, 2009). http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/nets/edition/

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italics

Why this 17th-century Italian Jewish ‘outlier’ composer is joining Handel in S.F.

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