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December 17, 2018 - Tevet 9, 5779

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Florence, Tuscany and Yad Vashem
A Protocol for Remembrance

By Pagine Ebraiche staff*

A memorandum of understanding was signed by the World Holocaust Remembrance Center of Jerusalem, the University of Florence and Tuscany’s education authority at Yad Vashem last week. Among the goals is a better knowledge of the history of the Shoah in Italy and Europe aimed at “promoting a culture which is based on mutual respect”. “It shall help prevent and nullify every kind of discrimination, antisemitism, racism, prejudice and xenophobia. We shall work together to defend people’s and communities’ inviolable rights,” it stated. Moreover, the protocol represents an effort to value and spread a culture of “peace, solidarity, active and democratic participation, social justice and dialogue, respecting and protecting cultural diversities, developing conflict resolving skills.”
Professor Silvia Guetta represented the University of Florence, while Milva Segato represented the education authority and Iael Orvieto Nidan, Eyal Kaminka, Richelle Budd Caplan and David Cassuto represented Yad Vashem. Stefano Ventura, the new science attaché for the Italian embassy in Israel, attended the ceremony as well.

*Translated by Simone Simonazzi, 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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Learning in the Memory of Rabbi Laras

By Daniel Reichel*

A year after his death, Rabbi Giuseppe Laras was remembered with a day of study devoted to his memory.
With personal memories and lessons of Torah several Italian rabbis honored the figure of Laras in an event organized on Sunday at the central synagogue of Milan.
Opening the event coordinated by Laras' student, Vittorio Bendaud, was the lesson of rav Alfonso Arbib, the Chief Rabbi of Milan and President of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly.
Describing the instrumental value of commandments through Maimonide's Mishna Torah and Shulchan Arukh, rav Arbib recalled how respect for the commandments represents not only respect for God and for others, but also for oneself. “If I curse someone who is not present, I am not so much hurting this person but myself; I am doing something despicable to myself. Mitzvots are needed to repair oneself, to improve oneself".

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A Garden for Illustrious Jewish Scientist
at the University of Florence

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

The municipality of Florence has decided to name a garden after the illustrious Jewish psychologist Enzo Bonaventura.
Bonaventura was born in Pisa in 1891 but studied in Florence. A prolific scientist, he was expelled from the University of Florence in 1938 after the promulgation of anti-Jewish laws. He moved to British Palestine and was killed in an attack on a convoy to the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem.
The garden in the University building in via Capponi has been chosen and will be renamed soon.

bechol lashon - Español

Mil años en busca de la integración en Sefarad

Julio Núñez*

En las últimas semanas, miles de judíos han mostrado su preocupación ante el aumento del antisemitismo que se está viviendo en Europa. El último estudio de la Agencia de los Derechos Fundamentales de la Unión Europea estima que nueve de cada 10 judíos tienen miedo y se sienten discriminados en su país. En España, no obstante, el peso de un pasado antijudío no causa temor en dichas comunidades. A pesar de que aseguran que muchos ciudadanos siguen teniendo un estereotipo medieval, los judíos españoles reiteran que la amenaza que se viven en otros países europeos aún está lejos. "Dicen que somos usureros, que tenemos cola y que somos ricos. Mucha gente no tiene contacto con personas judías. Hay mucha incultura en general, pero no existe el peligro que puede haber en Francia", dice Keren Azulay.

*El Pais, 15.12.2018.

Leia mas

pilpul

Songs

By David Bidussa*

In Naples at the Umberto High School the students’ representatives are fighting over adding the song “Bella Ciao” to the program for a concert on December 20. “Bella Ciao” has never celebrated victory, but it has been sung as a force of changing history. The lyrics explain that people are hurt but not defeated, that the game is not over, and that nobody forgets.
At public remembrances in recent times the song has expressed a tribute to the moment of parting. It states that the dream is still alive. It was sung in Paris in January 2015 after the massacre at “Charlie Hebdo ”and at Maraghana in Algeria in June 2004. Ferrat Mehenni sang it at his son’s funeral as a sign against the political powers and Islamic extremists. In Naples those who don’t like “Bella Ciao” have declared which side they are on.

*David Bidussa is a historian of social ideas.

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ITALICS

A Roman Hanukkah

By Michael Fraiman*

In Rome’s Piazza Barberini, Israelis are huddling around a towering nine-metre-tall hanukkiah, besieged by colonial buildings adorned with pine-needle garlands and bulbous red ornaments. A small group of loud Hebrew speakers making a scene in the Catholic capital of the world – if ever there was a metaphor for Judaism, this is it.
It’s the third night of Hanukkah, but the 30th anniversary of this holiday celebration. Rome’s Jewish community – galvanized, at least tonight, by the local Chabad chapter – hired a cherry picker to elevate a middle-aged Jewish man clutching prayer sheets in one hand and a large torch in the other to light the enormous hanukkiah. Beside the machine, young Italian soldiers in camouflage watch over the 150-person crowd with mild bemusement.
By any measure throughout Rome’s millennia-long history, this is an odd sight. Two thousand years ago, the Roman Empire defeated the Jews in battle, looting their treasures and destroying the Second Temple. Five hundred years ago, Jews in these parts were crammed into ghettos by the Pope and stripped of their humanity and political agency. Setting aside the Jewish stuff, 300 years ago, in this very plaza, instead of the decadent fountain of the demigod Triton – sculpted by Gian Lorenzo Bernini – officials sprawled out anonymous corpses for public identification.

*The article was published in The Canadian Jewish News on December 13, 2018.

moked è il portale dell'ebraismo italiano

This newsletter is published under difficult conditions. The editors of this newsletter are Italian journalists whose native language is Italian. They are willing to offer their energy and their skills to give international readers the opportunity of learning more about the Italian Jewish world, its values, its culture and its traditions.
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Realizzato con il contributo di: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, 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.