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UCEI strengthens its efforts for the reception and integration of migrants
By Pagine
Ebraiche staff
“You shall not give up to his master a slave who has escaped from his
master to you. He shall dwell with you, in your midst, in the place
that he shall choose within one of your towns, wherever it suits him.
You shall not wrong him”. Also: “If your brother becomes poor… you
shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he
shall live with you”.
These are just some of the passages from Torah in which there are
references to helping the other. It is an obligation from which we
cannot escape provided that “these actions are not harmful to us”, as
the Sages of the Talmud recommend.
It is from this double idea that the Council of the Union of Italian
Jewish Communities (UCEI) has approved during its last session a
project to back up local communities promoting initiatives for migrants
and refugees.
It has been presented by the Office for Social Policies with the
support of a special commission and UCEI Vice-president Giorgio Mortara
as supervisor. This project has been launched with the awareness of
“the obligation that we have towards refugees insofar as it does not
attack our vital interests”. Therefore “we cannot reject people who
cross our borders in search of integration and a future, but neither
can we take responsibility for an unlimited amount of migrants without
jeopardizing our already precarious economic system”. However, the
presentation has clarified, “the discomfort of incomers is a key point
of the Jewish moral conscience, which is favored by our memory of the
past.”
“The events of the last weeks and months,” UCEI president Noemi di
Segni said, “shift the focus back to issues such as reception of
migrants, solidarity and integration. These extremely complex topics
require mature and effective solutions and certainly not an eager quest
for visibility. In this respect, the Italian society has plenty to
learn from the Jewish experience. This is the principle behind our
project, which reinforces our engagement in favor of human dignity and
recognition of the other.”
She added, “Our commitment to reception and integration has its roots
in Torah and the other fundamental texts of Judaism. This is an issue
that we hold dear, because of what our texts state and what our
experience has been over the centuries. Our first priority is to
reiterate our leading and indispensable values, which are increasingly
endangered”.
She finally said, “This initiative aims to provide significant support
to local communities which have distinguished themselves in this area,
boosting the existing devices and broadening the fields of assistance.
It is a challenge which has developed under the sign of acceptance, but
also of real and genuine integration. We intend to give central
importance to the respect of fundamental rights and duties which those
being helped are endowed with towards the community.
The idea of financing through the profits from Eight per thousand those
communities who have, or at least would like to, put into place
reception and support projects comes from the assumption that the
acceptance of migrants is a duty for the Jewish Italian Communities, so
long as it is viable and does not cause any trouble to them.
Among the initiatives worth mentioning is the commitment of the Jewish
Community of Milan, with the collaboration of the associations Oasi del
Clochard, City Angels, Betè Avon, Gruppo Giovanile Hashomer Hatzair AME
and Benè Berith, and the one from the communities of Turin and
Florence, which both propose reception projects with Vice-president
Alda Guastalla and the social worker Alice Gamba as supervisors in
Turin and President Daniela Misul and Assessor David Palterer in
Florence.
Our final objective is to create a network of subsidiarity and help in
order to improve the conditions of people in difficulty and contribute
to their integration, “also relying on the collaboration with public
health structures and other voluntary organizations, with the purpose
of boosting help.”
This project has been developed in the name of Tzedakah, a pillar of
Jewish identity, and has received support in various forms: healthcare,
clothes, education, help for integration, and accommodation for medium
and short stays.
(In the picture there are some of the guests in the facility run by the
co-operative Il Cenacolo in a venue owned by the Jewish Community of
Florence and rented at a controlled price. Coordinator Marina Cascella
is with them).
*Translated by Mattia Stefani and
revised by Claudia Azzalini, both students at the Advanced School of
Modern Languages for Interpreting and Translation of Trieste University
and interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish
Communities.
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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.
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