Having trouble viewing this email? Click here    August 31, 2020 - 11 Elul, 5780

By Adam Smulevich
 
Few months ago, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara – MEIS changed its director. In place of Simonetta Della Seta, to whom Yad Vashem has entrusted a prestigious international assignment, Amedeo Spagnoletto has arrived. Rabbi and Sofer, 52 years old, Rabbi Spagnoletto has many goals.
Among some, he told in an interview with Pagine Ebraiche, is making the Museum even more as an educational center. "A place where, by focusing on young people, engaging knowledge about Judaism, its history and its values can be transferred. But also, the source of a process that leads those who learn to share what they have acquired with others. Everyone, in one way or another, must feel involved".
The new director has an idea, among others, in mind: to identify a school and a group of students who take up the challenge of setting up an exhibition under the supervision of MEIS and then the responsibility of sharing it with other schools in the city. The goal, he explains, is "to ensure that all students in Ferrara are participant of the Museum in a broad sense".

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff

Make way for a new way of experiencing the history, culture, and traditions of Italian Judaism. The upcoming European Day of Jewish Culture, scheduled for Sunday 6 September, is going to be different from past ones. In the wake of Covid 19, that dramatically affected Italy, the 21th edition of the event, focused on the theme “Jewish Journeys” will also take place in unprecedented ways, relying heavily on new technologies.
The leading city will be for the first Rome, the oldest Jewish community in the Diaspora, and events will be held in over 90 Italian cities and towns. The inauguration will take place at the Palace of Culture, and it will possible to visit the Jewish Museum, the synagogues, the Jewish Archive and part of the archaeological site in Ostia, where are the remains of one of the oldest synagogues in the world.

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff *
 
Arrigo Levi dedicated his whole life to journalism and institutions. As a great Italian Jew who was a protagonist in times of intellectual engagement, he left a permanent mark, becoming one of the most appreciated journalists of his generation as well as a close advisor for two Presidents of Italy.
Arrigo Levi has left us over the past few hours, at the age of 94. Shortly before his passing, he sang Israel’s national anthem and a Modenese nursery rhyme. Testimonies of affection have been numerous. “In his books, his foreign correspondence, and his TV shows, he recounted and acutely interpreted the great upheaval of our times. I also remember him for the civil passion that animated him from an early age, and for his human, affable, gentlemanly traits,” said Italian President Sergio Mattarella.

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Un journal canadien de langue polonaise, Glos Polski, publié par Wiesław Magiera, a affirmé dans sa une que la pandémie de Covid-19 a été déclenchée par les Juifs. Notre esprit revient à la Peste noire de 1348 et aux communautés juives exterminées en raison de l’accusation d’avoir diffusé la peste. Il est vrai que le journal en question soutient dans le même article que Lénine, Goebbels et Erdogan était ou sont secrètement juifs, que les Juifs envisagent de conquérir la Pologne pour la transformer en Judéo-Pologne, et d’autres absurdités pareilles. Mais il n’est pas suffisant de dire que ce sont des bêtises. Rejeter la faute des épidémies et des maladies à un bouc émissaire, que ce soit les Juifs, les sorcières, l’État, a toujours eu des effets désastreux en ce qui concerne les violences et la désintégration sociale, et il est bien de prendre cela au sérieux. Puis encore, il me semble que cette extrême droite polonaise est en train de dépasser la limite!

Anna Foa, historienne.
Traduit par Mattia Stefani, étudiant de l’École Supérieure pour les Interprètes et les Traducteurs de Trieste et stagiaire dans le bureau du journal de l’Union des communautés juives italiennes.
 

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I do not know if “Ebru Timtik is immortal”, as the crowd shouted in Istanbul on Thursday night on hearing that she had died after 238 days on hunger strike. The first step to make sure that cry is not forgotten is to be aware that the very foundation of power in Istanbul – but not only there – is to reinvent the past in order to impart the future.
So, since it has got to start somewhere, I picked George Orwell’s 1984 up again, a book which talks about the present (that of Orwell when he wrote, and to me it looks like ours). Because it is not about putting a stop to a process. It comes down to reversing it.

David Bidussa, social historian of ideas.
Translated by Mattia Stefani, student at the Advanced School of Modern Languages for Interpreting and Translation of Trieste University and intern at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.
 

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