Having trouble viewing this email? Click here  October 19, 2020/ 1 Cheshvan, 5781

By Pagine ebraiche staff

The academic year just had it start at the Italian Rabbinical College. The courses, which are taught in remote and involve dozens of students, were inaugurated with a lecture on Talmud by the Chief Rabbi in Rome Riccardo Di Segni. Starting from a topic apparently far in time, the lesson, which was focused on the Tractate Meghillah, touched many timely issues. “The Talmud provides us with a journey in logical and existential dimensions totally separated. However, this separation is fictitious”, explained Rabbi Di Segni. The lecture was introduced by the addresses by the president of UCEI – Union of Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni e by the Rabbinical college coordinator rav Benedetto Carucci Viterbi. Both focused on the challenges faced by didactic activity in the pandemic, which represents both a crisis and an opportunity. “Recently we noticed an increase of participation and a growing interest in Jewish studies”, said Noeme Di Segni. “It is a remarkable attention, which is not restricted to adults. It is a challenge we are called to address and elaborate”.
 

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff

The Italian Jewish community commemorated last week the 77^th anniversary of the deportation of more than 1,000 of Rome Jews to the extermination camp at Auschwitz. The raid took place at dawn on 16 October 1943, when Roman Jews, including 207 children, were rounded up in the Ghetto and taken across the Tiber to the Collegio militare on via della Lungara. Two day later, they were deported to Auschwitz. Only 16 were to make it back alive, 15 men and a woman.
Many events marked the occasion. The anniversary was commemorated in Rome, as every year, blowing the shofar and laying down two memorial wreaths before the Great Synagogue and in Largo 16 October, where the Museum of the Shoah is located. The ceremony was attended by the president of the Jewish community of Rome Ruth Dureghello, the chief rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, the president of UCEI Noemi Di Segni, the president of the Foundation Museum of the Shoah Mario Venezia, Rome mayor Virginia Raggi, and the president of the Region Lazio Nicola Zingaretti. 

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff

Thousands of students from all around Italy had the opportunity, on Friday, to hear from the voices of three men who as kids survived the raid of the ghetto of Rome. During an online event organized by the Foundation Museum of the Shoah, which connected 40 schools, Emanuele Di Porto, Mario Mieli, and Vittorio Polacco, brought their moving testimony. “Grandparents are like an umbrella, a fundamental protection. I lost all of them, and it is a great void. Bearing witness and communicating with young people, it is what gives me strength. Now it is up to them to become witnesses and to carry on our truth”.
With these words Vittorio Polacco ideally passed the baton to the young generation. He was one of the few kids who 77 years ago escaped the raid of the ghetto, but still bears the emotional scars of the terrible losses he suffered. As for Emanuele, he survived because his mother pushed him down the truck that was taking them to prison. She was aware that such an abrupt separation was the sole opportunity her kid had to survive.

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff

“We decided to allow the places that symbolize the persecution against Jews in Rome to speak. What emerges is a new perspective, unknown to the general public, of a city capable of great demonstrations of solidarity, but also betrayal and cowardice”.
With these words Mario Venezia, president of the Foundation Museum of the Shoah, introduced the documentary titled “Roma e la Shoah. Luoghi e storie della persecuzione” (Rome and the Shoah. Places and stories of the persecution).
Directed by Dario Prosperini and written by Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi, the documentary, which was aired in a dossier by Tg2, draws attention to the raid of the ghetto of Rome through a new angle.

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By Emanuele Calò*

El 14 de septiembre de 2020, el Consejo Económico y Social de la ONU (Ecosoc) votó una resolución más condenando a Israel, en la que “reitera que la ocupación israelí constituye un serio obstáculo para la realización de los derechos, para el progreso, “autonomía, integración y desarrollo social de las mujeres palestinas”. Al respecto, el Comité Central Israelita de Uruguay se preguntó en su página web si, dado que según los Acuerdos de Oslo, en las zonas A y B, la autoridad civil es la palestina, no es a Hamas y la Autoridad Palestina que se le debe pedir que proteja a las mujeres palestinas.
Por supuesto, los estados donde se puede azotar a una mujer por una bagatela también votaron a favor. Conocemos ahora del periódico Aurora del 7 de agosto de 2020 que un alto funcionario de la Cancillería uruguaya fue destituido por el voto favorable, habiendo sido designado en su lugar Fernando López Fabregat, pariente lejano de Enrique Rodríguez Fabregat, uno de los defensores de la causa judía, que luchó como un león para conseguir la aprobación de la Resolución de la ONU que dio origen al Estado de Israel.

* This article was published in Enlacejudio on October 13, 2020

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By Cnaan Liphshiz*

The British edition of the fashion magazine Grazia fired an editor who made remarks she later acknowledged were anti-Semitic. A spokesperson for Bauer Media, the publisher of the Italian magazine’s UK edition, said Stephanie Yeboah “will no longer be writing as a contributing editor of Grazia” following “an internal review,” the Daily Mail reported on Saturday Yeboah, 31, on Thursday apologized for statements she made on Twitter about Jews and the Holocaust. “To plead ignorance is no excuse, I should have known better than to make these kind of comments about events which remain a source of unimaginable trauma for the Jewish community,” Yeboah said in a statement. “In these tweets, I made very ignorant and antisemitic comments about the Jewish community,” she added.
  
*This article was published on Jewish Telegraphic Agency on October 13, 2020
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