Having trouble viewing this email? Click here November 9, 2020/ 22 Cheshvan, 5781

By Pagine ebraiche staff

“It is a significant sign in the short and long term”, said Ricardo Franco Levi, president of the Italian Publishers Association - AIE since 2017. A piece of news - he really hoped for - has been made official recently: even in the regions with the highest risk of contagion, those classified as red zones, bookstores will remain open along with all other “essential” services. This is a firm change of course compared to last spring lockdown restrictions which were then modified along the way in April. Books’ essentiality was immediately affirmed this time. “There are various satisfying elements,” says Levi to Pagine Ebraiche, “Indeed, we know the great impact the final part of the year has on the economy of this field. A book can ease loneliness and worry, especially in such a complex period. I believe that at least another aspect is really worth pointing out: this government’s political decision means being more successful in terms of civilization”.

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By Pagine Ebraiche staff

Beth Shlomo synagogue came to life in Milan right after World War II, thanks to Jewish soldiers of the British Army, among them the Jewish Brigade volunteers, and it was paramount between the 1945 and the beginnings of 50s in giving shelter to survivors of extermination camps and in organizing the refugee’s emigration to Israel.
Now this historical institution, which hosts the Aron HaKodesh from the Italian concentration camp of Ferramonti and two Torah scrolls dating back to 19^th century brought to Milan by the Chief Rabbi of Genoa Riccardo Pacifici, launches a crowdfunding campaign aimed at preserving its memory. Due to the economic crisis, Beth Shlomo, which in addition to being a synagogue is a cultural center open to the city, is at risk of shutting down. “Help Beth Shlomo to keep its memory alive”, reads the online campaign to which everybody can contribute to preserve a place such important to the city of Milan and to its Jewish community. Here more information.

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As a consequence of the ongoing pandemic, the elections to renew the Council of UCEI – Union of Italian Jewish Communities, which were initially planned for November 15, will be held in March 2021. The decision was formalized last week by UCEI Council accordingly with the opinions of the Board of Arbitrators and the Rabbinic Board. However, the course of the pandemic will be constantly monitored so as to consider the opportunity to reschedule the date. The lists of candidates will not change.

By Stefano Jesurum*

November 4 was the 25^th anniversary of Yitzhak Rabin’s murder. Just to remind us of how much death and suffering can be caused and are still in the name of God. Of any God.

* journalist

By Pete Bradshaw*

Since ‘In life, in order to really understand the world, you must die at least once. So it’s better to die young, while there’s time to recover and live again.” The speaker is a middle-aged Italian Jewish businessman of Ferrara, in the early 1940s, attempting to console his heartbroken son, Giorgio – who has been rejected by a young woman, Micòl Finzi-Contini. But these words are to have a terrible ironic significance, because it is Micòl, not Giorgio, who is destined to be taken away by the fascists, along with the rest of her Jewish family, and handed over to Italy’s ally, Nazi Germany, for deportation to the death camps. Together, poor besotted Giorgio and the exquisitely unattainable Micòl are the non-lovers in Vittorio de Sica’s The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, his profoundly disturbing and mysterious 1970 film about doomed love and fascist horror. To mark the 50th anniversary of this film, which won the best foreign film Oscar and the Golden Bear at the Berlin film festival, it is to get a special screening at the UK Jewish film festival, accompanied by a Zoom discussion in which the film’s French star, Dominique Sanda, will take part.
  
*This article was published in the Guardian on November 3, 2020.

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