Having trouble viewing this email? Click here December 14, 2020/ 28 Kislev, 5781

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

In Italy, as in the rest of the world, Hanukkah adapts for Covid-19 safety and moves on line. Although the Festival of lights looks vastly different in this time of pandemic and social distancing, the tradition of celebrating together however has not been canceled. Since the start of Hanukkah, many virtual events have allowed to celebrate the holiday safely.
In a very symbolic ceremony, the delegation of 19 doctors from Israel’s Sheba Medical Center in Tel Hashomer who help the Michele e Pietro Ferrero hospital in Verduno hospital to cope with a surge in Covid-19 patients lit the first candle along with the local staff. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu participated to the event, which was organized by the Israel Embassy in Rome and broadcasted on its social media.
On the first night of Hannukkah, the national event organized online by UCEI also kicked off. Every night, two Jewish communities will light the Hanukkah candles together. This way, from Bologna to Naples and from Livorno to Padua, the whole Italian Jewry will have the opportunity to meet virtually and share the joy of the holiday. On the end of Shabbat, all the Italian Jewish communities joined the celebration simultaneously.

Read more

By Alberto Cavaglion*

The debate on the uniqueness of the Holocaust has been repeatedly a burning issue and still is today. I have followed the various discussions on this portal over the last week with great interest but also with a touch of weariness. I have found them outdated. I fear that the issue of remembrance and of the policies required to preserve it has been put in the wrong way in Italy, from the very beginning. A naïve, hardly critical memory, leaning towards deeming unspeakable things and crimes committed in different settings as similar, has long prevailed. There is such naiveness in the challenging comparison between the victims of the camps and those of the gulags and foibas, but illustrious victims have also been claimed by the naïve memory of the people looking for a common denominator on a smaller scale. For example, the naïve memory can be seen operating in classifying under the label ‘bad Italian’ the behaviour of the Nazi-fascists towards Jews and the violent acts committed against brigands after the Italian unification or gas bombs used against Ethiopians by Rodolfo Graziani.

*Historian

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 - UCEI.

Read more

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

Katharina Adler’s Ida, a historical novel set in Vienna in the first half of twentieth century, has won the XX edition of the Wizo Italy Prize, in the name of Adelina Della Pergola. The book, recently translated into Italian and published by Sellerio (2019, 552 pp.)  tells the story of Ida Bauer, alias Dora, who is the subject of Freud's famous case history of an adolescent. The author, who is the great-granddaughter of Ida, offer a unique perspective on the life of this strong-willed woman depicting her as neither a hysteric or a hero, but a woman looking for her freedom.
Ida (1882–1945) became a patient of Sigmund Freud when she was 18 years old and after 11 weeks breaks off the treatment. He wrote about her in a "Fragment of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria" (1901), one of his notable early papers, using the pseudonym Dora. Since then, Dora’s case has elicited a wide critical response and an enduring fascination on readers across the world. Through historical researches and family memories, Adler’s novel follows Ida’s life from childhood to her death, portraying at the same time the daily life of a well-to-do secular Jewish family in Austria and Ida’s brother, Otto Bauer, a leading member of the Austro-Marxist movement, struggles toward democracy.

Read more

Von David Bidussa*

Am 7. Dezember 1970 tat Willy Brandt, Bundeskanzler der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, eine schweigende und einsame Geste: Er kniete sich vor dem Denkmal der Helden des Warschauen Ghetto nieder. Die Geste wurde weder in Deutschland noch in Polen positiv aufgenommen und wurde auch nicht weder als angebracht noch als befreiend gesehen. Für viele in Deutschland stellte sie die Übernahme einer Verantwortung für einen Tat dar, den sie nicht begangen hatten. Für viele in Polen stellte sie di Anerkennung einer Vorrangstellung der "nicht polnischen" Opfer dar. Inwieweit entsprechen diese Reaktionen der Stimmung unserer Zeit?

*Sozialhistoriker der Ideen

Übersetzung von Antonella Losavio, Studentin der Hochschule für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer der Universität von Triest und Praktikantin bei der Zeitungsredaktion der Union der jüdischen Gemeinden von Italien - UCEI.

By Michelle Chesner *

On December 2, 2020, Columbia Libraries, in partnership with the Institute for Israel and Jewish Studies, hosted an online event celebrating the 10-year anniversary of the Norman E. Alexander Library for Jewish Studies. Titled “Mystics, Music, and Microscopes,” the webinar highlighted the work of scholars who have conducted extensive research in Columbia’s Judaica collections. Although Columbia has been collecting Judaica since its founding as Kings’ College, the first librarian for Jewish Studies wasn’t hired until 2010, thanks to a generous endowment from the Norman E. Alexander Foundation. Alexis Hagadorn, Columbia Libraries’ Head of Conservation, discussed her work on the distinctive tacketed bindings on the copies of Columbia’s 16^th-century Talmuds, printed in Venice by Daniel Bomberg. stories.The so-called “Bomberg Talmuds” are quite rare; a complete set sold at Sotheby’s in 2015 for almost 10 million dollars. The Columbia copy is nearly complete, and bindings were retained on most of the volumes throughout the centuries.

*This article was published on Columbia News on December 10, 2020.

Read more

In addition to our social media in Italian, Pagine Ebraiche International recently launched its new profile on Facebook. On our page, we share news, photos, and updates. Please take a moment and visit it, and once there, click “Like” or “Follow”. We look forward to bring you great information and connect with you.
We encourage you to comment, ask us questions, or share the content with your friends, family, and co-workers. Join us on Facebook