Having trouble viewing this email? Click here February 22, 2021 - 10 Adar 5781

By Pagine Ebraiche staff

“Remembering is a pain, but I never shirked. Even illuminating a single consciousness is worth the effort and the pain of keeping alive the memory of what it was. For me, memory is living and writing is breathing”. So the Hungarian-born but Italian by adoption Holocaust survivor Edith Bruck, in an intense interview with L'Osservatore Romano, the newspaper of the Holy See, stressed her commitment to of life of witness, writing, poetry.
The Pope read her interview, which related the horrors she and her family experienced during the Nazi persecution, and was deeply moved. So he asked to meet her and on Saturday afternoon paid her a visit in her home in the center of Rome. “I came here to thank you for your witness and to pay homage to the people martyred by the insanity of Nazi populism”, the Vatican quoted the pope as telling Bruck. “And with sincerity I repeat to you the words that I spoke from my heart at Yad Vashem and that I repeat before every person who, like you, has suffered so much because of this: [I ask] forgiveness, O Lord, in the name of humanity”.
In a statement, the Holy See noted that, “the conversation with the Pope revisited those moments of light with which the experience of the hell of the camps was punctuated and evoked the fears and hopes for the time in which we live, emphasizing the value of memory and the role of the elderly in cultivating it and passing it on to the young”.

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Until March 14^th the whimsical world of the artist Marc Chagall is in display in Italy’s Palazzo Roverella in Rovigo. Titled “My Russia will love me too”, the exhibition focuses on the origins of his unique style and the relationship to his Russian heritage. According to Chagall’s granddaughter Meret Meyer, the artist was deeply influenced by Russian art.“We are pushed to discover links that are suggested, without being able to confirm that Chagall was actually inspired by specific iconographies. But, of course, this is an artistic universe, the icons, the lubki (Russian woodblock prints), that all artists from the Russian avant-garde were soaked in the same way. Chagall then used them as vocabulary that he brought along with him and within him as if they were natural extensions of him like the paintbrush, like the color pallet”, she said. The exhibition, curated by Claudia Zevi, includes bird maidens, or sirens from Russian mythology and folklore to give visitors a taste of the type of popular illustrations Chagall was exposed to and to highlight the symbolism of the paintings, which are deeply rooted in Jewish identity as Rav Scialom Bahbout highlights in the essay below.

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By Rav Scialom Bahbout

Marc Chagall's artworks were multifarious. Many traces from various sources of inspiration can be found in his paintings. It is worth remembering that Chagall was born in Eastern Europe, where different cultural and spiritual tendencies coexisted with the traditional community represented by the rabbinate: Hasidism and Haskalah. Hasidism was opposed to the rationalist tendency represented by the rabbinic group and it focused on the importance of observing precepts with joy and enthusiasm. Haskalah, also known as the Jewish Enlightenment movement, was influenced by the cultural changes brought by Enlightenment and Positivism that significantly affected the whole Europe, especially with regard to the development of science.
The Jews of Vitebsk were obviously divided into various communities and Marc Chagall’s family (originally Shagal) belonged to the Hasidic community: Vitebsk’s Rabbi Menachem Mendel was introduced and initiated to Hasidism by the Maggid of Mezerich, pupil of Ba’al shem tov. The strength of Jewish tradition and customs were highly valued by Marc Chagall’s family members. In fact, they led a life deeply immersed in the Jewish world: the mark of Jewish culture and of the distinctive joy of Hasidism can be found in many of Chagall's paintings. 
Youth spent in the Hasidic community in Vitebsk influenced and left its traces even in the life of people who lost familiarity with traditions and active Jewish life, and Marc Chagall was certainly among them. It must also be considered that the Hasidic and Ashkenazi communities were subject to a form of isolation at the hands of the Christian population. Events such as pogroms were frequent in territories under Tsar domination and in Eastern Europe.

Translated and revised by Silvia Bozzo and Antonella Losavio, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.

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By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera*

Exploring the ever-growing collection of the CDEC Foundation's archive and library is an activity that can hold interesting surprises and teach a lot. Take for example the next Purim festival, which Jewish children (and adults too) from all over the world have used to celebrate for centuries with joy by organizing staging, dressing up, and drinking happily. A collective appointment, which the current restrictions will make this year difficult to respect in traditional forms. And so, let’s try to take a look at the past of our communities. The surprises will be many and unexpected. If you type the word "Purim" in the site of the Digital Library, you will discover photographs of great interest: children celebrating at the Turin orphanage, adults posing with costumes in Tripoli, masked and dancing girls in Venice, and many other historical images. Documents that come from the past, but which also speak to the future. In a few months, next autumn, these and other archival collections will find a new location and will be more easily accessible.

*Director of the CDEC - Contemporary Jewish Documentation Foundation

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ROME — An Italian Holocaust survivor’s attempt to encourage other older adults to receive the anti-COVID-19 vaccine has triggered a wave of anti-Semitic comments and other invective on social media. Liliana Segre, 90, received the first of the two-shot vaccine series in Milan on Thursday. She urged people who reach her age “to not be afraid and to take the vaccine.” “I’m not afraid of the vaccine, I’m afraid of the illness,” Segre remarked. After Segre’s comments received negative social media attention, Italian Interior Minister Luciana Lamorgese expressed solidarity with her and denounced the “new and unacceptable attack” which he said was marked by “a very dangerous mix of hate, violence and racism”.

*This article was originally published on AP News on February 19, 2021.

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