Having trouble viewing this email? Click here  April 19, 2021 - 7 Iyar 5781

By Adam Smulevich

Senator for life and Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre has been elected to the presidency of a Senate’s Commission against all forms of hate, racism, and antisemitism of which she was the main promoter and that was approved by the Senate in November 2019. The Commission began its work in mid-April 2021 with the appointment of Segre and the assignment of the two vice-presidencies (one to the center-left, the other to the center-right).
“I hope it can become an important moment for the Republic since the language of hatred is something that has hurt me all my life”, stressed Segre after the designation. “I began to hear the words of hatred very early and if I can end my life by putting one of those little stones that are put on graves in Jewish cemeteries to say 'I have come to see you', then this beginning of the Commission is also a small stone”. Segre has played an active role also on a recent motion approved by the Senate to grant Italian citizenship to Patrick Zaki, the Bologna University postgraduate student held in Egypt, for over a year, in inhumane conditions. 

Read more

A great stamp-collecting enthusiast, Settimia Spizzichino had a special relationship with the Poste Italiane, the national postal service: for almost 30 years, she was a perforator operator. An unforgettable voice of Memory, the only woman to return after being captured during the raid of the Ghetto of Rome on 16 October 1943, she was born in Rome on April 15^th 1921. Then to be born “a second time”, she recalled, on the day of her 24^th birthday. That is when the British came to liberate her, putting an end to the nightmare that took the names of Auschwitz-Birkenau, where she was also a victim of experiments, and then of Bergen-Belsen.
“I want to remember everything about my life, even that terrible experience called Auschwitz. For this, I believe, I came back: to talk about it”, this what she told anyone who asked her about her past in the concentration camp. A beacon of courage, determination and civic commitment that stands out even in the special homage made by the Italian Ministry of economic development on this symbolic day: the issuing of a celebrative postage-stamp.

Translated by Oyebuchi Lucia Leonard and revised by Antonella Losavio, students at Trieste University and the Advanced school for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.

Read more

On the 13th April 1986, on the threshold of the Great Synagogue in Rome, History was written. For the first time since Peter, a pope walked in a synagogue. Current Chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, wrote a speech in honour of the anniversary of the historical meeting between Pope Wojtyla and Rabbi Toaff, published on the occasion of the anniversary, on the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
The rabbi lingered on the context in which the visit came about: “There had been terrorism, the pope himself had survived an assassination attempt, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish world were difficult. From a doctrinal point of view, the openings brought by the council statement ‘Nostra Aetate’ in 1965, ‘absolving’ Jews from the deicide charge, had been followed by experts’ committees put to work, changes in preaching and in priests education”. From a political point of view instead, “the coldness towards the Israeli state” went on. “It would be acknowledged by the Vatican only in 1993”.

Translated by Silvia Bozzo and revised by 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.

Read more

By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera* 

After five years of controversy related to the working definition on Antisemitism approved by the IHRA in 2016, a new and interesting attempt is on the horizon to propose a useful tool to combat the resurgent and widespread anti-Jewish hostility. The differences between the two documents are primarily institutional. While that of the IHRA is the product of an international intergovernmental body, the result of diplomatic mediations and multi-year negotiations, the new declaration is the result of the work of a group of academics who are among the leading scholars of the phenomenon from historical a point of view and must not respond to institutional requests. By the way, some of the signatories of this declaration are active and recognized members of national delegations within the IHRA.
Although the criticism of the drafters of the new declaration regarding the instrument proposed by the IHRA is explicit, the intent to overcome the sterile Manichean opposition that has been witnessed in recent years is clear. Expressing oneself with appeals and motions in favor or against the working definition proposed by the IHRA has too often ended up overshadowing the real emergency, which is and remains that of identifying and effectively combating a phenomenon in clear growth such as anti-Semitism, which is not limited to vague verbal expressions but produces ideologies, political movements and too often even physical attacks, assaults, killings, fires.

*Director of the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Foundation - CDEC.

Read more

Por Cristóbal José Álvarez*

El 31 de marzo de 1492 los Reyes Católicos firmaron en Granada la expulsión de los judíos. Según el texto de los edictos –hubo varias versiones y múltiples copias–, el pueblo judío tenía hasta finales del mes de julio de ese mismo año para abandonar los territorios de las coronas de Castilla y de Aragón.
“Por ende Nos, con consejo y parecer de algunos prelados y grandes y cavalleros de nuestros reynos y de otras personas de sciencia y consciencia de nuestro Consejo, haviendo havido sobrello mucha deliberacion, acordamos de mandar salir todos los dichos judios y judias de nuestros reynos, y que jamas tornen ni vuelvan a ellos nin a alguno dellos; e sobrello mandamos dar esta nuestra carta, por la qual mandamos a todos los judios y judias de qualquier edat que sean (…) que fasta en fin del mes de julio primero que viene (…) salgan todos de los dichos nuestros reynos y señorios”.
Los Reyes Católicos, buscando la unidad religiosa de sus dominios, seguían la estela de otras potencias europeas que también habían expulsado a los judíos con anterioridad, como era el caso de Inglaterra en 1209 o Francia en 1306.
 
*Este articulo fue publicado en National Geographic Historia el 17 de abril de 2021.

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