Having trouble viewing this email? Click here May 24, 2021 – 13 Sivan 5781

By Andrea Morpurgo
 
The close contacts between Italy and Eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship. The best known examples are the numerous synagogues built by Italian architects in Poland and Lithuania, including the Izaak synagogue built by Francesco Olivieri in Krakow's historical Kazimierz district in 1644 and named after its donor Izaak Jakubowicz, a banker to King Ladislaus IV of Poland. The building, which architectural historian Carol Herselle Krinsky considers “architecturally the most important” of all the old synagogues in Krakow, was so beautiful and lavish that local diocesan officials did everything they could to delay its construction.
The Galician city of Lviv was another important place where Italian or Italian-speaking architects designed and built synagogues between the 16th and 17th centuries. Among them Adam Pokora (Adamo de Larto) from Bormio in Lombardy, Andrea Pellegrino from Bologna, Paweł Szczęśliwy (Paulus Italus), Ambroży Przychylny (Ambrosius Nutclauss) and Giacomo Medleni from the Swiss canton of Graubünden and Zachariasz Sprawny (Zaccaria Castello) from Lugano in Ticino.
Also interesting is the story of Bernardo Morando. The Italian architect was born in Venice in 1540 and moved to Poland in 1569. In 1578, he was commissioned by the wealthy Polish nobleman Jan Zamoyski to design an “ideal city” in Renaissance style. Impressed by what he had seen during his stay as a medical student in Padua, Zamoyski wanted Morando to build something similar and for his new city of Zamosc to be populated by a multicultural mosaic of Italian, Greek, Armenian and Jewish people. However, he only invited Sephardic people from the Venetian Republic and the Ottoman Empire, because he considered them cosmopolitan and culturally superior to the local Ashkenazic Jews, who were not allowed to settle in the city.

Translated by Antonella Losavio and revised by Silvia Bozzo, 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.

(Above, the Izaak synagogue in Krakow)

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The Foundation for Jewish Cultural Heritage in Italy and the Center for Jewish Art at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are pleased to announce a one-day international (online)
conference “Jewish Crossroads: Between Italy and Eastern Europe.”
The close contacts between Italy and eastern Europe have evolved over the centuries and Jews have been an integral part of this relationship. The conference is planned to concentrate on those contacts and interactions during the Early Modern and Modern periods.
It will take place online on July 22, 2021 and will be conducted in English. The keynote lecture will be given by Prof. Ilia Rodov of Bar-Ilan University. The deadline for proposals of papers (maximum 300 words) is May 28. More info here. 

(Above, the Torah ark of the Izaak synagogue in Krakow)

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Allies, Germans, fascists, partisans, deportees, Jews, civilian casualties, territory. Eight different, often intertwined perspectives to look at World War II and the devastating impact it had on the lives of millions of people. That is the itinerary traced by “La Guerra in Italia: donne, uomini e territorio” (War in Italy: women, men and territory), a virtual, photographic exhibition realized by the Shoah Museum Foundation in Rome in collaboration with the Federal Republic of Germany’s Embassy.
“An exhibit about the Italian events from 1940 to 1945, but with a greater, ample meaning”, points out historian and curator of the exhibit Amedeo Osti Guerrazzi. Through innovative graphics and pictures from numerous Italian and foreign archives, “a tale of suffering relevant to any conflict” transpires.
An exhibition aimed primarily to young people, recipient of various and constant stimuli even during a pandemic. “We care a lot about facts, about substance”, said president of the Shoah Museum Mario Venezia during a press conference. Substance which, to the Foundation, meant thousands of students remotely connected to quality events. Among the most recent ones, the “Future Roots” project, which gives a group of 13 young girls and boys the opportunity to train to become knowledgeable tour guides and volunteers.

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.

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By David Bidussa*

These days I have kept my bookmark on two different pages: the first one is in chapter 32 of Isaiah, when trust is expressed in the realization of the dream; the other is in psalm 31, where the psalmist invokes the strength to find the way and thus to get out of a dead end condition.
Sometimes the utopian dream is too big to find a match. It is therefore a matter of making room for uncertainty, without setting it aside.

*Social historian of ideas

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By Rossella Tercatin*

When the emergency service officers managed to reach the mountainous area where the cabin of a cable car near Lake Maggiore had crashed several minutes earlier on Sunday, they found out that two children were still alive.
Both of them were rushed on two helicopters to the same hospital, the Regina Margherita in the city of Turin. According to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, since they did not have any documents on them, they were admitted as “unknown” patients.
A little later, they would be identified as Eitan Moshe Biran and Mattia Zorloni – both of them five-year-old, and with no parents by their side, after the crash had taken them away forever.
The Stresa-Mottarone cable car takes tourists and locals from the town on Lake Maggiore, almost 1,400 meters above sea level, to the top of Mottarone Mountain in 20 minutes. At least 14 people, including five Israelis, died when the cabin plunged to the ground.
Mattia’s conditions were immediately declared desperate; he was sedated but succumbed to his wounds a few hours later. Eitan was rushed into surgery. In the accident, he had sustained head and thoracic traumas, and had multiple fractures in his legs.
 
*This article was originally published on The Jerusalem Post on May 24, 2021.

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