Having trouble viewing this email? Click here August 2, 2021 – 24 Av 5781

“There is a progressive and gradual approach to a culture of great charm. In recent years it seems as if I had discovered a whole new world”. Director of the National Museum of Palazzo Venezia and one of the most authoritative art historians, Andreina Draghi has been member of the Board of the Jewish Cultural Heritage Foundation in Italy for some time. She is now working on several fronts, including commitments related to the rediscovery, protection, and enhancement of the Jewish heritage in Southern Italy.
Andreina Draghi is the coordinator of a new project in this regard. The call for bids for working in cataloguing addressing young researchers has just been released. The job consists in both updating the data collected within the ARS Project - Jewish Presence in Italy, stored in paper at the UCEI Bibliographic Centre - and in drafting additional cards/sheets. Campania, Apulia, and Sicily - three regions among the richest in testimony - are at the centre of the reconnaissance.
“An initiative - explains Draghi to Pagine Ebraiche - which falls within the cataloguing commitment launched at national level in 2016. It was conceived on the one hand for computerizing what has already been registered and on the other hand for dealing with the “new”.” A “new” that is harbinger of many ideas, since interest in Judaism has been growing in the South for a long time.
“The opportunities are certainly significant,” observes Draghi. “The cornerstone is Campania, also because it is the point of reference for the whole Jewish South. However, stimuli arrive from Apulia and Sicily, too.” The work “on towns like Brindisi, Oria and Trani” will start from scratch, while in Sicily commitment will focus above all on “digitalising”.
“If you are under 35, your talent can make a difference” has been the slogan of the announcement for a few days on the net. “To make a difference” has been the Foundation's yardstick for some time. “I am proud - comments Draghi - to be part of a working group that is leaving a mark in various fields, for example through the project to restore the Valdirose cemetery, protagonist of the dossier for the two Gorizia European capitals of culture in 2025. It is a prestigious and gratifying result”.

a.s. twitter @asmulevichmoked

Click here for the announcement dedicated to the cataloguing of the Jewish heritage of Southern Italy.

Above, the exterior of the Scolanova synagogue in Trani.

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

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As Italian media outlets relaunched with great evidence the words of the Holocaust survivor and Senator for life Liliana Segre firmly condemning any comparison between the Shoah and the vaccines, a new wave of antisemitic hatred surged online. The interview released to Pagine Ebraiche by Liliana Segre sparked remarkable reactions all across the country, so confirming the impact of her testimony on the public conversation.
Auschwitz survivor and symbol of the struggle against hatred and indifference, the Senator stressed that protests comparing the racist laws and the Green Pass vaccine passport to access restaurants, pools, gyms, and open-air events in Italy as well as travel abroad are “follies, gestures in which bad taste meets ignorance”.
Segre’s message to the anti-vaccine conspirators is clear. “If one wants to see conspiracy everywhere, well stay at home. Alone. You don't go around the streets, you don't go into the world, you don't harm others. But I know, those who make those kinds of choices usually don't care about others”.
Anti-vaxxers – whose public manifestations are led by the extreme right-wing – reacted by pouring their hate on social media. 
Shameful comments appeared on Twitter, stating that on the contrary, the green pass is the new yellow Star of David that came to symbolize the persecution against the Jews during the Holocaust. Someone expressed doubts about the tragic experience of Liliana Segre in the concentration camps. Someone crazily affirmed that is “from anti-Nazi to Nazi, it is just a moment”. Someone stated that the Senator’s words were an invitation to “ghettoize anti-vaxxers” and “send them to the lagers”.
It is the digital madness of a small but vocal minority that presents itself as a defender of freedom, of a world that pretends to be the victim of a supposed “health dictatorship”.

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Bevor die schrecklichen Zusammenstöße im Mai begannen, wurde eine gute Nachricht durch die israelischen Medien bekannt gegeben. Die Ernennung von Mona Khoury-Kassbari zur Vizepräsidentin der Hebräischen Universität Jerusalem. Zum ersten Mal wird einem Vertreter der arabischen Gemeinschaft eine Spitzenposition anvertraut.
„Ich bin sehr stolz auf diese Ernennung. Eine arabische Frau in der Vizepräsidentschaft einer der besten Universitäten der Welt. Es ist eine seltene Tatsache, sicherlich das erste Mal für die Hebräische Universität und das übermittelt eine wichtige Botschaft an die gesamte Gesellschaft”, sagte Khoury-Kassbari zu Pagine Ebraiche wenige Stunden nach der offiziellen Ernennung. Die Professorin äußerte ihre Zufriedenheit mit dem neuen Auftrag: „Es ist auch wichtig, weil zum ersten Mal eine israelische Universität eine Vizepräsidentin ernannt hat, um an der Stärkung der Vielfalt und Integration zu arbeiten”.
Dies wird in der Tat die Hauptaufgabe seines Mandats sein: Mitarbeiter und Studenten aus unterrepräsentierten Gemeinschaften der akademischen Welt an die Universität zu bringen. Man spricht beispielsweise von den arabischen Realitäten des Haredi-Sektors und von der äthiopischen Minderheit.

Übersetzung von Antonella Losavio und Revision von Silvia Bozzo, Studentinnen der Hochschule für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer der Universität von Triest und Praktikantinnen bei der Zeitungsredaktion der Union der jüdischen Gemeinden von Italien.

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By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera*

The Monitoring Centre for anti-Semitism of the Center of Contemporary Jewish Documentation has been denouncing anti-vax protestors' misuse of the Nazi anti-Jewish symbols for more than a year. In the last few days, this issue has suddenly become an “emergency” that everyone has started to reckon with, as the use of these symbols has been shifted from social media to physical public spaces. So welcome, everyone! Rise and shine!
Of course, the dynamics we are witnessing are partially paradoxical. During the protests, yellow stars are hoisted and the government is compared to Hitler and Nazism and on the other hand these demonstrations are openly supported and attended by right-wing groups and Italian neo-Fascists, that have always shown sympathy towards Nazism and Fascism and often used the racist and anti-Semitic rhetoric that results in these ideologies. Something does not add up.
However, we would make a serious mistake by reducing these protests to mere episodes of anti-Semitism, which sometimes do occur and in a most vivid manner. I think the reflections should be broadened by taking other elements into account.

* Director of the CDEC Foundation
 
Translated by Gianluca Pace and revised by Antonella Losavio, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.

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By Silvia Poggioli*

Tourists to Italy are likely to visit Rome, Florence, Venice — maybe even Naples and Sicily. Few venture as far as this city tucked in the country's northeast corner on the Adriatic Sea.
Once the flourishing port of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Trieste became a largely forgotten borderland after World War I. But today, those who visit find a blend of cultures and languages of Europe, with a rich literary legacy — a city that's lured great authors from Ranier Maria Rilke to James Joyce.
Waves from the Adriatic lap its elegant promenades. It lies below the Karst, limestone cliffs that are a popular destination for nature lovers and where vineyards produce wines that taste of sea and stone.
Legend has it Jason and the Argonauts — with the golden fleece — sailed in from an underground river. A well-preserved Roman theater, that once seated up to 6,000 spectators, is testimony that in antiquity, this was a thriving city. Gilded mosaics in San Giusto Cathedral are evidence of Byzantine influence.
 
*This article originally appeared on NPR on July 30, 2021

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