Having trouble viewing this email? Click here October 11, 2021 – 5 Cheshvan 5782

Jewish history and culture are deeply imbued by the concept of dialogue, both as awareness of others and as self-awareness. As President Sergio Mattarella remarked in a message on the occasion of the European Day of Jewish Culture celebrated Sunday in dozens of Italian cities and towns, dialogue is “a term filled with deep meanings. Dialogue implies mutual recognition between the interlocutors. Recognizing oneself and therefore respecting each other is a principle that underlies the cohesion within society and a key value of our Constitution”.
This dialogue has spanned the centuries between the Jewish world and society at large, making fundamental contributions to national culture and beyond, but also marked by violence and prejudice, the signs of which can still be read today. It was a profitable dialectic, albeit complicated, of which Padua, the leading city of this edition, is as example.
“In this city – remarked the President of the local Jewish Community Gianni Parenzo - the dialogue has never stopped. Thanks also to the university which, unique in Europe, has admitted and graduated Jewish students from all over the continent since the mid-sixteenth century”.
It is a significant example of how cultural exchange has ancient roots, which should be cultivated and rediscovered. And for this, continued Parenzo, the Day of Jewish Culture is needed: “To communicate that Judaism is alive and represents a small minority which has and still contributes with its values ​​to the pathway towards a better society”.

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“Let’s call things by their name, without ambiguities or hesitation. So the President of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni asked with reference to the unacceptable “display of fascist squads” recently staged on the streets of Rome.
It was a very serious attack on democratic values ​​that, she pointed out, “all political and judiciary forces” are being called to condemn with clarity. “The events of the last few hours – reads her message - remind us of how urgent it is that shameful contiguities with an increasingly pervasive Italian neo-fascism are definitively set aside by those who in words condemn it but in fact do not do enough, or worse, relate to them”. Words, Di Segni remarked, are not enough. “We must act now, and not only in Rome, to clarify the danger from these groups and negate a legitimacy widely granted so far”.
Meanwhile, the rantings about the Shoah by Rome center-right mayoral candidate Enrico Michetti, who in one of his articles promoted some delusional theories about the memory of the Holocaust, banks and “lobbies” able to decide the destinies of the planet, stirred a controversy.
“The sole idea that our municipal institutions may be led by people whose thinking is steeped in such prejudice makes one tremble,” the UCEI President commented at the end of Shabbat. Her firm words of condemnation were repeated on Sunday with evidence by many Italian newspapers. “Culture of dialogue and education in the memory of what fascism was - her appeal states – must be key points also in basing electoral choices”.

“Neutrality and inactivity in the face of evil are by itself evil”. So Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, President of the Conference of European Rabbis, called to action against the false religious prophets who revive “barbaric and inhuman practices from over a thousand years ago” in his address to leaders of the world’s religions and government leaders at the 35th International meeting for peace organized last week in Rome by the Sant’Egidio Community, a worldwide Catholic charity and peace group.
Titled “Peoples as brothers, future, earth” the event, which took place at the Colosseum, saw the participation of prestigious speakers and the final message was by Pope Francis, who called the arms trade a bane of humanity, saying that money spent on weapons should be diverted to feed the hungry and distribute vaccines fairly. Equal distribution is not only a matter of humanity but the sole way to deal with the pandemic, as Rabbi Goldschmidt pointed out (here an integral version of his speech).
“If there is one thing which this vicious and treacherous virus taught the world, is the total interdependence of humanity. Even if rich countries will vaccinate each one of their citizens, ignoring the third world, a new mutation coming from there might render their vaccine irrelevant and obsolete. 
Covid-19 taught to all of us humility and vulnerability. Mankind which was able to reach the planet Mars, was humiliated by this unseen microscopic creature, creating havoc in our lives. But the virus also reminded us of our interdependence on each other. How much did we miss the smile, hug and kiss of the other?”.

Above, Rabbi Goldschmidt greeting Pope Francis in front of the Colosseum.

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By Anna Foa*

Amidst so much mayhem; amidst the terrible statements of those who, already – and still – Shoah negationists, consider Nazi our country’s democratic government; amidst those asking for themselves the freedom to infect others and accusing who denies it to them of being against democracy and the Constitution… Amidst all of this, of the politicization of many people’s fear of conspiracy and desire for it leaded by neo-fascists… Well, you might forget that there have been in Italy people who actually made an attempt on democracy, wanted to erase all the post-war achievements and go back to the overthrown fascism. I do not forget the Red Brigades, who did this as well, letting darkness fall upon our country. And I do not forget Mafia either, with its slaughters, its covert and less covert connections with sedition. But the August the 2^nd brings me to the fascist sedition, the one crossing our history from the Piazza Fontana massacre on December the 12th 1969 onward: Brescia massacre in 1974, the Italicus train’s massacre that same year, and the one of which today we remember the 41st anniversary, the bloodiest of them all, Bologna massacre on August the 2nd 1980, 85 victims.

*Historian

Translated by Silvia Bozzo 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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Par Arthur Frydman* 

Comment déterminer ce qui serait digne d’être sauvegardé et transmis, et plus précisément comment interpréter ce que revêt la notion de ce qu’on nomme le patrimoine culturel ?
C’est la question que soulève la vente prochaine – le 19 octobre chez Sotheby’s à New York – d’un ouvrage hébraïque médiéval, « l’un des plus anciens livres de prières illustrés jamais mis aux enchères dans le monde », d’après la maison de ventes. Son estimation ? Entre 4 et 6 millions de dollars.
Il s’agit d’un Mahzor (livre de prières juives consacré aux jours de fête) Luzzatto, qui doit son nom à son illustre et ancien propriétaire, Samuel David Luzzatto (1800-1865). Un érudit, poète et théologien juif italien, éminent collectionneur de livres anciens. Le manuscrit sur parchemin, en parfait état de conservation, comprenant des calligraphies d’une rare beauté et de vives enluminures en couleur, fut écrit dans le sud de l’Allemagne vers la fin du XIII^e-début XIV^e siècle, par un scribe-artiste français nommé Abraham. Vieux de 700 ans, ce Mahzor, rédigé dans une écriture hébraïque élégante et solennelle, contient la liturgie des deux fêtes les plus importantes et saintes du calendrier juif et de sa communauté. 

* Cet article a été originellement publié sur Le Point le 6 Octobre 2021.

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