Having trouble viewing this email? Click here October 25, 2021 – 19 Cheshvan 5782

By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera*

And so, the famous “Mahzor Luzzatto” was sold on auction, for the considerable sum of 8,307,000 US dollars. First of all, it must be said that Sotheby's auction house does things just right. Anyone wishing to understand what it is about can read the highly accurate data sheet of the volume, a true masterpiece written by competent scholars.
This fundamental prayer text had ended up in the hands of Samuel David Luzzatto, my grandfather's great-grandfather, who was particularly interested, among other things, in the development of the Jewish liturgy over the centuries. He probably used it when he was asked to take care of the preface and the edition of the first printing of the German rite Jewish prayers translated with a facing text in Italian. It was the era of the patents of tolerance (actually a few decades later) and the translation of the ritual was considered fundamental. It was also the time when young Jewish scholars from half of Europe discovered lost texts and manuscripts in libraries, and the market for these volumes was one of the main activities on which the scholars of science of Judaism were dedicated, the Wissenschaft des Judentums.
If you study the letters of Shadal (precisely Samuel David Luzzatto) or Moritz Steinschneider or Moisè Soave or many others, half the time it turns out that this was the activity they dedicated themselves to. Did they do it to get rich? Not a chance (otherwise my family and I would be more than well off; we're talking about eight million dollars, damn it. Instead, Shadal's son gave up his father's library here and there for little money). They owned these texts, studied them, often published them in print, and the sales were an integral part of the cultural process of critical rediscovery of the sources of Jewish tradition. A fundamental work, without which we would know infinitely less today than the literary production of medieval Judaism was.

*Director of the CDEC Foundation

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With the appointment of the three members of the Rabbinical Consulta, the new Council of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities will take on a definitive structure in the coming days. Twenty Councilors of reference of the Jewish Community of Rome were chosen on the occasion of the recent elections. The formation “Per Israele” will present itself in the Council with eight exponents: Ruth Dureghello, Ruben Della Rocca, Elvira Di Cave, Alex Zarfati, Johanna Arbib Perugia, Raffaella Spizzichino, Antonella Di Castro and Claudio Moscati; “Binah” with five: Noemi Di Segni, Sabrina Coen, Davide Jona Falco, Saul Meghnagi and Gloria Arbib; “Dor va dor” with four: Gavriel Levi, Mimun Huani, Raffaele Rubin and Benedetto Sermoneta; “Menorah” with three: Livia Ottolenghi, Guido Coen and Massimiliano Boni.
The ten Councilors representing the Community of Milan, also chosen through a vote, will be divided between two lists: for “Italia Ebraica” Milo Hasbani, Simone Mortara, Roberto Jarach, Claudio Gabbai, Gadi Schoenheit are elected; for “Tradizione e futuro per Israele” Walker Meghnagi, Ilan Boni, Michele Boccia, Sara Modena, David Nassimiha.
The other 19 local Jewish communities will be represented by Marco Ascoli Marchetti (Ancona), David Menasci (Bologna), Elio Carmi (Casale Monferrato), Andrea Pesaro (Ferrara), Sara Cividalli (Florence), Ariel Dello Strologo (Genoa), Vittorio Mosseri (Livorno), Licia Vitali (Mantua), Elisabetta Rossi Innerhofer (Merano), Arturo Bemporad (Modena), Sandro Temin (Naples), Davide Romanin Jacur (Padua), Riccardo Moretti (Parma), Maurizio Gabbrielli (Pisa), Giulio Disegni (Turin), Joram Bassan (Trieste), Paolo Gnignati (Venice), Rossella Bottini Treves (Vercelli) and Davide Orvieto (Verona).

By David Bidussa*

“Omnia mutantur, nihil interit”. Everything changes, but nothing is really lost, writes the poet Ovid in his The Metamorphoses (Book XV, line 165).
It is a verse that expresses bewilderment when reality suddenly becomes incomprehensible but yet seems to express with words that sound familiar to us. But it is not so. Among all, this is the most uncertain condition because it lacks future and is immersed in a present with no identity.                               

*Social historian of ideas

By Marc Szechter*
         
If you were asked to hum a tune that sounded Jewish, what would you hum?  An American might choose a song like “I Have a Little Dreydl” or “Hava Nagilah”. However, it is important to understand that regardless of your choice, the entire range of Jewish musicality cannot be summarized by just one song (unless youIf you were asked to hum a tune that sounded Jewish, what would you hum?  An American might choose a song like “I Have a Little Dreydl” or “Hava Nagilah”. However, it is important to understand that regardless of your choice, the entire range of Jewish musicality cannot be summarized by just one song (unless you were to sing the Song of the Sea to Moses’ actual tune). Over the last two thousand years, Jews have adopted musical ideas from many other cultures.
Mizrachi Jews use the Arabic maqam system. Some Chasidic nigunim are written in scales which are common in Russian folk music. In Italy, Sephardic and Ashkenazic Jews, who have been influenced by local secular musical traditions since the Baroque period, have developed unique musical traditions which distinguish them from Sephardic and Ashkenazic congregations in other countries.
The Tuscan port city of Livorno has been a meeting point for many different Sephardic traditions. Jews from North Africa, Western Europe, and the Eastern Mediterranean settled in Livorno, and each brought with them unique musical traditions. An already multifaceted tradition developed further as it was influenced by the Baroque styles of Christian Italy. Consequently, Livornese Jewish liturgical music has contained ornate instrumental accompaniments as early as the 1700s.
Some eighteenth century Livornese Jewish manuscripts even use the terms “aria” and “recitative” when discussing Jewish wedding performances -- terms which come out of the secular opera. The Great Synagogue of Livorno became especially well-known for its choir. While most Sephardic synagogues used congregational melodies which were sung in unison, the Livornese synagogue used choral music from French Ashkenazi synagogues.

Above, The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn by Alexander Hart (1850). Leghorn is an archaic English version for the Italian city of Livorno. 

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* This piece is part of a series of articles written by students of Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania, USA, enrolled in a course on the history and culture of Jewish Italy, taught by Dr. Daniel Leisawitz, Assistant Professor of Italian and Director of the Muhlenberg College Italian Studies Program.

By Sara Dean*

Down a narrow, winding street in central Rome, golden cobblestones shine out from the footpath in front of homes, etched with the words: “Deportata Auschwitz“ (“deported to Auschwitz”). One of the stones is dedicated to Rossana Calo, who was just two years old when she, along with her mother, was transported hundreds of miles to the Nazi death camp; on arrival, she was killed in the gas chambers.
These plaques, commemorating more than 1,000 victims snatched from their homes in the Italian capital's Jewish Ghetto in October 1943, are a sobering reminder of the country's dark past. Italy entered World War II as an ally of Adolf Hitler in 1940, but Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime had already embraced anti-Semitism. Months after he was overthrown in 1943, German authorities began to round up Jews in Rome and other major cities in the country's north.
More than 75 years after Mussolini's inglorious death at the hands of partisans, the debate about fascist ideology -- and its continuing appeal to some Italians -- has been reignited in the wake of the government's attempts to control the coronavirus pandemic.
 
*This article was originally published on CNN on October 22, 2021.

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