Having trouble viewing this email? Click here November 15 2021 – 11 Kislev 5782

In big cities as in small centers, last Tuesday the lights went up in ancient synagogues, community buildings, and private homes to commemorate the anniversary of Kristallnacht or the Night of Broken Glass, the pogrom against Jews carried out by Nazis in Germany on 9–10 November 1938. From North to South, Jewish Italy answered to the UCEI invitation to bring a testimony of Memory, Jewish life, and vitality. In a spectacular display, some of Europe’s most ancient and beautiful synagogues thus lit up against the darkness of persecution and racisms.
Lights on in the Great Synagogue of Rome, seat of the most ancient Jewish community in the Diaspora; in the medieval Synagogue of Trani, recently returned to religious worship; in Venice’s historical synagogues, which date back to the era of ghettos, and in all 21 Italian Jewish Communities and aggregated sections revolving around. Along with the lights, moments of Torah study marked the event. Because, as the UCEI invitation reminded, this is Judaism's strongest light.
Here a photogallery of the event.

At the time of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Jewish community of Ljubljana operated in the orbit of the Austrian city of Graz. This historical relation was revived last week with the inauguration of a synagogue in the capital of Slovenia with a moving and solemn event marked by the participation of the President of the Slovenian Republic Borut Pahor and of numerous representatives of religious institutions and communities.
The contribution and activism of the president of the Jews of Graz Eli Rosen were decisive to this endeavor, making it possible to find the necessary funds to establish the small but warm Beth HaKnesset. Located on the first floor of a central building, the community space is complemented by the presence of a room dedicated to socializing and one with a kitchen function.
“It is a historic day. Now the challenge will be to fill our synagogue with Jewish content and life”, explained to Pagine Ebraiche Rabbi Ariel Haddad, Chief Rabbi of Slovenia, who lives in Trieste, which as Ljubljana in the past was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
From Trieste, also the president of the Jewish community Alessandro Salonichio, his deputy Davide Belleli, and the Chief Rabbi Alexandre Meloni joined the event.

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A new mandate as president of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly for the Chief Rabbi of Milan Rav Alfonso Arbib, which has presided it since 2016. The new Council of the organization that represents the Italian rabbis designated as its vice president Rabbi Giuseppe Momigliano (Genoa) and as secretary Rabbi Ariel Di Porto (Turin). Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni (Rome) and Rabbi Gadi Piperno (Florence) are also part of the new council.
Born in Tripoli in 1958 and moved to Italy in 1967 during the dramatic departure of Jews from Lybia, Rabbi Arbib has been chief rabbi of Milan since 2005 inheriting the post from Rav Giuseppe Laras z.l.
 
Above, Rabbi Arbib speaking at the synagogue of Milan.

By Hannah Jablonka*
 
Like any other art form, architecture tells a story. The stories of the different communities of Italy are locked within every stone making up the country's cities. Not all the stories are happy ones, but there are important lessons to be learned from the bad times that architecture can teach us. While Italy is renowned for its beautiful architecture, buildings do not need to be outwardly beautiful to contain a beautiful story. There are some buildings that stand as symbols of hope and faith that blend into the landscape, and only those who really pay attention will learn the astounding history of a building and its community.
It was 1571 in the hills of Tuscany, when the flourishing Jewish community of Siena was forced into a ghetto. For the next two hundred years the Jews of the ghetto of Siena met by the Ghetto Fountain which was the primary water source, to pray. Finally in 1786, the community decided they wanted to create a bigger, more lavish place of prayer, so in that spot they built the synagogue of Siena. The exterior of the synagogue is nothing to speak of: it offers a red brick four-story facade that blends in with the other ones around it. Nothing distinguished it as Jewish or as a place of prayer from the outside. The inside, however, is anything but ordinary.

* 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.

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By Alberto Cavaglion*

J’avoue que je n’ai jamais aimé les productions de Roberto Calasso, tandis que j’ai toujours apprécié son nez dans le domaine éditorial. J’étais impressionné par le jugement satyrique de Cases dans son œuvre “Che cosa fai in giro?”. Cases en parlant de son ancêtre, le rabbin de Reggio Israel Carmi, un opposant au grand niveleur de la discrimination juive, Napoléon, écrivait: Ceronetti, Zonetti et Calasso “Ils seraient tous envieux d’un ancêtre qui s’opposait à l’empereur”.
Selon Cases, et si parva licet à mon avis aussi, l’évasion vers le mysticisme de ces trois écrivains était incompréhensible. Dans ces jours, j’ai changé d’avis en lisant le livre posthume de Calasso dédié à Bobi Balzen. Sur ce dernier Calses affirmait qui était un personnage avec “une allure mystique et une pauvre productivité”.
Il s’agit d’un texte autobiographique, dans lequel Calasso raconte les années de son éducation à travers les souvenirs personnels de la période romaine de la maison d’édition Adelphi. Le complexe enchevêtrement entre ses mémoires et les textes qui avait déjà lui-même publié, rendent très difficulteux le chemin de ceux qui veulent distinguer entre la parole de Bobi et celle de ce qui prêchent ses exploits.

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A sign saying “The Green Pass Makes You Free Since 1940”, echoing the infamous Arbeit Macht Frei over the entrance to Auschwitz, has appeared over a pub door in northern Italy in the latest instance of protesters against the COVID health certificate likening themselves to Holocaust victims. The sign appeared in the small town of Iseo, on Lake Iseo near Brescia.
Police have got the owner, Francesco Marangoni, to take it down. He defended the sign saying “it was a harmless prank, I didn't mean to offend anyone and if I did so I kneel and apologise because that was not supposed to be a Nazi or Fascist sign like they have said”.
Marangoni said all his staff at the Lakehop pub were vaccinated and they checked clients' Green Cards before they came in, according to the law. He admitted he himself was not vaccinated but said he had chosen not to be “because the (COVID) swab is safer, and I don't want to be discriminated against because of this”. Lakehop's Facebook page shows an apology and comments include people condemning Marangoni's stunt and others praising his anti-Green Pass stance.

*This article was originally published on Ansa on November 11, 2021.

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