Having trouble viewing this email? Click here November 29, 2021 – 25 Kislev 5782

Hanukkah lights went on again in many Italian squares. For the 34th consecutive year in Rome one of the most significant scenarios was Piazza Barberini, where the great Hanukkah lamp has been located for a few hours and illuminated, as of 1987, on the initiative of the Chabad Lubavitch movement and in particular of the Hazan family. The mayor of Rome Roberto Gualtieri, the president of the Jewish community of Rome Ruth Dureghello, and the Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni took part to the ceremony.
The mayor praised the commitment of the Hazan family and the great social and cultural role played, in over two millennia of presence, by Roman Jews. “The Jewish community is perhaps the most Roman of the components of the city. At the same time, it is endowed with an international projection that enriches us all”, his reflection on the matter. The mayor also exalted the meaning of a festivity that demonstrates that “defending one's identity is compatible with openness and dialogue”.
It was precisely on the occasion of the events celebrated at Hanukkah, Dureghello recalled, that the Maccabees chose to address the Senate with a request for help. It was the beginning of a secular relation. “Since then - her message - Rome and Israel have been inextricably linked”. Hanukkah celebrates light and awareness, pointed out Rabbi Di Segni: “we are here to remind ourselves of who we are and to defend our values ​​against anyone who wants to cancel them”. Hanukkah candle-lighting events took place also in Piazza San Carlo in Milan and in the synagogues of Florence, Turin, and Livorno.

Above, the candle-lighting event in Piazza San Carlo in Milan.

A new tool, rich in ideas and substance, to help teachers “to face the old and new prejudices that weaken coexistence at school and in society”. This is the purpose of the Guidelines on the fight against antisemitism in schools presented last week with the presence and participation of the Italian Minister of Public Education Patrizio Bianchi who strongly wanted this project. “I am grateful to the minister for his sensitivity, on these issues the harmony has been great”, said to Pagine Ebraiche Milena Santerini, national coordinator for the fight against antisemitism at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers. “It is also significant that the new phase of the strategy presented to the government in recent months started from the school: the area where future is most thought about and built”.
This theme was developed also in the speeches by the President of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni, the head of the Department for the education and training system Stefano Versari, the director of ODIHR Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - OSCE Matteo Mecacci, the head of the Italian delegation to IHRA Luigi Maccotta, Melissa Sonnino of CEJI - A Jewish Contribution to an Inclusive Europe and of the director of the Directorate for Students, Inclusion and School Guidance Antimo Ponticiello.

Above, national coordinator for the fight against antisemitism Milena Santerini.

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In charge of deciding on electoral appeals, settling disputes by arbitration, and providing clarifications and interpretations in case of doubts about the Statute, the UCEI arbitration board is one of the key bodies for the proper functioning of Italian Jewish institutions. For the first time in its history, a woman has been called to guide it: Claudia De Benedetti, 60, from Turin, entrepreneur, and member of the board of directors of important companies.
Numerous are her past and current institutional positions in the Jewish world. Director of the Museum of Jewish Art and Ancient History in Casale Monferrato, she sits on the board of the Maccabi World Union and the Museum of the Jewish people in Tel Aviv and is among the members of the scientific committee of the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah of Ferrara. In the past, among her various positions, she was vice president and councilor for youth at UCEI.

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How could we give color to time and what time are we talking about when we talk about the Italian artist Emanuele Luzzati? There is the time of life and that of history. That of legend, fairy tale, and theater with its pauses and accelerations. There is the time of music. And there is the intimate time of personal existence. It is a polyhedron of nuances that stand out in the exhibition “Luzzati. I colori del tempo” (Luzzati. The colors of time”), curated by Vincenza Maugeri and Caterina Quareni and set up at the Jewish Museum of Bologna (of which Maugeri is the director) for the 100th anniversary of the birth of the great Italian painter, production designer, illustrator, film director, and animator.
At the center, eight tables are dedicated to festivities and key moments of human existence accompanied by a suggestive integration for the upcoming celebration of Hanukkah: an artist's candelabra made by Luzzati for the Museo dei Lumi in Casale Monferrato, which assembles a superb collection of Hannukah lamps realized by contemporary artists. 
 
Above, the installation of Luzzati's Hanukkah lamp at the Jewish Museum of Bologna.

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By David Bidussa*
 
“Man believes he wants freedom. He actually has a great fear of it because it forces him to make decisions”. So Erich Fromm in Escape from Freedom. It is 1941. Fromm is on the other side of the Atlantic and sees his former continent as a world adrift.
More or less in the same months, other men find themselves reflecting on this side of the Atlantic and have the same image. Among them, Carlo Levi. Paura della libertà (Fear of freedom) is the book that converses at a distance with Escape from freedom. It would be a good book to have in hand these days.

*Social historian of ideas

By Cnaan Liphshiz*

A local politician in Italy apologized for referring to well-known Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre by her concentration camp tattoo number in a Facebook comment criticizing her support for COVID-19 public health measures. Fabio Meroni, a member of the city council of Lissone, a suburb of Milan, who represents the far-right Northern League, wrote in a comment on an article about Segre’s public support for the government’s campaign for encouraging people to get vaccinated: “all that was missing [in the vaccine debate] was… 75190”. He received a torrent of condemnations and apologized in a new post on Saturday. “I want to apologize to Senator Liliana Segre, it was not my intention in any way to offend you and if one day I will have the honor of being able to speak to you, I will personally explain my thoughts”, he wrote. 
 
*This article was originally published on JTA on November 24, 2021.

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