Having trouble viewing this email? Click here          April 25, 2022 – 24 Nissan 5782

Throughout the country thousand of people marched in the parades organized for April 25, the day on which Italy celebrates the liberation from Nazi-fascism, starting from the great national event held in Milan.
In many cities the contribution to freedom given by the Italian Jewish partisans and by the volunteers of the Jewish brigade, the British Army formation of Jewish recruited in the Mandated Palestine.
"For Italian Jews it is a fundamental and deeply shared date", said in a statement the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni. She added: "April 25 is an annual occasion to reaffirm commitment and responsibility to defend the values of democracy and freedom. Freedom that is by no means taken for granted and is the result of a daily educational action". 
In these moment of remembrance, many thoughts were devoted to the Ukrainian people under attack, to their struggle to remain free. "Today, in this unpredictable and dramatic season we are going through in Europe, the value of Resistance to aggression, hatred, massacres and barbarism against civilians goes beyond its own temporal and geographical limits", underlined the Italian President Sergio Mattarella. According to Mattarella "this going back in history represents a danger not only for Ukraine but for all Europeans, for the entire international community".

On Yom haShoah ve haGevurah, the day "of the Shoah and heroism" established by Israel in 1959, many events will take place in Italian Jewry. In particular, in Rome, the day of April 28 will be marked by an absolute novelty: a commemoration entirely dedicated to the Jews of Libya who were persecuted by Nazism and Fascism and lost their lives "in Giado, Sidi Azaz, Buerat El Hsum , Buq Buq, Auschwitz, Reichenau, and Bergen Belsen”. It is the first event of this kind "ever organized in Europe", points out David Gerbi, who organizes the event through the association ASTREL which he presides.
At the opening ceremony, a remarkable witness is expected to speak: 94-year-old Allegra Guetta Naim, who survived Giado as a child. She still carries in her eyes the horror of that camp with "corpses transported by wheelbarrows, corpses piled up left and right in the hospital". Hers are deep wounds of the soul which she was able to overcome without ever losing her course. Her testifying is a powerful reminder that despite everything "life goes on" and fighting for a goal may lead to "a life full of love".
Numerous rabbinical testimonies are expected at the ceremony, which will be held in one of the synagogues of reference of Libyan Jews in the capital: among others, Gerbi announced, President of the Italian Rabbinical Assembly Rabbi Alfonso Arbib, the Chief Rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni, Rabbi Roberto Colombo, Rabbi Benedetto Carucci Viterbi, Rabbi Itzhak Hazan, Rabbi Yonathan Fisher, Rabbi Shimon Zalmen Springer, and Rabbi Ilan Roy.

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By Alberto Cavaglion
 
I have always enjoyed studying the reception of a writer in a country (or period) different from their own. Reading Yehoshua was the title of an anthology edited by Emanuela Trevisan Semi, which however does not go further than 2006. In this case, I took part in this reception, since one of the first reviews appeared in Italy was mine, Il poeta continua a tacere (lit. "The poet remains silent"), a collection of short stories edited by Giunti in 1987. My review was also the first one that the periodical L'indice dei libri del mese, dedicated to Israeli literature, when Israel was a frequently discussed topic, while its writers were still unknown, and this makes me very proud.
After some hesitation, this week I read the last novel, The only daughter. It took me some time to make up my mind, because the latest works from Yehoshua had dissuaded me from reading. I was fascinated, and I am still, by the great masterpieces of his debut: The love, A late divorce, Mr. Mani, A journey to the end of the millennium. After the release of each of these books I just could not stop reading, I would even forget to eat, to sleep, or to do the household chores, even the urgent ones. I read aloof reviews of the last novel, some inaccuracies have been, pointlessly in my opinion, criticized, even on this website. However, when the initial infatuation fades, soon the disappointment appears, always.

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Par Giorgio Berruto*

Si Primo Levi a d’abord été perçu comme un témoin d’Auschwitz, celui qui en a donné l’image la plus exacte et la plus frappante, il est aujourd’hui considéré comme un classique de la littérature italienne du XXe siècle et comme un auteur de portée universelle. Comme le souligne Marco Belpoliti, l’un des principaux spécialistes italiens de l’auteur de Si c’est un homme, il est évident que nous sommes face à un grand témoin parce que nous avons affaire à un grand écrivain, et non l’inverse. Beaucoup de témoins ont écrit sur les camps, mais peu d’écrivains l’ont fait comme Primo Levi.
Pourtant, l’écrivain turinois a eu du mal à se faire connaître après la Seconde Guerre mondiale. C’est dans les mois qui suivirent son retour en Italie – un voyage long et chargé de péripéties, qu’il a raconté dans La Trêve – que Primo Levi écrit ce qui deviendra Si c’est un homme. Il envoie le manuscrit à l’éditeur turinois Einaudi, qui refuse de le publier. Le livre le sera en 1947 par le petit éditeur De Silva, avant qu’Einaudi ne le réédite, plus de dix ans plus tard, en 1958. 

*Cet article a été originellement publié sur K. le 13 avril 2022.

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