Having trouble viewing this email? Click here          May 10, 2022 – 9 Iyar 5782

UKRAINE - ENTRETIEN AVEC L'HISTORIQUE CHARLES KING

Odessa, le visage des nombreuses identités juives

Mark Twain, débarqué au milieu du 19ème siècle à Odessa, décrit la ville sur la mer Noire comme une petite Amérique. C’est un lieu de culture, d’énergie, où les gens peuvent se construire une nouvelle identité et repartir à zéro. Un rêve américain aux confins de l’empire russe. “Odessa n’avait pas sa propre tradition, mais n’avait pas peur d’expérimenter de nouvelles formes de vie et de nouvelles activités”, a déclaré un de ses célèbres citoyens, Vladimir Jabotinskij. Ici, beaucoup de Juifs, comme Isaac Babel, Sholem Aleichem, Jabotinskij lui-même, expérimenteront leurs propres idées. La ville cosmopolite d’Odessa a été un refuge et une source d’inspiration pour des Russes, des Juifs, des Ukrainiens, des Grecs et des Italiens. Mais elle a été le théâtre de terribles violences, de pogroms brutaux, de décadence. Une double âme parfaitement racontée par Charles King, professeur de relations internationales à l’université de Georgetown, et auteur de “Odessa : Splendeur et tragédie d’une cité des rêves”.
Grand connaisseur de l’Europe de l’Est, King raconte à Pagine Ebraiche ses impressions sur l’agression de Moscou, en réfléchissant sur un patrimoine en danger et sur la marque laissée dans l’histoire, y compris celle juive, par Odessa.

Qu’avez-vous pensé lorsque vous avez appris l’invasion de l’Ukraine par Poutine et sa fausse rhétorique sur la dénazification ?
C’est une déclaration particulièrement grotesque, puisque l’Ukraine a un président juif. C’est d’autant plus ridicule que c’est la Russie, et non pas l’Ukraine, qui actuellement se rapproche le plus d’un État fasciste classique : un gouvernement à parti unique, un chef tyrannique, et même un symbole iconographique – le tristement célèbre “Z” – dessiné sur les portes des journalistes et des dissidents à Moscou. Cette déclaration est évidemment absurde, mais d’ailleurs, une grande partie de la Russie de Poutine est complètement détachée de la réalité.

Un rabbin d’Odessa a déclaré qu’il a peur pas seulement de la guerre, mais aussi de la possibilité de violences internes dans la ville. Que pensez-vous de cette préoccupation ?
Cela est certainement arrivé en 2014. Odessa a connu de graves violences internes dans cette période, entre les opposants à l’ancien exécutif de Kiev et les défenseurs des manifestations Euromaïdan, qui ont amené un nouveau gouvernement au pouvoir. Odessa a également une longue histoire de violence urbaine. C’est une ville qui, malgré ses accomplissements gargantuesques malgré sa culture d’ouverture et d’expérimentation, a périodiquement connu d’horribles violences, avec ses citoyens les uns contre les autres. Toutefois, je suis moins inquiet à ce sujet pour le moment. La menace d’une invasion russe, ainsi que les événements survenus dans d’autres villes comme Kharkiv et Mariupol, a affermi un fort sentiment d’unité à Odessa.

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HE PLAYED THE PROTAGONIST IN THE FILM THE GARDEN OF THE FINZI-CONTINI

Lino Capolicchio (1943-2022)

The actor, screenwriter, and director Lino Capolicchio, 78, died last week in Rome. Born in Merano and raised in Turin, he moved to Rome, where he attended the ‘Silvio D’Amico’ National Academy of Dramatic Art. The film that marked his career was The garden of the Finzi Contini (1971), based on the novel by the Italian writer Giorgio Bassani and directed by Vittorio De Sica, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and the Oscar for foreign feature film. For the unforgettable role of Giorgio, the actor won a Donatello acting award. 
"In my career – he said to Pagine Ebraiche visiting the exhibition 'The garden that is not there' at the MEIS - I have received about five thousand letters from admirers from all over the world. Once a fan from Japan wrote to me, saying she was ready to come to Rome to marry me… And almost all of them had fallen in love with me for the character of Giorgio”. “In an unexpected way, The garden of the Finzi Contini had transformed us into icons, objects of desire, fixing us forever in the collective imagination".

(In the picture, the actor Lino Capolicchio visiting the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah - MEIS)

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Er

By Gadi Luzzatto Voghera

Er, das absolut Böse, scheint immer die Hauptperson unserer Alpträume zu sein. Er wird von den Massen heraufbeschworen (kürzlich von den Impfgegnern), die großen politischen Leader sprechen von ihm. Seien sie die Gemäßigten, die große Länder regieren, oder belagerte Präsidenten, die tagsüber und nachts bombardiert werden. Er erscheint vor uns mit seinem lächerlichen Schnauzbart in Filmen auf Streaming-Plattformen oder in Chats auf Social Media. Doch, er ist gestorben, selbstmörderisch und einsam, befürchtet und verachtet (auch verehrt) in Berlin, anfangs Mai 1945, sein Leib verbrannt und zu Aschen gemacht. Und dann, seine Bewegung, die unbedeutende Nachahmer hatte (und noch hat), die sich neo-was-auch-immer nennen. Er und seine Bewegungs-Partei-Ideologie sind unser schlechter, andauender Gedanke. Wir können uns das Böse nicht vorstellen, ohne an ihn zu denken, ohne es mit ihm zu vergleichen. Und damit verzerren wir seine Geschichte, wir entziehen ihn seiner Verantwortung in der Geschichte. Das Schlimmste ist jedoch, indem wir ihn immer wieder heraufbeschwören, begehen wir den schlimmsten Fehler: wir verzichten auf die Vernunft, wir verleihen den heutigen Ereignissen nicht ihre komplizierte und ernste zeitgenössische Dimension. Wir vermeiden es, Antworten in der Gegenwart zu suchen und daher verzögern wir dies zu verstehen und entsprechend zu handeln. So, das ist die „Verzerrung“, sowohl in der vergangenen Geschichte (eine Vergangenheit, die nicht vergehet, wie viele zu sagen pflegten), als auch unserer schwierigen Gegenwart. 

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ITALICS

Reviving the Renaissance Temples
of Venice’s Jewish Ghetto

By Robin Pogrebin*

Walking into the Jewish Ghetto here, in the Cannaregio section of this watery city, you would not know that there are five ornate synagogues nestled behind the walls of the nondescript tenements that date back to the 16th century.
The temples were built on the top floor — according to Jewish law, synagogues should be the tallest structures in a given area — and had to be hidden because Jews were not allowed to pray openly. Those houses of worship were a lifeline for the estimated 5,000 Jews who lived in the ghetto at its most populous — a place to gather, celebrate rites of passage, take refuge from a world that didn’t want them.
These days, the number of Jews in Venice has dwindled to 450, and the synagogues have fallen into disrepair. But an effort is underway to rejuvenate the three most needy of them — restoring the wooden pews, cleaning the terrazzo floors and repairing the painted ceilings.
“These buildings are crying for help,” said David Landau, an Israeli art historian and businessman who lives between Switzerland and Venice and is leading fund-raising for the project. “I got so frustrated when I came here and saw everything was crumbling. We have to get this done. It’s a question of honor. Art for me is fundamental to my life, and being a Jew is fundamental to my life.”.


*This article was originally published on The New York Times on May 4, 2022

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Realizzato con il contributo di: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, Alain Elkann, Dori Fleekop, Daniela Fubini, Benedetta Guetta, Sarah Kaminski, Daniel Leisawitz, Annette Leckart, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Yaakov Mascetti, Jonathan Misrachi, Anna Momigliano, Giovanni Montenero, Elèna Mortara, Sabina Muccigrosso, Lisa Palmieri Billig, Jazmine Pignatello, Shirley Piperno, Giandomenico Pozzi, Daniel Reichel, Colby Robbins,  Danielle Rockman, Lindsay Shedlin, Michael Sierra, Adam Smulevich, Simone Somekh, Rossella Tercatin, Ada Treves, Lauren Waldman, Sahar Zivan.
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