Having trouble viewing this email? Click here August 15, 2022 – 18 Av 5782 

Das international Restaurierungs- und Renovierungsprojekt der Einrichtungen im Jüdischen Museum Venedigs und in drei Synagogen (die Italienische, die Deutsche und die Scola Canton) wird durch eine besondere Bereitstellung von 1,65 Millionen Euro von der italienischen Regierung unterstützt.
Das Kulturministerium hat diese Initiative unter den Verpflichtungen im Rahmen des sogenannten Strategieplans Großprojekte der Kulturgüter aufgenommen, der den “Archive, Ausgrabungsstätte, Museen, historische Gebäude, Burgen, Befestigungsanlagen, Theater und Gebäudekomplexe mit historischem, künstlerischem und architektonischem Wert” gewidmet wurde.
Diese Maßnahme betrifft insbesondere die deutsche Synagoge “und wird es ermöglichen, die konservativen Problematiken auch der hölzernen Empore aus dem 16. Jahrhundert durch Befestigungs- und Restaurierungsarbeiten anzugehen, sowie Anlagenbau- und Lichttechnikarbeiten, Ausstattungen und Feinarbeiten für Museen.”
Ziel der Arbeiten ist es, der Synagoge ihr ursprüngliches und “vollkommendes” Aussehen zurückzugeben. Dabei sollen alle Feinarbeiten, die keine Verschleierung oder Wiederaufbau erlebt haben, sowie ihre Rahmen und die Bima erhalten bleiben.
Für die Wandstucke und die Struktur des Toraschreins sind dagegen das sogenannte “descialbo – eine sorgfältige Beseitigung aller Schichten von losem Material – und die Verherrlichung der ursprünglichen Feinarbeiten” vorgesehen. Außerdem gibt es einige Pläne, um den Innen- und Außenraum zu verbessern.

Im Bild: die Scola grande tedesca, eines der Juwelen des jüdischen Venedigs.
 
Übersetzt von Valentina Megera, durchgesehen von Sofia Busatto, Schülerinnen der Hochschule für moderne Sprachen für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer der Universität von Triest, Praktikantinnen in der Redaktion der Vereinigung der Italienischen Jüdischen Gemeinschaften – Pagine Ebraiche.

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Great sorrow, also in the Jewish world, for the death of Piero Angela last week at 93. The celebrated science journalist and television host, widely considered Italy’s David Attenborough, was the protagonist of a bright page of culture and dissemination. As Italian Presidente Mattarella remarked, he was a "refined intellectual, journalist and writer who has marked the history of television in Italy in unforgettable ways". He was also the keeper of a story of salvation that had seen his father Carlo, an anti-fascist doctor, forge the medical records of the mental hospital he managed in San Maurizio Canavese (Province of Vercelli) to rescue dozens of persecuted Jews during the German occupation and the Repubblica Sociale Italiana. 
“He has always done his duty never asking for anything in return”, his son will tell. A RAI documentary from 2017, titled Carlo Angela – Un medico stratega (Carlo Angela – A doctor strategist), retraced those events, with a contribution from the editorial staff of Pagine Ebraiche. Piero will recount it in the book, Il mio lungo viaggio (My long journey), published on the occasion of his 90th birthday. In 2001, Carlo Angela was recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem. The testimony in the form of a diary by Renzo Segre was decisive for this attribution.
Honesty, a sense of duty, a straight back: these, Angela will say, are the strongest values ​​transmitted by her father. An example he cultivated in a career that was intense and wonderful. 
May his memory be of a blessing.
 
Above, Piero Angela and wife Margherita Pastore in the cemetery where his father rests.

“In my life I have heard of everything and more, words therefore do not strike me more than a little. To Giorgia Meloni, I say this: she could start by removing the flame from her party’s symbol”. It is the comment Senator for life and Holocaust survivor Liliana Segre entrusts to Pagine Ebraiche regarding the recent stance by the leader of Brothers of Italy on the historical responsibilities of fascism. “Let’s start from facts, not from words and hypotheses”, stresses Segre.
In a video message addressed to the foreign press, Meloni had argued, among other things, that the “Italian right handed fascism over to history for decades now, unambiguously condemning the suppression of democracy and the ignominious anti-Jewish laws, and equally unambiguous of course is our condemnation of Nazism and communism”. These words elicited many reactions. But if not accompanied by facts, Segre suggests to Pagine Ebraiche, they won’t have any real consistency.

By Alberto Cavaglion*

I would like to talk about Eshkol Nevo’s latest novel, which has been keeping me company this week (“Le vie dell’Eden”, Einaudi). As for the previous novels, I was not disappointed by it: the three stories of which the book is composed keep you on the edge, expect for the last one, which gives the title to the book, and which is probably too charged with allegorical meanings and weighed down by ornamental Talmudical references. These three rings are bound together by a weak and random link given by one of the characters of the previous story reappearing in the new one. Nevo’s mastery lies in the psychological analysis of his characters, which are usually troubled with their relationships, overwhelmed by events that are too big for them, especially men, who are portrayed as insecure and losing, while women are always protagonists of their own destiny. The background of Jerusalem’s landscapes is this time emphasized by dense musical references, classical and not.

*Historian

Translated by Erika Centazzo and revised by Alice Pugliese, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.

 By Tim Hume*

An Italian winemaker that sells its product in bottles emblazoned with pictures of Adolf Hitler and Nazi slogans says it plans to discontinue the range following the latest outrage over the branding.
Vini Lunardelli, a winery in northeastern Italy, has sold the offensive wine bottles since 1995, as part of a so-called “historical” line of wines, which also features dictators like Francisco Franco and Josef Stalin. 
The wines are sold in more than 50 stores across Italy, and can also be ordered direct from the winery’s website, where buyers can customise “collectible” bottles with their choice of images of Hitler, or figures like his wife Eva Braun or leading Nazi Heinrich Himmler, along with Nazi slogans such as Blut und Ehre ("Blood and Honor") and "Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer" (“One people, one realm, one leader”.)
While the product can be sold legally in Italy, they’re illegal in countries like Germany or Austria, where there are strict laws against glorifying Nazism or spreading Nazi propaganda.

*This article was originally published on VICE on August 12, 2022.

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