Having trouble viewing this email? Click here November 21, 2022 – 27 Cheshvan 5783  

By Adam Smulevich
 
Joshua Cohen was in Jerusalem at the time it was announced that he had won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Just a few minutes later, he said, “my house was surrounded by reporters. None of them had read the book, clearly, and it was funny to be asked so many questions aimed at squeezing out the plot to be able to write something pertinent about it”.
To him it seems like a paradox that some critics have classed his last novel as Israeli literature. Indeed, “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor and Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family”, that was recently translated and published in Italy by Codice Edizioni, was written by a Jewish American author who looks back at the legacy of literary giants such as Philip Roth and Saul Bellow, and it entirely takes place in the USA (in addition, it is set in 1959, the year of the publication of Ruth's debut work “Goodbye Columbus”).
However, its protagonist is Israeli: the historian Benzion Netanyahu, author of a work about the Inquisition that is as great as controversial. Combining fact and fiction, Cohen offers an imaginative rendering of the story of when Benzion Netanyahu visited a college campus seeking an academic position. Benzion was accompanied by his obnoxious children, extremely noisy and annoying.
A few years later, his son Benjamin would become one of the most important and most criticized politicians of Israel, while his other son Yonatan would die in Entebbe, leading one of the country's most famous overseas operations. The Jewish identity between past and present, Israel, America and the diaspora.
Cohen's swift prose makes these fascinating topics, with their contradictions, even more exciting. The author was guest of honor at the latest edition of the Italian Jewish Book Festival. We met with him in Venice, where he stayed for a period of time – that coincided with the beginning of the new Jewish year 5783­­ –  hosted by the association Beit Venezia and Casa delle Parole (House of words).
 
Did you get the chance to recharge your batteries after months on the crest of the wave?
Well, there's something magical and reinvigorating about Venice. I must confess that I knew very little about the city's Jewish history, apart from a few general facts. This was definitely a great opportunity to delve deeper. And then who knows, one thing leads to another...
 
Could it possibly serve as the setting for one of your next stories?
I don't know, it's not something that can be predetermined. Creativity works in a different way. But I certainly do not rule out the possibility of translating Venetian characters and situations into one of my future writings. In the meantime, I'll write down some notes.
 
What is your relationship with Italian writers? Is there any Italian author you look to?
There's a lot of them. Right now, if I have to name one, I would say Leonardo Sciascia, both for the intricacy and construction of his plot and for how effectively he is able to convey the local “color”, but also Curzio Malaparte and Cesare Pavese's stories, among others. And I certainly cannot leave out some pillars of Jewish and Italian literature to whom I owe a lot: I discovered Primo Levi and Giorgio Bassani in my adolescence, and read their works between the age of 14 and 18; another author I love is Italo Svevo.
 
In the past, you worked as a journalist in Eastern Europe, documenting the complex, troubled, but also fascinating reality of those Countries. What do you bring with you from that experience?
I bring with me very vivid memories, in particular of the time I spent in Ukraine, between Lviv and Odessa. Two cities that, even in their Jewishness, preserve their identity and deep wounds. I have witnessed how people there crave Europe. The idea that there is someone that is trying to suppress their yearning is simply shocking.
 
In today's Ukraine is the city of Brody, hometown to your favourite writer: Joseph Roth.
Visiting the city of Brody was an emotionally charged experience. Although it was partly rebuilt, it still conveys the atmosphere of a border city. The literature that I love the most is the one that deals with boundaries and existential precariousness, an art Roth was an undisputed master of.

Translated by Annadora Zuanel, revised by Martina Bandini, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.

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In the 17th century, there was a Jewish painter named Jona Ostiglio at the court of the Medici. Last week the Uffizi Galleries disclosed the discovery made by the Hebraist Piergabriele Mancuso and the art historian and museum official Maria Sframeli, stating that this represents “a unique case in the history of art”. A skillful and versatile artist, Ostiglio was “able to take important commissions from the ruling dynasty and from other powerful Florentine families such as the Mannelli. He was highly esteemed, to the extent of being able to join the prestigious Accademia delle Arti del Disegno (Academy of the Arts of Drawing) in 1680. And “until the past century” he was still “the only Jewish member”.
The director of the Uffizi Eike Schmidt underlined the significance of the discovery: “Despite the limits imposed by the Church and the Inquisition, in the 17th century the Florentine rulers managed to save Galileo's life and research. And now, we are learning that a Jew was allowed to practice painting, that he was granted the honour of being a member of the Accademia, which was personally sponsored by the gran dukes, and that he received commissions from the most prominent noble families. This is undoubtedly a major historical acquisition”.
The discovery was made during a discussion between Mancuso and Sframeli on the affairs of the local Jewish community. Mancuso declares: “It was Sframeli who directed me towards a series of unknown works and documents attesting the activity of the Jewish painter Jona Ostiglio in the Florence of the gran dukes. The first and brief reference to Ostiglio is in a 1907 article written by the rabbi, biblical scholar and orientalist Umberto Cassuto”.
 
Translated by Margherita Francese, revised by Valentina Megera, students at the Secondary School of Modern Languages for Interpreters and Translators of the University of Trieste, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – Pagine Ebraiche.

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The new Israeli Ambassador to Italy, Alon Bar, presented his credentials to the Head of State Sergio Mattarella. A longtime diplomat with many important positions, Bar has closely followed delicate issues for Jerusalem – among the most recent ones the preparation of the visit to Israel of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. He has been in Italy from the beginning of September and succeeds to Dror Eydar. According to the Embassy of Israel “The protocol phase was followed by a brief meeting, during which Ambassador Bar remarked the excellent relations between Italy and Israel, the strong bond uniting the two States, and the need to work together in order to further strengthen bilateral cooperation in the sectors of water, energy, and innovation”. The ambassador also thanked President Mattarella “for his words regarding the terrorist attack to the Great Synagogue of Rome in which the child Stefano Gaj Taché lost his life”.

“La disposition des meubles de cet appartement est figé dans ma tête. Je pourrais les dessiner, même après autant d'années”, racontait la sénatrice à vie Liliana Segre à Pagine Ebraiche. Cet appartement était dans la rue Magenta 55, à Milan. C'était le lieu qu'elle a appelé “maison” pendant 12 ans, et ils lui ont arraché à cause des persécutions anti-juives engagées par le fascisme.
Le même sort a été réservé à des millions d'autres Juifs comme elle: des vies bouleversées, des habitations et biens saisis, tous méticuleusement décrits et documentés par la bureaucratie fasciste. Des histoires d'hommes, de femmes, d'enfants privés de l'endroit qu'ils considéraient comme le plus sûr, leur maison. C’est à partir des maisons que le nouveau projet Remembr-House, présenté par la Fondazione 1563 per l'Arte e la Cultura della Compagnia di San Paolo de Turin et la Fondazione Museo Nazionale dell'Ebraismo Italiano e della Shoah-MEIS de Ferrare, cherche à reconstituer une partie de ce patrimoine de mémoires. Remembr-House a remporté un appel européen dans le cadre du programme “Citizens, Equality, Rights and Value”.
L'initiative est adressée aux enseignants, éducateurs et étudiants et examine les documents – conservés aux archives historiques de la Compagnia di San Paolo – du service de gestion Egeli de l'institut bancaire San Paolo de Turin, qui était chargé de la saisie et de la gestion des biens confisqués aux Juifs du Piémont et de Ligurie après les lois racistes de 1938. Ces documents décrivent les maisons pièce par pièce, avec tous les objets conservés dans les tiroirs et les armoires: la table de cuisine, le cadre pour les portraits, la table de chevet, la boîte à biscuits en metal.

Traduction d’Alice Pugliese, révisée par Alida Caccia, étudiantes à l’École Supérieure de Langues Modernes pour les Interprètes et les Traducteurs de l’Université de Trieste, stagiaires dans le bureau du journal de l’Union des communautés juives italiennes – Pagine Ebraiche.

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By Zachy Hennessey* 

Much like that one coworker which everyone has, lithium-ion batteries are pretty great at doing their job, but after they finish their work they hang around for way too long and start to get toxic —  but while your coworker eventually gets tired and goes home to bother his roommates, the batteries usually end up in a landfill leaking corrosive chemicals like mercury, cadmium, lead and nickel into the soil and water table, thereby presenting a pretty serious risk to human health and the environment alike.
In light of lithium-ion batteries’ shortcomings, the world’s bright minds have developed an alternative solution for energy storage, and one of the more innovative approaches utilizes humanity’s premiere multitool: the rock. As it turns out, Caveman’s First Hammer™ is pretty good at holding heat — especially when it’s been crushed and compacted. That heat can then be converted into steam, which in turn can produce battery acid-free electricity.
 
*This article was originally published on The Jerusalem Post on November 7, 2022

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