Having trouble viewing this email? Click here December 5, 2022 – 11 Kislev 5783
  

In 2014 the Knesset, the legislature of Israel, approved a law that declared November 30th as the annual National Day of Commemoration for Jewish refugees displaced from the Arab and Islamic world. On this symbolic day, the efforts of ASTREL – Association for the Safeguarding of the Transmission of the Jewish Heritage of Libya ensured that the city of Rome also welcomed a Memorial to remember the Libyan Jews who lost their lives because of the Nazi-fascists.
It is a partial, yet already significant list that also includes other names not to be forgotten, namely the ones that were formerly engraved on the headstones of the Jewish cemeteries, desecrated, and destroyed since 1969. On that date, the millenary history of the Jews in Libya had just been permanently interrupted because of a further upsurge of pogrom and violence by the Arabs.
“From pain to joy” stated David Gerbi, president of Astrel. He highlighted that the exiled Jews made an invaluable contribution to the Jewish life of Italy, especially in Rome. Their influence spread on multiple levels, namely the cultural, the social and the religious ones. It was Gerbi himself who called to the stage the numerous Institutions that wished to take part or even just send a supportive message to the initiative of the Memorial, established in the section dedicated to Jewish people in the Prima Porta cemetery.
“It is impressive to think that in the Rhineland, the Nazis left intact Jewish cemeteries from the medieval period, while in Libya cemeteries were replaced by roads and skyscrapers” this is what Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni sorely pointed out. “Keeping the memory is our duty. From now on this place is even more a house of life” he said. 

Translation by Martina Bandini, revised by Annadora Zuanel, 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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It has been little over twelve months since the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities – UCEI entrusted the management of its Bibliographic Centre to the Jewish Cultural Heritage Foundation in Italy. The Centre is a site of historical importance for Italian Judaism, and a meeting place “that we hope will increasingly establish itself as a hub of study, research and exchange”. The president of the Foundation, Dario Disegni, expressed this wish during the inauguration of the convention “Judaica cognoscenda et custodienda” that was held on Thursday, 1 December 2022, and that brought together scholars from the fields of library sciences, art history, printing, cataloguing and archivistics. The topics of discussion were the history, cataloguing and protection of the Jewish book heritage. The Centre was called upon to give even more value to this already important heritage, rich from both a qualitative and a quantitative point of view. In his opening speech, Disegni stressed that “the treasures held in these rooms are many, and many are also the possibilities of further investigation”. The book section is comprised of more than 25,000 volumes, he pointed out, but there are also numerous accounts available in the archival, the photographic, and the musical sections.

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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The life and work of Boris Pahor, the Slovene novelist from Trieste who recently passed at 108, who survived the Nazi deportation and became one of the most important testimonies of the tragedies of the 20th century, was presented last week to the Committee on the Holocaust, Genocide and Crimes against Humanity during the plenary meeting of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance – IHRA in Gothenburg, Sweden.
Among the panelist who explored the great intellectual’s legacy, Pagine Ebraiche journalist Daniela Gross brought her experience, recalling the meetings with Pahor that took place through the years within the frame of the journalistic laboratory Redazione aperta, which culminated in 2011 in a meaningful and touching interview.
The conversation lasted about two hours and “it was unforgettable for its tone and themes”, remarked Gross, remembering the preparation of the meeting, the relationship established with the author, and the interview highlights. “I was born in via del Monte 13, in a house at the top of the hill on which the Jewish school was located, in front of the old Jewish cemetery. In the evening my mother used to iron in the light of the street lamp hanging to illuminate the entrance”, Pahor told Pagine Ebraiche.
 
Above, the interview with Boris Pahor in an illustration by Giorgio Albertini.

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Eduscopio, the school evaluation and assessment report by Fondazione Agnelli, rewards the commitment and educational offer of Jewish secondary schools. The new survey, released last week, places the schools of Rome and Milan at the top of two indicators. The Roman high school Renzo Levi rises to the first place among the linguistic institutions of the capital; that of the Jewish Community of Milan instead confirms itself as the leader among those with a scientific focus in the Lombard capital.
Eduscopio aims “to help the students and their families when choosing a school after eighth grade”, intending to create the conditions for which “students can successfully take the next step in their life trajectories”. To be analyzed, the data of over one million graduates in three consecutive school years, in about 7,700 courses of study in public and equivalent secondary schools.

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By David Klein*

L’chaim! L’chaim! Živjeli! Slivovitz, a plum brandy traditionally associated with Passover by many Ashkenazi Jews, has been added to the United Nations’ list of items with “intangible cultural heritage.”  The decision was made at UNESCO’s conference in Morocco this week where France successfully campaigned for the inclusion of the baguette on the list, a complement to the regular tally of physical sites that the agency seeks to preserve. It wasn’t Jews leading the charge for the hard-burning brandy, but rather Serbia, where the spirit is a mainstay, as it is across much of the Balkans, Eastern and Central Europe. That’s where Jews first got turned onto the drink, according to Martin Votruba, a Slovak studies professor whose research included the history of slivovitz and who died in 2019. 

*This article was originally published on Jewish Telegraphic Agency on December 2, 2022.

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