Having trouble viewing this email? Click here     December 19, 2022 – 25 Kislev 5783
  

Pour le monde juif, le moment d’allumer la première lumière de Hanukkah s’approche. Une occasion traditionnellement célébrée dans les maisons mais désormais aussi dans les places de nombreuses villes, avec des événements ouverts à tous. Le Musée national du judaïsme italien et de la Shoah de Ferrare ouvre les rangs de ces événements avec une exposition à entrée gratuite où on raconte au public, à travers des œuvres et des objets, les significations de cette fête.
L’exposition du Musée national du judaïsme italien et de la Shoah (MEIS), organisée par Amedeo Spagnoletto, directeur du musée, avec Ermanno Tedeschi, a comme titre “Hanukkah. Una festa raccontata attraverso l’arte” (Hanukkah. Une fête racontée par le biais de l’art).
“Nous ouvrons une exposition petite mais très raffinée”, a expliqué le président du MEIS, Dario Disegni, lors de l'inauguration de l'initiative. “Nous avons voulu organiser cette exposition pour faire connaître à tout le monde la fête de Hanukkah, qui commencera dans quelques jours. Parmi les œuvres, le public pourra découvrir des tableaux d’artistes contemporains comme Francesca Duscià, qui a voulu être présent avec nous ici pour cette occasion. Ainsi nous terminons ce 2022 et nous nous préparons à accueillir le 2023 avec une grande exposition qui débutera en avril et sera dédiée aux architectures des synagogues et des cimetières juifs en Italie.

Traduction de Margherita Francese, révisée par Erika Centazzo, 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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The new book written by Rav Roberto Della Rocca, director of UCEI’s “Culture and Education” area, continues and elaborates some of the reflections published during the years in “Pagine Ebraiche” and on www.moked.it, the portal of Italian Judaism. Titled “Camminare nel tempo” (Walking through time), published by Giuntina, consists of a collection of thoughts that intertwine nowadays issues with the millennial lecture of the Torah.The reading offers a number of ideas and also a starting point to carry on with the study “each in his own way, based on his own intellectual and spiritual abilities”.
The ability to walk through time consciously, recalls the Rav, “sets the pace for the Jewish life, where every impulse, every spiritual leap expressed by Jewish people, every feeling, whether it is toward the people or traditions, is expressed within temporal barriers, distributing different moments of spiritual life as the days go by”. In this perspective the holiness of Shabbat, the most important day of the week, is central. It is the symbol of the right to rest, but even more “of the need to protect human freedom and dignity”.

Translated by Laura Cattani and revised by Valentina Megera, 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.

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For almost a century, the synagogue of Chieri, a precious testimony of the Piedmonte baroque, has ceased its original function. Its ancient legacy is today transmitted in the spaces of Tempio Piccolo (Small Temple) of Turin, where the Tevah and the Aron Hakodesh moved there in the 1940s "seem reborn to communicate optimally with the surrounding environment". 
The situation was recently recalled by the president of the Jewish community of Turin Dario Disegni during an event for the 50th anniversary of the Small Temple. Although deprived of its furnishings, the Chieri synagogue building remains a living sign of the Jewish presence in the area. It is a heritage not to be lost and a possible lever for developing cultural and educational project.

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The TGM, the Tunis-Goulette-Marsa train, travels along the Tunisian coasts and effectively represents nostalgia for a life made up of days on the beach, carefree living and an idealised past that no longer exists. Instead, the TGV is the symbol of a life rebuilt on new tracks, in an unknown France, painfully uprooted from their own origins, but supported by a strong will to redeem. By ideally following the route of these two trains, the documentary "Du TGM au TGV" tells the stories of Tunisian Jews, who after the Second World War left their homes en masse, abandoning an increasingly unwelcoming homeland in order to move to France. The film, directed by Ruggero Gabbai, written by Sonia Fellous and produced by Gilles Samama, was premiered to the Italian public during the Rassegna Nuovo Cinema Ebraico e Israeliano (New Jewish and Israeli Cinema Review) of the Fondazione Cdec (Cdec Foundation) in Milan.

Translation by Martina Bandini, revised by Laura Cattani, 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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By Mattia Terracina*

The ancient Jewish community of Turin, in northern Italy, located in the multi-ethnic neighborhood San Salvario, isn’t hard to find. Visitors just need to point their nose upward and look for the domes of the 140-year-old synagogue. 
What is hard to find is young people to fill the pews.
Most of Italy’s 30,000 Jews live in Rome and Milan. Smaller communities, like the one in Turin, struggle to survive. Since 1989, new enrollments in Turin’s Jewish community have steadily dropped. In 2001 there were fewer than 1,000, according to the institution’s archives. Today, membership stands at 748, of whom only 19% are under 30 years of age.  

*This article was originally published on JTA on December 15, 2022.

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