Having trouble viewing this email? Click here December 26, 2022 – 2 Tevet 5783
  

An aberrant humanitarian violation has been taking place in Gaza for several years now. Two citizens with mental health issues and the bodies of as many Israeli soldiers killed in the summer of 2014, one of whom during a ceasefire, are held captive by the terrorist group Hamas without anyone knowing anything about their fate. For the first time since this void opened in their lives, the relatives of Avera Mengistu and Hisham Al-Sayed, Hadar Goldin, and Oron Shaul are together abroad, supported by the Israeli embassies in Italy and the Vatican, to ensure that their protest is heard.
It is a mission between Rome and the Vatican that led them to gather with, among others, the solidarity of the Pope, representatives of the Italian government, and European institutions and also to receive the embrace of the city's Jewish community during the lighting of the fourth Chanukkiah candle in the Great synagogue. “It's the first time they have been traveling together, and the moment chosen is not accidental, given the coincidence of Chanukkah and the Christian holidays. It is a symbolic circumstance that brought us to the Pope, hoping that his special relations with the Islamic world can be of help”, Shuli Davidovitch, director of the Division for Diaspora and Religious Affairs at the Israeli Foreign Ministry, told Pagine Ebraiche. “Unfortunately - she remarked – at present we have no information about the hostages or the bodies of the fallen. Hamas has never let us know anything. However, we know that the asking price is high: the release of hundreds of terrorists”.

Above, the menorah lighting at the Great Synagogue of Rome with the family of Avera Mengistu.

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Eight lights for identity and life. Eight lights against darkness. From Rome to Naples to Milan for eight days, Jewish Italy lighted up inside and outside synagogues, community spaces, squares, and homes. In Piazza Barberini, in the heart of Rome, the traditional lighting ceremony organized by the Chabad Lubavitch since 1987 took place. Also in Rome, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni attended the lighting of the second candle at the Jewish Museum as a guest of honor of the local Jewish Community.
“The story of this holiday is a story of courage and hope. It is the story of a people fighting to defend its identity, traditions, and its faith”, she said with visible commotion. These are values, she remarked, that “the Jewish people have always known, and it is the reason why its identity and traditions passed through centuries and are still alive”.
In the end, this is the ability, Meloni pointed out, “to make the Jewish people resilient, although having faced so many difficulties and atrocities, including the ignominy of the racial laws”. The Prime Minister also defined the Jewish Community as a “fundamental part of Italian identity” and “a piece of my identity”. The ceremony was opened by the president of the Jewish Community of Rome Ruth Dureghello. "We are proudly Italian while claiming a diversity that we believe is useful for the growth of the country", she remarked. Exploring the concept of identity which is central in Hanukkah’s celebration, Dureghello spoke of a Jewish model leaning towards "the ability to build societies in which education and schools represent the basis". Strong appreciation was then expressed for the action of President Meloni and the government "to definitively counter the ambiguities that are still present in a part of the country regarding fascism and its responsibilities", as well as for some positions taken in international organizations. Before the lighting of the Hanukkiah by Holocaust survivor Sami Modiano, Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni took the floor. The Jewish festival of lights, he recalled, is significantly intertwined with the history of the Roman community. The first Jews from Judea arrived in the city to plead an alliance against Antiochus Epiphanes “and thus the Jewish community of Rome was born; after twenty-two centuries it is still here and still vital”.

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In 1983, in fortuitous circumstances, the remains of the Bova Marina synagogue came to light. Dated by experts between the fourth and fifth centuries, it represents one of the oldest pieces of evidence of Jewish presence not only in the Southern region of Calabria but also throughout Italy and Europe. A historical heritage, but also a place to build new awareness projects aimed at the future. For the first time after centuries, that same area has come back to light up with a wrought iron menorah, made according to the aesthetic canons of the candelabrum that appears in the mosaic decorating the Calabrian synagogue.
The lighting of the fourth lamp, in the presence of numerous local authorities, represented one of the most significant events in the context of the many lighting ceremonies held in Calabria, from Rota Greca to Nicotera to Santa Maria del Cedro, with the contribution of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities and the Jewish Community of Naples. To complete the occasion, two events were held in Nicotera in the evening: first, a philatelic annulment was presented in memory of the expulsion of the Jews, which took place with the sixteenth-century expulsion edicts, then the honorary citizenship of the Municipality was conferred on the president of UCEI Noemi Di Segni. “These are important new signals from a territory that appears intent on rediscovering its Jewish roots after centuries of cancellation and oblivion”, remarked the UCEI vice-president Giulio Disegni, who spoke at the lighting ceremony together with the Rabbi of Naples Cesare Moscati, and the delegate for Calabria of the Neapolitan community Roque Pugliese. 

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Jahr 2008 lud Elena Cattaneo, ordentliche Professorin für Pharmakologie an der Universität Mailand, die Medizin-Nobelpreisträgerin Rita Levi-Montalcini ein, um eine Rede vor tausend Studenten zu halten.
“Sie sprach anderthalb Stunden lang und stand gerade vor dem Pult mit einer geschlossener Faust, als wollte sie von der Kraft zeugen, die das Altern schlägt. Irgendwann habe ich einen schüchternen Versuch gemacht, ihr den Stuhl zu reichen. Vor den Augen aller Studenten sagte sie mit sanfter, aber fester Stimme: ‚Dankeschön, aber ich bleibe stehen‘. Diese Behauptung ist in meiner Erinnerung geblieben und häufig stelle ich mich die folgenden Fragen: Wie oft ist Rita in jenen Jahren stehen geblieben? Was bedeutet es, die Widerwärtigkeiten durchstehen, wenn man selbst derjenige ist, der durchstehen soll? Was heißt es, sich nicht zu beugen und das Land des Nein zu wählen? Und wie schwer es ist, die Entscheidung zu treffen, nicht Bedingtheit und Privilegien anzunehmen, die meist zu anderen Schaden sind?”

Übersetzt von Valentina Megera, Schülerin der Hochschule für moderne Sprachen für Dolmetscher und Übersetzer der Universität von Triest, Praktikantin in der Redaktion der Vereinigung der Italienischen Jüdischen Gemeinschaften – Pagine Ebraiche.

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By Caleb Guedes-Reed*

The Panettone, the fluffy, fruit-speckled archetypal Christmas cake, is this holiday season’s “it” dessert — and the creator of perhaps the most coveted version in the United States is an Israeli-American Jew. The New York Times this week credited baker Roy Shvartzapel with spearheading “the American panettone revolution” through his business From Roy. Shvartzapel has dedicated the bulk of his career to the airy Italian cakes, training under Iginio Massari, the undisputed master baker in Italy, and obsessing over each ingredient and step in the 40-hour production cycle. After a flurry of coverage in his company’s early days in 2016, and especially since being endorsed by Oprah Winfrey in 2018, Shvartzapel’s business has grown dramatically. Last year, he said he expected to sell nearly 300,000, at $75 a piece, both in stores and via mail order. This year, the price is $85, and preorders sold out by — without, Shvartzapel said on a podcast last year, any spending on marketing.
 
*This article was originally published on Jewish Telegraphic Agency on December 23, 2022 

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