Having trouble viewing this email? Click here           May 16, 2023 - 25 Iyar 5783

Napoli has won its third “Scudetto”, the Italian national championship well in advance. A feat that the team hasn't managed to achieve for no less than the last 33 years for no less than 33 years, since the days when Diego Armando Maradona made the world dream with the ball at his feet. It was also an opportunity for a few to learn more about the history of the club's founder and first president: the Jewish entrepreneur and philanthropist Giorgio Ascarelli, a member of an ancient Jewish family originally from Rome who had moved to the southern part of Italy after the unification of the country.
The new sports partnership was formed in August 1926, with the ambition of being a protagonist from the very beginning. This goal was the result of a broad managerial vision and pioneering intuition. In fact, Ascarelli had the Vesuvius Stadium built at his own expense, the first privately-owned stadium ever, which was then named after him by popular acclaim a few days after his death (which occurred prematurely in 1930, at the age of 36, due to peritonitis). 
“An authentic wonder” is how the Gazzetta dello Sport, the most important national sports newspaper, defined it. One of the many marks left by Ascarelli in the city, later erased by the violence of fascism, which in times of rising anti-Jewish hatred would proceed to remove his name from every physical and intangible testimony associated with him.
A contemporary of Ascarelli's was Renato Sacerdoti, one of the founders of the Roma football team and its second president. However, they had different view about politics: Ascarelli was a socialist sympathiser while Sacerdoti was fully at ease in his black shirt. This, in addition to an earlier conversion to Christianity, did not, however, save him from the racist laws that affected him and his loved ones as well. 

Translation by Francesca Angelucci, revised by Alida Caccia, 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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Giuseppe Castruccio was good at playing football. He was so good that he earned a place among the regular players of Genoa, the team that dominated the football scene in Italy at the beginning of the 20th century, winning several titles in a row. But his best was yet to arrive: some years later, after successfully embarking on his diplomatic career, he found himself working in Thessaloniki, that had become hell on earth for the tens of thousands of Jews living there.
In the role of Consul General of Italy, the former promising footballer, who had since become a heroic man of the institutions, did his utmost to save individuals and families in danger. In particular, he did all he could to ensure that the Italian Jews living in the area occupied by Rome’s military forces were not moved to the German side and from there to the death camps, and that those in the German side returned to the Italian-occupied area. Among other things, he is credited with rescuing 281 Jews from the “Baron Hirsch” ghetto with a high-risk plan: disguised as Italian soldiers, they were put on trains to Athens and Larissa.

Translated 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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Senator for life Liliana Segre will preside for the second time over the extraordinary Commission “aimed at counteracting the phenomena of intolerance, racism, anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred and violence”, that she strongly desired. The unanimous election took place during the installation meeting of the new body. Ester Mieli (from the right-wing party Fratelli d'Italia) and Francesco Verducci (from the left-wing Partito Democratico) will act alongside her as Vice-Presidents. 
Senator Segre said she was “very satisfied, ready to take back the dossier and start again where work had stopped due to the early end of the legislative term”. In a statement to the Senate's official channels, she also stated: “I got spontaneously emotional after the unanimous vote, because there has not always been unanimity in the past of this committee. This commission is very important to me, especially when it comes to intolerance and incitement to hatred”.

Translation by Alice Pugliese, 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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“Une longue aventure d’exploration dans d’immenses territoires, qui jusqu’à présent avaient été cartographiés qu’en partie”. L’étude de Primo Levi franchit une nouvelle étape. C’est aussi grâce à une nouvelle contribution de qualité: une bibliographie curée par Domenico Scarpa pour l’éditeur Einaudi dans laquelle, au-delà de ses livres, on retrouve presque 470 entrées relatives à des écrits publiés en vie, 100 textes ou fragments parus après sa mort, plus de 300 conversations et interviews et, de plus, une série de lettres (dont beaucoup sont inédites). Dans le titre, “Il primo Atlante”, un hommage à une poésie du 1980 dans laquelle Levi joue “avec les noms, les formes et les couleurs des planches géographiques qui le faisaient rêver quand il était petit”. Conseiller littéraire du Centre d’études Primo Levi de Turin et auteur et/ou co-auteur de nombreux ouvrages dédiées à Levi, Scarpa a signé les Notes on the text pour les Complete Works (Liveright, 2015), L’Album Primo Levi (Einaudi, 2017), la récolte des Lezioni Primo Levi (Mondadori, 2019) et plusieurs anthologies, cycles de théâtre, exhibitions et documentaires télévisés.

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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By Fredric Brand­fon*

Dur­ing Mussolini’s regime there was a huge stat­ue of him on horse­back in the Bologna foot­ball sta­di­um. On July 25, 1943, the Ital­ian King Vic­tor Emmanuel III removed Mus­soli­ni (or Il Duce) from office and had him arrest­ed, and on this same day that stat­ue was giv­en a sim­i­lar treat­ment: the head was cut off and glee­ful­ly parad­ed through Bologna’s ancient streets. After World War II end­ed, and Mus­soli­ni had been killed by the Ital­ian Resis­tance, the rest of the stat­ue was melt­ed down to cre­ate two life-size stat­ues of Resis­tance fight­ers, a man and a woman, stand­ing defi­ant­ly in the Piaz­za VII Novem­ber 1944 which com­mem­o­rates a bat­tle between the par­ti­sans and the occu­py­ing Germans.
 
*This article was originally published on 

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