| CULTURE
Manuscript of Giorgio Bassani’s Masterpiece
to Be Exhibited in the Museum
of Italian Judaism
By Adam Smulevich
Once the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara (MEIS) is completed, it will exhibit a manuscript of extraordinary symbolic value: a manuscript by Ferrara writer Giorgio Bassani, author of one of the most important novels of the twentieth century, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. The book is a masterpiece in its genre and one of the most relevant pieces of literature about the Holocaust in Italy and Europe.
For decades, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis and its deep insight into human feelings have left passionate readers with a burning question: who was the inspiration for the character of Micol, the fascinating main female character? The manuscript suggests a possible answer: Micol was inspired by a very good friend of Bassani, a noblewoman called Teresa Foscari Foscolo. In 1961, she received the manuscript of the book from Bassani, including this dedication: “Dear Teresa, without your help, the book would have never been written. I wish that these notebooks always remain with you.”
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| NEWS
Prominent Italian History Research Center Appoints New Director
By Daniel Reichel
Historian Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, a leading expert in the field of Italian Jewish history, has been appointed the next director of the Center for Jewish Contemporary Documentation (CDEC) of Milan. The CDEC is aimed at promoting the study of Jewish history, culture and society, with special emphasis on Italy and contemporary times, and at collecting relevant documentation.
“The CDEC is a vital center for the national Jewish culture,” Luzzatto Voghera told Pagine Ebraiche after his designation. “It’s an institution that has many skills within it, all to be taken advantage of. Its work is important both for Italian Jewry and Italian society in general. For example, one of the crucial issues among the CDEC’s fields of expertise is anti-Semitism: it is a phenomenon that is rapidly changing and needs to be studied.”
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| EVENTS
Jewish Festival to Take Place in Milan
By Francesca Matalon
The cultural festival “Jewish in the City” will take place in Milan on May 29-31. The theme chosen for this third edition is the 150th anniversary of the Milan Jewish Community, which was established in 1866. The aim of the festival is not only to spread Jewish culture, tradition and universal message, but also to show how Jews are part of the city’s history and society.
Jewish in the City was presented last week by its scientific director, rabbi Roberto Della Rocca, its co-curator Cristina Colli and a Board Member of the Jewish Community responsible for the project, Gadi Schoenheit. To present this very special edition of the festival, they chose the name with the hashtag, Jewish in the City #150.
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| VENICE AND THE GHETTO
A Place of Social Integration
By Luigi Brugnaro*
Surely, the creation of the Ghetto of Venice was not an act of social integration; it was imposed by the Republic of Venice 500 years ago, in an attempt to stem the increasing inflow of Jewish people who were trying to escape from the War of the League of Cambrai.
In spite of the regular connections with the city, life inside this close area was characterized by strict rules. At sunset gates were shut, so as to prevent people from leaving, and, during daytime, they could go out only wearing a distinctive sign which would allow their identification as Jewish people. In exchange for this treatment, Jewish people gained freedom of worship, including the right of building their synagogues and praying on their Books, and protection from war. It was a forced marginalization, but it safeguarded the values of a particular community, which created and shielded an important historic and artistic heritage; the isolation did not prevent Jewish scholars from profitably collaborating with Christian intellectuals.
*Luigi Brugnaro is the mayor of Venice. This article has been translated by Ilaria Modena, student at the Scuola superiore interpreti e traduttori di Trieste, who is doing her apprenticeship in the newsroom of Pagine Ebraiche.
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| BECHOL LASHON – ESPAÑOL
Permanecer
 de Roberto Della Rocca*
Según la exégesis rabínica, el Tabernacúlo es un microcosmos que representa la creación en su totalidad, y los humanos están responsables de su elevación. También el mobiliario y los objetos del Mishkán, el santuario móvil, corresponden cada uno a un diferente aspecto de la creación. Los rituales diarios del Santuario están marcados por la idea de Tamid, Siempre, que nos da el sentido del permanecer. Uno de los mensajes más fuertes que el culto del Santuario nos transmite es lo del permanecer de los valores en su sucesión temporal y en su elevación. Más usamos algo, más éste se hace santo, una duración sin desgaste.
*Roberto Della Rocca es un rabino. Este artículo ha sido traducido en español por Letizia Anelli, estudiante de la Scuola superiore traduttori e interpreti di Trieste, que está haciendo su práctica para la revista Pagine Ebraiche.
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PILPUL
Workarounds
 By Susanna Calimani*
I did it. I have always tried not to, but finally I did. And, frankly, I do not even feel that bad about it.
It all started the week before: Martino, a friend and colleague of mine, had told me that Edith Erbrich would have come to the bank to have a public talk, but only 30 people could participate and the deadline to register to the event was already passed. It took me some time to write and rewrite that email, maybe more than all the time spent pondering the words of all the emails sent to university professors; when you still think that they will actually notice whether you wrote „pondering” instead of „weighting”, or maybe „weighing” without the „t”.
*Susanna Calimani is a wandering economist, currently based in Frankfurt.
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| IT HAPPENED TOMORROW
A Little Peace
 By Guido Vitale
„This is what a little peace looks like in the Middle East. A room cleaner named Ahmad. A dishwasher named Mohammad. And a man with a vacuum in the lobby of an Israeli beach hotel. Israel and Jordan signed their peace treaty in 1994 — that is a generation ago — but it has often been a cold peace, without real people moving back and forth, without workers, wages or bosses. Now Jordan and Israel have launched a pilot project that is so small and simultaneously so ambitious that it tells the story. For the past six months, very quietly, Israel has been allowing Jordanians to cross the border to its Red Sea resort to work minimum-wage jobs at hotels”. (The Washington Post, May 2016)
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ALTROVE/ELSEWHERE
Vito Volterra
 By Daniel Leisawitz*
Vito Volterra was born 156 years ago this month into a poor Jewish-Italian family in the city of Ancona. He would go on to become a leading physicist and mathematician at a time when there were many Italians at the forefront of these fields. A surprising number of these Italian innovators were Jews, including Tullio Levi-Civita, Guido Castelnuovo, Federigo Enriques, Salvatore Pincherle, Corrado Segre, and Beppo and Eugenio Elia Levis.
*Daniel Leisawitz, professor at Muhlenberg College (Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA). The artwork is by Abraham Cresques a 14th-century Jewish Spanish cartographer.
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This newsletter is published under difficult conditions. The editors of this newsletter are Italian journalists whose native language is Italian. They are willing to offer their energy and their skills to give international readers the opportunity of learning more about the Italian Jewish world, its values, its culture and its traditions.
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Special thanks to: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, Eliezer Di Martino, Alain Elkann, Dori Fleekop, Daniela Fubini, Benedetta Guetta, Sarah Kaminski, Daniel Leisawitz, Annette Leckart, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Yaakov Mascetti, Francesca Matalon, Jonathan Misrachi, Anna Momigliano, Giovanni Montenero, Elèna Mortara, Sabina Muccigrosso, Lisa Palmieri Billig, Jazmine Pignatello, Shirley Piperno, Giandomenico Pozzi, Daniel Reichel, Colby Robbins, Danielle Rockman, Lindsay Shedlin, Michael Sierra, Rachel Silvera, Adam Smulevich, Simone Somekh, Rossella Tercatin, Ada Treves, Lauren Waldman, Sahar Zivan.
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Realizzato con il contributo di: Francesco Moises Bassano, Susanna Barki, Amanda Benjamin, Monica Bizzio, Angelica Edna Calò Livne, Eliezer Di Martino, Alain Elkann, Dori Fleekop, Daniela Fubini, Benedetta Guetta, Sarah Kaminski, Daniel Leisawitz, Annette Leckart, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, Yaakov Mascetti, Francesca Matalon, Jonathan Misrachi, Anna Momigliano, Giovanni Montenero, Elèna Mortara, Sabina Muccigrosso, Lisa Palmieri Billig, Jazmine Pignatello, Shirley Piperno, Giandomenico Pozzi, Daniel Reichel, Colby Robbins, Danielle Rockman, Lindsay Shedlin, Michael Sierra, Rachel Silvera, Adam Smulevich, Simone Somekh, Rossella Tercatin, Ada Treves, Lauren Waldman, Sahar Zivan. |
