| NEWS
Visiting Israel, Italian President Mattarella Emphasized the Strong Relationship
between the Countries
By Daniel Reichel
Italian President Sergio Mattarella concluded his visit to Israel last week. The trip was his first official visit to the Middle East and President Mattarella highlighted the deep meaning of his decision to make this visit his first in the region.
“My choice is because of the longstanding friendship between Israel and Italy,” said the President during a meeting in Jerusalem with his Israeli counterpart Reuven Rivlin. “We share the values of democracy in our lives and as President Rivlin pointed out, the roots of this relationship are planted deep in ancient history.”
The importance of this relationship was emphasized during the last day in Israel for the Italian President, a day in which he took part in the presentation of the National Museum of Italian Judaism of Ferrara (MEIS) in Tel Aviv.
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| THE UNESCO AND JERUSALEM
„Italy Should Give Voice to the Truth”
After Italy abstained in the vote on a resolution that fails to recognize the bond between Jerusalem and the Jewish people in October, the President of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities Noemi Di Segni sent a letter to the highest ranking state officials. She further launched an appeal to Italian President Sergio Mattarella ahead of his visit to Israel. The following are the full texts of the messages.
Honourable President of the Republic, Honourable Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, Honourable President of the Council of Ministers, Italian Permanent delegation to UNESCO,
I am writing you on behalf of all Italian Jewish Communities and of all Italian Jewish citizens, but certain that I am also voicing the sentiments of followers of other faiths who feel equally indignant.
A few hours ago UNESCO voted by a large majority a resolution that denies the Jewish identity of some sites in Jerusalem including the Western Wall, the holiest site to Jews worldwide.
It was a shocking, dangerous and dreadful decision, that has no precedents in the history of this organization. The vote not only constitutes a de facto denial of thousands years of Jewish history in the one, indivisible capital of the State of Israel. It also rewrites the entire history of Christianity, strictly interwoven with those places, these stones, this heritage.Read more |
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| EVENTS
Cyprus Remembers British Detention Camps
By Rossella Tercatin
A conference to remember British Detention Camps set in Cyprus after World War II will be held on the island later this week.
The conference will focus on the children born in the camps, where their parents were held after attempting to reach Israel in the aftermath of the Holocaust.
Many of the 2,200 will attend, including Miriam Bisk, who currently lives in America and also serves as the coordinator of the Israeli- Italian committee for Sciesopoli, also known as “the Jewish colony.”
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| BECHOL LASHON – FRANÇAIS
La start-up d’Abraham
 par Marc Abitbol*
Attention scoop: Abraham n’est pas l’inventeur du monothéisme… Longtemps avant lui, les hommes connaissent déjà le Dieu unique (Adam, Caïn, Seth, Noé…). En revanche, Abraham est le premier à faire de cette idée un projet éducatif. Avec lui commence donc une véritable entreprise de diffusion et de réalisation du message divin.
*Marc Abitbol est chef d’entreprise.
Sefarim.fr, 6.11.2016.
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PILPUL
The Tower of Babel
 By Benedetto Carucci Viterbi*
The Tower of Babel is the universal watch-tower over one-way homogenized thought.
It could not but end up with the shattering of this insane idea.
*Benedetto Carucci Viterbi is a rabbi.
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| IT HAPPENED TOMORROW
„The Internet Can’t Tell
True Stories from False”
 By Guido Vitale
„Facebook admitted at the end of October that its trending algorithm couldn’t tell true stories from false.
Google doesn’t know the difference between a real Jew and a Nazi stereotype. If you type “Jew” in Google Images, you get a wide variety of Nazi and other anti-Semitic caricatures. Plus, if you Google “Is the Holocaust real?” three of the top five sites the search engine suggests are so counter-factual they would probably be illegal in Germany” (The Forward).
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ITALICS
What Life Was Like
in the Venice Ghetto
 By Joel J. Levy*
Walking through the streets of the world’s first “ghetto,” one might come across a variety of sights: the impoverished Jews confined to that quarter; rabbis reciting elegant speeches in the Italian vernacular; crumbling buildings; musicians singing Hebrew psalms.
Although Jewish life has been restricted in cities all over the world for centuries, the first so-called “ghetto” was declared in Venice in 1516. By and large, its establishment was a response by the Venetian government to the increasing Jewish refugee population, which had begun to arrive following the 1492 expulsion of Jews from Spain. Desiring to keep its communities separate, the Venetian Republic declared that the city’s Jews (who made up 1% to 2.5% of the total population) were to live on the site of a former iron foundry – “geto” in the Venetian dialect. By 1642, 2,414 Jews were confined to this small section of the city.
*Joel J. Levy is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Center for Jewish History. This article was published in Time on November 2, 2016.
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