November 29, 2023 – 16 Kislev 5784

Representatives of Holocaust museums and memorials in Italy actively participated to the international convention in Rome called “I luoghi della memoria dialogano. Musei e memoriali per insegnare la Shoah” (The places of remembrance converse. Museums and memorials to teach the Shoah). It is an initiative aimed at “the inter-institutional promotion of prevention and effective countering of distortions, reductionism and denialism,” shared by the promoters of the newly-founded Italian network of places of remembrance, including the Civic Museum of the “Risiera di San Sabba” in Trieste, the “Memoriale della Shoah” in Milan, the Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS) in Ferrara, the Fossoli Foundation in Carpi, the Shoah Museum Foundation of Rome, and the “Museo Internazionale della Memoria Ferramonti di Tarsia” in the Calabria region.

Translated by Klara Mattiussi, 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.

“We are asking ourselves what use has been made of decades of Jewish-Christian dialogue, speaking of friendship and brotherhood, if, in reality, when Jews are facing extermination, instead of receiving closeness and understanding, they are presented with diplomatic acrobatics, political tightropes, and icy equidistance, which is certainly a distant stance, but not equally”. This was the question that was raised by the Assembly of Italian Rabbis (ARI), in a note criticizing the way the Vatican City handled the visit of the family members of some Israeli hostages, who met the Pope in the Domus Sanctae Marthae on November 22, 2023.

Translation 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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"Civil wars among the Jews were never fought with the sword, but with the pen," Abraham B. Yehoshua argued years ago in Ferrara. During the conference "Am Ha Sefer – The People of the book. Readers and bibliophiles in Jewish Italy between the 17th and 20th centuries", held in Rome at the National Library of Italian Judaism, Tullia Zevi flipped through many pages, focusing on 300 extremely eventful years: from the ghettos to freedom, from the Nazi-fascist persecution to the reconstruction from the rubble. Importance was given to the role played by Jewish patriots, intellectuals, and bibliophiles in the Emancipation era, but also to the individual treasures that should be known and valued: from the library of Ugo and Olga Levi in Venice to that of Marco Besso in Rome. 

Translated by Annadora Zuanel and revised by Martina Bandini, 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.
 

By John L. Allen Jr.*

When Pope Francis was elected in 2013, the forecast among those invested in Jewish-Catholic dialogue generally was rosy. The new pope brought considerable background to the relationship, given that Argentina has the largest Jewish population in Latin America and the sixth largest outside Israel – indeed, the first kosher McDonalds outside Israel was located in a Buenos Aires shopping center.
As Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the future pontiff cultivated close relations with Jews, most prominently Argentine Rabbi Abraham Skorka, with whom he coauthored the book “On Heaven and Earth.”

*This article was originally published on on Crux on November 26, 2023.

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