The Lord of Hosts is with us: Italian Rabbis respond to the Great War, “Jewish History” 29, n. 2, 2015, pp. 137–162. (original) (raw)

The Jewish Brigade Group and Italy: A Political and Historiographical Quarrel

The Journal of Modern History, 2021

In recent years, the use and abuse of the past for political ends has emerged as one of history's new frontiers. 2 As historian Nicola Gallerano notes, this occurs when a historiographical thread endeavors to promote a polemical reading of the past, with the aim of advancing a political agenda. 3 This article examines how tendentious or partial interpretations of the past impact on society. It does this by analyzing the emergence, in Italy, of the controversy surrounding the history of the Jewish Brigade Group (JBG). This was a five-thousandstrong British military unit stationed in Italy during World War II. The role played by JBG soldiers in the liberation of the country, largely forgotten by mainstream Italian historiography and by the general public until the late 1990s, was once again put in the spotlight in the early 2000s. This had dramatic repercussions on one of the most sacred Italian civic observances: the 25 April commemoration, which celebrates the liberation from Fascism in 1945, and the subsequent return to democracy. The rediscovery of the JBG's history exacerbated tensions between the Italian Jewish Community and pro

The “Great War” and the Jewish People: A Review Essay

Modern Judaism - A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, 2018

It is almost exactly one hundred years since the signing of the armistice that ended World War I on November 11, 1918. It therefore seems an appropriate time to reflect on the impact of the war on European history generally and, more specifically, on the world Jewish community. Today, for readers of this journal, our knowledge of world war is inseparably associated with World War II and the Holocaust. And given the nature of these massive and monstrous events this is neither surprising nor inappropriate. However, the reality is that World War I, in spite of now being in the shadows for us and its marginal presence in the writing of Jewish history, was a major force of fundamental transformation in Jewish life. Unlike World War II in which there were authentic "good guys" and "bad guys," and very important issues over which to fight, the "Great War" was, to a large degree, a colossal, ambiguous, blunder to which all the major European powers contributed. It occurred in a tense political climate that had been marked between 1904 and 1914 by a series of international crises and local wars. At the same time, all the major states were experiencing internal divisions and confronting serious economic problems. Though Germany is commonly blamed for the war its actions were certainly not the only cause

After Mussolini: Jewish Life and Jewish Memories in Post-Fascist Italy

Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2014

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Miscellanea, Quest. Issues in Contemporary Jewish History, n. 7 (2014)

2014

The ‘Focus’ section of this edition of ‘Quest’ is composed of very diverse contributions, authored by both junior and senior scholars. The articles cover a wide range of topics, time periods and geographical areas. We open with the Greek Islands, considered from very different points of view: Cristina Pallini and Annalisa Scaccabarozzi offer us a study of urban history, analyzing Salonika’s lost synagogues, while Varvaritis presents the ‘Cronaca Israelitica’ – the first Jewish newspaper in the Ionian Islands – and the discussions of Jewish emancipation in the late XIXth century. Then we move on to Finland, with a contribution by Tarja Liisa Luukkanen that presents the 1897 discussion concerning the legal condition of the Jews that took place within the Finnish Diet, and in particular within the clergy, illustrating the role of antisemitism and the reception of Adolf Stoecker’s ideology. From the Baltic Sea we move back to Southern Europe, with an essay by Bojan Mitrović dedicated to the forms of social integration and of nationalization of Serbian Jewry as seen through a peculiar case study. Udi Manor’s article makes us leap to the North American continent, and to Jewish New York in particular, discussing Jewish 'identity politics' through the prism of the “Jewish Daily Forward” in the early XXth century. The last three articles concentrate on the second half of the XXth century. Rolf Steininger presents the figure of Karl Hartl, the first Austrian diplomat in Israel, and his perception of the country. Michele Sarfatti carefully reconstructs how foreign (non-Italian) historiography interpreted Fascist antisemitism between 1946 and 1986. Finally, the ‘Focus’ section is closed by Anna Baldini’s attentive depiction of Primo Levi’s role in shaping Italy’s memory of the Shoah.

The Jews of Italy, 1848-1915. Between tradition and transformation

Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 2015

Elizabeth Schachter's The Jews of Italy, 1848-1915 presents an overview of the communal structure, major movements and key figures in the modern history of the Jews of Italy beginning in 1848. While this is primarily a descriptive history, the author's analytical approach considers Italian Jewish history within the framework of sociological approaches common to Jewish history in the 1970s and 1980s, depicting the process of assimilation as tensions between tradition and modernity. Sources she draws from are primarily Jewish sources including family narratives and memoirs, newspapers, and documents from Jewish communal and Zionist archives, however, there is a notable absence of socioeconomic sources such as wills and dowries. The second chapter provides prosopographical summaries of key Italian Jewish historical figures from Isaaco Artom to Arnaldo Momigliano and short discussions under headings such as "religious conversion" and "marital assimilation." The chapter will be useful to scholars of Jewish history and Italianists who wish to identify important figures. In addition, it outlines the history of Italian Jewish emancipation. The author's claim, however, that the "first" Italian emancipation takes place in 1848 is problematic since the first emancipation occurred when Napoleon annexed Piedmont in 1797. To her credit, Schachter reminds us that the Risorgimento and Jewish emancipation intertwined, yet she does not explain the impact of the first emancipation on the rise of the Jewish community in politics and culture of the new unified Italy. The second chapter sketches the Italian Jewish communal structure compared to other Western European and British models. The discussion of Italian Jewish national conferences in Ferrara and in Florence, a good descriptive overview of the material provides main debate issues from philanthropy to education. Chapter 3 deals with anti-Semitism citing the case of Isaaco Pesaro Maurogonato and the anti-Jewish stance of the Catholic Church, among other episodes. This is the weakest chapter in the book. It does not take into account the important impact of the Napoleonic era in which a small but influential group of Jewish entrepreneurs bought up substantial amounts of Church lands. The secularization of Church lands and Jewish property ownership was the test of the Restoration and led to the second emancipation of Jews in Piedmont in 1848 and the weakening of the Catholic Church. Without this context, the question of anti-Semitism remains simply a pretext for larger issues within Italian society. Chapter 4 considers Italian Zionism. Schachter gives a good descriptive overview of Zionist Federation conferences in Italy. Although she raises the question of the nature of Zionism among Triestine Jews who supported Zionism but did not seek to settle in Palestine, she failed to connect Triestine Jewish support of Zionism with earlier chapters on