Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Breaking News

Italian Chief Rabbi Vows To Fight Firing

A rabbi has threatened to sue the Jewish community in the northeast Italian city of Trieste for firing him as the community’s chief rabbi.

Rabbi Itzhak David Margalit, 64, has hired a lawyer and was flying to Israel this week to consult with the chief rabbinate there, according to a front page article Wednesday in the local newspaper Il Piccolo.

The rabbi also was reported to have contacted the local branch of a national trade union.

Margalit was born in Israel but has been chief rabbi of Trieste for six years. Jewish community board members, meeting at the end of October, voted unanimously to remove him from his post. No reason was given at that time, but the case was described as unprecedented and has received national news coverage.

In a letter sent to community members after the Il Piccolo article appeared, Trieste Jewish community President Alessandro Salonichio said that the decision had been taken “after long meditation” and was motivated by the “lack of the relationship of trust that should be the basic and indestructible tie that binds a Jewish community and its spiritual leader.”

Salonichio said that the community leadership tried to resolve the issue for more than a year and a half, to avoid tensions in the Jewish community and “unwelcome echoes in the media.”

Margalit was quoted in the Italian media as saying there was “no just cause” for firing him and that he would present his side of the story later.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.