The former Jewish ghetto on the banks of the Tiber in central Rome. / Getty Images Should Jews living in the Diaspora feel ashamed of being, well, Jews living in the Diaspora? A growing number of European Jews, it seems, believe the answer is yes. But when did we start buying into this narrative? I’ve…
An Italian research group has begun investigating the case of Giovanni Palatucci, a World War II Italian policeman whose record of rescuing Jews recently has come under question. The website of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, or UCEI, said Friday that the so-called “Research Group on Fiume-Palatucci 1938-1945” held its first meeting earlier in…
A populist protest leader’s claim that Italy is “slave to Jewish bankers” has drawn condemnation. Andrea Zunino, spokesman for the Forconi, or Pitchforks Movement, which spearheaded widespread anti-government and anti-austerity protests in Italy last week, made the comment in an interview with La Repubblica newspaper Friday. “We want the government to resign,” he told the…
A Hanukkah candle-lighting ceremony was held in the Steri Palace Prison in Palermo in Italy, which served as a prison during the Spanish Inquisition. The candle lighting Wednesday was sponsored by the Shavei Israel organization and led by Rabbi Pinchas Punturello, the organization’s emissary to the Bnei Anousim, or Crypto-Jews, in southern Italy and Sicily….
(JTA) — Since the 1980s the Italian Jewish actor Moni Ovadia has garnered a popular following with stage productions and cabaret acts largely based on Yiddish, klezmer music and Jewish jokes and legends. Born in Bulgaria, Ovadia, 67, came to Milan as a small child and attended the Jewish school there. Arguably Italy’s best known…
Italian police launched a widespread operation against the neo-Nazi Internet hate organization Stormfront. On Thursday, police searched the homes of 35 people aged 17-51 in more than 20 towns and cities up and down the Italian peninsula on suspicion of spreading ideas on the Internet “based on racial and ethnic hatred and incitement to commit…
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…
Italian actor Moni Ovadia resigned from the Milan Jewish community with accusations that it is a “propaganda office” of the Israeli government. The announcement by Ovadia, 67, in an interview published last week in the daily Il Fatto Quotidiano sparked a row in the Italian Jewish world. “I don’t want to stay in a place…
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