Memories of Jewish Life: From Italy to Jerusalem, 1918-1960

me m o r i es o f j ewi s h l i f e

aug usto s e gr e

Memories of Jewish Life

From Italy to Jerusalem, 1918–1960

Translated and with an introduction by Steve Siporin Foreword by Tamar Segre and Daniel Segre

university of nebraska press : lincoln and london

Memorie di vita ebraica © 1979 by Bonacci Editore Roma (Italy) English translation and introduction © 2008 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Foreword © 2008 by Tamar Segre and Daniel Segre All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America An abridged version of chapter 1 appeared as “Once Upon a Time,” Midstream 35, no. 8 (November 1989): 45–50. Reprinted by permission. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Segre, Augusto. [Memorie di vita ebraica. English] Memories of Jewish life : from Italy to Jerusalem, 1918–1960 / Augusto Segre ; translated and with an introduction by Steve Siporin ; foreword by Tamar Segre and Daniel Segre. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-1378-4 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Segre, Augusto. 2. Jews—Italy—Rome—Biography. 3. Jewish scholars—Italy—Rome—Biography. 4. Holocaust, Jewish (1939–1945)—Italy— Personal narratives. 5. Rome (Italy)—Biography. I. Siporin, Steve. II. Title. ds135.i9s43713 2008 945⬘.632004924—dc22 [B] 2008010259 Set in Bulmer MT by Bob Reitz. Designed by Ashley Muehlbauer.

Translator’s dedication:

For Ona

co n t en t s

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

List of Illustrations List of Maps Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction

ix x xi xiii xv

Once Upon a Time The Rabbi’s Family It’s Not Always Easy to Become a Rabbi The Community Council First Experiences Casalese Anti-Zionism Jewish Festivals and Solemnities Community and Family Life Farewell Visit Rome, Friends, and Teachers Jewish Rome Students and Politicians From Police Stations to the Secretaryship of the Union The Racial Campaign Breaks Out Dante Lattes Leaves Working with Raffaele Cantoni Who Leaves and Who Stays I Return Home Asti and Moncalvo Commuter

1 30 52 62 72 87 101 114 125 138 163 175 191 201 213 222 234 248 266 280

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

292 309 333 343 353 365 381

The Nazi Invasion Partisan Life April 25 The Prisoner Emerling Toward a Normal Life Return to Rome The State of Israel Is Reborn New Activities of the Zionist Federation Sailing for Israel Israel at War A Happy Encounter The Slansky Case Life Goes On

390 400 409 431 439 442

Notes Glossary References Index

451 485 493 499

i l lu st r at i o n s 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Silver plate Grave marker Silver Torah crown Augusto Segre at his desk, Rome Interior of the synagogue, Casale Monferrato Table of the Ten Commandments Interior of the synagogue, detail, Casale Monferrato Segre family, circa 1917 Casale Monferrato Rows of grapevines outside Casale Monferrato Augusto Segre, 1970 Ezechiele Segre The public gardens, Casale Monferrato Via Roma Monument to King Carlo Alberto Vicolo Salomone Olper Asti, Synagogue Bust of Isacco Artom Augusto Segre, during World War II Augusto Segre, 1948 Arch of Titus Arch of Titus, detail Augusto Segre and Iris Steinmann Augusto Segre with son Daniel, circa 1953 Augusto Segre with daughter Tamar, circa 1967 Former ghetto area, Casale Monferrato Augusto Segre at home, Rome Entrance to the synagogue, Casale Monferrato

xvii xix xxii xxix 9 10 12 28 33 35 59 63 73 128 132 249 267 271 320 375 387 387 432 437 437 443 445 447

maps 1 2 3 4

Italy Piedmont Italy and Israel Israel in 1949

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f o r ewo r d There are moments in the course of our lives when past and present magically melt into a new, spaceless reality, where time has no boundaries and we find ourselves facing pure values and principles, detached from any specific connotation linked to the events that gave them birth. It is our deep understanding that—with the publication of the English translation of our father’s memories—we are actually facing one of these unique moments. Memories come as witnesses from the past, and their purpose is to exist over and above time; to lighten the burdens of daily events; and to survive social, political, and ideological fashions. They take us by the hand—through our reading—into a new parallel reality, which once existed, and as we read of this reality in the book’s pages, it reenacts itself and becomes capable, in the timeless atmosphere of memory, of revitalizing for us all the values that moved each character and filled each story. This reality will, in this way, exist eternally, an amazing source of energy and consolation. In this reality we meet familiar characters, and from their behavior we take comfort and gain inspiration to challenge the difficult realities of our own lives. The characters will always be there for us and will always faithfully replay the specific situations the writer has chosen to transmit to eternity. On every page we relive over and over dreams, dramas and dilemmas, hopes and frustrations, success and happiness. For the reader of this English edition our father’s memories will open a unique window on the unknown world of Italian Jewry, as it was lived in small Communities during tragic and difficult times. This collection of life experiences will move you, excite your imagination with its vivid descriptions, and make you smile as you relive times that are gone forever—not only from the life of the Segre family but also from the twentieth century’s historical record. For us these stories are not just anecdotes about a small and extinct Jewish Community in the north of Italy. They do not only depict the life of our incredible father, who in hard times knew how to live a life

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of principle, with great courage and determination, believing firmly in the centrality of transparency, kindness, love, and honesty. For us these stories also convey the lived experience of our childhood and youth, a visceral part of ourselves, our personalities, and of course our memories. We grew up breathing these stories and absorbing them, and with time—as we matured—they became basic and fundamental guidelines for coping with moments of great difficulty in life. Through them we learned how to smile in moments of joy and achievement, how to look at everyday life with expectation and faith, and how to deal with difficulties and problems. The stories that appear in this book penetrated us to such an extent that we now automatically call them to mind in moments of need and difficulty. In Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) it is written that there is nothing new under the sun. This is not a dramatic announcement that life is predetermined to such an extent that only boredom and routine can be expected. Rather, this statement guides us to the realization that if we are awake to the events recurring in our lives, we will find that our past experiences are vital to our ability to cope with more recent challenges. Our father’s memories are a genuine guide to life, true models for dealing with the unexpected. This unique look into our father’s life and challenges is possible because of the dedication and love our dear friend Steve Siporin has long had for our father and his work. Throughout the years of his work on this translation Steve has shown great perseverance and determination, mixed with solid faith and constant concentration. His incredible stamina has produced a gentle and perfect work of translation that has maintained all the nuances of our father’s rich Italian language, vocabulary, and style. We would like to thank Steve for his magnificent work. It has made him an integral part of our family. Profound thanks also to the University of Nebraska Press for believing in the importance of publishing this testimonial, which represents an unknown part of Italian Jewish history. We are very proud of this work because, at the end of the day, it is our family’s story. Enjoy! Tamar Segre and Daniel Segre jerusalem

ac k n owl ed g m ent s When eating fruit, think of the person who planted the tree. —traditional proverb

Even the solitary work of translation depends on others if there are to be results, and I would like to acknowledge those who helped me here. I am grateful to the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture for a research grant to Israel in 1985. There, Professor Dov Noy hosted me as a research fellow at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. I discovered Augusto Segre’s memoir in the library and then met and interviewed him. My greatest debt, of course, is to Augusto Segre, who welcomed me warmly and whose writing continues to absorb and reward me. After I began work on this translation, I was awarded grants from the Fund for Jewish Translation and from Utah State University; the encouragement was invaluable. Giorgio and Alessandra Bonacci, of Bonacci Editore, the publisher of the original Italian version of Segre’s Memorie, were exceedingly kind and generous in giving me and the University of Nebraska Press the right to publish the English translation. The University of Nebraska Press, in turn, provided answers to my constant questions, through the attentive responses of Heather Lundine, Bridget Barry, and Sara Springsteen. Carol Sickman-Garner copyedited Memorie with vigilance and grace. I would like to acknowledge Professor Mark Damen and Professor Sue Shapiro, both of Utah State University, for their translations of Segre’s Latin phrases. Andy Canepa helped me with Piedmontese dialect, and Rudy Lichter assisted with what were, for me, puzzles of Italian language and culture. Rabbi Benny Zippel, of Chabad, and Professor Dan Ben-Amos, of the University of Pennsylvania, answered my questions about Jewish literature. Two originally anonymous readers, Professors Michael Ledeen and Stanislao Pugliese, gave their enthusiasm as well as their approval and support, and I thank them. The English and history departments of the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sci-

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Acknowledgments

ences at Utah State University sent me to conferences where I was able to present papers based on my translation-in-progress. They also provided office support. The Jewish Community of Casale Monferrato generously and kindly supplied me with images of their synagogue and of objects in their museum collection. The Umberto Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art (Jerusalem), through the meticulous assistance of Orit Gafni, provided me with the cover image. For the black-and-white family photographs that enrich the reader’s experience, I thank Daniel and Tamar Segre, Augusto Segre’s children: thank you not only for trusting me with these precious glimpses into your family’s private life but for helping me in intangible ways and accepting me into your family as a friend. My wife and the mother of my children, Ona Siporin, eshet chayil, helped me at every turn.

i n t ro d u c t i o n Augusto Segre’s Memories of Jewish Life is a memoir—but a memoir in which the personal life of the author, as remarkable and eventful as it was, is not the real point. Augusto Segre was more concerned with what he called “il piccolo mondo ebraico italiano”—the small world of Italian Jewry. This ancient community, over the course of two thousand years, had evolved a rooted synthesis of Italian and Jewish culture, producing elegant works of high art and expressive forms of everyday life in which the Italian components and the Jewish components were inseparable. Nevertheless, after emancipation from the ghetto, Italian Jewry faced a grave crisis—first of identity and then of survival—particularly during the first half of the twentieth century, the era encompassed by Segre’s memoir. By the time he began to write his Memories, the Italian Jewish world Segre knew in his youth had diminished enormously and had already disappeared in many locales. Thus he set out to write a memoir in the great autobiographical tradition of lost worlds, accepting a daunting task: to save the essence and reveal the beauty of the “piccolo mondo” of Italian Jewry and to bear witness to the purpose that small world served and still serves today. The audience Segre had in mind initially was small and intimate—his family. He intended to record his memories as a gift for his two children, “as testimony and as a collection of knowledge about the family in which they were born and the Jewish ambience that this family was part of ” (De Felice 1979, 14). But when this private project came up by chance in a conversation between Segre and Renzo De Felice, the eminent Italian historian and editor, De Felice asked to see the manuscript and was immediately charmed: “Reading it convinced me that I was dealing with a historical, a human, and, in its own way, even a literary document of true importance, and to tell him [Segre] to bring it to completion and to publish it was one and the same” (1979, 15). Segre finished writing his manuscript with an Italian reading public in mind, a public possessing a knowledge of Italian history, politics, and culture that cannot be taken for granted for non-Italian readers. I have

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tried, through annotations, to supply some of this knowledge. More is to be found here, in the introduction, where I would like to set Segre’s Memories aside for a moment and crack open a window on the history of Italian Jews, their unique culture (equally Jewish and Italian), and the sense of “at home-ness” they felt in Italy, in the hope that such information might add to the reader’s enjoyment and understanding of Memories of Jewish Life. The two-millennium history of Jews in Italy is a story all its own—fascinating, engaging, and instructive but relatively unknown to the public.1 Jews have lived in Rome itself since the time of the Roman Republic, even before Julius Caesar, and they are still there today. They lived and thrived—even in difficult times—throughout southern Italy (in Pompeii, for example) and Sicily until the sixteenth century, when they were expelled as the regions south of Rome passed into Spain’s control. By then many Jewish communities had appeared in north and central Italy, and some of these communities, with roots in medieval and Renaissance times, still dot the areas north of Rome. Almost seventy synagogues remain in Italy, most functioning more as museums than as active places of worship and community. But there were once dozens of vital Jewish nuclei, in major cities like Ferrara, Florence, and Venice, as well as in small, rural towns like Pitigliano, Moncalvo, Conegliano, and many others.2 Casale Monferrato, where Augusto Segre was born in 1915, had a medium-sized Jewish community with fifteenth-century roots and a sixteenth-century Baroque synagogue that is considered one of the most beautiful in the world. Even some scholars of European culture are surprised when they learn that Italian Jews, except in a few instances, never spoke Yiddish, the language often taken to be the universal touchstone of traditional Jewish culture. Italian Jews spoke their own vernacular languages, largely mixes of Hebrew and local Italian dialects—giudeo-veneziano in Venice, bagitto in Livorno, and giudeo-romanesco in Rome, among others. Naturally, it was not only language that distinguished Italian Jews from their East European coreligionists; food, although still kosher, was different, too. Kasha, chopped liver, kugel, and kreplach are not to be

fig. 1. Silver plate, engraved and embossed, early nineteenth century. Artist unknown. In the center are the hands of the priest (cohen), giving the priestly blessing. Around the outside border are five portraits of patriarchs and prophets. Photo courtesy of www .casalebraica.org.

found in Italian Jewish kitchens and cookbooks. Instead, dishes that are at home in the local Italian cuisine proliferate: artichokes, eggplant, and zucchini, fried and marinated in various ways; goose salami, from Venice and Casale Monferrato (mentioned in Segre’s memoir); pasta in a meat and chickpea sauce, from Rome; and a great variety of festive sweets, like the popular sfratti of Pitigliano, a pastry with a filling made of nuts, honey, cinnamon, cloves, black pepper, and orange peel. These are only a few dishes from the vast Italian Jewish repertoire.3 While vernacular Jewish Italian languages and foods differed from those in the rest of the Jewish world, like many other aspects of everyday culture, Italian Jews, at least until the late nineteenth century, participated in more or less the same traditional religious culture as did Jews elsewhere. In other words, they studied the Talmud; practiced charity and good deeds; participated in daily prayer services in the synagogues

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and houses of study; and observed the Sabbath, kashrut, and rites of passage like circumcision, bar-mitzvah, weddings, and funerals, as well as all the holidays and solemn days of the annual calendar cycle (even adding some of their own).4 Their ketubbot (illuminated wedding contracts) are highly regarded for the beauty and expressiveness of their designs. Leading Italian rabbis, like Ovadiah Sforno (1475–1550), Leone da Modena (1574–1648), and Isaac Lampronti (1674–1756), to name just three of many possible examples, contributed important commentaries, opinions, and exegetical works to Jewish religious literature. The English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley called Italy “the paradise of exiles,” thinking probably of himself and other poets who had sought and found in Italy a cultural atmosphere that was freer than the one they knew at home. The phrase stuck, especially as other nineteenth-century writers, artists, and political refugees came to Italy to spend significant, often very productive, periods of their lives. But Italy had already been, if not a paradise, at least a haven for ordinary Jews seeking refuge from impossible conditions over the course of two thousand years, especially on the heels of the disastrous expulsions from Spain and Portugal in the late fifteenth century. These refugees were not given rights or citizenship upon their arrival, but Italy was still usually the best option they had, except, perhaps, for the Ottoman Empire. Those who arrived in Italy during the sixteenth century found refuge, but they often found it in a ghetto—an area in which all the Jews of a given city were required by law to live and which was sealed off at night. Jews were also required to wear a red or yellow badge whenever they left the ghetto, thus in a sense carrying the stigmatizing effect of the ghetto along with them. Even these restrictive havens—ghettos—were granted only for a specified amount of time, usually subject to renewal every ten or twenty years. Jews were granted such conditional residence in exchange for their loan-banking services, since Christians prohibited themselves from loaning money at interest. The interest rates Jews were allowed to charge were specified in the residence contracts. Other occupations were severely limited, most being prohibited. Sometimes a host city chose not to renew a residence agreement (in which case its entire Jewish community had to uproot itself) or used the moment when a con-

fig. 2. Grave marker, Jewish cemetery of Venice, Lido, 1978. Photo courtesy of the translator.

tract expired as an opportunity to extort funds from the Jewish community as a condition for remaining. Venice and Rome are prominent in Jewish history in Italy, and they both figure in Augusto Segre’s Memorie, especially Rome, home to the largest Jewish population in Italy even today.5 Taken together, Venice and Rome typify much of the ghetto era, providing its chronological bookends, so to speak, Venice home to the first ghetto created, in 1516, and Rome to the last abolished, in 1870. The first ghetto in Venice was devised specifically for Jews of the “Tedesco nation”—that is, German Jews. Another ghetto, for Sephardic Jews from Spain, Portugal, and the Ottoman Empire, was added next to the first one twenty-five years later, in 1541. Magnificent synagogues, which are still used by Venetian Jews today, were built within the limited space of the two ghettos by the different ethnic communities. In each synagogue a different version of the prayer service was performed, according to slightly different customs and vastly different melodies. In the Rome ghetto distinctions were once made among Italian, Sicilian, Castilian, Aragonese, French, German, and Catalan services, reflecting the origins of the Jews who had found

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refuge in Italy but who came from communities rooted in other lands, sometimes for hundreds of years. Variations of what occurred in Venice and Rome—a dynamic cultural exchange between native Italian Jews and their coreligionists from the north, west, and east, within “il piccolo mondo ebraico italiano”—were repeated all over north and central Italy, especially from the Renaissance era on. Ethnomusicologist Francesco Spagnolo writes that “never before the creation of the State of Israel did Jews of so many varied origins live together, and in such a stimulating (if at times threatening) environment. . . . This has made it possible for the particular Italian, Sephardi (or Spagnoli), and Ashkenazi (or Tedeschi) identities, rituals, and traditions to coexist” (2001, 5). Not only did such “identities, rituals, and traditions” coexist, but they affected each other (and were sometimes even preserved in Italy when they had disappeared in their places of origin, as was the case with the apam synagogue rite, which originated in southern France but was maintained only in three small cities in northern Italy).6 Cultural expressions were constantly being adopted, modified, and exchanged, helping the already ancient Jewish minority in Italy adapt to changing conditions. All this was happening at the heart (and in Rome one could say in the very shadow) of Christianity, within an Italian society that was dynamic during the Renaissance and became increasingly dynamic and cosmopolitan again in the nineteenth century. Once Jews gained the chance to leave the ghetto, beginning with Napoleon’s liberating advance through northern Italy in the late 1790s, they took advantage of the opportunity, most of them without looking back. The gates to the ghetto of Venice were torn down in 1797, a Tree of Liberty placed in the ex-ghetto’s center; people danced, and officials made extravagant speeches. This “first liberation” was fleeting, and equal rights for Jews as citizens did not last much longer than Napoleon’s brief occupation, but the gates to the ghetto were never replaced: the mental and behavioral wall of exclusion had been breached. The last ghetto, in Rome—marked by unsanitary, extremely crowded conditions—was definitively and legally abolished (as mentioned above) in 1870.7 The liberation with the most far-reaching consequences had already taken place on March 29, 1848, when Piedmont, the nucleus and driving force of the

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about-to-become-unified Italian state, emancipated its Jews by declaration of King Carlo Alberto. Thus, Jewish citizenship became incorporated in the laws of the nascent Italian state. Augusto Segre tells us how the March 29 anniversary was still celebrated annually in the synagogue of Casale Monferrato in his youth in the 1920s. During the mid-nineteenth century Jews participated in the Risorgimento, the Italian movement for national unification and independence, in numbers far outstripping their minuscule percentage of the population—never more than one-tenth of 1 percent in modern times. Although there were traditionalists among nineteenth-century Italian Jews who foresaw problems with “the fine fruits of emancipation”—as Segre’s father called the cultural results, lamenting the loss of Jewish identity and traditional knowledge—most Italian Jews believed in the dream of equality, the sacredness of the fatherland (Italy), and the justice of the modern state, and they became patriotic Italians. As the nineteenth century rushed on, many appeared willing to sacrifice their Judaism, as if they thought it was their duty to do so, or as if to prove their italianità. Others argued that there was nothing they needed to prove, for there was no conflict between being a Jew and being an Italian. Segre quotes the inflated patriotic rhetoric of rabbis’ sermons and World War I Jewish newspapers to show how Italian Jews were encouraged by their religious leaders to be patriotic Italians even more than to be observant Jews. (In fact, they sacrificed themselves as soldiers in disproportionately high numbers.) Their insecurity, in spite of their obvious patriotism, became more pronounced in time of war and under fascism, which demanded absolute, unequivocal obedience from everyone. The discord between tradition and assimilation, as an intracommunity conflict, is at the heart of Segre’s memoir, leading to clashes, as Segre writes, even among the peaceful vineyards of the Monferrato. Before turning back to Augusto Segre’s Memorie di vita ebraica, it is worth noting that there are other important memoirs, novels, and even films by Italian Jews regarding the same period that Segre chronicled. But there is an important difference between their works and Segre’s: all the best-known Italian authors of Jewish ancestry—Primo Levi, Giorgio

fig. 3. Three-tiered, silver Torah crown (atarah), repoussé and cast work, 1878. Artist: Giuseppe Sambonetti. The tablets with the Ten Commandments are featured prominently. Photo courtesy of www.casalebraica.org.

Bassani, Carlo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, Alberto Moravia, and Italo Svevo, for example—were assimilated and nonobservant, and they wrote very little about the Jewish experience in Italy.8 On the other hand, Jewish identity, religion, and culture form the soul of Augusto Segre’s memoir: they are what interest him most. Indeed, Segre’s Memorie di vita ebraica is almost unique in chronicling and reflecting upon Jewish experience in Italy in the first half of the twentieth century, the most harrowing period in two thousand years of Italian Jewish history, as noted above.9 My personal feeling (and by now this will come as no surprise) is that Augusto Segre’s Memorie offers the reader the best possible way to gain a sense of “il piccolo mondo ebraico italiano.” Structurally speaking, Memorie di vita ebraica appears to have four main parts, although they are not designated as such. The first section (chapters 1–9) evokes the post-ghetto world of Casale Monferrato during Segre’s childhood and youth (1918–33). The second section (chapters 10–13) follows Segre’s student days and Zionist activities in Rome, under the

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increasingly harsh rule of fascism (1933–37). In the third section (chapters 14–25) Segre describes resisting fascism (1937–45), working through Jewish assistance organizations such as delasem to help the many Jewish refugees in Italy, and other wartime jobs.10 This section also tells the dramatic story of Segre’s own family’s escape to the Piedmontese countryside and his participation in the partisan war against the Nazi occupiers and Italian fascists. The final section (chapters 26–33) describes the aftermath of the war in Italy, including how Segre met his wife, Iris (chapter 31, “A Happy Encounter”). But the heart of this section concerns Segre’s experiences in Israel during the War of Independence in 1948. Augusto Segre’s considerable gifts as a storyteller are evident from the beginning of Memorie. The opening chapter, “Once Upon a Time,” contains a delicately coordinated series of portraits of the characters who made up the post-ghetto world of Casale Monferrato. We follow the thoughts of the elderly Sur Elìa as he makes his way through the dark, ex-ghetto streets to the synagogue for selichòth—the predawn, penitential prayers—retracing the geography of the ghetto, which triggers his associations, each one attached to a stone, a dim light, a stain, or a depression in the pavement, each one connected to a story.11 The reader is tempted to see in Sur Elìa’s journey—through the dark ghetto toward the light, toward the community that the synagogue represents—the journey of the Jew (or of humankind) from ignorance and isolation to enlightenment and humanity. We observe Sur Elìa’s companions—Babàndu, Giacubin, Mandulìn, and the others—as they arrive at the synagogue, one by one, for the predawn ceremony preceding the fall’s high holy days of Rosh ha-Shannah and Yom Kippur. As each one enters—appears on stage, so to speak—Segre relates anecdotes about him, revealing his personal eccentricities and saving graces. Segre lingers affectionately over these singular figures, paradoxically vulnerable and self-empowered, bringing the people of Casale to life and engaging us in their world. Here his “memories” reach further into the past than his age warrants. These memories are not only his; they are the community’s, relayed to him by his father. (And if we pay close attention, we realize that Segre has also put himself in the temple for selichòth, a young boy seated among his schoolmates, struggling to stay awake.)

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At the end of the first chapter Segre assembles these representatives of the old ghetto world in the temple of Casale as they beg forgiveness for their sins. Dawn breaks through the eastern window of the synagogue. Their prayers are completed, and we see each individual in his own, unselfconscious moment of grace. Segre has rendered a moment of perfection, lasting only as long as the sunrise endows the ark with its golden glow. Within a generation characters like these will be gone forever, the synagogue will have become a museum, and the few remaining Jews will be its caretakers. Segre realizes that calling back a lost world from memory can easily result in sentimentality and nostalgia: “When after many years I think back on this Community of mine . . . I feel like I have read something similar in stories that romanticize history. Or else this place really was like this, and this is how we lived—maybe, in spite of the countless difficulties and arguments, even with a certain tranquility, in an atmosphere of shared hopes and expectations.” On the one hand, Segre acknowledges how irredeemable the past is, even for those who have lived it. On the other hand, he asserts that this now sepia-tinged world was once, indeed, a real world. Given that the charge of romanticizing the past is one a critic might typically level at a memoirist or a historian, especially one who has something good to say about the past, could Segre be suggesting that dismissing what was real as romantic fantasy is as much a distortion as romanticizing it? A distortion that is rarely considered? Segre, in fact, does not give in to nostalgia by reconstructing a perfect world; serious conflicts and contradictions are everywhere present. Casale’s Jewish Community’s treatment of Austrian Jewish prisoners of war during World War I is ugly, heartless, and revealing. The threat of black-shirted fascists, increasingly anti-Semitic as the years pass, is never further away than the street. A carefully drawn scene reprises a pleasant afternoon in the country in which the intractable conflict over Jewish identity is played out in a conversation between the members of a self-satisfied, assimilated, educated, middle-class Jewish family and their guest, the old-fashioned rabbi, Segre’s father—who, “I would say to his good fortune—did not have a university education, but rather a solid Jewish learning and a faith that no philosophical or scientific theory could

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even scratch. The hosts paraded their learning with an almost ostentatious pride and affected language, and they strained to make the murènu [rabbi] understand that many Jewish religious values were being reassessed.” The family’s naive arrogance is palpable, but Segre tempers his disapproval, recalling that they, too, suffered the fate the Nazis unleashed against all Jews, traditional or sophisticated. Thinking of this scene, De Felice called “the drama . . . of assimilation . . . the true protagonist” of the book (1979, 15). If the first section of Memorie, detailing Segre’s youth in post-ghetto/ pre–World War II Casale Monferrato, retains a golden aura, in spite of hints and forebodings of what is to come, then the book’s two middle sections, covering 1933–45, present history in its most brutal aspects: fascism, the secret police, racism, partisan warfare, anti-Semitism, and the Holocaust.12 The events that led to the destruction of Italian Jewry under fascism and during World War II and the Shoah, though well documented, are not as well known to the public as are those affecting German, Polish, and Soviet Jewry.13 It may come as a surprise, for instance, to learn that Mussolini and his government were not openly anti-Semitic during the first sixteen years of fascist rule (1922–38) and that some Jews were members of the Fascist Party. But at the end of the summer of 1938 the Italian government began to pass a series of “racial laws,” and suddenly Jews were no longer allowed to attend public schools, practice professions, serve in the military, or own assets and companies or even radios; in essence they were banned from public life. Shocked, most Italian Jews could not believe what had happened. Some, who were able, left the country. The oppression worsened in June 1940, when Italy entered World War II on Germany’s side. When Mussolini’s government fell three years later, and the new government, headed by military leader Marshal Badoglio, declared an armistice with the Allies (on September 8, 1943), many Jews thought their nightmare, as well as Italy’s participation in the war, would soon be over. Instead German soldiers quickly occupied most of Italy and shortly afterward began deporting Jews to Auschwitz. Over eight thousand Jews (of a total Jewish population of forty-five thousand) were subsequently murdered at Auschwitz and elsewhere.14 Italy’s partisan

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war against the German invaders and their fascist allies also began at this point, and Italian Jews—like Augusto Segre—were active in this resistance movement. Segre’s record of his personal experiences, although it reaches us in written form, remains oral and conversational in style. Its special value comes from its details, which highlight the personal, human dimension of large-scale historical events, and from the intensity of Segre’s narration—the intensity only a participant can bring to an account of such world-shattering cataclysms as all-out war and the hunting down of human beings for slaughter. There is, for instance, a palpable immediacy in Segre’s description of the arrival of the German troops in Asti the day after the armistice between Italy and the Allies, in September 1943. Segre recalls going from home to home, fruitlessly warning his fellow Jews about what was to come: “‘Leave immediately, don’t lose time. They’ll impose a ransom on you, with the promise of setting you free; but afterward they’ll deport you, too.’ There are those who take me for a fanatic, a madman.”15 The Segre family left Asti that night, taking hardly anything with them, so as not to call attention to themselves. Eventually they were offered a hiding place on a farm belonging to the old peasant Pinulin—at the risk, of course, of his own life and the lives of his family members. But I will leave this story, one of the best in the book, to Segre. The memoir’s fourth and final section deals mainly with the birth of Israel, providing Segre’s eyewitness account of the country during the 1948 War of Independence. This section also includes the testimony of Segre’s wife, Iris, who as a young girl barely survived fourteen months in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen. What Segre witnessed in Israel in 1948 seems ironic today because the Arab-Israeli conflict remains and, after sixty more years of hostility, appears as intractable now as it did then, if not more so. This section may give readers an unexpected perspective on today’s events. Segre describes, for instance, how Israeli civilians, walking in the streets of West Jerusalem, were daily targets for Jordanian soldiers firing from East Jerusalem. A peaceful kibbutz Segre visits near Gaza is shelled by Egyptian artillery and attacked by Egyptian airplanes. In spite of the war,

Introduction

xxvii

however, this section of the memoir raises the reader’s spirits because of Segre’s unapologetic enthusiasm for Israel and because of the admirable behavior of Israelis under fire. Above all, there are Segre’s meetings with many of the young Italian Jews he had helped escape from the conflict in Europe ten years earlier, most of whom would probably have died in Auschwitz had they not succeeded in reaching Israel. We read about a packed Leonard Bernstein concert (featuring Brahms) in Jerusalem—or two concerts, as Segre says: one inside the auditorium and the other one outside, consisting of artillery and automatic weapons fire: “No one moves, lets himself be distracted, or shows signs of impatience. . . . At the end of the concert there is well-deserved applause that won’t stop.” We read, too, Segre’s first-encounter description of the vitality of the kibbutz of that era—the children’s houses, the Sabbath, communal work at dawn. Although Segre is momentarily taken aback by the barbed wire ringing the kibbutz, he realizes that this barbed wire, encircling Jews yet again, has a different meaning than the barbed wire of the death camps just a few years earlier: it represents active selfdefense, not imprisonment. One encounter above all stands out. Segre, visiting a museum in Jerusalem, is surprised to find “a large chanukkjà [Hanukkah menorah] that comes from my Community. A label commemorates my father. I see myself again as a child, barely managing to light the oil lamp by standing on my tiptoes.” It must have indeed been strange, seeing the same object he had experienced as sacred now become a museum curio, a historical artifact, alienated from its intimate community of believers. Segre recognizes the loss, but he is also generous (and practical rather than nostalgic): “Now this object, even though it is still part of my childhood, has become a museum piece. To me it seems abandoned, alive only in the memories of a few; but I also think that there are still many things that it can recall and cause to be remembered, even for the naive tourist.” A Hanukkah menorah symbolizes many things—the ancient Temple of Jerusalem, the Jewish people themselves, rebirth after war, God’s miracles, and more. This menorah, at this point in Segre’s Memorie, also symbolizes the lost world of Italian Jewry, or what is left of it, now contained mainly within the walls of museums. Here, near the end of the

xxviii Introduction

memoir, we are reminded again of the vital community that only a few decades earlier had made the stunning synagogue of Casale more than just a beautiful work of art—something filled with life and potential. A piece of that world, like Segre and ultimately his family, has found its way back to Jerusalem. Twice in the final pages we come back again to the subject of the synagogue in Casale, to the place where the book began—once when Segre returns to speak on Yom Kippur, and once again some years later when he learns that the synagogue has been restored to its “ancient splendor”: “But for someone like me, who lives far away, the impression is that now we have only a magnificent museum. The old scola, however, does not exist any longer.”16 It is relevant to note that Segre does not include the accomplishments of his later professional years, from 1960 to 1979, in Memorie di vita ebraica, which was published in 1979. During that period he edited a series of seven educational books on the Jewish holidays (1966–78) and wrote a commentary on the Torah, as well as several prefaces to others’ books and numerous newspaper and encyclopedia articles.17 He translated Gershom Scholem’s work into Italian as Le origini della Kabbalà (Origins of the Kabbalah) (1973) and wrote eloquently on Jewish-Christian relations and Zionism. He edited La rassegna mensile di Israel (The Monthly Review of Israel), the leading journal of Jewish culture, history, and literature in Italy, and at the same time taught at both the Rabbinical College of Rome and the Lateran Pontifical University (the first Jew to teach at this Catholic institution). He also served as director of the cultural and educational departments of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities for many years. Why did he leave all this out? Why end in 1960? Maybe he was being modest. Maybe if he had lived, he would have gotten around to volume 2.18 Or maybe there were other reasons. However, I think there is a ready and illuminating explanation at hand: the story he wanted to tell was already complete. As much as Segre’s memoir is made up of events from his life (as a memoir would and should be), the story is not really, as I suggested earlier, the story of his life—at least not in a purely documen-

fig. 4. Augusto Segre at his desk at the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, the Department of Education and Culture, Rome. Date unknown. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

tary sense—but the chronicle of something larger. That something larger is not only a story of loss: it is an Italian variant of the eternal Jewish story of exile and return, a story occurring first in the Bible and then recurring throughout Jewish history. Segre’s purpose evidently was not only to produce a retrospective diary but to use retrospection and introspection to understand the most harrowing period in Italian Jewish history and to relate it to the larger narrative of the Jewish people, which always leads back to Jerusalem. All that remains for me, the translator, is to wish you a good read. As I worked and reworked my translation, I never stopped being moved by Augusto Segre’s stories, no matter how many times I read them. I am glad this book is now available in English and very grateful this day has finally come. I am sorry only that Augusto Segre is not here to take pleasure in it, as I imagine him doing, a wry smile on his face.

m em o r i es o f j ewi s h l if e

T M

IE

D

Torino

Udine Milan Casale Monferrato Padova Venice Asti Po Ferrara Genoa

ON

Gressoney

P

Gulf of Genoa

Trieste

Florence er Tib

Livorno ELBA MA

Porto R San Stefano

Adriatic Sea

Pitigliano

EM

CORSICA (FRANCE)

MA

San Nicandro

Rome

Bari

Naples

Gulf of Naples Tyrhenian Sea SARDINIA

Me

dit

err

an

SICILY

ean

Sea

0 0

Map 1. Italy

150 kilometers 150 miles

SWITZERLAND

SW I

FR

Aosta

LP SS A

SW I

LP SS A

S

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Lake Como

Lake Maggiore

Gressoney

EN

VA L D 'AO STA

L OM BA R DY

CH

Biella

AL

Ivrea

Milan

Novarra

PS

Vercelli

P I E D M O N T NFE

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Asti

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LANGHE

FR

U

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Mondovi

CH A

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50 kilometers 50 miles

Map 2. Piedmont

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ALPS

Genoa

Gulf of Genoa PIEDMONT

AGNA

Fossano

Alessandria

Castagnole delle Lanze Canelli Alba Acqui Terme

IA-ROM

Po

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MO

FR ANCE

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Casale Monferrato O Moncalvo R AT

Torino/Turin

c h a p t er o n e

Once Upon a Time

late september, the first faint autumn mists, the time for selichòth (penitential prayers). The pleasant and savory cool of the night, together with the sharp smell of the grape harvest, which is already spreading from the wine cellars, fills your lungs and stings your nose. It’s still dark. The old stones that pave the narrow lanes on the way to the Holy Temple faintly reflect the dim light of the few street lamps. The city still sleeps, but in the small Jewish quarter, where the ghetto once was and where many Jewish families still live, someone is already getting up. The coffee prepared the evening before is being heated in the coffeepot, and it sputters. Old Giacubin is ending his morning rounds to let the faithful know that the hour of prayer is already close at hand. He’s been carrying out this job for years. He gets up early, slips on his hobnailed army boots and an old military jacket, bought many years before for little money from his friend Sur Elìa, and, walking slowly, goes from house to house, knocking on the doors with his cane and shouting in a stentorian voice, “Selichòth! Selichòth!”1 In the silence of the night the banging of the cane and the sound of the voice echo and fade in the distance, while Giacubin catches his breath, sometimes taking a pinch of tobacco, and then resumes his route, his slight and swaying shadow lengthening upon the shining stones of the narrow streets. For how long has he been fulfilling this charge of the Community, which lasts from the week before Rosh ha-Shanà (New Year’s) until the eve of Kippùr (Atonement)?2 From time immemorial. It almost seems as if the ancient selichòth were born with him; as he is old, they are old, like the faults and sins of man or the yearning desire to ask of the Lord, at least once a year, that greatly desired

2

Once Upon a Time

forgiveness. His seems to be the eternal, timeless voice, an anonymous voice that comes from a distant world and is regularly reawakened in us toward autumn, when the red and yellow leaves of the rows of Monferrato vines seem to remind us that everything ends and that the moment for prayer and repentance has arrived. Most, when they hear Giacubin’s voice, turn over to enjoy the bed’s warmth (which already has begun to be a pleasure) just a little longer, and they mutter, “Winter—here we are again.” The children, however, don’t have these simple and obvious thoughts because they’ve heard neither the voice of Giacubin nor the striking of his cane, and they continue to sleep until a fatherly hand shakes them and tells them, “Let’s go—you’re late.”3 Sur Elìa had been ready and waiting for a while. Having drunk his coffee—laced with aged grappa—he sat there in the kitchen, hat on head and cane in hand. He was thinking about his own affairs and frequently checking his watch, which hung from the small pocket of his vest, as if he wanted to see if the employee of the Community was carrying out his obligations and was punctual. Having heard the voice of Giacubin, he got up slowly, straightening his pince-nez, which were fastened by a black cord, glanced obliquely toward the door that led to the bedroom, and said, “Goodbye, Elvira, I’m going to the scola (synagogue).”4 She answered him with a muffled sigh, a kind of groaning that he, mindful of the ancient teaching that everything be judged in a good light, interpreted as a habitual, affectionate, feminine goodbye. What Sur Elìa often wondered about, without being able to find a satisfying answer, was how on the one hand his wife would often complain to him—and actually, not only to him—of not being able to sleep a wink the whole night through, but when he would speak to her early in the morning—and to tell the truth, in the afternoon sometimes too—Signora Elvira would complain bitterly, saying that she’d been awakened, and in an abrupt way, just exactly when, as if by a miracle, she was about to doze off. But that morning Sur Elìa had other things on his mind. It was market day, and he was already calculating how the day might go—allowing for the season, the grape harvest (which kept many people busy), and the times, which were increasingly difficult. Then he set off, stooping

Once Upon a Time 3

slightly—due to certain pains that afflicted his back, especially in the early morning—reaching for his left side and sighing in a low voice. He shut the door softly, and with a habitual movement of his hand immediately pushed it to see if it were really closed. He kissed the mezuzà (a small case with passages from the Torà) and got ready to go slowly down the steps of the stairway, which were nearly submerged in the darkness. The only light, a faint reddish glow, leaked from a small, high window and touched one side of the stairway, an old, peeling wall. He had known those worn steps for more than fifty years, and he knew that he had to descend slowly, one hand on the cane and the other placed against the damp wall. He knew each of them. Worn and smooth, the last two steps were a real trap because of depressions, to both the right and the left in the second-to-the-last step, and in the middle of the last one. If Sur Elìa had been a historian or a poet, he could have written an interesting page of history about those steps or one of those poems that can even make you cry. All the stones of this world have their own histories, but they’re secret histories, because stones are mute. It’s up to learned and sensitive people to give voice to this age-old silence of stones. Now it seems that those stones concealed their own secret too: a long and not always happy history if one considers the families that ascended and descended them, often running in fear, anxiety, and dismay, during the long period of the ghetto. Sur Elìa remembered very well that when he was still a boy one of his old relatives (known for his eccentricities) had shown him some steps and a corner jutting out from the wall where there were certain marks that, according to him, were sword strokes. Lower down were very dark stains, which almost everyone said were simply the work of the dampness, but which were, for that old relative, bloodstains. “There was so much,” or so he maintained, “that the wall drank it up, so to speak, in gulps and preserved it, taking on that very dark color with the passing of time.” But to understand certain things and to interpret them suitably, one must have a particular sensibility, while Sur Elìa was only an old and simple shopkeeper. He was certainly aware of the vicissitudes his ancestors had suffered between those walls, but it didn’t go any further; he had plenty of other things to think about. Even the used clothing in his shop had its own history—but it was a

4

Once Upon a Time

history that was still alive, from which one might benefit. But when he was in the Holy Temple and was praying, he often raised his eyes above his glasses, toward the ceiling, and reached out his arms as if he wanted to encircle, in one tender embrace, all the tragedies of his people. Tears would well up in his eyes. Maybe at that moment he really did become a great historian, because he relived the ancient and perennial Jewish sufferings and hopes with his heart. Having crossed the small, slightly sloping courtyard, he pushed open the front gate, which was always ajar, and he was in the street. He stopped for a moment, tried to straighten himself, breathed in deeply the fresh morning air, buttoned up his fustian jacket, and slowly started toward the place of prayer. All it took was to walk down the short back street, which widened into a type of small piazza, then turn right and immediately left, and enter a long lane that led to the entrance of the beth ha-kenèseth, or synagogue, as the Christians called it.5 After tefillà (prayer), he thought, he would go straightaway to his shop, which opened on Via Roma, because there would be plenty of customers from the early morning on, especially from the nearby towns, it being a market day. Via Roma, part of which ran parallel to the ancient ghetto and crossed the city center, was flanked on the left (for someone coming from the Jewish quarter) by a long and narrow arcade with low arches supported by irregular columns. This was where many old Jewish shops still stood. For some time now the shops of the goìm (non-Jews) had been situated among them, sometimes contrasting with them because of their fashionable provincial style. These shops corresponded to one of the historic boundaries of the ghetto, which was located behind the shops themselves. Before March 29, 1848 (the glorious and unforgettable date—for the Jews—of the Albertine emancipation), whoever owned a shop was thus able to enjoy the not insignificant advantage of being able to gain access to it by entering from the back, without having to leave the chazèr (courtyard, ghetto).6 They opened their stores, and thus they could look out upon the free world, which they were allowed during certain hours. In compensation the goìm who came to them to shop were always numerous, because in spite of everything it was known, especially among the country people, that with the Jews you could make good deals. In the evening

Once Upon a Time 5

the shops were closed and bolted from the inside. Given the times, this wasn’t exactly a negligible advantage either. Having thus spent his day at the boundary of freedom, the Jew reentered his small world, amid family affections, guarded also by gates that were closed at the setting of the sun, just as the gates of a prison cell are closed after the daily walk. Thus on the one side the closed shops, and on the other the gates. The Jew was almost able to sleep peacefully, always trusting in God, a bit less in humans. But all that was already a distant memory, which at times seemed strange and unbelievable to the new generation, born and raised in the full light of civil liberties. The old houses of the former ghetto—slightly touched up, like the makeup of an old lady who fails to hide the wrinkles of age—still remained, working and functional, as did some of those shops that preserved the memories of the era in their furnishings and in the smell of oldness in the floors and wood shelves. At least that’s how I seem to remember it. Maybe the old people’s stories, associated with what remained of the old ghetto, excited our imagination more than necessary. One matter, however, was certain and had been so for decades: Jews—children and grandchildren of the ghetto—lived, for the most part, in a number of different neighborhoods of the city—even in recently built houses—and they could open and close their shops from the outside, like all citizens, and then, if they wanted, they could even go to a nearby café to chat with non-Jewish friends, drink a vermouth or a small glass of grappa, go to the movies or the theater, and return home when they wanted. The memory of Carlo Alberto, the “Magnanimous Father”—king of a land that “is now a loving mother,” as the rabbi-poet Levi Gattinara wrote in his “Jewish Hymn” (1858)—was always present in the old-timers’ hearts.7 They were forever grateful to him and to all the descendants of the House of Savoy, for whom they were prepared to give even their lives—as in fact they did—as every good citizen ought to do for his country and for his august rulers, by the will of God. It’s true that in 1848 the canon theologian Gatti had seen, in the “improvement of the state of the Jews within the bosom of Christian society,” the possibility that the “evangelical influence” might also gain their respect.8 But no one was worried about this: neither the Jews who remained faithful

6

Once Upon a Time

to Jewish tradition and who were not dazzled by the light of that liberty (which was often more formal than real) nor the assimilated Jews who— partly in the hope of improving their economic condition and broadening their social connections—were not completely indifferent to the “evangelical influence.” Even in my time, when I was a boy, sporadic incidents that were very unpleasant for us would happen, and you would run into some religious or secular “sonè judì” (anti-Semite) who, even publicly, would make fun of Jews. Many of us were always ready to overlook these trifling matters, to minimize them, maintaining that it was not wise “taanè cui guìm” (to argue with the Christians) and that instead it was much more important and practical—for the good of everyone—to keep quiet, to act as if nothing had happened, and to avoid useless and “stupid” responses, because they were always damaging for us. In short we were taught that one must do everything possible not only not “to call attention to oneself ” but to demonstrate again and again—through work, through charity, and through participation in the political life of the country, if possible—that the liberty granted us was amply justified by much Italic, patriotic fervor. But there wasn’t any doubt, winter was getting close, thought Sur Elìa, wistfully raising his eyes to the sky. So he’d been right to have gotten his used merchandise all ready and in order beforehand: pants, jackets, cloaks, hobnailed boots . . . He arrived at the entrance to the temple; a pale light, which lit a patch of the lane and the wall of the facing house, filtered through the already open main door. On the way he had greeted a few fellow Jews, as was his custom, by nodding his head slightly and raising a finger of his left hand to touch the brim of his hat. He walked with resolute, heavy steps and somewhat of a military bearing (and for this he was called “the Marshal”), but he panted because of his age. He had become an old man— tall, upright, with a grand, white, King Umberto–style moustache. Sur Elìa was always an enigma because he had the walk of a man who has no time to lose. But he was actually one of those Jews who had been raised and maintained thanks to the charity of the Community, who in his lifetime had never done anything other than be a minianìsta—obliging himself, that is, always to be present at religious services in order to

Once Upon a Time 7

insure a miniàn, the minimum number of ten persons needed to be able to recite some particular prayers.9 But it didn’t matter, that’s the way he was, and even when he was called to the reading of the Séfer (the scroll of the Pentateuch), he sprang up from his place and set out with the same military stride, reciting the liturgical blessings loudly—at attention—pronouncing the words with a resolute tone as if he were making a brief report to the Lord God.10 At the entrance was Davidìn, looking around himself with two bright eyes, like a squirrel’s, already awaiting the day’s news, which he was always after and which would constitute the juicy subject matter of the day to be spread about, and thus the opportunity to make himself listened to and esteemed as one of the generally best-informed members of the Community. Contrary to “the Marshal,” Davidìn walked with short steps, pushing on his heels, which resonated with a distinctive clicking, like a pair of women’s shoes. Maybe this was the reason why he was called “Davidìn, tùca, tùca”? Delicate, small of stature, a fastidious dresser, he had a large, oversized head above which, almost like an adept tightrope walker, he balanced a small hat. In his youth he had been a tailor in Biella, but he had lived in Casale for years, and he was part of the team of minianìsti. As a remembrance of his artisan activity—which he now pursued only rarely—he always kept many pins of various sizes in wellordered rows on the cuffs of his jacket, as if he were ready for prompt action when needed. He knew all the psalms perfectly, by heart, and he responded without any hesitation to anyone who, for amusement, would ask him in which psalm a given verse could be found. An attentive and precise reader of the Torà (the Pentateuch), he was always quick to protest loudly when the chazzàn (the cantor), reading the parashà (the section of the Pentateuch), made any mistake. Thus he seemed to confirm the ancient saying that one must take care of the poor since from them comes wisdom. In fact, he was not at a loss for the quick and witty reply, either. When, for instance, someone, almost as if to console him, began his remarks by saying, “Ah yes, all the days of the poor are difficult!” he—opening his eyes wide as if he were surprised—interrupted, saying, “And the nights aren’t?”11 Others had already gathered near Davidìn. Shuffling along in two

8

Once Upon a Time

clown’s shoes there was Babàndu, a handyman as well as a minianìsta. He took snuff, and he would blow his nose in large, colored handkerchiefs, emitting sounds like those of a trumpet. He always walked with his head bowed, often shaking it and stretching out his arms as if he were carrying on his own private conversation about the sadness of human affairs, particularly his own, which were never very happy, as are those of one who is born, lives, and then dies in poverty. There was also Isàia, the caretaker of the temple and, in his spare time, a carpenter. He wore a cap pulled down over his eyes or sometimes balanced on the nape of his neck. He spoke slowly, making long and not always clear speeches. (Spiteful people said that this was not totally unrelated to wine, which he especially enjoyed and appreciated.) A veteran of the First World War, he always recounted the same events, in great detail and with the enthusiasm of someone relating occurrences that had taken place the day before. But everyone already knew them by heart—especially us boys, who were always listening, partly because he would often give us candy or licorice, which sometimes smelled of tobacco—the classic mezzo toscano.12 He was always available to make himself useful whenever the Community or private individuals would entrust him with various errands, he being a man of certain trust. He was proud of being the best at making coffins, lamenting that only the poor had recourse to his art. Sur Elìa definitely did not have the desire or the time to remain there at that hour talking with those good-for-nothings who didn’t have regular jobs, or actually any jobs, and who therefore lived basically well, because they were “carefree.” They would display their “high spirits” from early morning on—talking, or more accurately gossiping, about everyone, recounting the news to each other (and also inventing it themselves), fooling each other and even themselves between hearty bursts of laughter. Maybe these conversations—which then continued throughout the day, sometimes even during prayers, but more often in a tavern over a glass of barbera—offered, if only in an odd way, a certain compensation to the poor: a bit of tranquility that sometimes the wealthy could not allow themselves, not even with their money.13 So Sur Elìa went straight into the temple, which was already lit up, opening the large, heavy door with

fig. 5. Interior of the synagogue, Casale Monferrato. Photo courtesy of www.casalebraica.org.

difficulty and closing it immediately afterward by pulling slowly and gently on the latch with his left hand, which he had reached behind his back. He turned to the right and took his place on one of the benches that ran along the walls. From within the drawer—which, closed again, was also a seat—he brought out his large machazòr (prayer book), opened it, and planted himself there. He pushed back his hat with a slight tap, and it stopped, balanced exactly on his ears. Adjusting his glasses so that he could look over the lenses, he let his eyes roam here and there, pensively, in relatively patient anticipation of the beginning of services. There were still only a few people—“barely a miniàn,” he said to himself and disconsolately shook his head. He took his gold watch from his vest, clicked open the cover, looked at it, and, as was his habit, murmured: “Only a quarter of an hour to go and there’s hardly anyone, it’s a shame, a real shame! In my day this kind of thing didn’t happen.” The murènu (rabbi) was already in his place, and he was talking with the shammàsh (attendant). “Beh!” he continued. “He lives here, right above, and he can come down in a second. There’s no merit in that, and besides, it’s his duty. The rabbi gets paid for this! We all pay him—I should

fig. 6. Table of the Ten Commandments, Casale Monferrato, eighteenth century. Gold engraving on wood. Artist unknown. Photo courtesy of www.casalebraica.org.

very well think so. Then there’s the shammàsh—he lives close by, too, and then he’s paid as well, and besides that, he takes tips. Granted that the murènu never takes them, but the others? What times! They’re all full of chalomòth (dreams), they want to be modern, they’re busy with a million different things, but they don’t come to temple anymore . . . This is where it will end, with everyone coming to shaà raà (ruin).” The Holy Temple—now that he had looked around, resting his eyes here and there—was still the same as it had been since he was a boy. He felt good here; it was like being in his own home, familiar and full of memories. It was rich with gold objects and marble, though they were darkened by time and by damp stains that peeled away the walls in several places and formed patterns and images such as the imaginings of the eye and the moment would suggest for whoever looked. It was an old temple, already declining, just like the Community itself, but to which an important part of his life was bound. Even those stains, those cracks, the play of the sun’s rays—passing through the large, wide windows, adorned with long and, by that time, faded red curtains—on the gold of the Holy Ark, being refracted, lighting up and giving life to the damp

Once Upon a Time 11

blotches on the walls, and the invariably stale odor of the oil that the shammàsh used, thinking to clean the benches; all this was, in a way, also his, an integral part of his daily world. The ambience—for all its people who were so different from each other—and the prayers—which he knew almost by heart and always recited with passion—cheered and comforted him. What especially attracted him was the niggùn, the traditional musical motif that accompanied every prayer and renewed strong feelings within him every day. For him those synagogue chants were the most immediate and sure means of putting himself, so to speak, in direct communication with God. Pity that cantor, that chazzàn, who got a passage wrong—because then Sur Elìa would protest immediately, and in a loud voice. Often he would join with the singer, in a low voice, and his hand, which trembled slightly, seemed like the hand of an orchestra conductor, directing and leading the musicians. It was a matter of barely noticeable movements, slight movements of his fingers, while his other hand followed the text with his index finger. And then, even if he had wanted to, he wouldn’t have made a mistake: in pencil, above the words (following an old tradition), he had jotted down some squiggles that rose and fell, following the rhythm of the chant. For him these were the same as musical notes. The grand—maybe too grand—Holy Ark, there at the end, dominated the entire Holy Temple. Worked in wood and supported by tall columns, it had the Ten Commandments in gold in the center. To the sides there were two enormous bronze candelabras with many branchings—like trees thick with branches; each held eighty candles, and on holidays they were lit, spreading their light everywhere. The pulpit, grandiose and definitely excessive, also towered from the left wall (where the organ once was), while a steep and simple iron stairway descended almost to the rabbi’s chair, to the left of the Holy Ark. Two bas-reliefs by an unknown artist—done in masonry but painted dark so as to appear like metal—were at the two farthest sides of the tevà (Holy Ark); one depicted the Temple of Jerusalem, the other the holy city. Two long rows of chandeliers hung from the ceiling, and there were dozens and dozens of Hebrew inscriptions, most of which reproduced biblical passages, except for a few important memorials to historic events (such as the Purìm—a

fig. 7. Interior of the synagogue, detail, Casale Monferrato. Photo courtesy of www.casalebraica.org.

Once Upon a Time 13

Jewish holiday—of the Spaniards, of 1629, and the Purìm of the Bombs, of 1640).14 Along the sides of the temple ran wooden openings, carved like wickerwork and gilded, hiding the women’s gallery and completing this environment and atmosphere so dear to the eyes and heart of Sur Elìa. Oftentimes he would ask himself, “And when there are no longer Jews in this city, what will become of this house of the Lord?” When these sad thoughts came to him, his eyes would mist over with tears, and he would conclude, disconsolately, “Better to die, to die in time, rather than be around for such a calamity . . .” Sur Elìa had an elementary school education, but he had always worked hard at it, and he had attained a certain level of learning in his own way, so to speak—including Jewish learning. He wasn’t an expert on art or architecture, but he had a very good nose for antiques—as he had for secondhand clothes—and in his filial love for the temple he could also give a wellgrounded opinion of its artistic beauties. He knew a little of the history of this temple as well. For one thing, he had memorized the words that his grandfather had taught him concerning the permit to lease the area upon which, in 1595, the temple arose. And when the opportunity presented itself, he would repeat them in a solemn tone as if he were reciting a beautiful poem: “The Lords Giugali de’ Natta, for their heirs and successors, lease to the Jews, acceptors in the name of the Israelite Community for their heirs and successors, the entire Trincotto building, which is situated in their Montarone district, with its two courtyards; that is: one where the spice shop presently is, with the stables and portico, and the other, which has been rented from these noble landlords by a Giovanni Battista Clara, with all the apartments of the said Trincotto building, the above-named house and courtyard, under their known agreement, to serve them either to build an oratory in their usual way, or for that which will please them.”15 He even remembered when it had been restored, in 1866. He had still been very young when he attended the grand inauguration ceremony and was astonished. Illustrious rabbis and civil and military authorities were present. He still had a vague memory of songs, of speeches, and of the crowd— Jews and non-Jews—who came to admire this true work of art. Sur Elìa still kept (glued to the inside of the cover of the machazòr) the page of L’Educatore israelita16 that reported the news.17

14

Once Upon a Time

These descriptions from the Vercelli newspaper offer a precise portrait of just what the situation of the Jews of that time was:18 a grand ceremony with civil and military authorities in attendance, the presence of Jews and Catholics, the blessing of the people and the king by the chief rabbi, the youth choir (which was very good), the admonition of the spiritual leader to the congregation regarding how to behave in the house of the Lord—almost as if their reverence from then on ought to bear in mind the restorations too—and, finally, the satisfaction of the chronicler that no incident had even “slightly disturbed” the celebration. The invitation to be “good, upright, and useful citizens” is worth emphasizing, bearing in mind that former times were already a distant memory. It all harmonized rather perfectly with what was engraved— in Hebrew and in Italian, in gold letters on marble—in the temple itself, commemorating the momentous date of the emancipation “so that, past prohibitions forgotten, free citizens would grow up in equality and love of the motherland.” There was a mixture of exultation and trepidation, the fear of still not being accepted as good and faithful Italians, just like all the other citizens—a constant worry that their gratitude had never been sufficiently expressed, almost as if they themselves brought attention to the wrong of having been shut in the ghettos for so many centuries, from which they had emerged, pardoned, thanks to the noble magnanimity of the House of Savoy. Therefore, first of all came the Italian fatherland—and then the Jewish faith, which thus went on rapidly assimilating itself, even in specific conventions, to Christian worship. Less than a century after emancipation the patriots of the Mosaic faith would finally understand (not everyone, but a good part of them) what results their zealousness to assimilate, this cupio dissolvi that had spread in the form of an epidemic from the Jewish bourgeoisie to the most economically and culturally humble classes, had brought them.19 The mind of Sur Elìa was a fountain of memories for everything that concerned his Jewish Community in any way. Thus he remembered that before the restoration of 1866 the Holy Ark had been located on the left, where the pulpit was now, and in its place there had been a kind of alcove reserved for the poor of the Community. The “signori,” in contrast, occupied the “orchestra seats,” so to speak, and they entered through

Once Upon a Time 15

the main door. The restoration had changed this division that was so uncongenial, especially in the house of the Lord; as if by tacit agreement the poor now occupied the back rows of benches, while the seats that went from about the middle to the first row were reserved for the shopkeepers and professionals. The seats that ran along the walls—like the one occupied by Sur Elìa—were also “reserved” for professionals and for persons, as one said, of property. The seat occupied by Sur Elìa was not contested by anyone, and he was proud to find himself among lawyers, doctors, and shopkeepers like himself. On his right, on special holidays, sat Zacùt, a famous lawyer who was highly esteemed for his knowledge and legal experience, even by many colleagues from Torino, Milan, and Genoa. He was a tiny figure with gold-rimmed glasses, dark lenses, a wide-brimmed hat, and a cane made of sandalwood with an ivory handle. He spoke in a whisper, enunciating each word, and if he were walking he would often stop and take a look at the person he was talking to, smiling slightly with gentle irony, bending his head a little, and lifting his cane as if to ask, “Are you following me? Did you understand my reasoning?” He followed the prayers completely engrossed, though he never opened the book that he placed in front of himself. To the left of Sur Elìa there was Ercole (Ercul), an extremely able trader who dealt in every kind of merchandise, from buttons to war surplus. He had a very good nose for business, which he handled not only in Italy but also in foreign countries. It was said that during those years he possessed one of the most envied financial positions in Italy. He walked bent slightly forward, with a “virginia” always dangling from his lips, absorbed, as if he were forever busy calculating what was worth selling or buying.20 He smiled often and ironically, following a well-known tradition on his father’s side; and in fact, in any given situation, he was never at a loss for a sharp and trenchant answer, which took one’s breath away because of his simple candor, his acute observations, and frequently his impartial tone. Because of these qualities he was also feared, and whoever spoke to him knew that he had better proceed with a certain amount of caution. In spite of all that, he was still very generous toward anyone in difficulty. His ready and discreet aid was offered without anyone knowing about it, and only many years later did it become known that he had

16

Once Upon a Time

helped a poor family, a young man continue his education, and a widow raise her children. It seems that friends and relatives took advantage of his generosity, getting themselves bailed out of bankruptcy several times. It was never understood how a man who was so shrewd and experienced in business could have been reduced to a rather humble economic condition many years later. There were those who said it was because of bad speculating and those who instead conjectured that certain friends and relatives had actually been the ones to give him the final blow. When he was deported by the Germans, his standard of living was dignified but very modest. He was very attached to the traditional songs—which for him constituted the focal point of Judaism—and it was important to him to recite the tefillòth (prayers) in temple, particularly on festivals and fasts. The selichòth on the eve of Kippùr had been his appanage for many years. Even after he had moved from Casale to Genoa, he would return regularly for this commitment in his native city, even if it meant foregoing important business engagements. Papà, to whom he was related (he was our cousin), reserved this “privilege” for him. He sang with all the strength of his voice and with all his heart, the veins of his throat swelling acutely. His emotion was no less; his eyes shone through the tears. This, his unaffected dedication and enthusiasm, his tenacious attachment and faithfulness to the niggunìm and the songs—even though he had left Casale many years earlier and was involved in important, large-scale business dealings that caused him to travel throughout Europe—made him, in my time, one of the last classic representatives of the old generation of Jewish merchants—a mixture sui generis of faith and commerce, in which, however, faith clearly occupied first place.21 Once, on the eve of Kippùr, after having waited for him about twenty minutes, Papà himself began the selichòth. When Ercul arrived all hell broke loose. He was bitter, sorrowful, incensed, and indifferent to the justifications that Papà tried to give him regarding punctuality—which was particularly necessary on that day because of the sequence of many tasks. Ercul sulked all day, but in the evening he entered the temple and ran to embrace Papà. Ercul always had a great affection for him, the only relative who not only had never asked him for anything but with whom he knew he could al-

Once Upon a Time 17

ways pass the time in peace, singing the old niggunìm once again and remembering the splendors of their Monferrato Community. It was now only a little while until the beginning of the selichòth, and from the women’s gallery, through the openings carved in gilded wood, a murmur of female voices could already be heard. Someone from below, vexed, raising his head and trying to single out which of the many apertures that soft chattering came from, hinted at a “shhh—” but without tangible or lasting results. Sometimes it was hard to know if that stern appeal for silence directed toward the women was dictated by respect for the place or by the desire not to be disturbed in the conversations that were also being interwoven below, among the men. Stout, pot-bellied, red-faced like a ripe cherry, with his cap pulled down over his eyes and brushing against his spectacles, Avraàm the printer arrived, puffing and fidgeting with his small, fat hands. He was very energetic, of few words, and always smiling—especially when he was spoken to, since, being deaf, he rarely understood the words. From lip movements, however, he could figure out what was meant. On such occasions he would wiggle his small hands about his broad chest even more, as if he were in the midst of typesetting and his fingers were searching for the lead letters, maybe trying to give a more complete answer to his interlocutor. Because of this disability he should have been exempted from military service; but things had gone differently. It was said, in fact, that at the end of the examination, when his back was turned to the medical officer and he was about to leave, that fellow—probably harboring some doubts about the real condition of the conscript—had dropped a coin. No one was ever able to explain what had actually happened—if Avraàm, out of the corner of his eye, had seen the coin fall, or if he had turned around by chance, attracted by something else. It’s a fact, however, that he had turned around exactly when the coin jingled, bouncing on the floor. So it was that the young Avraàm had been obliged to serve his country in gray-green. The main door opened again and shut with a thud immediately afterward because the person who entered didn’t take the trouble to close it gently. This, too, was a way to attract attention. Tall, bony, and shuffling along more than necessary in his long shoes in order to announce his

18 Once Upon a Time

presence in this way, too, Mandulìn appeared. He took his seat in one of the last rows, an optimum observation post for seeing who entered. He leaned on the reading stand, which in the meantime he had raised, sighing and shaking his head. Turning to Babàndu he exclaimed in a low voice, “Oh dear! What times we live in, ulàm hafükh (the world is topsyturvy).” As if to console himself, he took a snuffbox from his pocket, put a pinch of tobacco in his long nose—which was eternally red and runny—all the while never ceasing to shake his head. While accomplishing this—which for him was almost a ritual—he also didn’t neglect, out of the corner of his eye, to observe whether there might be some “foreigner” among those present. For him this word had something magical about it and referred to fellow Jews who had moved to other cities but who returned to their native Community for the annual holidays, or to others who also came from far away and were passing through. In either case it always meant good opportunities for renewing acquaintances or making new ones and, above all, for extracting a reliable, immediate benefit in cash. If he were dealing with an ex–fellow townsman, Mandulìn would go up to him without any hesitation, reminding him of the ancient precept that “the poor of your own city should take precedence over others,” assuming the tone of a creditor who has a claim. When, instead, he came across a new person, he would study the new subject deeply and shrewdly before making his move, ably as always. From his pocket he took a big, yellow handkerchief, which he shook before unfolding, plunging his nose into it and blowing loudly. Babàndu peered at him archly, but he didn’t say a word; he knew better than to hazard a conversation with Mandulìn. He was perhaps the most representative figure typifying the “old ghetto.” He had inherited all its poverty, all its worries, sighs, laments, and also its hopes, nurtured by the adroit (sometimes brilliant) imagination of the poor, who were compelled each day to invent ruses in order to get themselves at least a bowl of soup and to keep going as best they could. It was said that he was truly first-rate—a schnorrer (freeloader) at a professional level—because he was unsurpassed at contriving new systems for obtaining what he needed and at making his requests like a true schnorrer: that is, as one who asks only to have his legitimate rights fulfilled, not as one who waits upon the dubi-

Once Upon a Time 19

ous generosity of others for an act of charity.22 Father of a very large family, he also had the reputation of never having worked in his life—which was something that, in a certain sense, he bragged about. In fact, how would he have been able to handle a regular job, since he had to look after so many children, to help his wife in her numerous deliveries (one after the other), to attend the synagogue regularly, and to make contact with a large number of people—taking particular care always to know about fellow Jews who were passing through, especially those from the nearby Communities, it being his professional duty to know about all the most important Piedmontese Jewish Community events? It was this kind of information that he knew how to exploit to his own advantage, like a true master, and to the advantage of others if he anticipated being able to obtain other benefits later. He accepted his sad fate with a certain optimism, with philosophical patience, and with the dignity that his role imposed upon him. He frequented the Holy Temple, the Commission on Charity, and the homes of the rich, following a preprogrammed system. Regarding the latter, he had a precise and upto-date list—and not only for his own Community but also for the nearby Communities. Nor did he miss the opportunity to do business with these addresses—either giving them to Jews who were passing through (his colleagues in common misfortune) or exchanging them, advantageously, for other lists. He could not have gone further in school than the first elementary grades. But his way of life, his method of listening attentively, assessing and recording others’ arguments (and even rabbinical speeches) in his mind—he had a prodigious memory—had led him to acquire a type of plain knowledge that was of great help to him on many occasions. His interjections—made up of long speeches embellished with groans and tears, wisely measured out—lacked neither biblical citations nor Dante and Carducci. He was a born actor. One would not want to dwell too long on his Italian, a mixture of Piedmontese and Venetian dialect forms—he was born in Venice. But he had a style that was totally his own and difficult to imitate. Dignified, detached from the surrounding world as if he were immersed in a higher atmosphere, he would speak slowly, with studied pauses that kept his interlocutor hanging by a thread from

20

Once Upon a Time

the start—especially if he did not know exactly who he was talking to and that he would not realize the point of all those words until the end. “If a poor man comes to you in the morning, you should help him; if he comes in the evening, you should help him.” Mandulìn repeated this often. Or else, “Whoever gives to the poor acquires merit in heaven.” These were fragments of sayings, gathered here and there, that were useful to him when he sought to persuade others that asking for help amounted to nothing less than rendering a great favor to one’s neighbor—offering him the opportunity of gaining important benefits on earth and, above all, in heaven. Morality and poverty were the sauces that were mixed by the master, creating that confusion that was needed to make his requests seem reasonable. While he spoke he would often shake his yellow or red handkerchief, like an agreed-upon signal, as if to better attract not only the attention of those nearby but also the pity of the Lord. Many stories were told about Mandulìn—enough to fill a book. But, he would remark, they were only the fruit of evil tongues against him, his poor wife, and his unfortunate children. (He had had about twenty—exactly how many was not known—ten of whom were living.) He confined himself to telling about his daily saròth (misfortunes)—which he accepted (and humbly, he was quick to emphasize)—as so many tests that the Lord subjected him to daily. “Every kind of rope is good for hanging the poor man,” he would sometimes say, bending his head slightly to one side as if it had already been put into the noose. He had lost a son during the First World War, and in his pocket he always carried his son’s wallet, which contained a few papers and some small-denomination banknotes that were stained with blood. This wallet was also a kind of secret weapon that he would use on someone he had met for the first time if doubt arose as to whether he would succeed in obtaining some practical help. With the wallet in hand he would display those banknotes, and affected, he would begin to cry—asserting between the tears that he would always keep them, even at the risk of dying of hunger. It cannot be denied that his emotions in these cases were sincere—although one could not say the same about the use he made of them. He usually wore bow ties, red-or blue-striped shirts, dignified suits (these, too, were the palpable results of his multifarious activities), and

Once Upon a Time 21

a wide-brimmed hat: in short, a man about town. It was said of him that up until a most advanced age—and he died when he was over ninety— he never let a good opportunity for an amorous adventure go by unexploited. He was called “the Colonel.” He would condescendingly accept the cigarette that was offered to him and that would disappear nearly halfway into his mouth shortly afterward; he was more used to chewing tobacco than to smoking cigarettes. He would still continue to smoke haughtily, even if the cigarette dangled between his fingers, wet with saliva. Thus many stories were told about him. One day Mandulìn appeared, triumphant in the Community, to announce the birth of his twelfth son, exclaiming, “Here’s Yaakòv and the twelve tribes.”23 In this proud announcement there was also the certainty of immediate and spontaneous assistance, which not only would take into account his precarious economic situation but would also be a sign of recognition for one who had committed himself so seriously to increasing the population of his Community. In Casale every birth was by now becoming an important event, because births were not so frequent as in the past. Mandulìn, therefore, was glad to offer joy and, evidently, a sense of responsibility to all his fellow Jews. This time, however, the secretary listened to him with less enthusiasm than usual and, shaking his head, said to him, “Mazàl tov (congratulations), Mandulìn. But still, listen, pay attention to me: I think it’s time you settle down a little, considering your situation—” But Mandulìn, almost shouting, interrupted him, saying, “How can the Community interfere in my strictly personal affairs and give me such orders? Is this how you receive someone who contributes to the life of the Community as best he can? It’s a shame, a real shame.” Having said this, he headed toward the door, but suddenly he stopped. Turning to face the secretary and shaking his forefinger menacingly, completely trembling with rage, he exclaimed, “Well then, you know what? Next year I’ll be here again to announce to you—with the help of the Holy One, blessed be He—the birth of another child.” It’s told that that was one of the few times in his life that he kept his word punctually. Another time, during a rabbinical conference, the rabbi of Alessandria congratulated his colleague from Casale on the recent birth of twins

22

Once Upon a Time

in his Monferrese Community, even though the birth had been followed by heavy grief for the mother’s death due to complications during the delivery. Rabbi Levi’s surprise was great! He didn’t know that anything like that had happened! Then his colleague told him that a few weeks earlier he had been visited by Mandulìn. With a large black band on his arm and all in tears, he had pleaded for swift and substantial assistance for a family that had been struck so harshly by fate: the birth of twins, but also the death of the mother, which left two newborns and the other children in the most frightening misery . . . Quite often, as on that occasion, Mandulìn would go away from Casale, busy with one of his schnorrer enterprises, which were always planned out and programmed with exquisite care. His colleagues in poverty would then comment ironically on these absences, saying, “He went to clip coupons . . .”24 The selichòth had started. The rabbi himself had begun the singing of the traditional chants with his familiar warm and musical voice, ending, as if by magic, all the chatter of the kahàl (the public). Everyone felt drawn into the prayer; conversations were broken off, and between two persons talking to each other a quick wave of the hand meant “afterward.” The shammàsh—small of stature, fat and round like a barrel, with small, bright eyes deep in his clear and rosy face—had returned to his seat with brisk, short steps while trying, with one hand, to control the long, metal chain that bore—suspended from his neck and swinging in front of his protuberant belly—a large plaque with “shammàsh” written on it. Shrewd, capable, a good cardplayer and experienced wine connoisseur, he knew how to carry out his duties with great tact and discretion and with a pronounced courtesy that could even have been interpreted (erroneously) as servility. The door burst open, pushed by a resolute hand, and with rapid strides the president, Professor Ottolenghi, entered, going to his seat in the middle of the temple. Like a high-ranking officer reviewing the troops, he raised two fingers to the brim of his hat in a brief gesture, reciprocating the greetings that were given to him. Meanwhile his eyes—always alert—ran here and there to see who was present and who greeted him. Sighing slightly, he sat down and gazed at the ceiling with an in-

Once Upon a Time 23

spired look on his face, as if he sought advice, or better, approval, from on high as well. At the same time he took a bunch of keys out of the back pocket of his trousers. He pulled a big book from the drawer and started to open it but then stopped himself. He looked toward the tevà, and his face—closely shaved as always—broadened into a smile full of satisfaction. The chant of Sur Murènu always filled him with joyous emotion: “Na brahà n’tla buca (a blessing on his mouth),” he whispered.25 Opening the machazòr, he immersed himself in the reading—or at least he pretended to, because Hebrew was not his strong point. But he was always glad, at every opportunity, to point out that besides knowing Greek and Latin he had such and such other virtues. Principal of the classical liceo and president of the “Israelite University” (as the Jewish Community was then called), he was well-known for his encyclopedic learning, for his memory, and as a historian and man of letters.26 He even knew a good portion of the Divine Comedy by heart. An eloquent orator, polished, elegant, and not lacking rhetoric, he always spoke as if he were giving a lecture from the rostrum—even when, after temple in the morning, under the porticos, in front of Dina the newspaper vendor and together with some colleagues and Sur Murènu, he was just commenting on the news of the day, leafing through the newspaper after having first glanced at the obituaries. Professor Ottolenghi was the first to be pleased with his own ideas and quips, accompanying his words with openhanded little pats on his stomach. To emphasize certain statements he would rise slightly on the toes of his shoes, as if he were about to take flight, while the tip of his tongue darted out to moisten his lips and tidy his mustache. His talking was usually a monologue. The sweep of his hand and a very slight bow when he concluded his speech would seem to be an invitation to applaud, even if there were only a few who were listening to him. He was impetuous and authoritarian, sweet and fatherly, openly smiling or frozen faced (when he would stare silently and his eyes seemed to bulge out of their sockets, emphasizing the absurdity of what he was hearing), persuasive, witty, flowery, bowing left and right according to the circumstances, while his broad, bald head shone like a mirror. His language was sophisticated, except when he expressed himself quite simply and his di-

24

Once Upon a Time

alect surfaced with a marked cadence, meaning that you were his friend and that he was on your side, especially when his insatiable curiosity sought to extract some particular bit of news—a small or great slander— from his interlocutor. But he also knew how to be cold, detached, and of few words—which he let fall from on high. This was a man undoubtedly endowed with special intelligence but who often gave the impression of also being an exceptional actor who considered life to be a grand comedy and his city a vast stage where one had to perform. And he played each role that destiny gave him in the best way, every time. The traditional synagogue chants genuinely affected Professor Ottolenghi, and he felt a childlike joy. Listening to them, he half-closed his eyes out of pleasure and moved his head slightly, giving himself the illusion that he, too, was joining in the melody (he was completely tonedeaf), repeating the words in a Hebrew that, on his lips, often assumed a pronunciation all its own. He had, so to speak, a visceral attachment to his Community; he was interested in everything that happened, and he was extremely well-informed about every private or community dispute. This attitude was explained by the usual gossips as due to the fact that he had a “mixed marriage.” It was said that once, meeting Rabbi Castelbolognesi, he introduced his wife, saying, “Here’s my wife. She’s not Jewish, but she knows how to make kosher goose salami very well.” (Kosher goose salami was a specialty of Casale, known and appreciated throughout Italy.) To this remark, however—which could have been interpreted as an attempt, though certainly naive, to justify his marriage, at least partially—the rabbi, not at all convinced, had replied, “And here’s my wife, who doesn’t know how to make kosher goose salami, but who is Jewish . . .” Professor Ottolenghi was a child of the second post-emancipation generation who, capably and enthusiastically, had scaled the walls of the university, distinguishing himself, often brilliantly, through his exceptional gifts of intelligence. He had also succeeded in becoming part of the local bourgeoisie, which at an unconscious level (and not without envy) still held reservations about the Jews—but which also knew how to accept them cordially when their qualities were relevant and useful to everyone. The Jew who entered this bourgeois and Catholic provincial

Once Upon a Time 25

world believed he had reached the summit of equal rights and considered himself obligated to manifest his gratitude directly to his gentile hosts and, at the same time, to exhort his own coreligionists, on every occasion, not to “isolate” themselves, not to be tied “to the letter of the Mosaic law,” but to interpret “the spirit” broadmindedly, as the times required. Thus it happened, paradoxically, that roles were reversed, and such Jews—more often than not without wishing it—were transformed into so many Christian missionaries. This interference with those who were not isolated in the least but had simply remained faithful to the tradition, to the mizwòth (religious obligations), was dictated, perhaps, by the fear, unconscious or tangible, of losing the positions they had attained or of cutting a bad figure—to say the least—in the vast world of culture and business in which by then they lived happily. They were also disposed, when it was necessary, to swallow some bitter anti-Semitic pills in silence, without reacting, “without attracting attention,” in order to continue to take part in a world that their grandfathers had not known, except from a great distance and not always in happy circumstances. This new, intellectual, Jewish bourgeoisie still remained tied in some way, occasionally—it’s not known how or why—to their ancestral “religion”; but they already found themselves submerged up to their necks in that assimilation that ended even in baptism. But wasn’t it worth the trouble? Was it or was it not—besides being very important for one’s career in itself and for one’s formal position in this wide world—a great honor for a Jew to be a professor, a doctor, or a lawyer, and sometimes even to be bear such honorific titles as Cavaliere or Commendatore del Regno di S. M.? 27 Some students from the ginnasio-liceo, of which he, president of the Community, was principal, had taken their seats on the front benches.28 He often looked at them sternly to monitor their discipline, as if this were a classroom in his institute. Those youths behaved in the house of the Lord as they did in school; a small nudge between them, or a quick glance, would remind the distracted student/devotee to control himself—as if the president, in that place, also fulfilled a special function—that of being the principal of the faith or even of heaven. For those half-drowsy youths it was a very early rising that had already been going

26

Once Upon a Time

on for a week, and they followed the selichòth as well as they could, careful not to miss their signal since they were the official choir. But their minds also ran to the Greek, Latin, and philosophy classes that would begin shortly, adding to their prayers a special prayer for the health of their teachers—in whose absence the principal would take charge, and they would almost certainly be among the first to undergo the oral testing. They were, however, comforted by the temple caretaker, who often sat nearby and secretly distributed licorice and mint candies, stretching his hand under the reading stand and making a sign with his elbow to the nearest person to pass the welcome provisions to those farthest away. The large, wide windows—partially covered by long, red curtains that were dusty and faded and that disappeared in the darkness of the night—are now taking on more precise outlines. The sky is turning pale. Then, suddenly, a clear ray of sunlight crosses the dusty red curtain of the first large window, up above to the left, and hits the tablets of the Law squarely, setting the opaque gold of their ornamentation ablaze with a reddish tone. The lamps of the chandeliers, which earlier diffused a warm and intense light, grow constantly weaker. Now the rays of the sun flood the temple through the large windows and pitilessly expose the dust of the ages, which has settled on the marble and the gold, sparkling like so many precious stones set together in bunches. On the other side of the windowpanes—which are also somewhat dull—a limpid September sky appears. The tefillà seems to conclude precisely with the arrival of these signs that nature brings to the place of prayer and with the sound of the shofàr (ram’s horn), which reverberates high up in the wide arches of the ceiling and the windows and reaches beyond the walls of the holy enclosure even into the houses. The faithful, standing, listen in the most absorbed silence. The murènu has placed the shofàr to his mouth, and the sound—at first faint, uncertain, trembling, then getting stronger, intense, erupting—takes possession of the entire Holy Temple. It seems to stay suspended in the air with the same strength, but seconds pass, and then it trails off and ends in a plaintive sound that slowly dies out, grazing the skin, which shudders, to penetrate down, down, down to the bottom, to the soul. The people, standing—heads lowered as if collectively sens-

Once Upon a Time 27

ing all the responsibility of that sound—are affected, and they feel inside themselves that something is moving, gripping them, but they don’t know what it is. Sur Elìa repeatedly adjusts his glasses on his nose, as if at that moment they were the most important thing to him. The president/ principal straightens his Homburg just to affect composure. The spatulate moustache of “the Marshal” trembles, while his cheeks swell with an irrepressible movement, as if he’s breathless, and he stands at attention, as if he’s at a military parade. Mandulìn senses the solemnity of the moment, and he’s there, perfectly still, with his handkerchief hanging from his hand like a starter; no one knows if he’s about to blow his nose loudly, as usual, or wave it toward heaven as an agreed-upon signal between the Lord and himself. The lawyer, who sits near Sur Elìa, looks toward the ceiling with his eyes half closed, inspired, as if in pursuit of something that goes beyond jurisprudence. Avraàm the printer, who doesn’t hear but has understood, raises his hands upward joyously. Ercul has already taken off his tallèth (prayer shawl) and is about to leave, but he stops for a moment longer near the door. Everyone hurries toward the exit. The president has made a friendly gesture toward the rabbi with his hand. It’s a greeting and at the same time, in the movement of the fingers, the transmission of a warm compliment. The president exits, while people line up on either side of him; he is pleased and with all due modesty reciprocates with an ostentatiously friendly greeting. In the house of the rabbi, which is located in the same building as the temple, the rabbi’s wife has also heard the sound of the shofàr. For quite a while she’s been busying herself with a hundred things. Breakfast is ready and awaits her husband and children. She knows that her spouse loves fruit, especially in this season. Grapes, figs, and peaches of the harvest make a beautiful display by themselves at the center of the table, and she hurries to bring coffee and milk. A youthful stride—slightly rhythmic but swift—signals that her husband is coming up the stairs, and she immediately pours the steaming coffee into the cups. The fresh, fragrant odor of bread mixes with that of the fruit; clusters of dripping grapes shine and play with a ray of sunshine reflected from the windowpane. Papà sits at the head of the table, arranging his brown velvet kippà (skullcap)—which sometimes slides slowly toward the right—with a slight tap.

fig. 8. Segre family, Casale Monferrato, circa 1917. Augusto Segre is the youngest, dressed in white, standing in front of his mother, Benedetta Sornaga Segre, who is seated. The father, Rabbi Ezechiele Segre, stands behind her. The oldest son, standing in the back row, is Alessandro, known as Sandro. The daughter is Sara, and to her right is Lelio. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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While eating, we don’t forego (not us!) our first comments about the people we’ve seen. Meanwhile my father follows us in amused silence, with slightly ironic eyes, seeking to enliven our conversation with a few short, witty remarks. “First edition of the gazette,” my mother sometimes comments. She, however, has no time to lose and presses us to bring our talking to an end, repeating again and again, “Chitchat afterward.” But it’s not always easy to obey these peremptory exhortations, because, even though she would like us to hurry, at the same time she’s always ready to fill our cups and plates again . . .

c h a p t er t wo

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how many years have passed since those days that are now so long ago? And why, exactly, when I reflect upon my Community, are the first recollections to emerge from the archive of my memories those that are bound to the weeks that precede the great solemnities of Rosh ha-Shanà and Kippùr? I don’t think it’s a question of recalling moments of special religious fervor. Being young, we certainly weren’t capable of having precise ideas about either “sin” or “repentance.” We definitely did have ideas about the fast of Kippùr, but it was a matter of first experiences and something that was strictly personal—that is to say, physical. Nor had our father, the rabbi, ever placed any special emphasis on the guilt of mankind; rather, from the time we were children, he had taught us that Judaism is an excellent guide to living with peace of mind, if one lives honestly. And besides, the young, by their nature, always look to the future; they are optimists and always hope for great things. The reaction—for us youths who belonged to the, let us say, less wellto-do class—was much simpler and natural: the month of September and the weeks of the selichòth meant, although only generically, holidays. Even though it might seem like a contradiction, it really was so. September was something alive that broke through the drowsy summer period that for us was without either the sea or the mountains, and very often without even the countryside. Rich only in imagination and hope, we spent our vacations in the city, immersed day and night in the sultriness of the summer heat and the gray, insubstantial, but ever-present dust of the cement works that gave our small city the appearance of an industrial center. In August the sun bore down oppressively, and in the evening

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there wasn’t even a breath of air. Meanwhile multitudes of mosquitoes assaulted us relentlessly with their sudden buzzing and, even worse, with their bites. The signori, with their respective families, were away—at the sea, the mountains, and the countryside. We even knew exactly where they were because the rabbi regularly received picture-postcards with respectful and cordial greetings for him and his entire family. Papà was glad to be remembered, even from far away; but for us those missives never were particularly welcome. Thus the small city was emptied, and the Community itself seemed swallowed up in the most silent abandonment. Sometimes, to the great disappointment of my father, even a miniàn couldn’t be put together because just one of the minianìsti had deserted, maybe to avoid the heat, but also because it was certain that during those weeks no productive encounter was to be had in the house of the Lord. In an attempt to lessen the heat, we spent long hours under the small arcade of the temple, reading or sleeping, deluding ourselves that a little fresh air was circulating, while the summer heat reached us even in the shade of the old columns of the Trincotto.1 All around us was the most absolute silence, interrupted only by the petulant rasping of some cicada, which seemed like the monotonous beat of time passing, empty and useless. Toward evening I would ride out on a creaky old bicycle in the direction of the public gardens, which were also semideserted. Under a great, leafy tree there was a stall with ice cream and ices (and flies), and for a few cents you could get a gratà, a bit of ice with mint or tamarind. Long, slow days, without sensation and without end. Papà, on the other hand, was always busy. He still belonged to a generation for whom the problem of summer vacations had never arisen. He certainly didn’t squander his time. By five in the morning he was already in his office getting through his correspondence so he could immerse himself in the study of old texts. Shopping at the market was his specialty, and when prayers began at eight o’clock he had already written, studied, gone shopping, and walked a few kilometers. The walks, necessary and healthful, he would say, were his greatest diversion, summer and winter. (He never changed his routine with the changing of the seasons.) He walked with a rapid, nimble stride, gripping his then-fashionable silver-handled cane—

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the gift of an old friend who had left it to him as an inheritance. When he went out with mother she often remained a ways behind because it wasn’t easy to maintain father’s pace. Then they would repeat their usual banter, father stressing that when one is young, this is how one ought to walk, and mother grumbling in reply, “If you want to go for a walk, you don’t need to run like you were about to miss a train.” Sometimes we walked along the avenue that led to the station, the summer setting for the traditional after-dinner, evening stroll. But often there was some attempt at opposition in the family, chiefly from mother, because “at night you never know where you’re going to end up,” as if the city were engulfed in darkness, overrun by malefactors, and the center of every vice. Long awaited, September finally arrived. The air became cool and fresh, the grapes matured, people returned, and the Community itself came back to life. During this period—though it happened only rarely— a trip to the country might even materialize. Once (and it was a historical event worthy of being recorded in the annals of our family) Papà and Sur Elìa (and it must have been an exceptional event for him, too) organized—who knows why—a true excursion to Manduletta, complete with a two-horse carriage. Even mother took part in this country picnic, because she had prepared the lunch and, as she said, she wanted to prevent who knows what trouble and confusion. Sur Elìa, who was busy with the carriage and the coachman, regarded himself as if he were the commander of a ship. When we children, almost drunk with this extraordinary adventure, began to sing and make a little noise—which by pure chance coincided with a slight rearing-up of the horses—Sur Elìa removed his glasses with a resolute gesture, withered us with a severe glare (in which, however, a good dose of fear also showed itself), and practically yelled, “Quiet, don’t you know that horses understand everything and don’t want to be annoyed? Woe to whoever moves! Do you want there to be an accident?” Why an accident should actually result from that one exceptional coincidence, no one could understand. Father smiled and limited himself to signaling us with his hand not to respond and to be a little calmer. We stopped at a kind of farmhouse, set in the center of a thick forest, that served as a bar, restaurant, and dance hall. There was also a hurdy-

fig. 9. Casale Monferrato, with grapevines in the foreground, September 1996. Photo courtesy of the translator.

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gurdy that ran on twenty-centesimo coins. When the meal that mother had prepared was finished, the notes of the hurdy-gurdy—which never stopped playing—became interwoven with those of the Birkàth haMazòn (grace after meals) that father had begun to sing, though in a low voice. For us it was quite amusing, because even though the notes of the popular songs almost completely drowned out father’s voice, we realized that one of the other guests—maybe thinking that this distinguished gentleman was accompanying those very songs with great diligence—had noticed him. This, at least, was mother’s comment. During this month there was no lack of opportunities for brief country outings by bicycle, either. Not far from the city, in the hills, hidden in greenery, there was a cottage where an upstanding, middle-class, mercantile Jewish family—which through some of its members was by then intellectual, at a university level—came to spend their holidays in September. The cottage could be reached by bicycle in about an hour. The last stretch, a climb, was made on foot, gladly, in anticipation of the ride back—all downhill along a road that wound among grapevines already filled with clusters of mature grapes. Papà would accompany us. He was welcomed quite warmly—up to a certain point. With Sur Murènu the hosts started long conversations that were boring and unbearable for us. At a distance of many years, recalling some witty remarks that by chance I happened to catch on the fly but even more the different attitudes of the speakers, I have been able to reconstruct—at least in part and maybe only approximately—the gist of those September conversations. From one side came a volley of questions, asked with a slight, ironic smile by a brilliant university graduate, who put them to Papà to see if he would be unnerved. On the other side was the murènu, who responded calmly and serenely, not allowing himself to be confused by “science.” The usual themes of the old and nearly “superseded” traditional Jewish world and the new, more broadly attractive horizons of assimilation reemerged in their essence, even in those drawing-room discussions. My father—I would say to his good fortune—did not have a university education, but rather a solid, Jewish learning and a faith that no philosophical or scientific theory could even scratch. The hosts paraded their knowledge with an almost ostentatious

fig. 10. Rows of grapevines outside Casale Monferrato, September 1996. Photo courtesy of the translator.

pride and affected language, and they strained to make the murènu understand that many Jewish religious values were being reassessed. Nor was there any lack of allusions, more or less veiled, to the pure and simple fact that it was not easy to make oneself understood by someone who had not left the restricted circle of the Jewish camp. Assimilation and tradition clashed even among the grapevines of the Monferrato. Reform Judaism, as it was born and had developed in Germany in the period immediately following Moses Mendelssohn, had really not had the same resonance in Italy that it had in other countries, notwithstanding some timid attempts.2 There may have been many reasons, but probably we should not totally exclude the hypothesis that in Italy the slide from emancipation toward assimilation had been more than sufficient in itself, without needing recourse to those reforms conducted with Teutonic and Judaic diligence. In those conversations the hosts talked about the mizwòth, at least a good part of them, as already outmoded, and about the usual values of the “spirit” in contrast to the “letter” of Mosaic teaching—as if the one

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were not closely bound to the other, as if practical, everyday life could disregard the powers of the spirit, or as if one need only take refuge in abstract values, forgetting that ideas are realized only through action. The Torà, with the mizwòth, taught plainly how a Jew ought to live. Papà would listen patiently to the same old arguments, smoking his pipe and smiling, full of sympathy for those who spoke about Judaism without being more knowledgeable. He responded, citing and commenting informally on passages from the Torà, as one does with children who need to be educated, even making use of midrashìm (parables), some of which, perhaps, were invented by him (quite ably) for his hosts. The “parlor”—with a dainty, nineteenth-century touch: wicker chairs, lace spread throughout, paintings—opened on to a garden. The maid, in a white apron, came in to offer coffee and, for us, fruit and country bread. Those people spoke with a certainty and a tone that seemed incapable of admitting reasonable replies. The truths were those that they upheld, and the future would belong only to those Jews who at long last knew how to liberate themselves from all the dross of the ghetto and become worthy of the new times. Only in this way would we be able to avoid another round of painful “surprises.” But wasn’t it also a tragic surprise when the homicidal Nazi hand struck even that family, with violence and deportations? Thus with September—with its coolness and the grape and peach harvest—the season of the selichòth also returned. The small Community revived almost all at once, reawakening itself from its summer lethargy— hence our anticipation and festive joy. My father, on the other hand, thinking about the holy days of the New Year and the Day of Atonement, would remark very seriously, “We’re already close to the great maneuvers.” This is why those years—with the selichòth, the morning breakfasts, and the few outings—have remained engraved in my memory and seem to me, in their totality, like a family photograph, slightly faded and sepia toned, bringing back precious and memorable images and a period of my youth that was simple and modest yet also basically lighthearted and happy. Those years form a precise landmark from which I can set out to try to fish out memories of my childhood from an even earlier period and

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then go forward to the time when, having finished the liceo, I left Casale to go to Rome and from there began a journey in the geographic and cultural world that continues today.3 If I go backward to unearth something from among my old, childhood memories, I realize that very little remains. The fog is thicker than I would have thought. But one memory is clear and shines like the small, gold Maghèn Davìd (Star of David) that hung from a chain suspended around the neck of my sister Sara. I see a sunset in the old courtyard and the two of us on the balcony that ran along the house, to the right a low wall and a tall row of trees. Some branches of a fig tree, which we considered our private property, reached the balcony. I held her hand tightly because I was still frightened by the furious storm that had just ended. A few reddish rays of the setting sun pierced the clouds, which were still as black as tar, filtered through the branches of the trees, and just grazed the leaves of the fig tree. We breathed the damp, bracing air. A reddish pink reflection made the Maghèn Davìd, with its inscription “Shaddài” (Omnipotent), shine. The warm, motherly clasp of the hand of Sara, who was a ten-year-old child, made me feel safe, while she showed me the wide rifts of intense blue opening among the clouds with the other hand. For many years that memory followed me. Sometimes it follows me still: the grip of her one hand and the other raised toward the sky, as if to mark out a road that in a short while Sara would travel. The war had brought the deadly Spanish flu, an epidemic that raged cruelly. At home everyone was in bed with high fevers. Only Mother—although she too had been struck by the disease—moved about, laboriously yet without respite, to take care of us. The medicines were inadequate and scarce, and there were few doctors available because they were at the front. Our family doctor, Fiz, was in the war zone too. Sara left us late one afternoon at sunset. I even remember the day that she had first felt ill, as she leaned against the corner of the small sofa in the kitchen, against its dark brown metal back. Having broken off our game—we were playing mother and son, and for her I was probably a splendid, live doll—she sat on the edge of the sofa and vomited. The hours of anguish and despair when Sara died are a memory that has never dimmed. Papà, doubled up in a small chair, abandoned himself

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to inconsolable crying. Meanwhile Mother was making a heroic effort, trying to comfort him, and I, clinging to his knees, afraid, said to him, “Don’t act like this. Look at me, I’m here.” And then, in the evening, there was the kiss that we brothers, led in a line by our parents, gave to the coffin, which seemed enormous to me. A little while later I was in the kitchen, in front of a cup of milk that I couldn’t swallow, while everyone cried. The day after, during the funeral, Mother and I stayed home, leaning out the window to see the hearse pass. Mother waved a last goodbye to her little daughter. We were home alone. It was “infected,” and certain risks cannot be taken under any circumstances—even when one might have pretended to bring a little comfort to an anguished mother. I even remember that wandering around the house I got my head stuck, I don’t know how, between the iron bars that enclosed my bed, and my mother had quite a difficult time getting me out of that uncomfortable position. Wartime, the temple, and sitting in the last rows of benches—silent, disoriented, and maybe even somewhat emotional—were Austrian Jewish soldiers in uniform, prisoners of war, each one packed in next to the other, almost as if they wanted to take up the smallest amount of space possible, to avoid causing trouble. Their fellow Jews—and they were the majority—ignored them. It was clear that they continued to consider them enemies of the homeland; there was not a word, not a sign of greeting. That wasn’t all. When we children entered the temple, there was always someone who felt it his duty to tell us—in a low voice, but with a curtness that brooked no argument and that filled us with fear—“Go straight ahead, mind you. Don’t dawdle with those prisoners for any reason whatsoever!” And others would say, “They’re prisoners of war; it’s strictly forbidden to speak with them!” It goes without saying that passing by them, we would quicken our stride, frightened, or even begin running if one of them reached out his hand to caress or smile at us—thinking maybe of his own children, Jews like us, or about his distant family, with obvious homesickness. But it was clear that not even in the house of the Lord could they find the comfort they mistakenly believed had been given them. They entered on tiptoe, saying hello discreetly, and went on, heads bowed, as if they were guilty of who knows what. My father,

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who at that time did not yet occupy the rabbinical chair, was among the very few to go near them inside the temple—to the great scandal of his fellow Jews. Outside the holy enclosure, he tried to talk with them, to learn their pressing needs, and as far as possible to help them. Arriving at home he would grumble, often saying, “Here are the fine fruits of emancipation.” We frequently heard talk about the war at home. It wasn’t only because news of those who had fallen at the front reached us like an endless, steady stream, but especially because this news often dealt with people we knew. The small Jewish Community of Casale made a heavy contribution in war dead. The pain of the families, naturally, was great, and the sympathy of the entire Jewish Community was intense. One can hardly say it, but there was also, openly, a widespread sense almost of gratification for what was happening, for this finally being the great test that would show everyone that the Jews were now truly equal to everyone else, that they were Italian soldiers, side by side with other Italian soldiers, committed unto the supreme sacrifice in defense of the sacred ideals, and no less sacred borders, of the Homeland. Although this was not the kind of talk that took place in public among fellow Jews, certain Jewish newspapers would nevertheless slightly temper the tone and color of such declarations, at times with a veneer of ancient Jewish ideals retrieved for the occasion. But sometimes, and with the utmost clarity, they would exalt this historic event, inviting Jews to give their lives, as if all the proof given until then was still not enough and only death on the field of battle could place the unique seal of authenticity on the certificate of italianità of Jews emancipated from the sufferings and abuses borne for so many centuries inside and outside the ghettos: We believe that in times like these our duty as Jews, in relation to the different civilizations in which the remnants of our dispersion live, becomes perfectly clear. We ought to be, and instinctively we are, the strengtheners of all ideals, the exalters of all greatness. Nothing could be more out of keeping with our temperament than mediocrity, quietly fitting in, and sluggish, vile feigning during the hours in which the future is being created. . . . Now is not the time

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to debate the war theoretically, whether it may be good or bad; it is the time to live it. But in the moment of living it, one must live it as it is: as something great. . . . We Jews—who are both the greatest pariahs and the greatest heroes in history—have, in our thousands of years, witnessed hundreds of wars among all peoples. This is the first time, at least on such a vast scale, that instead of witnessing as simple, passive spectators—or, not rarely, as victims of illegal violence—we find ourselves, because of our new juridical-political position, having to assume an active, direct, and personal role in the conflict in all the countries in which we are citizens. However tragic this, our destiny, may be, we cannot, after having accepted the premises, avoid the consequences, with complete loyalty. And the civic loyalty of the Jews in all the countries of Europe in this terrible test has been above any possible reproach. But with this, we feel today that the duty of the Jews has not yet been completely fulfilled. Precisely because of the countless events of every kind that we have witnessed over the centuries, which bear indelible marks in our flesh, and precisely because our brothers in ancestry and faith, of the past and of the future, are in all the armies that today have been unleashed to destroy each other, we are, more than anyone else, in a position to resume our classical, priestly ministry among the nations in the work of praising the greatness of the hour that is transpiring. It is as if the coèn, because of the precepts of our Torà, should drive out all the cowardly and the sluggish from the combatants’ formations. Thus we ought to be the scourgers of all the depraved, the envious, and the malcontents who belittle the loftiness of the hour. We must have the courage to proclaim that although war may sometimes be a necessity in the life of countries, hate is never necessary; that although war can be great and stirring, hate is always small and degrading. We must remind whoever has forgotten that every soldier is a son, that every flag is the emblem of an ideal, and that every homeland is sacred. War may require, out of necessity, that everyone fight according to his strength; but no one need scorn or hate. Everyone should shout “Viva!,” no one “Down

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with!” Everyone should praise, and no one curse. Let this be our humane motto: that we Jews passed the trial by fire and that we saved our Judaism intact in the hour of trial because it was intact in times of peace. Brothers, we do not hate our fellow man.4 The hour has arrived. Our Italy has declared war. Let us not search for the reasons— they are obvious. For us the fait accompli is enough. Italy is at war, and we shall give ourselves to Italy completely. Every sacrifice will seem sweet, every privation a duty. We Jews will give everything to our homeland—our children, our property, our lives. Italy has the right to expect everything from us, and we will give everything. Italy’s honor—our honor—is at stake. Our homeland must win and triumph, even if we fall, even if we die. At this moment every debate is, to us, a crime—just as every request for compensation is a disgrace. We should give without asking for anything because now we want nothing for ourselves. The only thing we want is for the Italian flag to fly above the unredeemed lands so that destiny will finally be fulfilled. We want civilization to spread its beneficent light upon nearby lands—so that our gentle language, and with it the immortal principles of liberty and fraternity, may spread among foreign regions. We want the Sabauda dynasty—magnificent exemplar of every virtue—to be crowned with another wreath of glory. We want to win; we must win. We must show that the feeling of gratitude is deeply rooted in us and that we are taking our place in this admirable demonstration of harmony that all Italian parties are offering, with flags flying and with unshakable resolution. To work, everyone—to war!5 In one of his sermons the head rabbi of Torino, G. Bolaffio, turning to the passage from Psalms (45:3), “Gird your sword upon your thigh, O warrior; success to your praise and your majesty,” said, among other things: In such a grave and holy moment as this, is there really a need for me to instill patriotism in the sons of this mighty Piedmont,

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this Torino—of all the municipalities of the region, or better, of all the cities of the Kingdom—the most intrepid, the most Italian? It seems superfluous to me, oh brothers, to call up the past, to turn one’s thoughts to the traditions. The noble enthusiasm of grandfathers inspires their grandsons forever. The glory that this city gained for itself during the never-to-be-forgotten wars for national independence shall not be betrayed by us in the present hour. . . . We children of Israel, we of the lineage of heroes, zealously fought the bitterest of struggles against Antiochus, Titus, and Hadrian for the legitimate defense of our ancient land. Although it happened long ago, we gave valuable, unexpected aid to the Ostrogoths in Napoli against the army of Belisarius (ad 536), to the Moors in their triumphant conquest of Spain (ad 711), and to the Turks in the city of Buda against the Austrians (1681). The victories that were won in these three examples were, to tell the truth, due largely to the valor of the Jews. We of an indomitable ancestry, always at the vanguard of every noble initiative, will, with no less certainty, have regained the renown we enjoyed for centuries and millennia on this day in which our Italy, after long and mature reflection, has entrusted to arms the defense of its very honor, the vindication of its most sacred rights. A note on this redaction, immediately following, informs us that “on every Sabbath since the beginning of the war, the Most Excellent Rabbi Bolaffio recites an appropriate prayer in Hebrew and Italian, pleading for the victory of the Italian forces and the achievement of the sacred ideal of our oppressed brothers’ deliverance.”6 These are just a few of the many examples I could have cited to give at least some idea of the atmosphere in which Italian Jews were then immersed. Their spontaneity, fervor, certainty, faith, and hope are moving. In 1938—that is, only twenty-three years later—a tragic storm would suddenly sweep away almost all of those who had believed—with such faith, and perhaps also a little naively—in those ideals. In my family we also had more immediate worries about the war, even though we were far from the front. My father’s sister, Aunt Fortunata,

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lived with her family and grandchildren in Udine.7 After Caporetto they came to us, recounting not only the glories but also the miseries and horrors of war, the savage abuses of the enemy, their pillaging and the Italians’ pillaging near their home.8 “War,” said the veteran Alpine soldiers, “is beautiful but uncomfortable.” How much wisdom is in these simple words—far greater than many speeches! A few years had passed. Father often received old friends and comrades from the Casale People’s Trade Union in our sitting room, and with the encouragement of a few glasses of barbera they would entertain each other at length. They talked about many things, even when we were around, calmly or excited by serious ideological comparisons. The words most often repeated were “justice,” “democracy,” “peace,” and “liberty.” Those were the times when you often heard people in the streets singing Arise brothers, Arise comrades, Arise, come in a great host . . .9 and Forward people, onward to the uprising.10 I remember, however, that one day when I was singing these songs from the balcony of our house, my father took me by the arm, brusquely pulled me inside, and told me, “You mustn’t sing these songs any longer.” And to my, “But why? You sing them, too,” his response, accompanied by a disconsolate shake of his head and hand, had been, “Now it’s forbidden; to sing them is dangerous. I beg you, obey. When you’re older, you’ll understand.” But I didn’t have to wait that long to understand. A few days later, on the way home, I had begun to sing “Arise brothers . . .” in a soft voice when a fellow in a black shirt appeared right in front of me and in a thundering voice addressed me curtly: “Hey, you bastard, who do you think you are? You know what? I’m going to give you a beating!” He had already reached out a hand to grab me by the jacket, but I succeeded in

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freeing myself and shouted, “Help! Help!” as I fled from him. That fellow chased me a little ways, but noticing that some people had stopped, he hurriedly quickened his pace and went about his business. Thus it was that for the first time in my life I met, or better, collided with, a fascist, and I was very afraid. But with the passing of the years, knowing them better and better, I got used to these kinds of encounters, too. The first parades of Blackshirts and veterans, pennants and fasces flying in the wind, the fascist hurrahs that were shouted out and were used more and more often—why not remember it, even the castor oil?11 Speaking of which, I was to learn that this oil was not only prescribed by the doctor for us children or even for adults who had indigestion or some other illness for which such medicine seemed to be the remedy; the fascists violently forced anyone who had political ideas that were different from theirs to swallow it. Thus one day, in the roomy entrance to the Moderno movie theater, I saw some Blackshirts gathered around a fellow. They had put a funnel in his mouth, and while some of them poured a bottle of castor oil into it, the others tied his hands to the seat of his pants. At the Margherita Hospital in Torino, where I was bedridden, struck down by another epidemic, the fruit of the war: polio. Opposite, a factory occupied by soldiers who shouted during the day at the masses of workers who thronged at the gates and, during quiet moments, sang, among other things, about red flags that would be raised “over the public latrines of the city . . .” Day and night, bomb explosions blew up windows and terrorized everyone; we children would howl—a chorus of desperate cries—while the doctors and nurses came and went, running, trying to calm us and maybe also trying to calm themselves. In the garden of the same hospital, seated on a bench with my legs in a cast, I’m having fun with my father, who has come to see me. I’m playing with a “revolver” filled with small paper caps that made very modest bangs. A policeman who is passing by the gate stops, sees this “armed” boy in a cast, and, shouting, opens the gate and comes in to check the weapon. Then he leaves, saying that “with some things, it’s better not to joke.” This is a small example of the widespread terror of that time, in the midst of the general disorder that was growing increasingly rampant.

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At home Angelino, from the Casale People’s Trade Union, now came less frequently, and when he was with us the conversations with father no longer took place in the sitting room. Both of them would retire to the study, with doors closed, and no one could enter. One time he came to us covered with bruises, his arm in a sling. I found out later that the Trade Union had been put to the torch by the fascists—or “fachists,” as Aunt Albina would say—after they had beaten everyone present with clubs, including Angelino. It was about this time that two rusty old gates (fished out from who knows where), with a sign bearing the words “Let’s put the Jews back in the ghetto,” were propped against the wall in front of a café that faced the Via Roma and was somewhat of a den of fascists. My father, as soon as he heard about it, took his hat and cane and went out immediately, in spite of my mother, who insistently begged him not to leave. He told her simply, “Don’t worry, I’m only going to see if it’s true.” I found out later that he had walked by those gates three times, going slowly, and that in fact he had stopped the first time, like someone wanting to read a poster at leisure. My father was known to everyone, and everyone knew that he was the rabbi of the Community. Thus the fascists, seated at the small tables or standing in front of the entrance to the café, were stupefied. And then there was a great silence when my father entered and ordered a coffee, which he drank calmly, acknowledging the few greetings with a smile; no one dared attack him, not even with words. Home again, he had replied, smiling, to the anxious and justifiable questions of my mother—who had feared the worst and asked him how it could possibly have taken so long just to see those two terrible gates—“But my dear, it takes time to prepare a coffee, and then it was boiling hot and I didn’t want to burn my tongue . . .”12 Aunt Albina, my mother’s sister, had it in for the “fachists.” Although her education was limited to the beginning elementary grades, she was a passionate reader of books and newspapers. Glancing through the news in the daily paper, she would always conclude with a “these ‘fachists’— how repulsive!” twisting her mouth in disgust. My aunt lived quite modestly together with Grandmother Celeste, who was always dressed in black. During the winter, whenever she went

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out, she wore a black scarf wrapped around her head and tied with a large knot under her chin and a long cloak that came almost to her shoes. Grandmother Celeste was a true community institution. There was no occasion among the Jewish families, happy or sad, at which this energetic and valued adviser, this dear old nonna, was not present; she was urgently summoned as soon as any necessity outside the normal course of events arose.13 It wasn’t only the poor who had recourse to her; so too did the upstanding, wealthy, bourgeois families, who, in cases of need, didn’t concern themselves any longer with the fact that the nonna came from the common people, that she was a poor woman, that she lived in difficult circumstances, and that she had often endured poverty amid countless hardships. Nonna Celeste would arrive at someone’s home silently, find out what was happening, and immediately take charge of the situation, giving advice and orders calmly, precisely, and with great skill. “Aunt” Celeste was, for decades, the protagonist of the major events of Jewish family life in Casale.14 She was tiny, with the whitest hair, which was parted in the middle and gathered in a bun held in place with hairpins at the nape of her neck. She had two dark eyes, an intensely Jewish face, and very beautiful, thin, long hands that were always active. From within her ample pockets there always appeared a piece of candy or a few cents that she would give to me, saying, “Please, don’t buy spagnolette” (which were cigarettes). Nonna’s house. You entered through a wicket door and a short, dark stairway that was always filled with smoke and the odor of paint coming from a workshop situated in the tiny courtyard. There were two small rooms, plus a blind room where Uncle Aristide slept. He was a bachelor, a grumbler, good, and generous—even though he was poor—living from day to day, doing odd jobs and also serving as a minianìsta. A few glasses of wine—sometimes more than necessary—helped him forget the disappointments of life, of which he had no lack. Suffering from his feet, he would take lengthy footbaths, falling asleep promptly. He had a magnificent baritone voice, and one of his favorite songs—he was a native of Udine—was “Il ponte di Bassano,” which we children accompanied in chorus until the imperious voice of our nonna imposed silence upon us with “We’re hardly at la Scala . . .”15

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But what especially attracted me in that house was a small fireplace that, for me, had the power of magic. Sitting nearby I stared at their crackling logs, the flames that went up and down, the sparks, the smoke, and the bricks that once were red but now were blackened and corroded by the fire. I played with a shovel that was used for removing the ashes, for reviving the fire, or for putting potatoes among the embers. It was a delight to search for them afterward, to fish them out piping hot and eat them with the crackling, blackened skin. I never got tired of staring at that magnificent scene and dreaming of so many things, even if my eyes started to water from the smoke, my face turned red, and my back got cold. Near that fireplace I was to learn many things—not just how to tell the hours, minutes, and seconds from a clock with a carillon (which I was allowed to hear only as a reward) but also a bit of Jewish Venetian history and the “Histories of Famous Bandits.”16 My nonna told me, with a richness of detail, how the few Jews in Udine lived.17 It’s true that there was a real vip, Senator Morpurgo, who was the pride and glory of all the local Jews; later, at almost ninety, he too was deported by the Nazis. But there was no organized Jewish Community, rabbi, or temple. They observed the séder (the Passover meal) both because the mazzòth (unleavened bread) could be obtained and because some of them, including my nonna especially, knew how to read the traditional text of the Haggadà (the book that is read during the séder) fluently. But regarding the rest, an active Jewish life essentially did not exist, except on the occasion of the autumn solemnities. On Kippùr, making a certain financial sacrifice, everyone went to the temple at San Daniele del Friuli. Nonna continued her story, and I, through the flames of the small fireplace, had the impression of seeing the carriage and my nonna with her family within it, laden with provisions and Hebrew books. “It was always, every time,” Nonna would conclude in a nostalgic tone, “an unforgettable Kippùr.” And I was convinced of it, too. Now, thinking it over, I begin to wonder if I confused my nonna’s joy at finally being able to pray in a temple with the trip in the carriage. Then there were the adventures of the famous bandits that my aunt would read to me—not all of them, however, because “it’s not something

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for you.” They made her eyes shine in such a way that I came to think that some of the credit for those adventurous undertakings was hers as well. It was a childish enthusiasm that I was able to understand only later. But when I was a boy the thing always seemed strange to me: these bandits—at least according to the stories—almost always ended up helping the poor and those oppressed by all sorts of injustices. And there was no one better able to understand them than the poor and the oppressed— like Aunt Albina, after all. She would turn the pages of the book, bringing her big thumb to her mouth and wetting it with the tip of her tongue. She read slowly, with a certain style, and it seemed almost as if she were acting the different roles. Appreciative, I followed these stories, curled up by the fireplace, never taking my eyes off the flames, which sometimes seemed to me to take on human shapes: faces of bandits, princes, ladies, cardinals, and the poor. Naturally they were pursued mercilessly by the carabinieri, who at those moments lost all my sympathy, even though I continued to envy their magnificent, full-dress plumes. Frequently the end of the story was a foregone conclusion: arrest and a life sentence or the firing squad. At this point would come my aunt’s unfailing and stern comment, connecting the history of the past with the present. “These, yes, these were men, real men, because they stood up for the poor,” she would say while she carefully closed the book. “And not like these disgusting ‘fachists’ who pick fights when they’re a bunch against a few, against those who can’t defend themselves. And they know how to live, protected, off the rich.” When I tried to take part in this commentary, asking my aunt if certain persons whom I had seen wearing black shirts were also these “disgusting ‘fachists,’” she reprimanded me severely, saying, “Don’t chatter so much. Always say that it’s cooked.”18 “Always say that it’s cooked.” Once I was having lunch at my nonna and aunt’s. A pot of water with the pasta in it was boiling over the flame. My aunt, taking a piece of the pasta, handed it to me and asked me to taste it to see if it was cooked. Remembering her teachings, I immediately said yes. When, however, the steaming pasta was distributed on plates and tasted, I realized—from the surprised faces of everyone present, who had begun to stare at me—that the adjective “cooked” should be used with great prudence—especially when dealing with food.

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Fascism continued to assert itself more and more after it came to power. One evening Alessandro, my oldest brother—who then was just over twenty—returned home earlier than expected, frightened and upset, because he had encountered one of the best-known fascists of the city in a café. The man had taken him by the lapels of his jacket, shaking him and insulting him and all Jews as “subversives and Freemasons.” Father, after having tried to soothe him—saying to him that no one ever gained anything by losing his composure—asked in which café the business had taken place. After a quick “come with me,” he left with Sandro (as we called him), going directly to the place in spite of Mother’s supplications. When they arrived there and identified the person, my father approached him and said to him in a loud voice, “Say to me, please, what you said to my son. Certain things are better off discussed between adults, don’t you think?” Suddenly there was a great silence in the café. The worst was feared— or perhaps hoped for. But a certain panic also spread, because my father, barely finished speaking, had moved his hand—was it by chance or was his gesture intentional?—to the back pocket of his pants, out of which, after a few seconds, he extracted—and here there was a general sigh of relief—his pipe, which he began to pack carefully and studiously, as if he were at home. This moment of panic having passed—because panic it was, and many had feared the worst—the fascist approached him, smiled, and said, “But I beg you, Signor Rabbi, don’t take it this way. I was joking, only joking, and your son—who after all is still a boy—didn’t understand the joke.” He reached out a hand with the intention of laying it on Father’s shoulders in a friendly way. Father, however—still seriously occupied with his pipe—said dryly, “Certain jokes are better left unspoken.” He moved aside and was about to add something more when the other fellow—his arm dangling in midair—forestalled him, saying to him, with studied affability, “At any rate, forgive me. Let’s not speak of it any longer. Come, have a drink . . .” “Thank you,” Father responded, “but I have things to do. Another time.” He left, followed by my brother and ceremoniously accompanied to the door by that fellow. Someone even stood up when he walked by. By that time everyone at school was enrolled in the ranks of the “Ba-

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lilla” or the “Avanguardisti,” depending on their age.19 I very much liked the membership card, which I had seen in the hands of my classmates, and I had often begged my father to give me the few lire necessary to enroll, always receiving, however, a flat “no.” One day I recounted how the teacher, after having read an announcement to us, explained that from then on we had to change our way of saluting—that is, no longer raising the hand to the forehead, like a kind of military salute, but rather extending the arm forward. Then he said to us, “Let’s try it. I’ll go out, come back in, and then you salute me according to the new orders.” He spoke the word “orders” emphatically. He went out, came back in, and there we were, ready, everyone standing with arms stretched forward. He looked at us, smiling, made a kind of small bow, and said, “Perfect, exactly so. Very good indeed!” My father, who had immediately understood the teacher’s words and attitude, commented on the episode, saying, “Do you see? And you want the membership, too, the Balilla membership card. Isn’t the salute that you have to give enough for you?” A while afterward I had another go at it, but my father cut me short: “I don’t have money to throw away.” Later, however, when he realized that I was grieving more and more over the card, he took me lovingly by the hand and said to me, “Come here. You’re a boy who understands things well, and with you a few words are enough. But they’re words that must remain between us, like a secret. Understood?” I nodded yes with my head, but I didn’t speak because I was still on the verge of crying. “Well then, listen. You’re a Jew, and a Jew who respects himself doesn’t take any kind of fascist membership card.” My father’s words were spoken with much warmth and love. “But why? There are lots who take it,” I pressed. “Yes,” he responded, “today there are a lot, even among the Jews. But whoever feels truly Jewish won’t join those people who are against justice and liberty. You already know that these things are among the most important of Jewish teachings. Those people love violence, and for centuries the Jew has pursued justice. It’s not by chance that we’ve suffered for so many centuries. Those people arise from war and they always want war; the Jew wants peace. And then there are a lot of other

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things that, as time goes by, I’ll explain to you; but I think that this is enough for now. And remember, like I told you, this is a secret between the two of us.” The fact of having a secret between my father and me, right then and there, convinced me more than his arguments, which were difficult for me to follow and which essentially meant a big, fat “no” to the membership card I wanted so much. Only much later, through personal experience, was it possible for me to understand in depth the words of that secret between father and son. But even before my own experience, the actual experience of my father was to unsettle me. During a particular period a few years later the Fascist Party launched an enrollment drive with a lot of propaganda. The Jewish Community Council, made up of teachers, lawyers, and engineers, all of whom were enrolled in the party (although for a variety of reasons), practically forced my father to enroll. They had pressured him (uselessly) many times before, arguing that it wasn’t possible for him to continue to hold an important office, especially in a small Jewish Community like that of Casale, where everything about everyone was known, especially given his questionable past and his friendships with certain socialists. It was a golden opportunity, generously offered on a silver plate, and it could not be refused. Nor should he forget that he represented all the Jews of the Community and that therefore he had to understand the attendant responsibilities, too. To be Jews thus meant, according to the Community authorities, to be ever vigilant and attentive in following all the orders of the regime, since it would be easier to be heavy-handed with us than with others. I still remember when Father came home, after having received his membership card (which immediately ended up in the stove) from the provincial party secretary himself; he walked back and forth nervously, murmuring, “Look, look at what we’ve come to!” This event, and especially these words spoken with such bitterness by my father—Ezechiele or Jechezqèl to his friends—definitively clarified for me that “secret” between father and son.

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the membership card episode, which made relations between my father and the Community Council rather tense for several weeks, was actually not the only such episode during the long course of his tenure as rabbi. A state of conflict, latent or overt, and for a variety of causes, was all but constant, save for brief, occasional respites. If I’m grateful to my father for many things, I have to say that I’m obliged to him even for this bitter experience of his, which sometimes bordered on humiliation—and which he had the strength and perseverance to resist—because it convinced me never to accept a rabbinical appointment. It’s true that there were offers from Genoa, Milan, and Rome, and I was almost at the point of yielding and reconsidering my position; but I am forever thankful for the good fortune—let’s call it that—that at the last moment sound reasons for refusing arose. While recognizing that by my generation the times were already altogether different from those of my father, I still can’t say that my life, which was also dedicated to the defense and dissemination of Jewish ideals, was always a bed of roses, as they say, when I came in contact with Jewish institutions. But I can say that, compared to my father, I was able to feel much freer and more independent and in a position to defend my legitimate autonomy wherever possible and with the utmost resolve. Today I am in a position to try to reconstruct my father’s stance regarding the Community Council. Obviously it was not one of servile and obsequious acceptance; if that had been the case there would not have been all the fights that there were. The explanation is to be sought elsewhere. My father was perfectly consistent, based on the teachings that

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he had drawn and continued to draw daily from the study of the Torà. His life was an unceasing effort to find and maintain a harmonious point of contact between these teachings and the affairs of everyday life, important or unimportant as they may have seemed, because he regarded ordinary events as extremely important for the material and spiritual life of each individual and for the entire group. The responsibility that he felt for his Community was experienced in a very particular way—almost visceral, one would say today. The Community was an integral part of his own life, which was worth living only in this way. His “coreligionists” were regarded as his children; he shared their joys and sorrows—in deeds and not just in words—always ready to make any sacrifice even just to spare them from some imagined problem. One can’t say as much for the council or for other individuals representing the elite of the intellectual bourgeoisie. They were occupied, if not swept away, with what was fashionable, and closed off in the small fiefdom of rights that were more formal than real, safeguarding their relations with the non-Jewish world more than the values of Jewish tradition. In trying to assess his rabbinical activity, which was always carried out with the utmost simplicity and without professional airs, one can say that he gave infinitely more to his Community than he received, in every sense. But this balance sheet is being tallied by me, his son, at a distance of many years and with a frank and precise accounting—something my father would certainly never have even tried to do. “I always try,” he would often say, “to avoid judging others. I’m too busy judging myself, seeing if I’m really doing all that I should for the welfare of my Community and my family.” Thus he was always prepared to judge his neighbor lekhàf zekhùt (from the favorable standpoint, with goodwill), in accord with the ancient precept. To be accurate and objective I should also add that this fate was not reserved for my father alone. Other rabbis, if they were earnestly committed to their duty, were also to be found in this situation, in more than just a few of the Communities of the kingdom of Italy. With innate kindness and warmth—which are often virtues of those who, born poor, have always had to apply themselves heart and soul in order to survive—and therefore also with confident faith in a tomorrow

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that could not not be better, he knew how to win the goodwill and friendship of the people, both Jews and non-Jews, from the simple worker to the professional, from priests to the bishop of Casale. In the face of certain of his activities Mother sometimes attempted a timid, or a not so timid, protest: “But this,” she would decree when she just couldn’t stand it anymore, “is willfully being a dog of the mizwòth.” Basically, however, even she didn’t go beyond mildly mumbling some expressions in pure Friuli dialect. Of Piedmontese origin, my mother—her name was Benedetta—was born in Udine, and she had known life’s hardships since childhood. They say that labor is the highest expression of the dignity and independence of man. Still, I don’t believe that my mother, strictly bound to daily work as she was, had ever thought about such ideals, but simply about those few coins she earned through great effort and that were needed to help the modest family budget. At a very young age, as a worker in a spinning mill, she had learned quite early what hard work was; sometimes she worked more than eleven hours a day. Thus she could understand and excuse the “foolish” lengths my father would go to in order to help all those who, not in vain, turned to him. Even when, thanks to her innate organizational ability, she was promoted to be the manager of a division of the factory, Mother had continued to work just as hard, until she married and left her job and her native city. My father was not born rich either, and he never became rich in his entire life. Left fatherless when he was a few months old, he had been raised under the more severe than affectionate guidance of his grandfather Ghershom. One Friday evening this grandfather was getting ready to say the Kiddùsh, the traditional blessing over the wine to sanctify the Sabbath. He had already raised the glass, filled to the brim with wine, when, as if suddenly remembering some mischief done by his grandson, he carefully replaced the glass on the small plate and, with his index finger and middle finger together, abruptly struck him between his nose and his mouth, saying simply, “This is for you.” Then he picked up the glass again, proceeding to the sanctification of the holy day, while his grandson, silent and with tear-filled eyes, stared at the small flames of the lamp, which seemed to him to tremble more than usual.

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Practically abandoned to himself, marginalized, often away from home and isolated within his family, he was, in turn, conditioned, exploited, and crushed to the breaking point by a world that he did not understand. It certainly wasn’t easy for him, interrupting his studies, always looking for odd jobs; but above all he had succeeded on his own, suffering and paying for the mistakes he made, to reemerge and reconstruct a life of which he was always justly proud—because he had reclaimed it through his own will and practically without anyone’s help. Actually he had received great and remarkable help, though only in an indirect way. Even in the midst of so much misfortune, he had never lost the habit of going to temple regularly, from the time he was very young. That place exercised an irresistible attraction upon him. And then there were the traditional melodies that always filled him with great emotion, even to the point of tears. His eyes, often permeated with a profound sadness—a characteristic that I noticed frequently and that I found again later, almost identically, in the eyes of Dante Lattes—acquired a particular light, limpid and joyous, during the tefillòth. Endowed with an extraordinary voice, he had attracted the attention of the leading figures of the Community, and his services were soon valued and sought-after—even though, during the reading of the parashà, when he had become a bar mizwà, having made only one error (a mistaken accent), his teacher had slapped him on the side and shouted “chamòr!” (donkey) in front of, naturally, the entire congregation.1 His attendance at temple and the requests he received to recite ever more important tefillòth had stirred up a great passion in him for study, and for Jewish study in particular. On his own he threw himself headlong into the study of Hebrew language and tradition. Right next door to where he lived was a large secondhand shop, and among the many odds and ends there were also used Hebrew books. Whenever Jechezqèl, my father, had a little time, he went there to leaf through those old volumes and to try reading his first texts—with the benevolent, tacit approval of the elderly proprietor. When he had his first few pennies to spend, he used them to get some basic books: a Hebrew grammar, a Rashi commentary (which he began to read with difficulty), some tractates of the Mishnà,2 Maimonides, and so on.3 He also practiced writing in Hebrew and very quickly became an accomplished sofèr

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(scribe). Writing with goose feathers—which were certainly plentiful in that courtyard since it may have been the most important commercial center for goose salami in Piedmont—became his specialty. He got himself a specially made metal tool, and with the help of a simple pair of scissors he could artfully shape these goose feathers into pen nibs, giving them the proper edge, depending on whether he wanted to write in small or large characters. Studying in order to learn, to know always more, without any other end than that of becoming ever more familiar with the Torà and the traditional teachings—that became the main purpose of his life for many years. He was also a salesman—first traveling by bicycle, then by train, through the towns and cities of Piedmont—always bringing along in his bag something to eat and a Hebrew book to study in spare moments. He didn’t overlook books on Jewish philosophy and mysticism either. The Zóhar (Splendor) and the commentaries of Rambam and of Abravanel attracted him especially.4 He would turn for help to the rabbi of the Community or of other cities where he happened to be, or to other scholars, whenever he found himself faced with some unusual difficulty; but he was, above all, an autodidact—one of those undoubtedly exceptional people who are capable of achieving extraordinary results. When he presented himself before a rabbinical commission to attain the title of rabbi (as was the custom at that time), urged on by the Community for obvious reasons but filled with great trepidation, he aroused the unconditional admiration of all the members of the commission. He had been told up until then that he displayed a certain deficiency in the materials that were defined as “civil” (as if the Jewish ones were “uncivil”); but he was given the title, and with top marks, because he fully deserved it. That rabbinical title, which he received with emotion and as a call to persevere in learning (which he then did for his entire life, with ever greater commitment), ought to have been a cause of great bitterness for him. But we will speak of that later. When he met my mother he already had a certain standing in the Community as chazzàn, shochèth (ritual slaughterer), and teacher. In addition he continued to study and to carry out his work as a salesman with moderate success. In short, he was in a position to marry and set up

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house and was very eager to do so after having suffered so much from the lack of a complete family since his earliest childhood. His mother—my grandmother—whom he would always recall with reverence, had spent her life, often fruitlessly, raising the children. The memory of his father, whom he had not known, was always present in his mind and in his heart. No photograph of him existed—not even a gravestone, which maybe had never been put up, at the cemetery. I remember that on the eve of Kippùr, the anniversary of my grandfather’s death, my father would take us to the old cemetery and at a particular place on the grass, without gravestones and full of depressions, he would stop and say, “Grandfather is buried here,” and recite the customary prayers. If, as it is said, parents are esteemed and honored by others because of the merits of their children who honor them, then one can understand how well I, too, loved this grandfather whom I had never met. Mother, who was already forewoman in the spinning mill, was happy to leave this work, even though it had opened up other job possibilities for her—and all the more so because from then on she would only have to concern herself with the home. It was very amusing to hear Mother tell stories about the early years of their marriage. Her words were simple, precise, and not lacking in color, because they were animated by a touch of humor and sharp folk wisdom. When Father was present, the scene was even more entertaining. Mother, proceeding with her story, would often glance at him furtively, and he would remain silent, sometimes shaking his head slightly or turning his gaze upward, as if to beg forgiveness for what he was hearing. He limited himself to underscoring the conversation with an “Oh, indeed” at the oddest places. Mother (I called her Mémi) would say, “Believe me, at first times were difficult. Not that we lacked anything—no. But imagine—when I arrived here, your father had actually bought me a small hat with flowers—something that I’d never worn in my life—because, he said (and here a paternal ‘Oh, indeed’), I mustn’t make a bad impression on the ladies of the Community. Then things got a little better, but it took some doing—you know what a hard head I have—overcoming another major problem. (‘Oh, indeed.’) Can you imagine it? Papà spent entire nights—I say entire nights—until dawn, studying the Torà! For a while I put up with it,

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I acted as if it were nothing (‘Oh, indeed’), but then I began to worry about his health and, naturally, the family. You also know that I don’t ever hold anything back (‘Oh, indeed, indeed’), and so one fine evening I say to him, ‘We can’t go on like this any longer; who did you marry, me or the Torà? I’m asking you simply: what do you have in mind? Do you want to become a rabbi or not? If you go on like this, I’m going back to my spinning mill.’” Saying this, she would hit the palm of her hand on the table adamantly. “Well then,” she would conclude, clapping her hands together like a little girl who is enjoying herself and is pleased to have succeeded in solving a riddle, “and didn’t he actually become a rabbi?” These, my mother’s stories, gently underscored my father’s commitment to study—a commitment that certainly did not end with attaining the title—even though the tasks related to his rank increased and there was no slackening in the objections that now began to arrive even from a part of the Jewish world beyond the narrow circle of the local community. It would take too long to try to reconstruct that endless routine of study, of doing without, of eyes ruined by candlelight in order to save on the electric light bill, just as it would to lay out the general outline of the structure and organization of rabbinical studies in Italy at that time (though it would certainly be interesting). There were two important and official institutes, one in Florence and one in Livorno, which my father could only dream of attending. When, many years later, I enrolled in the Rabbinical College of Rome (the one in Florence, which had been moved to the capital), I remember that my father was greatly pleased, as if it were not me but he himself who had enrolled and was ready to go. He said to me, “As you can see, in this instance, too, one lives on through one’s children. Today you can do what I only dreamed of doing. But basically it amounts to the same thing, because after so many years you are fulfilling my dream and in the best way—having the good fortune to become the student of renowned teachers.” These, my father’s words, remained so impressed upon my mind and in my heart that I repeated them in their essence on two unusual occasions. The first was at the cemetery, near the grave of my father, who had died in 1941. Finding myself there with my brothers, immediately after

fig. 11. Augusto Segre during his first visit to the Western Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem, September 1970. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

the end of the war, I heard my voice saying, “Papà, you didn’t see the end of the Nazi-fascist barbarism, but your children have seen it, and it is as if you have seen it, too.” The second time was when I found myself with my son, Dani, in Jerusalem for the first time, in front of the wall of the Temple. By what merit had I had the good fortune to see that wall and to touch those stones that had been the dream of so many Jews for centuries? And why had my father, who was certainly more deserving than I, not had the joy and the emotion of seeing that wall so laden with history, suffering, and age-old hopes? At that moment I remembered those same words, and in Hebrew I said, “Papà, you’re here now, with me and in me. At this moment you’re seeing, through my eyes, this unforgettable landscape, and we’re experiencing the same emotion together.” My son looked at me in silence; he heard my words and let me give way to my tears. Then he put his hand on my shoulder and lovingly but firmly said, “Enough now. You have a lot to do. Let’s go.” I followed him obediently, seeing in him the continuation of generations of our people. He, who now lives in Israel, was also fulfilling the dream of his grandfather Jechezqèl.

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It is true: the conflicts between these two institutes and the commissions that granted rabbinic titles—carrying on an ancient tradition, after all—went on at length and often bitterly, because it was also true that sometimes such titles were granted too readily. Skimming through the “Album Containing the Prose, Poetry, Thoughts, and Opinions of Various Writers Compiled by the Editor, Cavalière F. Servi, on the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Vessillo israelitico” (1903), one might well marvel at some sixty-five photographs of “rabbis” whose titles go from “Head Rabbi” to “Rabbi” to “Vice-Rabbi” to “Honorary Rabbi.” On the other hand, it is just as true that there were scholars like my father—humbly yet earnestly committed, and in such a way as to be able to achieve intensely active Jewish lives, completely and self-consciously, appropriate to the level of learning that they had achieved, and thus to serve as models for others, maybe at a higher and nobler level than some other rabbis, even if they had received their degrees from these two institutes that were undeniably renowned for their glorious traditions. Thus it was that my father, having ascended, as one said, to the chair of Moses, quickly found himself having to fight on two fronts. One was internal, made up of assimilated Jews; for them my father was too tied to the traditions, too intransigent, too much a “slave” of the mizwòth, who “would have liked to force them on everyone, even the liberals,” as it was rumored in the Community. “Liberal” was really just a euphemism for “assimilated”—a word that was hard for the upstanding local bourgeoisie to stomach. From outside the Community the validity of his title was questioned (though not by everyone). In fact, when he assumed the position of rabbi officially, after decades of intense work in his Community, the official rabbinate turned up its nose with aristocratic condescension, and someone even took the trouble to go investigate his program of study carefully. For their part the Community leaders found themselves faced with a rabbi who, according to them, professed “too much Torà,” and who—and this was no less serious—did not have a degree, not even from a Swiss university. The latter was a grave diminutio capitis, partly because the new rabbi occupied a pulpit that the pick of the degreed rabbis had held.5 And for these reasons the Community leaders took advantage of every opportunity, sometimes even coarsely, to make their

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unyielding opposition felt. The fact that that pulpit had been occupied by Rabbi Salomone Olper—who had all his papers in order but who had publicly kissed the cross in Piazza San Marco in Venice in the name of Italian unity—was one more reason for pride for the Community.6 In that gesture—which was irrational and particularly appalling in a rabbi— they saw instead a symbol of broad-mindedness, of liberalness in the interpretation of tradition, an attitude they thought should have been an example for all the spiritual leaders of the Mosaic religion. When, with Emancipation, the walls of the ghettos came crashing down, assimilation had entered Jewish homes with the fury of a flood. Many teachers, with their persevering, patient work, and the Zionist movement—which, in Italy, as propagated by Lattes, meant a return to Judaism even before a return to Zion—served to stem the damage of this flood only partially. Fascism revived and reinvigorated the race toward spiritual annihilation. Young people maintained, above all, that the “old ones” had already had their time, as had their ideas, which were altogether old and obsolete. What mattered now was the Fatherland and being equal to others in every way. Later, when the murderous wave of fascist and Nazi persecution swept away every trace of Jewishness without pity, maybe even the young could understand their Jewish reality better. But the gas chambers did not permit them any second thoughts.

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the new rabbi was scrutinized closely during his first sermon, as he was again afterward, every time he spoke in the Holy Temple. The local “intelligentsia” would sit in utter silence, uninterested, as if they had nothing to do with what was going on; but actually they were waiting for a battle or some greatly hoped-for amusement. During the sermon they would exchange quick, sly, knowing looks, and slight traces of ironic comments would appear on their lips. Something like a wave of student energy would spread across those long-since mature faces and over that white hair; this would happen when the rabbi’s style was, in their opinion, not quite perfect or when it was composed of old-fashioned expressions. But my father was concerned with saying what he thought in the simplest and clearest way, without worrying at all about stylistic or literary features, and above all with communicating, even to his listeners who had university degrees, something Jewish—of which, undoubtedly, they had great need. But it must also be said that when my father tackled some unusual topic—out of which new ideas and intensely engaging concepts, with appropriate biblical or Talmudic1 citations, would emerge—then one would witness a widespread and sudden metamorphosis. Now, in place of smirks and furtive glances, the faces turned serious, absorbed in following the sermon. Immediately one could observe the nods of agreement, almost in chorus, as if to make it understood that interesting things were being discussed—even though they themselves already knew all about them (although, in fact, they had just heard them for the first time). At this point the “game” shifted, because they engaged each other, so to

fig. 12. Augusto Segre’s father, Rabbi Ezechiele Segre, in the synagogue of Casale Monferrato. Date unknown. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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speak, in a competition to see who would be the first to display his approval. My father got a big kick out of it, and he would remark, “They never change. It’s the vice of the profession. Even in things like this they don’t want to give up being first in the class. If only they were like this about daily Jewish life.” Disagreements, of greater or lesser seriousness, were never lacking. Classical studies was always the preferred target; basically it was the only edge they could exploit to their own advantage. Problems that were no less complex arose when the Community had to present itself, in the person of its religious leader, before the non-Jewish world on the occasion of special public ceremonies. Among these the most emblematic—and in the end the funniest—was when His Majesty the King came to Casale to unveil the war memorial, the work of the famous fellow-townsman sculptor Bistolfi.2 My father, as the highest religious authority of the Jewish Community, had received the official invitation to attend the solemn ceremony—and, naturally, to sit on the royal platform. We soon learned that an extraordinary session of the Jewish Community Council had been held. The problem was this: was the presence of the rabbi really necessary, or was it possible to find some valid justification with which to circumvent his participation? It was not an easily solved problem because it was known that my father would not let himself be persuaded readily, nor would he agree to declaring himself ill for the event. Among the various questions that troubled the council members, this one was certainly not minor: “And if His Majesty the King were to engage the rabbi in conversation—a hypothesis that cannot be dismissed a priori—and if he were to ask the rabbi a question—what would happen?” Just such a query was put to my father—in a friendly way and in private—by the president himself. One morning, at the end of the tefillà, he had linked arms with his spiritual leader and had spoken to him apart, in a low voice, as one does when dealing with confidential matters between good friends. My father had responded, “I don’t see any problem. If His Majesty asks me a question, well then, I’ll answer!” The council’s worries and anxieties grew. The final decision—rather clear-cut and specific in spite of some opposition—was that the rabbi had to be present: “We must, at all costs,

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avoid making a bad impression; we’re all in this together.” Maybe this decision was also reached because it seems that someone had raised a no less serious problem: “The absence of the rabbi, which would undoubtedly be noted—the bishop yes, the rabbi no—could that not possibly cast some doubt on our loyalty to the House of Savoy?” The council having overcome this first stumbling block, another, no less complicated, presented itself. Was it a misgiving that emerged in the course of those extraordinary sessions, or was it instead suggested by one of those pleasant ladies, the wife of one of the council members? It is hard for posterity to judge. What history records is that some fifteen days before the ceremony a rather discreet inquiry was launched (which, however, quickly became common knowledge in the Community) to find out as precisely as possible the exact condition of Papà’s wardrobe. “In what clothes would the official representative of the Israelite Community of Casale present himself before the king and all the other civil, military, and religious authorities?” In this case it can be said, frankly, that the concern was, in part, amply justified. It would be hard to imagine that in our house there could possibly be a wardrobe worthy of the House of Savoy. My father refused to take the issue seriously, but not so my mother, who instead showed increasingly conspicuous signs of impatience as the inquiry proceeded. I believe that some lady who had dared to speak to her directly had already received a response—the kind that withers the speaker and leaves her breathless and dumbfounded. Among the other things she had said—so Father told me one day, still amused by her wisecrack—there was also this one (but Mother, though smiling, always flatly denied it): “But he’s hardly going to go there naked! And besides, he’s got the black suit for funerals, and I think that will be perfectly fine for this occasion!” Then, a little at a time, things sorted themselves out. His hat, a bowler, was part of the family patrimony and was approved. He was loaned a “redingote”—a frock or prefect’s coat—from a council member, who was generous on that occasion. His pants and shoes were declared acceptable. The president spontaneously offered a very elegant tie. I’ll leave out the comments that my mother made each time, beginning with, “What a lot of crap for a king . . .”

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The great day arrived. My father, who had been ready for quite a while, solemnly paced up and down the corridor. Pausing every once in a while, he would come to attention and make a slight bow. “It’s the dress rehearsal,” he said to Mother, who had cast a worried look at him. In the meantime the doorbell rang insistently. The wife of one of the council members came in, gasping for breath, carrying a box that she gave Papà, saying to him, “Try them on, Signor Rabbi.” There was a pair of splendid, snow white, leather gloves—something fabulous. My father was pensive, assailed by many doubts. “But is it really necessary?” he asked in a subdued voice, timidly. “Absolutely,” was the definitive response. Meanwhile the kindhearted lady was catching her breath after the long race she had run, and she politely wiped away some droplets of sweat, slightly raising the veil that covered her face. My mother, in her apron, had appeared at the kitchen door with a ladle held in midair and the other arm hanging at her side; silently she watched the scene, after having greeted the lady with a brief nod of her head. The gloves, which he tried on immediately, were perfect. Now, finally (at least formally), the rabbi was ready, and he would not make a bad impression. As she was leaving us the incomparable lady did not forget to mention that the right hand should always remain at the ready, without a glove, for the royal handshake. When we were alone again, my mother commented dryly, “Now you’re perfectly ridiculous.” Shaking her ladle, she turned her back and returned to her kingdom, the kitchen. I believe, though, that in spite of her protests she was very pleased that Papà would participate in such a ceremony and that he would have the chance to meet the king. Her attitude was somewhat like that of the common people—who obviously are not accustomed to the social life that the upstanding bourgeoisie dreams of and longs for and who, on the contrary, make fun of such hopes and dreams. But in the end not even this joking takes anything away from the fascination that this world offers, due partly, perhaps, to the unconscious though naive expectation that any new event could (who knows?) mean an improvement in the situation in which one lives. My father, his hands gloved, made a forlorn

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gesture, took the gloves off, and threw them on the sofa. He slapped his bowler hat, which slid onto his ears, and taking his inseparable mezzo toscano cigar from his pocket, he lit it and returned to his pacing, releasing puffs of smoke with royal hauteur. The meeting with His Majesty, contrary to expectations and fears, was rather brief and perfunctory. The king, having arrived at the central platform, was applauded patriotically. He greeted the arrayed troops with a proper military salute and then, lavishing quick handshakes on the authorities, took his place in front of a golden armchair, at the center of the platform, surrounded by his general staff (made up of generals and colonels), with the prefect and the mayor to the side. From what occurred it is quite clear that the sovereign would suffer himself to admire neither the person of the chief religious leader (to whom he had briefly extended his hand) nor, much less, his so laboriously constructed attire, nor, it must be said, even the magnificent pair of gloves, of which my father made a display. After the music, the speeches, the unveiling of the monument, between the “ahs!” of marvel and admiration (obsequiously expressed in chorus by the most distinguished city and provincial authorities), and after the spontaneous, warm applause for the artist, the sovereign walked the same route again even more quickly, gave a collective wave goodbye, and almost a smile, to the applauding public, got into his car, and disappeared, leaving his faithful Jewish and non-Jewish subjects, who continued to cheer enthusiastically. At home we were all waiting anxiously. We children did not have permission to go out, because, Mother had said, “In these situations all kinds of things can happen, and it’s even possible that bombs could be thrown.” This very precise justification forbidding us from going out had frightened us a great deal, even to the point where we had immediately asked, all together, “And what about Papà, then?” “And him, poor thing,” Mother had responded gloomily. “It’s a matter of duty. He couldn’t do less.” Although my mother’s rather disquieting explanations had made our disappointment and bitterness about not getting permission to go out to see “Papà together with the king” vanish completely, and we were

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now happy to have remained behind, secure within our own four walls, her words had nevertheless increased our apprehensive waiting. When, thank God, Papà returned home, we surrounded him, almost as if he were a soldier returning from a war. (His arrival had been announced by one of us who was on the lookout at the window that had a view onto the street.) One of us felt him to see if he was still whole, while another questioned him to find out if any bombs had exploded and, word for word, how the conversation with His Majesty had gone. Father took off the gloves, the “redingote,” and the bowler hat, all of which ended up helter-skelter on the sofa. He heaved a sigh of relief as he unfastened the metallic button on the starched collar. Mother, already prepared, gave him a cup of hot, aromatic coffee. After drinking it he immediately lit the mezzo toscano, enjoying a little well-deserved rest in his favorite old armchair after that corvée. He looked at us, smiling and pleased, like a student who has successfully passed a difficult exam, and in this case an exam graded not so much by the king and the authorities as by the council and the entire Community. Urged on from all sides, he began to draw us a very detailed picture of the ceremony, the display of the military forces and of the police, the Blackshirts, and the authorities. But we wanted him to come to the point: “And the king, did you talk to him?” “No,” he answered, “that was to be expected, for me like for the others; but what can I tell you? It’s really very unimportant.” Nevertheless, there were also occasions for direct encounters between the rabbi and his Community that were completely different from those mentioned above, as indeed were the relationships created between “our good rabbi” and his coreligionists in these circumstances. In such cases one went to him straightforwardly, with humility and respect—without any worry about whether he knew Greek or Latin or the Tuscan language perfectly and not even whether his clothes were worthy of the rank that he held. This would happen as a result of some happy or sad family event or else when family problems or personal problems of a spiritual nature cropped up—when the conscience posed questions that those with college degrees were not equipped to resolve. My father, out of his innate goodness and openness, was always available, at any hour of the

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day or night, no matter what he was doing. He was close to everyone and never gave the least thought to whatever unpleasantness might have taken place even just a short while before. Often he was able to find exactly the right words and tone of voice, and more than once tears with university degrees fell on his shoulders from someone who embraced him emotionally. One day when we were talking about his community experiences, I asked him about the secret of these successes of his (which were also those that he cherished the most). I heard him repeat, completely unaffectedly, the old maxim that when words come from your heart, they always find their way to the heart of your neighbor. “In your neighbor,” he added, “you’re always sure to find a brother, and a brother—even though he sometimes quarrels with you—nevertheless is always in need of kind and trusting words and deeds. This moment eventually arrives for everyone. It’s only a matter of timing, and then it’s not really such a difficult undertaking if you know how to apply, as you should, the traditional teaching of the Torà, which is that of loving your neighbor. But at base, ‘Love thy neighbor,’ what does it mean? It’s certainly not enough to tell him that you love him—oh no, not that. And,” he added with a pinch of polemics, “it’s very easy to limit oneself to making these kinds of declarations; everyone can make them, even religious people and those who actually don’t feel any affection for their neighbor at all. To love your neighbor, Jewishly speaking, means first of all to know or to try to find out what he needs at a given moment and to do everything possible to help, here and now.” This relationship that he sought to establish with his neighbor—which meant to seek God through one’s neighbor—also pushed him to discover and to maintain a continuous contact with Nature, that pure work of the divine creation. This commitment of his—deeply felt and unaffected, but guided by a clear and precise idea of realizing through action that which faith had taught him—enlarged his inquiries beyond any boundaries. In all of creation—in men as well as in Nature—was the sure, unmistakable imprint of the work of God. “He, the Holy Blessed One,” he said to me, “is everywhere. But remember that you discover Him only there where you seek Him, with honest commitment and with sacrifice. Without this you won’t find

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Him, and it’s as if He didn’t exist.” Hence his attraction to study and to discovering Nature in all its manifestations, wherever it was possible for him. He was stirred by the conviction, which he had gotten from Buber, that the same moral relationship that should exist between human beings should also exist between man and Nature.3 Otherwise—just as it happens that man rebels in the face of injustice—the earth, when it is exploited and made into a tool, rebels against man. Hence the laws of the Torà that sanction the sabbatical rest, the sabbatical year, and the Jubilee—“because [the Lord says] all the land is mine” (Leviticus 25:23). The land is not the property of anyone—neither individuals nor communities; it belongs to God, as do his creatures. One must take care of it and respect it, just as one does with things that have been received on loan. Bearing these teachings of his in mind, it’s easier for me to understand certain of my father’s activities that were seemingly plain and unsophisticated. Now I can understand that he probably went out in search of the divine even when, early in the morning (a little after five during the summer, a bit later in winter), he left for what he more simply called a “hygienic walk”—but maybe it was to be alone in contact with Nature, walking through the still-deserted streets and venturing beyond, to the surrounding countryside. Nor can I exclude a priori the possibility that he was continuing his meditations and his “experiments,” so to speak, even when, on his way back, he would stop at the market to buy some things and speak Piedmontese with the peasants. Sometimes we went for short walks in the nearby countryside. His comments were always joyful: “Look, look at this vast expanse of blue sky, these fields, all this green! Breathe the air deeply! Look at this blade of grass, this leaf ” (which he would caress almost affectionately). “And where do they come from? Aren’t they also direct lines that connect us with the matters of up there?” And he would point skyward with his finger. Our comments as children were very simple: “How pleasant it is to go for walks with Daddy! He’s always so happy and in a good mood!” Only much later, thinking once again about those hikes, did I recognize the great lesson that he offered us with his habitual simplicity, bringing us nearer to truly great and mysterious matters. Among these thoughts

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(even though they were obviously influenced by my love for him) I also asked myself if, by chance, he might not have been one of the làmedwaw—that is, one of the thirty-six (righteous men) who, according to mystical tradition, are hidden in every generation and thanks to whose merits the world continues to exist.4

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First Experiences

when i was a boy one of my favorite pastimes was to go to the public gardens and set myself down in the part with a low boundary wall that bordered on the train station. There were some park benches, and from them, as if from a balcony, comfortably seated, you could see the modest network of the train tracks that disappeared under a bridge, the few trains arriving and leaving (freight trains included), and trains shunting back and forth. I knew all the train schedules by heart. I got to know and became friends with the mechanics and firemen who, as they passed by on the smoking locomotives, waved to me and sometimes threw me sugar beets that were cooked next to the firebox of the engine. The acrid smoke, the smell of coal, the whistle of the locomotive—long, short, insistent—the waving of the red flag by the man who directed the shunting—all of this filled me with joy, giving me a kind of intoxication, and I dreamed of being on a train and looking out the window, marveling at all the cities, and visiting all the countries in the world. Even today, when I travel by train or plane, the memory of that happy boy, alone, sitting on a bench in the public gardens, still dreamily marveling at the passing trains, often comes back to me. The game of soccer quite soon aroused my interest and my passion, and at that point, when I was seventeen and in the second year of the liceo, I was already a correspondent for a sports newspaper, Il Genova sport, receiving as my sole compensation a “journalist” identification card that allowed me to watch the games from the grandstand of the sports field that was named for the great hero of the First World War, Natale Palli. When I was a child, one day I saw the sky filled with airplanes,

fig. 13. The public gardens, Casale Monferrato, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator.

the first that I had seen in my life, the kind that now are admired only in old photos from that era. They were comrades from Palli’s squadron who had come to his native city to render him homage. I stayed there for a long time, with my little nose turned upward, admiring the acrobatics, full of curiosity and also of fear. That sports field was a fabulous world for us boys—not only for the games but for the people we met there and for the soccer players, accompanied by their supporters, who came from the most important cities, even from the capital. My career as a sportswriter, which lasted a couple of years, had a strange beginning, due to the inexplicable attitude taken toward me by my principal (and president of the Community). One day he came into class menacingly shaking an orange newspaper—which couldn’t have been any other than my Genovese newspaper. But who could have given it to him? Maybe the coreligionist news vendor? Coram populo, he went into a tirade against me, showing how and why this, too, could be an instrument that led to the neglect of one’s studies—with the added annoyance that I had written it like a “washerwoman.”1 When I told my father about this unpleasant incident, he said to me, amused, “Your principal

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said to me, ‘It’s a good article, well written, but I have to intercede for reasons of “educational discipline.”’” What those reasons were, I have never been able to understand. Not far from where a classmate of mine—with whom I spent a lot of time studying—lived, there was an excellent sports field with standard playing fields for soccer, basketball, volleyball, and bocce, right next to the church. When our lessons were done we would—often and readily— pop in at that sports center. I went there quite gladly, partly because I was always welcomed by the priests with particular warmth and friendliness. Maybe they knew whose son I was. My father, aware of these sports activities of mine, never said anything to me—he just waited. I myself, on one occasion, asked myself how it could be that at this sports center every wish I had was immediately accommodated, thanks to the indulgent, timely intervention of some priest, even when it was natural and fair that I, having arrived at the last moment, could not be added to a team that was already formed and would have to wait my turn, like everyone else. With a friendly, conciliatory tone he would turn to the group, saying, “Come on, let our friend play, too.” Then one time I was approached by a young priest who asked me if I had ever had the occasion to visit the church, so beautiful and full of charm, he affirmed with much fervor. Since I had never thought about it, he took me by the arm and led me into the church, explaining to me all the artistic details and some aspects of the liturgy. I returned home and told my father that from then on I would no longer go to that field to play because that tour and all that attention reserved solely for me had bothered me a lot. My father agreed, commenting, “I’m glad to see that you’ve begun to use your own head.” If it is true that experience can teach something, I have to say that contact with the non-Jewish world furnished me with some of these opportunities. And I can also say that this type of experience began very early, starting with elementary school. For example, when the teacher gave santini as prizes, she would give me a pen nib or pencil, saying, “To your classmate, who is an Israelite, I’m giving this instead.”2 Certainly one should not underrate the faultless, fair behavior of the teacher, but the fact is that on those occasions everyone who still held a santino in their hands turned their gaze toward me, as if it were the first time they

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were aware of my presence. And maybe someone also thought with annoyance that my treatment was privileged. I don’t know, but subjected to those stares, I had the sensation of being an alien in that class. Besides sports, there was the cinema, another destination with strong attraction. But this was an entertainment with a family character, inasmuch as we went to the movies all together, only on Saturday evenings and only if “we’d been good” during the week. It was, basically, a kind of reward. Television didn’t yet exist, although there was already the radio with its enormous horn; but it was a luxury we could not afford. Only much later were we able to get a very good, secondhand Dutch radio, with which I finally succeeded in picking up transmissions in Italian from London, just a few minutes before, in 1938, agents of the state police came to sequester the device, which had been prohibited to citizens of the Jewish race. One evening, at the close of the Sabbath, we were on our way to the movie theater when we ran into a group of hotheaded fascists who were roaming the streets, singing at the top of their voices, looking for victims, and armed with the most strangely shaped truncheons. Among those bullies’ shouts, all of a sudden we also heard insults against the Jews and a cheer in unison of “Long live the ghetto!” The return home was immediate and unopposed by anyone. It was on that occasion that our father began talking to us about anti-Semitism. Of course one can’t speak of the anti-Semitism of those days as one would speak of it today, in its different aspects, even the political. Still there were, as I have already had occasion to recall, sporadic displays, most often individual, that burst forth just like that, as if an old and forgotten tradition had suddenly, irrationally, surfaced again. All anti-Semitism, at any rate, is the result of irrationality. Maybe it was a vestige of outbursts, of what had been passed on unconsciously from father to son; it was “just a way of talking”—as we said—“but without meaning any harm.” But this way of talking was always ready at hand when someone was ill-disposed toward any Jew for any reason whatsoever. The old-timers told me that in Casale during Holy Week, following the Christian tradition, groups of youths would roam the Jewish quarter, making a racket with rattles and hurling insults against the Jews. Every-

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one retreated to their homes to avoid the worst. By my time this tradition had already disappeared. At school, on the other hand, some signs of this nineteenth-century anti-Semitism were cropping up again. It still happened that when students wanted to upset a Jew, they would surround him, each of them folding a corner of his jacket in the shape of an ear and shaking it, shouting in chorus, “Abrei, ureggia ’d to pare” (Jews, your father’s ear), alluding to the pig. I myself was often the intended victim. Where did those kids pick up such nonsense? Sometimes the ridicule ended there; other times, instead, it came to blows and punches, and stones were thrown. Keeping in mind my father’s teachings, according to which a Jew should always know how to defend himself and never suffer insults or blows passively, I once faced a group of these boys alone, and the confrontation ended in stone throwing—and badly for me. I arrived home in a rather pitiful state—my jacket in tatters, my school bag and books in pretty bad shape, scratched, bruised, and with a big lump on the right side of my forehead from a stone that fortunately had only grazed me. After all, it could have been worse. My father, seeing me in that condition, was anxious and almost ran to meet me. Concerned, he asked me, “What happened?” My voice breaking with emotion and breathless from running, I answered, “You always say that a Jew should know how to defend himself—” “Yes, that’s true, but what happened?” “Well then, here I am. I defended myself.” And I burst into tears, from the pain in my forehead and because, after all, I was upset. My father hugged me. “Bravo,” he said to me. “You did the right thing.” For me school was the first, vast domain of my experience, partly because the system then in use gave the impression that school ought to be our entire world. Just once a very capable teacher gave us a brief but extremely useful lecture that partially opened our eyes to the reality of this world: “Children,” he said to us, “life—what’s waiting for you—it isn’t here, on these desks, but just beyond the door of this classroom. Study, of course, but bear in mind that school only offers you some tools for learning how to live. It’s up to you—and I wish you well—to succeed or fail!”

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But our situation as students in those years also depended on our families’ circumstances. Poor families were convinced that to have a title and to succeed in getting a university degree, even with great sacrifices, meant (and according to them there was no other way) to break loose from a milieu of deprivation and humiliation—to change one’s social and economic status. Every one of their sons had to become a homus novus, and they spurred us on and helped us, but also threatened us.3 “If you don’t study, I’ll put you to work as a hod-carrier,” which was the lowest, most exhausting job for boys, who climbed up and down rickety wooden ladders from morning to evening carrying dry mortar to the masons. I received these threats, too. Preschool was the only interlude of Jewish school life spent with Jewish schoolmates. From elementary school on, except for some small incidents, I didn’t have too much trouble as a Jew; but I shouldn’t forget that the ginnasio and the liceo had a Jew—the president of the Community—as the principal. Still, there was no lack of problems, but of another kind. At the preschool, where we spent almost the entire day under the lovingly Jewish guidance of the elderly Signora Sofìa, and then her daughter, Sansonina (both of whom, with great skill and maternal devotion, lived only for this little school), I learned to write in Italian and Hebrew. Hence my first successes when I entered public school. Punctually at noon we passed over to the care of the school attendant, Rusìn, the sister of “the Marshal,” and lunch arrived. The anticipation was always rather intense, not only because of our appetites but because we wanted to see which of our families would have sent something for the attendant, too, for whom lunch regularly consisted of a slice of bread with a little oil and salt. In the afternoon came the inevitable story from Rusìn, which was usually the same one, and at that point we knew it by heart, so we were quick to join in with prospective variations, which she sometimes incorporated. This was the story of a trip made many years earlier (and maybe the only one in her whole life) on a little local train, with a sparkling copper boiler, which traveled around the countryside, climbing the hills of the Monferrato with difficulty. The two most interesting points of the story were, first, the description of her magnificent white dress, all of

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lace, true or imaginary as it may have been, because often even someone who is poor—truly poor—dreams of things that are all the more beautiful for being all the more unattainable; and, second, the dramatic scene with a demijohn of red wine that was smashed during the return trip, irredeemably ruining that masterpiece of a dress, which from the whitest of white seemed, after the accident, as if it had become spotted with blood. A few minutes of absolute silence would follow the conclusion of that trip, and then, almost whispered, there were a few words, always the same, that we children were unable to connect with the preceding facts. Still, there must have been some connection: “I, too, could have married, but my family didn’t want it. He wasn’t one of ours, and Papà and Mamma were right.” Her expression became sad, and the old school attendant looked outside, through the glass, maybe dreaming of a real, white wedding dress that she had never been able to wear. The elementary grades, with Thursdays and Sundays off, exactly as in the story of Pinocchio, were in a large, old building that overlooked the Piazza Castello—which was actually an open space, dominated at the back, toward the Po, by a fortification that maintained the plan created by the Gonzagas toward the end of the 1500s. The patronal festival of Saint Joseph on March 19 meant spring was near—even if there was still a little snow sometimes—and already the air was warmer and there was the perfume of the first violets. The Piazza Castello became the center of every kind of business and entertainment. On one side the animal market, and on the other the marvels of the fair. In the middle of the bustling crowds that came down from the neighboring towns, there was the smell of sweets, the astonishment at the cotton candy, the white rocking horses on the merry-go-rounds (with a hundred faceted and sparkling glass panes) that spun around, without stopping, to the rhythm of Verdi’s music (like “Libiam, libiam sui lieti calici”), target shooting—just for the photograph, which only the best were able to win—and miracle of miracles, the circus, with clowns, trained horses, seals, and ferocious beasts.4 These were all things that I never got tired of looking at, passing from one tent to the other and contenting myself, most of the time, with what I was able to see from the outside since there was never very much spending money.

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But for me on that day a fairy, so to speak, arrived—even if he did have a mustache and wore the cap of a veteran Alpine soldier—my balio.5 Coming from Vignale Monferrato, a village set on a hill not far from Casale, he would arrive around seven in the morning, leaving again toward evening, because “the heavy city traffic” bothered him. I was ready in a few minutes, and when we departed it was still cool; for me a long, memorable day had begun. The first visit was to the animal, fertilizer, and agricultural equipment market. I would begin being entertained by watching the bargaining between sellers and buyers, which sometimes seemed to deteriorate into a fight; but a mediator was always at the ready, and after no small effort he would convince the two parties to shake hands, and then the contract was sealed. Then there was the colored balloon, the first gift from my balio, who haggled over the price and went to two or three different vendors, but in the end, tied to my wrist, the balloon floated toward the sky and filled me with joy. A little later soda pop, “bicycle” as it was called, with a small glass ball that you had to press down in order to open the little bottle; this was virtually a ritual because I had to drink it, even if it was cold out or rainy. My balio watched me with a pleased look while I drank—he who would never have tasted even a drop of soda pop in his life, habitually occupied as he was with his barbera wine. In the afternoon, after dinner at home, we went out again for the most important event of the day—the circus! It could not be said that my balio followed the different acts on the program with attention and suspense equal to mine. By that time he already had somewhat of a blank expression, and he dozed off, thanks partly to the barbera, which, at any rate, he carried quite well. He confined his entertainment to enjoying my entertainment. Every once in awhile he would nudge me with his elbow, thrusting his arm out from under his large black cloak, and ask me, “Do you like it? Are you having a good time?” I, who wouldn’t take my eyes off the spectacle for even a moment, limited myself to nodding yes with my head. After a while he would lean his head and doze off. “Bagonghi” (a clown), the feats on the trapeze that made us hold our breath, and at the end, always eagerly awaited, the wild animals and the final shot from the blank-firing revolver that raised a collective howl from the children.

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My balio would wake up, look at me smiling, and say to me, “Don’t be afraid; they do it on purpose.” But I always was a little afraid, and the stories that I told at home afterward had all the flavor of those told by someone who has taken part in a safari. The balio and the balia were kind, unpretentious people who had taken me into their family when I was a few days old because my mother didn’t have any milk, and at that time the bottle was considered almost poison for newborns. Maybe my passion for the countryside came from this. When I was a partisan for almost two years the countryside came back to me like a faithful companion, and during the long marches among the grapevines I often regained the childlike joy and serenity of those years that were already so distant. I often went back to the village where I had learned to take my first steps. Bocce matches and tetherball were the main forms of entertainment. Everyone knew me as “the Jew.” I didn’t like this, and I often spoke about it to my balio, who would say to me gently, “Let it go! You’re not a Christian like the rest of us, and don’t I treat you like a son?” Then he would slap me in a fatherly way on the shoulder, a little roughly, but always very affectionately. The ginnasio. The admission exam went very well, and in the temple I received coram populo, the congratulations of the president/principal. My father was very happy. In September of 1925, a little before the beginning of the school year, an event was announced that turned the whole city upside down: Mussolini would be coming on an official visit. It was the eve of Kippùr, and never, as on that day, was my father so happy not to be available—because he was busy with his most important religious teaching. There was even a visit scheduled to the Balbo Ginnasio-Liceo. The principal was responsible for the official remarks. Every one of us students had received a personal invitation, which was also a pass. A riot of pennants and fanfares, and then Il Duce, in those days still wearing spats and a frock coat, entered, giving us, the youngest students, one of his sunny waves and smiles. Immediately afterward we were almost swept away by the crowd and pushed into a corner of the courtyard, under the portico. Near a window, where I went to collect myself, I heard two students talking. I realized

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that they were third-year liceo students.6 The conversation was agitated, in low voices, but I was able to hear it: “Is it possible,” one of them said, “to continue to put up with this government, this dictator, who’s abolished every freedom—” “Are you crazy?” the other one said. “Won’t you shut up?” “Shut up? And the assassination of Matteotti? Have you forgotten that? I’d like to shoot him.”7 And saying this he had moved his hand toward his pants pocket. The other one grabbed his arm, and saying to him, “You’ve really gone mad. You’ll come to a bad end, you and yours,” he was able to pull him away and make his way through the crowd with difficulty. When I got home I told my father, among other things, about this episode, too. He stared at me, frightened, and said stiffly, in a tone that was unusual to me, “Forget everything that you heard. Absolutely don’t speak a word of it to anyone. You have to promise me!” I said yes, and I promised, but at the time I couldn’t understand his tone of voice or the startled consternation that I had never before seen on his face. Ginnasio—beautiful and ugly years, so long as to seem never-ending, oppressed by Latin, Greek, and syntax; and in between one year and another the no-less-lengthy and suffocating summer vacations. But maybe the worst torment for me was the examination to which I was regularly subjected in the form of an interrogation by the principal/president. From the first year of ginnasio to the third year of liceo, and thus for a good eight years, at least twice a year, a meeting between us took place in the principal’s office, and it never strayed from the same theme. Called out of class by the school attendant in the middle of a lesson, I would present myself in the principal’s office ad audiendum.8 The conversation, which I already knew by heart, unfolded according to a fixed pattern. At first, after having taken off his glasses (which he often brandished with one hand during the meeting), he would scrutinize me for a few seconds with a very severe expression, and then, in a somewhat dramatic tone, he would begin: “I saw your grades for the first two months—we’re doing poorly, very poorly.”

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“But, Signor Principal, truly—” “Truly what?” he would press on, implacable, with a tone of voice that was growing steadily louder. “I meant that it seems to me—” “Ah! Ah!” he would say with a forced, almost ferocious laugh. “It’s not going poorly, eh? And the four in mathematics?”9 That was the rub, and it was difficult to respond—not only because it was true but because it was a situation that lasted for almost eight years. During several of the two-month grading periods the four appeared regularly and then turned into a six or seven by the end of the year. All this was due to the fact that my relationship with the mathematics teacher, who had the same last name as I did, had always been, who knows why, somewhat tense—especially after the time when, hearing her say that “I wasn’t worthy of carrying her surname,” I had replied with a phrase that might have been a little impertinent and that cost me two days of suspension: “It’s not my fault, and it’s not to your credit.” But the dialogue with the principal would continue and come to its conclusion, which was also predictable: “How many times do I have to tell you that Jews have always distinguished themselves here? Either bring your grades above the average in a dignified way, or I’ll expel you from the institute, and before the end of the year!” And repeatedly saying “I’ll expel you,” louder each time, he pointed the way to the door for me with his hand. Actually the principal’s monitoring of me was continuous, and at home the news of my academic conduct got to my father even before it got to me, since he met with his president almost every day. In the fourth and fifth years of ginnasio there was a teacher of great worth, Professor Sisto.10 He demanded the utmost discipline and made us study with great diligence, but he had our sincere goodwill because of his honest and humane treatment, even if it was harsh (though more so in appearance than in reality). He had the face of a peasant (he came from Mirabello), white hair cut Umberto-style, and his mezzo toscano cigar was always lit (even during classes); he was a resolute antifascist.11 A history textbook written in a tortuous and incomprehensible style had been imposed in place of another textbook, the work of a Jewish author who

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was hated by the regime. The teacher walked up and down the classroom, exhaling large clouds of smoke; then all at once he stopped, took the cigar between his thumb and his index finger to get our attention, drew near to the closest desk, and lowering his tone of voice, said, “Kids, there is a solution. Listen.” And then he stopped and looked around, a little uncertain. But he immediately resumed: “This book isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Buy that old one, which is very good. But be careful—we have to all be in agreement, we have to keep this secret as if we were conspirators, and—” A unanimous “Yes!” full of enthusiasm, drowned out his words. “Good, good,” he said. “We’ll buy the old textbook, and we’ll keep the new one undercover, and whenever anyone comes—” “All right!” was the unanimous, joyful response. “But there’s still another detail: who among you will take on the task, obviously with great discretion, of buying all the copies we need, and that way getting us a discount, too?” General silence. The teacher took a look around, studying us one at a time, and then, pointing his finger at me, said, “You, young man, do you feel up to it?” Feeling rather excited about the first “secret mission” that I had been entrusted with in my life, I answered, “Of course.” The teacher, whom I approached about three classmates who did not have the necessary money, gave me the amount out of his own pocket. Never before had history classes been followed with greater enthusiasm. We felt like conspirators, bound close together by a “historic” pact. Liceo. We grew, and maybe we matured. But school continued to be practically the only place we had in common. Outside of school there were only sports and the usual fascist demonstrations, which I normally avoided. When Prince Umberto escaped from an attack while he was in Brussels with his fiancée, there was a great torchlight procession through the streets of the city. All the students had been recruited, so to speak. I, too, held a flaming torch, which I suddenly felt wrenched from my hand, while the unmistakable voice of the principal said to me, under his breath, “Go to the scola to make a miniàn; I can’t come.” Pagliano, the professor of Greek and Latin, was exceptionally intel-

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ligent and highly educated, with a rare gift for exposition—he later became a highly regarded lawyer. Young and modern, he still had a certain student spirit and knew how to maintain discipline and preserve friendly relations with the students at the same time. He would play ball with us during recess quite often. He was very close to us, he helped us, and he advised us with great care, like a brother, during preparations for the third-year liceo exam. Professor Gerbaz, history and philosophy. He was committed to teaching, as if he were on a religious mission. He often looked toward the ceiling, inspired, maybe expecting that the Lord would help him in this, his worldly mandate. When he was explaining something, he usually roamed around the classroom, often rising on his tiptoes, as if he were being lifted by the force of his thoughts, holding a piece of chalk tightly between his thumb and index finger so as to be ready to make notes on the blackboard. Kant and the blackboard kept him and us very busy. He filled entire blackboards with outlines, virtually holding his breath; then, with a smile of relief, he would turn to us, asking, “Did you understand it?” Our collective “No!” would hit him like a hook to the chin, and he would seem to stagger. But he would recover quickly, shake his head slightly, and with a measured voice say, “Well then, it doesn’t matter, we’ll start over.” Passionately devoted to Augustinian philosophy (he made us read, in their entirety, the thirteen books of the Confessions), he would often turn, in his comments, to this illustrious representative of the Church Fathers. I am indebted to the patristics of Augustine for a few days of vacation, or more accurately, of suspension from classes. I was being tested orally about his life, and I began: “Augustine was born—” “Say Saint Augustine,” he had immediately interrupted me with a faint smile. “Excuse me, but when he was born he wasn’t yet a saint.” Thus the conversation was a little difficult. But things got worse when, speaking about original sin, I referred back to Tertullian, according to whom souls were transmitted by traducem, and I proposed that in this way it would be possible to transmit this sinful stain in an almost natural way.12 But then in my reply I asked the teacher how we could reconcile this with

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Augustine, according to whom souls are the direct creation of the Lord. “Can God,” I asked, “create something that isn’t perfect?” He listened to me indulgently, smiled, stretched out his hands almost as if to absolve me of this heresy, looked at me with an air of paternal compassion, and said, “I’ll give you an example. A king realizes that a minister has betrayed him. What does he do? He banishes him from the court—but all of his family with him, too. Is that clear?” “I would say no,” I pressed on with reckless impudence, “partly because with this example you attribute to the Lord, who is perfect in an absolute sense, the feelings, passions, and injustices that are really those of just any king.” The bomb exploded unintentionally. The teacher evidently felt himself caught in a vise between religion, philosophy, and politics—we were then living under the glorious reign of the House of Savoy. He turned red in the face, became almost purple, banged his fist on the lectern (something that was completely unusual for him), and shouted, almost stammering, “Get out, get out! I’m not a missionary, but I can’t accept such foolish and disrespectful remarks.” I have always had the impression that this response of his had very little to do with philosophy. Azelia Arici was the Italian teacher that I remember with particular affection because of how well she was able to communicate with her innumerable students and because of her teaching methods. She stood out, in fact, for her sensitivity and her human warmth (even though she might have seemed “rigid” at times in certain of her opinions), for her painstaking and vigilant care in textual criticism, and for the wise moderation of her comments, which aimed for the essential, avoiding every form of rhetoric. This, in the middle of the fascist regime, was her teaching system for educating us to reason and to judge with our own minds. During my first year of university, in Rome, having learned that she was a member of an examination board for the liceo graduation exam, I went to look her up at the same institute where the orals took place. She received me rather coldly. I waited patiently until she finished the tests. Barely out the door, having walked only a short way, she stopped suddenly and said to me very stiffly, “And now, let’s settle it; out with the name of the student that you want to put in a good word for.”

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I looked at her smiling. “I didn’t come to put in a good word for anyone. I came simply for the pleasure of saying hello to you.” Her face lit up with joy; she was moved. She took me by the arm and wanted to buy me a coffee. Thus we started talking about the old Balbo Liceo in Casale. The third year of liceo. By that time we were almost on the doorstep of the university, and consequently ties to the school had become more and more insufferable. Once there were two days of vacation with one day of school in between. On the day on which there were classes we decided—right in front of the entrance to the school—to go to the nearby café and play ping-pong instead. Later on each of us would try to come up with his own alibi. My father, having been apprised of the situation, expressed his disapproval of our behavior when I got home, using the voi form, which was the ultimate sign of his disappointment.13 He spoke of the lack of responsibility, and the thing ended there. Not so at school, where the principal transformed himself into a private policeman and got very busy, interrogating everyone separately, one at a time, several times. Then at a certain point someone must have spilled the beans, even naming the names of the rebels. The principal came in like a fury, spoke his mind to each of us, and lashed out at me with a venomous, “And you? Do you know what you are? You’re a hypocrite!” Surprised, crushed, and sickened, I looked to Professor Pagliano, who was present and remained silent; but with his eyes he seemed to beckon to me to stay calm. Expelled with the others, at home I recounted what had happened. My father commented, “You were wrong, and I’ve already told you so, and clearly; but him, him—do you see where assimilation and disrespect for Jewish matters lead?” No one spoke about it any more, but I noticed that relations between the rabbi and the president were a bit chilly for several days. Almost certainly my father had not been silent, and he had spoken his mind.

c h a p t er s i x

Casalese Anti-Zionism

il vessillo israelitico was published in Casale beginning in 1874, edited by Head Rabbi Flaminio Servi of Pitigliano, the same small Tuscan town where Dante Lattes was also born, in 1876.1 It is curious to observe how two rabbis who took positions that were so different and yet so committed, regarding Judaism, and Zionism in particular, came out of this small Community. The Vessillo was the periodical that exalted the devotion, loyalty, and dedication of Italians of the Israelite faith toward the House of Savoy and the Italian homeland—the philanthropic acts of coreligionists who were Cavalieri, Commendatori, industrialists, and professionals, and who were distinguished for their generosity not only toward the Community but also toward the parish closest to their homes, with donations from the living and substantial bequests from the dead. No event or news was overlooked as an opportunity to argue (maybe to convince themselves more than others) that by then there was no longer any difference or discrimination between the Jews and the rest of the population. In reading the Vessillo today one comes upon a certain mood, one that is almost funny and that overwhelms and carries away the Vessillo’s editors, who were occupied unceasingly with embroidering upon these themes with loving care and rhetoric. Not that they didn’t occasionally speak about Zionism, too; but they reduced Zionism and acknowledged it as a movement that was useful for those brothers and sisters who, poor wretches, still lived in countries where civil rights were trampled on, resolutely rejecting it for Italy, where Jews, enjoying the most complete freedom, now had a radiant future before them. At most one could be involved with this movement in only one way—giving do-

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nations to help the many unfortunate brothers and sisters hit hard by an adverse fate. A document exists that confirms this decidedly anti-Zionist position: a letter that the president of the Community of Casale Monferrato, Giuseppe Pavia, sent to all the presidents of the “Israelite Communities of Italy” in September 1897, and thus a few days after the conclusion of the First Zionist Congress held in Basel. Here one reads, among other things: You will doubtless have had news of the deliberations of the Zionist Congress that was assembled in Basel last August. Its intention, as it appears from the very title that it assumed, was that of promoting the establishment of a new “Kingdom of Israel” in the ancient place of our fathers. . . . And although this ideal is generous and humanitarian in respect to offering a secure and peaceful sanctuary for the miserable who suffer blind, ignorant persecution even in the midst of the splendid civilization of our century, it cannot, on the other hand, claim to be practical or timely. Because not without the grave danger of reawakening unhappy questions of race that were forever put to rest among some nations and of exacerbating the persecution that is already too grievously rampant among others could one aspire to reconstruct a country that the laws of history show to be irreparably finished. No less interesting is point three, which appears at the bottom of this circular letter, where it is announced that statements of support, which are solicited, will be sent “to the president of the Zionist Congress of Basel and to the Italian government.” Lattes, on the other hand, was the first to propagate Zionism in Italy, beginning in 1895, together with Baruch, a Jew of Romanian origin—first from Livorno (where Lattes was deemed an outstanding young man, but “crazy” for these strange ideas of his) and then from Trieste, through the pages of the Corriere israelitico, which was the first periodical (even though it was from an as yet “unredeemed” city) to put this problem before the Jews of Italy and call them back to the recovery of their authentic cultural and national values.2 Lattes then continued his work in the pages of the newspaper Israel and in hundreds of lectures given in almost every Community.3

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Two rabbis, therefore, from Pitigliano, and so different. Servi, even though he was the incumbent head rabbi, gave with his ideology a vigorous push toward assimilation; but extolling the heavenly Jerusalem that was superimposed over the terrestrial one surely was not going to resolve the real problems of Judaism. It is impossible to understand how a rabbi (and he certainly was not the only one) could recite prayers, in Hebrew, that spoke of the reconstruction of the real Jerusalem and petitioned the Lord to gather the scattered Jews “from the four corners of the earth” and then, in Italian, say exactly the opposite of what he had declared in the ancient language of the fathers. The Reform Jews of Germany, from this point of view, had been without doubt more logical and consistent, cutting the controversial passages from the prayers, introducing the custom of praying in the German language, and moving the weekly Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. How contrived these attempts too were, however, was demonstrated, amply and tragically, by the Nazis. The second rabbi, Lattes—who, except for a brief interlude in Siena during the war, never held a rabbinical post—committed his whole life to teaching the Hebrew language, Jewish literature, and Jewish history and translating classic works of Jewish learning and Zionism from Hebrew, German, French, and English, thus providing the most suitable means through which every Jew would be able to recover his authentic identity and act accordingly. As has already been said many times, the work of Lattes—which kept gaining wider support and which was especially valuable even if ultimately rather limited—served as a dike against assimilation and, therefore, as a return to Judaism first, even before a return to Zion. The Jewish Community of Casale thus passes into history because it was, in essence, the national center and proponent of anti-Zionism. The atmosphere of the Vessillo could not help but influence the local milieu, even though Casalese assimilation was capable of proceeding and flourishing on its own, with the substantial assistance of a well-off middle class of shopkeepers and professionals. But there can be no doubt that the ideas of this milieu, sustained by the periodical, served still more to reinforce certain conceptions about a Judaism that was understood less and less.

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Given that the Jewish Community of Casale Monferrato was famous in all of Italy not only for the processing of goose salami and for grìban but also for this bimonthly publication and for so many years of it (1874–1922),4 the comment made by the historian Attilio Milano does not seem unimportant: All these volumes, taken as a whole, in fact do give the impression of really being under the emblem of a “banner”; but a banner blowing in every direction. Like the wind, old and new trends in Jewish thought passed through the pages of the periodical of Casale. Or better still, a banner without any wind—because, in reality, every idealistic and spiritual Jewish impulse was thwarted by the review and considered in its outermost shell, in its most conspicuous and superficial attitudes, not leaving any—not even a minimal—trace of itself. The Vessillo is nothing less than an accurate mirror, the vivid image of the state of religious and spiritual decadence of a certain, predominant portion of Italian Judaism during the final quarter of the last century and the first years of the present one. A Judaism that was far from its most vital sources—tired, weak, and vain; that had no interests other than materialism; that had no aspirations other than to rise in public life; that, no longer in touch with the few, authentic Jews remaining, nevertheless loved to be flattered by its press, too. The Vessillo (it is painful to have to say this about a periodical that was the most widely circulated and long-lasting in Jewish Italy, but maybe circulation and duration depend, unfortunately, on this!), the Vessillo—it was said—dedicated most of its pages to this function of flattering others, with thoroughly informed news items and reports that were all praise and applause. Regarding, instead, what should have constituted the heart of the publication, we find an infinity of short pieces on every topic directly or obliquely concerning Judaism; short pieces written without any pretense of ideology or science and not without inaccuracies—but, in spite of that, pedantic. Besides, they were laborious to follow because they

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were broken up into small sections, one or two pages at a time, in a series of issues. Regarding the contributors, it is true that here and there in the pages of the Vessillo some of the most erudite names of the epoch in the field of Jewish studies (which did not have too many experts) appeared; but taken as a whole, one almost gets the impression that all these scholars purposefully set aside the crumbs of their own intellectual production for the Vessillo. Thus, as it was compiled, the Vessillo may have more to offer now than it ever really had before. For the past the influence that it had was scarce or none at all, if not actually negative; for the future, however, the historian will have the opportunity of finding herein a mine of precious raw material on the life of a certain epoch and of a certain class (the predominant one) of Italian Judaism—material otherwise unrecoverable because, Jewishly, it was of minimal substance.5 To better understand the opening words of the commentary by Milano, bear in mind that the Vessillo placed a passage from Psalms (60:6) on each issue’s front page: “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear Thee / That it may be displayed because of the truth.” The incident that brought an end to this periodical, in 1922, should also be mentioned. The editorship, held by its founder, Flaminio Servi (until 1904), passed to his son Ferruccio (until 1921, except for a break from 1908 to 1911, when Aldo Lattes held the editorship) and in the end to Guglielmo Lattes, in Cuneo. The financial situation had become difficult, and subsidies were sought everywhere. Contact was made with someone, a rabbi, who virtually became the owner of the Vessillo. Shortly afterward the publication ceased. The funds were placed at the disposal of a group of Zionists who, with a surprise attack, so to speak, put an end to the anti-Zionist activity of the Vessillo—forty-eight years after its birth, or sixty-nine years if it is considered the continuation of L’Educatore israelita, which originated in Vercelli in 1853. In spite of this particular atmosphere of Italian-style assimilation— with its always hazy boundaries yet decidedly anti-Zionist stance—there

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was no lack of Zionists or of public demonstrations for Zionism in the Community. A relative and a dear friend, Angelo Hirsch, reminded me that already by 1910 (or maybe 1911) the first Zionist lecture, by Professor Salvatore Foa of Torino, was held in Casale. Hirsch himself took part in the planning. He had persuaded the owners of the “Babilonia,” a large fabric store that was located under the long arcade, to give some cloth, and he had gotten a pole. His mother had taken care of the cloth, attaching it to the pole. The painter Morera painted the Maghèn Davìd on it, and thus Casale’s first Zionist flag appeared. The lecture took place in the women’s gallery of the temple, and it was a great success. Unfortunately, Hirsch said, it did not have a large following. I remember that in my day, when I was still a boy, a documentary film about Palestine at that time was projected under the temple portico. To see fellow Jews transformed into peasants, occupied with making land that had been buried under the sand for centuries fertile, aroused first of all a great sense of wonder and then also a certain enthusiasm. My father commented on the footage, explaining how with those images he felt like he was leafing through the pages of the Bible, where it speaks of a people not yet made up of businessmen or intellectuals but of peasants and shepherds. He concluded by saying that maybe these first efforts in the Land of Israel could also be the beginning of a return of the Jewish people to a normal material and spiritual life, in keeping with the tradition. It was such occasions that made it even more difficult to judge what Jewish fellow citizens really thought. After they saw those still rather technically imperfect film images—we did not yet have sound films, and the commentary consisted of a few captions in English—the reaction that followed, maybe unconsciously, could still make one consider that, confronted with a reality however imperfectly filmed, their feelings had been truly spontaneous, and the applause and assent sincere, even though they had come from Italian citizens of the Mosaic faith. But this attitude— which did not obligate or compromise anyone, because the showing took place in the family, so to speak—vanished at the end of the film. Things did not change; in fact, it could have been that in other circumstances the reaction would have been quite different and even opposite. And so it was, for example, when a wedding took place between the

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daughter of the rabbi of Casale Rocca and a young man from Ancona, the son of a wealthy family and gifted with remarkable skill at his job. Many people, including distinguished rabbis, gathered in Casale. It was on that occasion that by chance I met, under the small portico of the temple, the famous Professor Cassuto, who would later be my teacher at the Rabbinic College and who very genially stayed on to talk with a boy like me. The two newlyweds made a beautiful couple, as they say, and the ceremony was sumptuous—so much so as to give rise to the most enthusiastic comments from everyone, first of all from the expert local ladies. But the opinions that had been in such concord and the congratulations that had been just as fervently addressed to the young couple, almost in unison, disappeared as if by magic, giving way to bitter and even ugly comments when, a short while afterward, it became known that the newlyweds had moved to—just imagine!—Palestine. It was asked if they were truly nothing less than mad; what had they deluded themselves into doing in a country so far from their homeland and among unknown and foreign people? The most acidic comments were then directed at the groom: was this handsome young man really so serious-minded and so rich, as it was said, or was he an adventurer instead, who had carried away that poor girl to who knows where? And the father, the rabbi, why wasn’t he opposed to this wedding, surely knowing in advance where his daughter would be taken? My father could not help but be attracted by the Zionist movement. He had gotten his education directly and mainly from the traditional Jewish sources and therefore felt himself immersed in an ethos that put the Torà and the Jewish people as nation (which one felt an integral part of, and not only when one prayed) at the center of the active life of the individual and of the community. He had maintained direct contact with Lattes since the beginning of this century. When I came to Rome, and I was Lattes’s student, I already knew many things about the maestro from all that my father had told me about him and through his articles—which my father had had me read and which he had commented on, and which had struck me for their extreme clarity, for their high level of knowledge, and for their honest, courageous position in defense of the Jewish people, laying claim to the right of independence at every opportunity. Regard-

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ing Lattes, in short, I already admired his ceaseless work of spreading Jewish thought in the Christian world to make it better understood in its authentic essence, freeing it from those myths that had obscured it and given rise to various forms of anti-Semitism. Beginning in 1903 Father had made plans to immigrate to the Palestine of those days, but different events, his marriage in 1904 and the family, had constrained him to give up the idea. Still, he maintained constant contact with friends in Europe and in Erez Israèl, writing them in Hebrew and being involved in a variety of activities tied to the Zionist movement, including collecting funds needed for rebuilding the ancient land and eventually giving speeches in the temple itself, even if sometimes his words were received coldly and with suspicion.6 I found a newspaper item about a visit he made to Salera, in the area of Vercelli, to a hakhsharà (an agricultural training center), where young people were trained before emigrating to Erez Israèl. He met with some thirty young people who came from Germany and who were specializing in the widest range of agricultural activities, from the cultivation of rice to the raising of livestock, not neglecting carpentry and the repair of mechanical equipment as ancillary agricultural work. This article, accompanied by some photographs, said, among other things: The hakhsharà of Salera was recently visited by the rabbi of Casale, Ezechiele Segre. The chaverìm went to get the rabbi at the Trino train station, and they took him to visit the entire farm. Rabbi Segre was very interested in all the work that was being done by these young people, and he repeatedly expressed his satisfaction at seeing young Jews dedicating themselves with such passion to work in the fields and thus to regaining, after so many centuries, the traditional life of their ancestors. He expressed these sentiments and his emotion at feeling himself in the midst of a Jewish community that works and lives on the land to the chaverìm before leaving Salera. One chavèr thanked him in Italian; Jewish tunes, psalms, songs, and dancing of spirited horas concluded the visit.7 A certain Luria had been a friend of my father since childhood and an active ally. Good-natured and always smiling, he had a furniture store

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on Via Cavour and some storage nearby. He would be seen passing by with clients, swaying slightly, as he went from one warehouse to another to show his merchandise. In his hand he always had a bunch of large keys that jingled like those of a jailer. But even on the street, busy with his work, or in the doorway of his store waiting for customers, he never passed up an opportunity when he ran into a fellow Jew to solicit donations for Kèren Kayèmeth le-Israèl (the Jewish National Fund) to plant trees or redeem land abandoned for centuries. He was the official appointee of this organization, and he carried out his task with great zeal. Another task was that of the “blue box,” which was also meant for collecting donations, but it was placed with only a certain number of families because others declined to keep so compromising an object at home. My first Zionist activity, entrusted to me by Luria, was in fact to go and open those boxes two to three times a year. Professor Foa: he had multiple degrees in mathematics and philosophy, was an expert in astronomy, possessed an eclectic mind and an extremely keen intelligence, was a fervent Mazzinian and a republican, and was therefore antimonarchist and antifascist.8 In the early days of fascism the ras of Casale was a consul, a former student of Foa, who for a certain occasion had put up a poster extolling fascism.9 It was said that, running into him, Foa had stopped him and said, “You couldn’t have written that poster because there are too many spelling and syntactical errors!” Always thirsty to learn and to study, Foa lived in a house overflowing with stacks of books and paper, which he filled up with his fine, small handwriting and then lost track of in an indescribable clutter. A bachelor, he lived with his mother and for his mother. Teacher and indefatigable world traveler, he may have visited every, or almost every, country in the world. When he was on a trip, he wore a brown duster. He had also been to Jerusalem, and on his return he gave a lecture at the temple; the civil, religious, and military authorities were also present. After so many years it’s not really possible for me to remember the ideas expressed in that elegant speech, so rich and adorned with citations, drawn for the most part from the classics of Italian and foreign literature rather than from the Bible. But one clear and sharp memory is that this scholar, culturally Italian and a follower of Mazzini, could not grasp

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the new reality of that ancient land that was reawakening itself and proposing a new, miraculous future for the Jewish people. From what I remember, the glorification of the heavenly Jerusalem as the symbol of the unity of all faiths and of all peoples was affirmed. Well, this conception of the unity of the nations in the unity of God is certainly not foreign to Jewish tenets. But the exposition and formulation of this theme started out with judgments so vague and abstract that they revealed a typically defeatist view held by the assimilated fellow Jews of that time, who in fact rejected Zionism because they had already forgotten not only the observance of Jewish precepts but the obligation to defend the right of the Jewish people to their own free and independent life. The speech was all the more surprising because it was given by a Mazzinian of proven faith, who, however, was unable to include the very same ideals that were the basis of Zionism within the struggle for the liberation and independence of other peoples. Naturally, everyone present followed Foa’s speech in broad agreement since, basically, he was advocating and praising values that were only occasionally interwoven with Jewish values. I glanced at my father several times; he seemed lost in thought, virtually absent from the speech that was so eloquent and a little rhetorical, oblivious even to the applause that followed, which was immediately stifled, because here we were in a holy place where, it seems, even these outward signs of approval are not allowed. At home my father’s commentary was very brief and also polemical. “No great wonder,” he said to me. “The grandchildren of the Emancipation have made progress. Along with the mizwòth, they’ve mercilessly buried the concept of the Jewish people. They’ve transformed Judaism, for their use and consumption, into a religion so vague and abstract that when you hear them speak, you don’t know any longer if it’s a Jew or a Christian that’s speaking.” I was a university student, and during one of my visits home, for summer vacation, I once had an encounter/confrontation with Foa. It was right in Papà’s study, where Foa had come, if I remember correctly, to find out the historical origin of the Maghèn Davìd. The conversation started off precisely with the old problem of assimilation. He began by bringing up the well-known fantasy, invented by Jews who had barely left the ghet-

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tos (they who were by then equal to everyone else, faithful citizens like the rest in their homeland, and no longer a separate people), which, according to them, served to justify their presence among the nations: “The Jews had a mission to fulfill in the world. They’re a little like the salt of the nations in the sense that the primary task of their religion is to spread the monotheistic ideal, the highest, noblest, spiritual conception that someday everyone must accept.” And he said this with such confidence—as if it were so true that it would find unanimous acceptance not only among Jews but also in the Christian world. And he continued: “The French Revolution, which I have always admired and praised, broke the age-old chains of our slavery forever and opened splendid new horizons . . .” Foa forgot, or maybe he disregarded as a completely accidental matter, what for example had happened right there in Piedmont from 1815 to 1848. My father, comfortably seated in his favorite armchair, was silent, smoking his faithful pipe and turning an almost provoking glance toward me. He didn’t have to wait long for my response: “Religion, Homeland, Mission, all beautiful words, but baggage from an old rhetoric that doesn’t hold up any longer. The truth is that the freedom of the Emancipation was more formal than real, and no one has taken the trouble to investigate historically how it could possibly be that the Jews lived for so many centuries in such an anomalous situation without losing their self-consciousness as a people, even being recognized as a nation by others. That’s why anti-Semitism continued, even if it took different forms. The ghetto, it’s true, vanished, but at the same time the road to assimilation opened. We’ve paid a rather high price for freedom—the price, that is, of our Judaism itself—” “But,” he interrupted me, “it’s not the formal acts of religion that matter.” My father coughed as if the smoke had gone down the wrong way, but he didn’t meddle. Maybe it amused him to listen to us. “When one lived in the ghetto, things were ok, though only up to a certain point; yet it’s never been the letter but rather the spirit that counted, and never as much as today have we needed to rely on spiritual, eternal, and universal values—”

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I interrupted him: “But you show that you’ve never understood what Judaism is. You don’t think like a Jew, but like a Chri—” Here my father intervened in a halfhearted attempt to excuse my juvenile impetuousness. Foa, however, replied immediately. “No, I beg you, Rabbi, it’s nothing. In fact, I’m curious to hear the novelties of these young pupils, these student rabbis.” And he smiled ironically and indulgently. I got right back into it. “No, we’re not dealing with novelties. These are things that have been said and repeated innumerable times, but in vain, especially for people like you, who—you’ll have to excuse me—are used to reasoning according to the Gospels and not according to the Torà. It appears—and it’s a true paradox—that you take offense at those great masters who were the Pharisees, and from whom I as well as you, willingly or unwillingly, descend. If not for these authentic interpreters of the Torà, neither I nor you would be here today arguing.” My father was too involved relighting his pipe, which had gone out, to meddle. I continued. “I would like you to try to understand my position. I don’t judge the French Revolution in an absolute sense; as a Jew I have to put on the scales what it gave us and what at the same time it took away from us. You think only of what you received.” “Let it be. Do you really know what the French Revolution was? Or what beneficial shockwaves it sent throughout the world? Can all that be denied, sic et simpliciter?”10 Here his tone was that of the teacher who reprimands a pupil. “Here’s the error, dear friend: today we constitute only a religion—the most elevated, the most spiritual of all, which doesn’t accept any image of God, but keeps God in the heart and in the mind.” My father, not paying any attention, was very diligently watching the spirals of smoke from his pipe instead. “You see?” I returned to the task. “Even you, unfortunately, are nothing but a late victim of your French Revolution. But do you know that back then freedom was given to us only in 1791, and with the famous formula, ‘everything for the Jews as individuals, nothing for the Jews as a nation’? Now if you like, I can concede to you that we are also a religion; but first of all we are—as we always have been, and since the most ancient

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times—a people. Don’t you have anything to say about what’s been happening in our own time in Erez Israèl? You even went there—but you still couldn’t grasp the truth of what I’m saying—not even then.” Foa let his arms drop, distressed, incredulous, like someone who finds himself facing an argument that makes no sense. The professorial smile had disappeared, and a certain irritation had already surfaced. My father had gotten up and, after carefully setting down his pipe, had gone to look, very diligently, for a book in the bookcase. There were a few seconds of silence. Probably what had affected him the most was not so much my thoughts on how to assess the historical phenomenon of the Jews but rather my negative opinions regarding the French Revolution. And in fact he burst out, as if he were Robespierre: “Then you’re against the French Revolution?” “Definitely—for the part that deals with us, if you like, I’m against the Revolution—” “Oh, so that’s how it is! Fine, then! Unheard of !” he cried out with pity, his voice trembling. He got up and started off toward the door. Then he thought better of it, and turning to face me, pointing accusingly with his forefinger, he exclaimed, “Now then, do you know what I say to you?” And here his tone of voice rose while his chest swelled like a balloon. “Do you know what I say to you?” And he started shouting as if he were taking part in a street demonstration: “Long live the French Revolution!” And he walked out with a military stride, without any other leave-taking. I looked out the window of the study. He was passing under the short arcade that ran along the edge of the little courtyard. He was still waving his hands, and in a hushed voice he continued to repeat, “Long live the French Revolution!” At this point my father shut the book he was pretending to read and said to me, “You see, essentially you’re right. But you expressed matters just like you felt them, and you explained them as if you were using a knife to cut off, in one clean stroke, old questions that have been intertwined with each other in a complex way for a long time. Basically, you didn’t bear in mind that you were talking with an old person, who has his own awareness, in which he continues to live. You didn’t want to understand him, and without pity you put him in crisis because you

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sought to undermine his ideals, upon which he had constructed his life and for which he had also lived honorably. And he couldn’t understand you, who reach for another awareness and gain inspiration from other revolutions. If the conversation had continued, Foa would have come to Mazzini, with a long speech, but we were saved in time,” he remarked, smiling, “because he knows Mazzini deeply, and not the Torà—or better, because for him his Torà is only Mazzini. You would have brought up Herzl, and you would have found yourselves in positions that were further and further apart.”

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the festivals: at the beth ha-kenèseth and then, above all, at home. Just as at the temple every holiday had special chants, so the dinner table was honored with special dishes that now come back to mind like something fabulous. More than anything else it was the extraordinary family atmosphere, which I tried to maintain in my own family; but when I think about that time that is now so distant and virtually enveloped in legend, even this atmosphere seems different to me, as if it has lost at least a little of that distinctive luster of a Jewish family in a small, provincial Community. Friday evening. The Sabbath oil lamp hanging over the center of the table shines. Seated in an easy chair, Papà, with the velvet papalina, comments on the week’s parashà.1 The autumn and winter evenings when the Sabbath begins early and there is still a lot of time available before supper were the most beautiful. During that time of year we would read the parashòth that spoke of Adam, Noah, the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) and the matriarchs (Sarah, Rebecca, Leah, and Rachel), of Joseph and his brothers, of Moses, of the Pharaoh, and of the persecution and the liberation from Egypt after so many miracles.2 The narrative was brought to life by many midrashìm, which the rich and wise imagination of the rabbis had been able to embroider upon the biblical stories with great care and love. We thought we were dreaming. We watched the ten oil lights of the lamp, which looked to us like Aladdin’s and out of which, as in a film, all those famous characters that the midràsh brought to life, like in fairy tales, seemed to leap forth. One Friday afternoon there was the basketball final between the liceo

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and the Technical Institute, an important game because it would decide the championship. Mother had reminded me not to be late. But we won unexpectedly, and so there was excitement and celebrating. I got home a little late, fearing some serious scolding, which, moreover, was deserved. Papà was in his easy chair; I greeted him, he answered me, and he continued to read. A few minutes went by, and then he got up and said, “Are we all here? Oh, and you’re here, too.”3 It was Sabbath, and obviously he did not want the holy day disturbed. He sang, blessed us, made the Kiddùsh, and supper began peacefully as always. I was a little tense because I was waiting from one moment to the next for a scolding. But all of a sudden he asked me, “So, how did it go?” “We won,” I answered, almost in a whisper. “Congratulations.” And that was all. I was crestfallen, and even more so because the reprimand that I was waiting for and feared had not come. Then the Sabbath songs made me feel more peaceful and tranquil. And what about Pèsach (Passover), the nights of the séder? They arrived only after we were regularly evicted from the house, day after day, without pity, by Mother, who was busy cleaning the house, from one room to the next. We had to obey orders that brooked no objections. Father was obedient, too, and he was very busy himself—for several months already—supervising the preparation of the mazzòth, which took place in the cellar of the temple—in the same building, that is, as our home.4 The work was already under way around the middle of January, because shipments were sent throughout Italy, especially the north. From the early hours of the morning, when the work began, my father was already at his inspection post, giving up his regular walk throughout those weeks. During the day his visits were frequent, and the shomèr (guard) himself—the official supervisor—was checked. The work could not be subjected to interruptions because of the danger of fermentation, and then one had to be careful of the “crumbs,” which were just as dangerous. Sometimes it seemed like my father’s phrase, “Watch out! Watch out for the crumbs,” marked the rhythm of the production process. The night before the night of Pèsach, when the house was already completely in order and clean, there took place, according to the tradition, the search for the chamèz (leavened substances). Here and there

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Mother put little bits of bread that Papà swept up with goose feathers and put into a kind of paper bag; we children followed with lit candles, accompanying him in his inspection. Often when we were small we would trail behind Mother as she was placing the small bits of bread, but before Papà had begun his search, and one of us would eat them, and so Mother would protest and scold us. The nights of the séder were extraordinary from every point of view. Mother, especially, was engaged on two fronts, so to speak: the preparation of the house and the preparation of the meals—for an indeterminate number of guests, which in any case was always more than twenty. If there was some Jew at the temple who was traveling, my father would invite him without hesitation. But Mother’s worries were not just of an organizational character; they were also economic. My father took care of this “in the simplest way,” according to him—but with “habitual irresponsibility,” according to Mother. My father had a bank-manager friend who, on these occasions, did not hesitate to give him loans and make accommodations for the payments. This did not arouse enthusiasm in my mother, whereas for Father, who was already anticipating the joy of reciting the Haggadà surrounded by a large number of guests, it was always a “brilliant” solution. When, at the beginning of the séder, my mother, exhausted by her work, sat down at the table (though only for a few minutes because shortly afterward she would be bustling around again), she, too, shared in my father’s joy. With a great sigh of satisfaction she would look around, happy to see so many people festively gathered near Papà, who for the occasion would wear a white velvet kippà, embroidered in silver, and who, like a king, was at the head of the table, leading the reading of the Haggadà. Aunt Celeste, who read Hebrew correctly and who followed the reading of the text with the utmost attention, was quick to correct our mistakes and protested when Papà, as a joke, would try to get her to make a mistake. Shavu’òth (Pentecost). The temple would be full of flowers, and hanging on the little gate that enclosed the ark was a handsome wreath of white blossoms with a Maghèn Davìd of blue flowers at the center, ordered by my father. Then there was the first evening, at home, with many

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guests; we would read and comment on passages from the Bible and from the Mishnà. The participation of us, the young, was not of a spiritual nature alone. In accordance with a bequest that dated back many years, the Community gave to whoever took part in that reading the sum of a good five lire until the age of eighteen, and afterward the not-to-bescoffed-at amount of ten lire. Rosh ha-Shanà and Kippùr. Events that transformed the Community. Up until the day before the eve of the holiday, entire families of fellow Jews would arrive in Casale from Torino, Milan, and Genoa; they had moved to these large hubs many years earlier because of work. But the two solemnities recalled them in an irresistible way—for the chants that they were unable to forget and for the memories that bound them to the old synagogue in which their recollections of dear ones who had died came back to them more distinctly and clearly. Often, before the prayers began, two or three friends would hang about the benches and ask each other, “Do you remember who used to sit here?” For us children those holidays—which were very demanding because they summoned each person to make a serious examination of his conscience, to confess his own sins, and to ask the Lord for compassion and for a year of health and work—were basically wonderful festivities because of all that they offered us. To begin with, on the day before these two solemnities, after the selichòth that had begun a little after five in the morning and after a good breakfast, we would wait happily for the first event that was important to us: the arrival of a “landau” in front of the door of the house to take the rabbi and his children to the cemetery.5 For us it was a kind of holiday—one of the few chances for a trip outside the city with a carriage and horses, even if it was short. In the middle of the new cemetery there was a little temple with several windows in which many small, rhombus-shaped pieces of variously colored glass were inlaid, as in a kind of mosaic. On sunny days these colors—greens, yellows, reds, and purples—were reflected on clothes and faces. While the solemn voice of the rabbi rose amid the grand silence of the dead, the living, and the surrounding countryside, all those present took on a surreal appearance in my eyes; before me was a rather strange Community, seemingly suspended through an act of magic between heaven and earth.

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After the traditional prayers everyone visited the graves of their relatives. The principal/president didn’t miss even that opportunity to show off. He always found someone whom he would take by the arm in a friendly way and lead to read the many epigraphs that he himself had suggested. He would read them loudly, holding forth, and then he would finish with his standard comment: “Isn’t that him exactly? Didn’t I take a picture of him?” And he would smile, pleased. On one of these holiday eves an animated discussion took place between my father and the president, while the surrounding public listened in utter silence. My father had said that even someone who happened to be far away from his own Community and from the cemetery where his relatives were buried ought to go to the local cemetery all the same. “Magnificent,” the president had exclaimed. “This shows the universal vision that Judaism has for the veneration of the dead—” “No,” my father had replied immediately. “The veneration of the dead doesn’t enter into this at all. We don’t come here to render them homage, but for something that involves us, the living—so much so that the precept teaches us that we should visit the graves of those who are generally known for being distinguished for their moral and religious qualities. The conclusion is obvious.” “And what is it?” the president had asked, incredulous. “The thinking is simple: this is a way to summon us to a deeper examination of conscience. Here, in front of a grave, one should ask, ‘If this person—who clearly distinguished himself for his wisdom and for deeds that were always upright—lies here, what will be my end since I realize that I am worth less, much less, than him?’” “No, no, it’s not possible,” the president had exclaimed, nearly griefstricken. “I beg you, don’t diminish this great idea, too, tying it to the minutiae of our laws and taking away from it that grand spiritual and universal value that it has.” “We are on the eve of serious tasks concerning ourselves and concerning God. Try tomorrow to think for a moment about what I have said to you, and maybe my response will appear clearer and simpler, not unworthy of deep meditation.” And with a warm goodbye to everyone, my father took his leave.

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One Rosh ha-Shanà, in the morning, everyone at the temple. It was a Sunday, and that afternoon in Vercelli there was going to be a big soccer game: Vercelli versus Genoa. Some coreligionists set out by car to attend the game, but halfway to Vercelli there was a serious accident, and some of them were gravely injured. Late in the afternoon the news arrived at the temple. In a circle everyone commented on what had happened. My father, silent, remained seated in his place, and after the tefillà he went directly to the hospital to ask about their condition and to bring them a word of encouragement and good wishes. But some of those present were unrestrained and protested the unheard-of offense, right on the holy day. The most furious was Sur Elìa. He waved his glasses frantically with one hand, and with the other he made great circles with his cane raised up in midair, as if he wanted to skewer someone: “What have we come to, and on Rosh ha-Shanà! Traveling just to go see some hooligans chase after a piece of leather! What cherpà, what shame! What would our elders say? Luckily they’re dead . . . And then accidents follow, but of course!” The incident caused a stir and was the object of lively discussions for a long time, even among those who in the end were able to recover. Weekly Talmùd Torà courses for children and teenagers took place in Papà’s study.6 Besides the study of biblical texts, Hebrew language, history, and tefillà, there were formal lessons in synagogue chants. There was a real competition among us boys and teenagers for these chants, because it was definitely a great honor to be able to get the job of reciting any tefillà at the temple—and especially after one’s bar mizwà (the socalled religious majority)—to participate in the most demanding prayers on festive or solemn days. One should also bear in mind that we had to deal with a public that was rather difficult, ready to find fault with the cantor not only for a minimal reading error but also if he introduced some personal variation, however slight, to the traditional chants. For example, there was a lawyer (who I think had never practiced his profession) who sat in the front row of the benches, quite an expert in the chants and feared by everyone. He was a little like the Minos of the liturgy, because he passed judgment (and usually condemnation) on the spot, making his own voice heard, slightly louder than the chazzàn’s, in

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order to let him know that he was off-key (according to the lawyer) when the difference was almost negligible or shaking his head disdainfully as a sign of disapproval when the case was desperate. Even Papà, who had a splendid voice, demanded a lot from us; but he was also ready to pass over a little off-key singing, so great was his joy at seeing young people engaged in reciting the traditional prayers in public. For the younger boys, who could recite only some of the tefillòth, a footstool was hooked beside the lectern, and climbing up on the footstool they could reach the lectern. Then, during the weeks preceding the great solemnities, many trial runs were made—every day. My father listened to us with great patience. He himself repeated the most difficult passages many times, and so we came to the official test well prepared. Father was a great example for us in this area, too, because his utter competence actually revealed itself even in the daily prayers—but above all on Kippùr. Wearing the long white tunic, and with a foulard that was also white around his neck, he took on a particular aspect. He felt all the solemnity of those hours and the responsibility that he had undertaken—and he seemed to us to be enveloped in an extraordinary aura. On the eve of Kippùr he ate earlier than the others, around three, in order to be able to rest before the beginning of such demanding services. That was the day that everyone came in a throng to give him their regards, forming a line in front of the bench reserved for him. His voice resonated harmoniously, and it was listened to with concentration and emotion. We tried to imitate it, but the difference was vast. Once on Kippùr I was assigned the not-so-easy task of reciting the Musàf (additional prayer), which is usually not entrusted to the young, given its particular importance. I went through moments of great tension, my eyes often racing to the corner where Papà was, maybe to take heart more than to know what he thought of it beforehand. Afterward I went up to him. He gave me the berakhà (blessing), and smiling, he said to me, “Bravo, you pulled it off. I was worried that actually you might not.” Coming from him, this was a big compliment. When I was twelve, and therefore still under no obligation to fast the whole day, I resolved to myself that I would do the complete fast anyway, without saying anything to anyone. Toward three my father, who had not

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lost sight of me, summoned me and urged me to go home and eat, since I was not yet old enough, but I refused. When I was about to return to my place, I saw that my father had signaled to someone with his hand right away; I didn’t know who. But as soon as I was seated, the president/principal summoned me. Having grasped at once what was going on, he told me, “It’s already three. You’ve done well, but now go home and eat.” “Yes, sir,” I answered, and I left immediately, almost running from the temple! The eve of Kippùr was also characterized by a visit that had become customary over many years and by that time was looked forward to as a cherished tradition. A few minutes before the beginning of services a rather old man with a small, white goatee and a serious and thoughtful face would enter and sit down on the last bench, after having made a slight, polite bow toward the rabbi as a formal sign of greeting. Senator Battaglieri, a famous lawyer, who for many years was unfailingly present on this occasion, was not a Jew. He would watch the entire ceremony with concentration; sometimes he seemed to be overwhelmed by strong emotions, because his eyes would shine. When he was leaving everyone would move to the side to make a path for him, and he would take his leave with a brief, friendly nod of his head, always in silence. In fact, this annual visit of his always remained a mystery. But there was a rumor about old memories, of his one great love for a young Jewish girl. A love opposed by her family that ended, then, with the death of the young girl, due to illness, right on the evening of Kippùr. Thus for decades the old deputy had continued to be present in the temple that evening, maybe to remember, in the most appropriate place, according to him, she who had been the greatest love of his life. On Sukkòth, the festival of Tabernacles, a sukkà (hut) was prepared in one of the courtyards. For us, living in the same building as the temple, the sukkà also became the center of our games. It therefore interested us not so much for the brief ceremonies that took place there, but rather for the time during the day when we were its exclusive proprietors, or when Father summoned us for a sumptuous snack made up of many sweets. On those occasions he recounted midrashìm related to the holiday for us. For the festival of Simchàth Torà (Joy of the Torà)—that is, when the

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reading of the Pentateuch was completed and then begun again immediately from Genesis, so that there would not be any interruption in the study of the divine word—another evocative ceremony took place. All the Torà scrolls (Sefarìm) were carried in procession around the benches, thus making a complete circuit of the temple. It was a special honor to be called to carry one of these scrolls. Each Séfer was wrapped in gold and silver brocade, with silver crowns with small tinkling bells, also of silver. The same ceremony was carried out on March 29, the day that even in my time annually commemorated the momentous date of the Emancipation. Once, on one of these two occasions—I don’t remember exactly which—something odd happened. The president/principal had invited one of his non-Jewish colleagues, the principal of the Technical Institute, to attend the ceremony. My father had already begun the ceremony, and therefore he was unable to observe what I noticed immediately: the guest was not wearing a hat, and Jewish custom requires that one enters the synagogue with his head covered. I asked the shammàsh to go to the president and tell him in my name that I was prepared to put a hat at the guest’s disposal. I noticed that the guest looked in surprise at his Jewish colleague, who sighed, tilted his head to one side, and stretched out his arms, distressed, looking at the ceiling as if to invoke help from the Lord to prevail upon that young rabbinical candidate not to commit gaffes. The shammàsh told me later that the president had said to him, “Let’s not be ridiculous; why can’t we just do without it?” To which he had responded, “Truly, President, sir, this is the rule and—” but he had not yet finished when the non-Jewish principal got up. “If that’s the way it is, I prefer to leave,” he snapped, and he exited, ceremoniously accompanied by the principal, who apologized for the “affront” made not only to the guest but also to himself in his capacity as president. It was said that he murmured “unheard of!” several times. The ceremony was finished, and I of course was ignored. But a group of people with the president at the head surrounded Papà, who was about to leave. “Tell me something, you,” the president said, raising his chin angrily, with the tone of a boss addressing an employee. “How can it be that the shammàsh is permitted—”

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My father, who in the meantime had been informed about the incident, interrupted him abruptly. “The shammàsh is not permitted anything; he simply did his duty, at the suggestion of my son.” “Then you explain to me”—it seemed that he had come to the end of his patience—“explain to me why you have to keep your head covered in the temple. Let’s hear it.” People were gathering around. Some had left, offended by the impudence of the president, muttering, “I’ve never heard such things.” But others paused, and the eyes of Professor Foa shone, bright with curiosity. But my father cut it short. “I can give you all the explanations you desire.” (Ella [you] was used by my father when he wanted to maintain a certain distance.)7 “But we’re dealing with something completely different here; we’re dealing with basic manners, which that colleague of yours has shown that he does not have. Try going into a church wearing a hat; you will be asked to take it off. And then try objecting and asking why you have to enter a church with your head uncovered. This is the point. The explanations that you want—some other time.” And then Papà walked out, leaving everyone surprised and confused by such impertinence toward the president. It’s the eve of the Ninth of Av, the sad date that recalls the destruction of the first and second Temples in Jerusalem.8 The synagogue is immersed in darkness, broken here and there by a few small candle flames flickering in the sultry heat of the night. As a sign of mourning we are sitting on low stools and wearing slippers instead of shoes. We hear Papà’s mournful voice, cracking here and there with emotion and tears. The chant, slow and sad, and the words of the prayers—in which the word “Jerusalem” returns regularly with a measured rhythm as a leitmotif—create an atmosphere that touches everyone. It might seem strange, but the advocates of the heavenly Jerusalem are also present—maybe attracted by the evocative ceremony but certainly not grasping, except in part, the historical significance of the occasion. We cry for the Temple and Jerusalem, destroyed and in ruins; we entreat the Lord: “Help us to return to You, O Eternal One, then truly we shall return! Renew our days as in the past . . . !” The prayers finished, everyone leaves, each carrying his own candle. Thus the shadows of the figures lengthen upon

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the walls and reach up as far as the large windows, while the stars look upon that group of Jews who, after so many centuries, still cries over a catastrophe that seems to have befallen them at just that moment. No one says goodbye, and this, too, is a sign of mourning. The small children say, “Tonight we don’t say buona sera.”9 On the Sabbath preceding the Ninth of Av, the first chapter of Isaiah is recited. Papà recounted to me that this haftarà (prophetic reading) was reserved for Grandfather Ghershom. He was a tall man, with a robust constitution and upright stance in spite of his advanced age. Wrapped in his tallèth, he would begin the reading of the excerpt from Prophets—not with the normal diligence of a regular cantor but as if he himself were the prophet who at that moment was giving an oration to the entire Jewish people. During the reading he often looked as if he was about to turn around to face the public, but the most dramatic moment was when he came to the passage, “And when ye spread forth your hands, I will hide Mine eyes from you; yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear; your hands are full of blood.”10 At this point Grandfather would extend his arms and hold out his trembling hands, turning them over again and again, shifting himself slowly to face the public while he continued to recite from memory, not taking his almost haunted stare away from his hands, which seemed from one moment to the next as if they actually would drip blood. The fifteenth of Shevàt, or Rosh ha-Shanà la-Ilanòth, the New Year of the Trees, which in the European calendar can fall in January or February, is the first day of spring in Israel.11 Grandmother would arrive with the marandùn, a huge bag full of every kind of fruit—dates, raisins, walnuts, oranges, peanuts. Spring? How was it possible? Where we were, most often it was still the dead of winter, and it was incomprehensible to us to hear talk of spring while we saw snow falling outside the window and ice encrusting the glass. Papà explained this holiday to us; he described a country that had to be splendid, since, while we were gathered around the stove, it was already offering up the first buds and the first sweet smells of flowers. It was the ancient land of the fathers, where we would return one day, because the Lord had decided so. But when would this return take place? To this question of ours, asked

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practically in unison, Papà shrugged his shoulders and said, “Mah! Who knows? In the meantime a certain number of our brothers have already returned, and they have been working for decades, and they have even made spring more beautiful and more abundant in greenery and flowers. And they returned because they wanted to return. Because, you see, it depends a little on us, too. Actually, the Lord helps us, knowing that we need Him, but He also needs our collaboration. This is why the Covenant between the Lord and us exists. There is, however, a difference. He never falls short of the commitments that were undertaken, but we have, and more than once.” The festival of Purìm (Festival of Lots) was a kind of Jewish carnival— because children wore masks that called to mind the different characters of the book of Estèr and because of the gorging on sweets (especially the famous Hamàn’s ears) and the reading of the Meghillà (the book that consists of the book of Estèr), which Father performed at the temple and then repeated at home.12 From the time we were children we timed the two readings and even made bets. Realizing also that we would receive presents on this occasion, we never failed to write letters to our parents, full of the usual promises, which were rarely kept. Parties were organized, too, and there were still more sweets and songs to bless the heroes of the story of Estèr and, naturally, to curse the villains. Once on Purìm there was a truly extraordinary event: the performance of a comedy, “The Window on the Temple,” with a company of amateur actors from among the young people, organized by my father. A stage was even prepared in the women’s gallery. The entire Community turned out—to celebrate Purìm even better and to attend such an unusual event but also to admire the skill of their children and relatives and, naturally, to criticize, like true experts from the most important newspapers. The festival of Chanukkà (Dedication), on the 25th of Kislev, took on a particular tone at home.13 Everyone lit the lights, one the first evening, two the second, and so on until the eighth and final night. We got ourselves some small boards, and each of us was at work making a kind of chanukkjà (Chanukkà lamp). The last evening the house shone with lights. I remember, among the remarks that my father made in praise of the struggle of the Maccabees against the danger of Greek assimilation,

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this image of his: “When the small flames of the chanukkjà are lit, your hand passes from one light to another, and as the light becomes more intense, it shines more and more and illuminates your eyes and your heart. Thus we see that merely increasing the small flames increases the light, the symbol of faith and purity—and in the same way, with the harmonious and honest work of an ever greater number of people, no longer divided by pettiness and personal egotism, but each united with the other by a shared, higher interest, we can truly move toward a spiritual renewal, toward a plentitude of justice and love for all humankind.”

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our small community had a cultural center that sometimes was frequented by non-Jews—when the speaker was well-known and the president was eager to highlight the value and level of our learning through carefully considered invitations to teachers. I vaguely recall speeches given by Umberto Nahon, an activist in the Zionist movement and a contributor to the weekly Israel. These were the first opportunities for us to learn from Felice Ravenna, the president of the Union of the Communities; from Salvatore Foa, a historian specializing in the Piedmontese Communities; and, of course, from fellow townsman Raffaele Foa, always for the French Revolution and a Mazzinian, whatever his subject was; and from my father, mainly on biblical topics and Jewish mysticism. But the monopoly over these gatherings—three or four in the course of a year—was held, naturally, by the president/principal. One year he gave a complete course on Jewish history, organized in a number of lectures. It was a true triumph—according to the opinion the speaker himself expressed to my father. And undoubtedly on that occasion he was able to show off a great deal of learning and a style that was refined and, by and large because of the accent, even Tuscan. It is easy to understand his satisfaction in performing before the entire Community, of giving a demonstration to show that he knew how to give a lecture in a liceo. And that, in fact, was his approach—to consider everyone present as simple students, the head rabbi included. Once a speaker came to us, and the only thing I remember about him is that he repeatedly interspersed his speech with the words “God wills it!” like a leitmotif. By the third or fourth time we boys began to try to

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guess when those prophetic words would leap forth again, not neglecting at the same time to keep count, time after time. Only the stern intervention of Papà served to calm down a certain whispering that even the speaker, rather annoyed and rightly so, had noticed. I think that one of the most interesting aspects of these cultural activities was symbolized by the fact that they always took place in the temple, which in this way resumed, however rarely, its true function of “school.”1 Another not insignificant matter: these speakers would visit our home, and in this way we benefited even more from well-known personalities with whom we could start up interesting conversations and get direct news about what was happening in other Communities. For a long time our modest home was a kind of kaleidoscope, so varied and curious were the people who arrived there, expected or not. For his part, Papà did not neglect to stay in touch with many people; official visits and friendly visits were always written down in his appointment book. Sometimes he went to visit the bishop, and you can imagine our curiosity to know what had been said. His stock answer was, “When two bishops meet with each other, they always deal with confidential matters.” This playful expression was based on a particular fact: we knew that when Papà walked down the street and someone asked who he was, the answer was often, “He’s the bishop of the Jews!” Priests who wanted to study Hebrew, the “ancient kind,” naturally, or simple laypersons who wanted to understand Jewish ideas more deeply, were also our guests. Papà was always available as soon as he had freed himself from his commitments, which were not limited to his Community alone but also extended to those Communities nearby. For example, he gave a course of weekly lessons in Asti; he took care of the ritual slaughter (shechità) not only in Casale but in Asti and also in Torino, where Rabbi Bolaffio trusted in his experience exclusively—regarding which, it is interesting to recall some things relevant to this activity of his. In Casale Papà was a friend of the veterinarian, who, in a good-natured way, would often comment ironically on the “empirical systems” adopted by the Jews, when, after slaughtering, they checked to see if the animal was healthy or not. Once my father refused to put his stamp on an ox, maintaining that the animal was infected. A lively discussion ensued,

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while the butchers gathered around my father and the veterinarian and entertained themselves listening to the various wisecracks. Having carefully felt the lungs and smelled the odor that came from them, my father had given his negative judgment without hesitation. Smiling, the veterinarian had exclaimed, “But it’s enough to look at this animal to realize that it’s extremely healthy.” To make a long story short, the veterinarian decided to analyze the blood “so as to demonstrate to you, scientifically,” he had said, “how you’re still old-fashioned!” After that analysis he had come to see my father, smiling, and said, “Rabbi, give me absolution, for I have sinned! You’re right, the animal is sick!” During the period of the racial laws my father was able to continue this activity of his in a clandestine way, trusting in the friendship of a few antifascist butchers—though he was running a grave risk, because even ritual slaughter had been prohibited. At the beginning of the war matters got worse, and he was constrained to reduce such activity only to particular occasions. At the Green Cross he continued to maintain contacts that went back to the First World War, when he had won a Silver Medal for his invaluable services.2 He certainly had not had any medical training, but his experience was such that even in this field his prompt action helped save many people’s lives. I mention these varied, multiple aspects of his activities also because it was rather difficult for all of us family members to understand how he could always be wherever his help was requested. Even the meetings at home, consequently, were part of these regular activities, and he was always on time for his appointments. The visits from Italian rabbis or those who came from other countries seemed to energize the entire family. An Orthodox rabbi with a long, red beard and peòth (side locks of hair), dressed in a long, black caftan, came from Vienna every year. They spoke in Hebrew, which I still could not understand, but I was intrigued to follow the words and see if at least here and there I could recognize some terms. At meals the guest did not share our food, limiting himself only to vegetables, eggs, raw fruit, and a glass of water. Father didn’t say anything, respecting others’ opinions as always, and he continued the conversation with him very warmly. Not so my mother, who always protested the “bad manners” of the guest for the way he behaved in the home of a rabbi. Once a pomegranate appeared

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among the fruit, and the Viennese rabbi must never have seen one before because, turning it over and over in his hands, he asked what it was. Papà was happy to explain to him that this fruit was in fact one of the traditional seven species of the land of Israel, and he reminded him of the saying used to describe a just man: “He is as full of good deeds as the pomegranate is full of seeds.”3 The guest listened to the explanation and the citation with interest, but then he put the fruit back in the fruit bowl. Maybe he doubted whether it was kosher! We got a big kick out of this, but it certainly did not calm Mother’s anger. To tell the truth, not all rabbis are Orthodox. Our guest one day was a colleague of Papà, the rabbi of a nearby Community. Before sitting down to eat, Father wanted to accompany him to the bathroom for the traditional washing of the hands, which is done before eating bread. The rabbi, surprised, said, “But why should I wash my hands again? I’m a clean person, and I already washed my hands this morning . . .” On that occasion I thought about our Mazzinian friend and my principal; what would their triumphalist comments have been? We often went to visit a young Falasha, Emanuele Taamrat, a student at the Rabbinical College of Florence.4 I was still a child; we had become friends, and I often played with him. Sometimes I would ask him, “Why are you so black and have a red tongue?” Emanuele would laugh, stick out his tongue, and then make me do a lot of somersaults. During the fascist period of the conquest of Ethiopia our friend Taamrat was arrested in Addis Ababa by order of Graziani because he had remained loyal to the emperor, and he was condemned to death.5 The providential intervention of Carlo Alberto Viterbo—who was in Addis Ababa at that time, involved with the Falasha group on behalf of the Union of the Communities and the fascist government—saved his life. Not only that—Viterbo also worked it out so that Taamrat, with whom he had had a warm friendship since the days in Florence, accompanied him to visit the various Falasha villages. In 1949, during a Zionist Congress in Paris, Viterbo sprang the wonderful surprise of arranging for me to see Emanuele, who was then cultural attaché at the Ethiopian embassy in Paris. There was joy and emotion that would not end. What surprised me was his truly prodigious memory, because he asked me for news about Casale Jews

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whom he had met when he came to Casale but whom I could not remember.6 In Casale there was a very important military base. Jews often turned up there from various Communities, but especially from Rome. Papà was interested in them, and he contacted the colonel directly in order to meet them and to let them know that they could turn to the Community, like a family, to get leave for the Jewish festivals and solemnities. Naturally our home was always at their disposal, and these soldiers knew that they could come to us as if it were their own home at any time and find a good meal with which to refresh themselves. We kids had a field day watching the Roman soldiers who came to the temple. As I was to observe in Rome, too, as soon as they entered, they would raise their hands to their eyes several times and then kiss their fingertips, thus showing their respect and devotion. Papà often reprimanded us because we made fun of them—pointing out that every tradition, even if it might seem strange, deserved respect. Once, at an unusual hour, it happened that a Roman noncommissioned officer arrived at our house, gasping for breath and distraught, asking for my father’s help. Because of a woman he had been beaten in a duel with a fellow soldier, and now he was afraid, as it could have been foreseen, of being put on trial. Papà upbraided him severely, and then he counseled him to present himself at the barracks without delay; he would take care of the rest, trying the next day to do something with the colonel. The crime ended in the best way possible: after having been put under arrest for ten days, which was the minimum sentence, the noncommissioned officer came to us for dinner with a large box of sweets. He had come through by the skin of his teeth. He maintained a warm correspondence with Papà for a long time, even after his return to Rome. I think his name was Tagliacozzo. At our home “special cases”—which sometimes revolutionized the normal family routine for many days—were not out of the question. My father knew that for these undertakings he could also count on the full, active cooperation of Mother. The only formal difficulty lay in initiating the discussion about these “special cases.” Mamma would respond immediately: “We absolutely cannot allow ourselves exceptional cases.”

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But then things would work out in the best way possible. Among the many episodes the following one undoubtedly deserves to be remembered—partly because of a certain scandal that it created throughout the Community. A non-Jewish girl became pregnant by a Jewish boy. The girl had been driven from home, and the boy’s family subjected him to the same fate. My father convinced Mother to put the double bed at the disposal of the young woman and to put up the young man in the children’s room, while Papà and Mamma came up with makeshift pallets. When a little boy was born, we celebrated at home as if he was a member of the family, and it was something to see how busy Mother and Nonna Celeste were, convinced that only they were capable of “doing things as they ought to be done and without commotion.” Conflicts with the Community Council were never lacking, and there was always something being devised to make a life like that of a rabbi— which is never easy—even more difficult. For example, my father was surprised and embarrassed (which could easily have been foreseen) when, at the “direction” of the Council, he was “requested” to add to what was by then the traditional blessing of the king and the royal family (which for decades had been recited in the temple on Saturday morning) a blessing for the Duce, too. The first time, when we came to this part of the religious service, a great silence held sway over the section reserved for the men and over the women’s gallery. Even the usual conversations ceased, as if by magic. But only the names of the king and the royal family were heard. A murmur spread throughout the entire temple, and the president immediately went to the rabbi to get an explanation. My father excused himself, saying that it was only an unintentional omission. Afterward such absent-mindedness was no longer permitted. Thus Mussolini’s name came out, followed by some words that no one, of course, understood. From 1938 on this expression was used in the plural, thus implicating the House of Savoy, too. Indeed, isn’t it worth asking what the president and the Council members and also the entire public would have said if they had had some acquaintance with the Hebrew language? There was one period in which such quarrels became particularly intensified. My father had been invited to participate in a session of the Community Council. This was something that should have happened

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normally but that depended instead on the will of the Council itself, which would decide whether or not to invite the rabbi, even when it was facing questions for which the rabbi’s opinion should not have had merely a consultative character, since they dealt with subjects within his expertise. During those sessions, then, the conversation proceeded as if it were between an employer and an employee who is obligated to listen and to make some generic observations, but who in reality has to carry out the orders that are given to him. On this occasion the discussion became heated at the point when two Council members again took up old issues—sort of a case history—that, ever since my father’s younger years, always managed to cast doubt on the validity of his rabbinical title. To my father’s natural reaction the response—quite predictable—was, “Yet again you forget that you are merely an employee of the Community.” Papà got up and left. Among the few writings that I had left after our house was sacked and Father’s books and manuscripts were made into pulp by the fascists in Asti (where we moved in January of 1941), I found the draft of a letter that reports on that time period. It said, among other things, Blessed God, you have never abandoned me. Only in the fulfillment of my duty, through the teaching of our holy Torà, have I found and do find the comfort and acceptance that counsel me not to abandon my post and to carry on, with all my weak powers, that holy work that is the teaching of the divine word to our youth. . . . The Lord will deal with me justly and comfort me. . . . They knew quite well that without me (the last and only survivor of our Community, to which I gave my labor since 1905), the Holy Temple would have remained closed, because—due to the poverty of the budget—probably no other rabbi would have taken on that job. . . . I’m not complaining about my situation; I ask only for peace for my mind, which is hard-pressed. Peace for me is the peace of the Community—which I think of first in trying to save that spiritual heritage to which I feel so bound. God forgive them, amen! At home Mother, having been informed about what was happening, spoke up with her usual practical attitude: “I ask myself,” she said to him

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firmly, “why should you continue to ruin even your health for people like that. For what reason? You yourself always say that the Lord never abandons us, so tell them all to get lost, and let’s look for something new.” Papà once again maintained that, in addition to his responsibilities toward the family, he couldn’t accept abandoning his Community. “It’s so much yours,” Mother replied with a certain hardness, “that even when you were invited to occupy the pulpit of a more important Community than this one, you refused for the same reasons. You didn’t marry me, you married your Community—so now take care of it, and don’t complain.” Then little by little the situation would begin to normalize itself (or almost), and that would usually happen, as I have already had occasion to point out, when some particular event of a familial character touched one of the notables of the Community closely (and sometimes dramatically). During this particular time the brother of one of them became gravely ill, and the words and assistance of my father were, as always, thoughtful and sympathetic. Then the case resolved itself in the best way possible—with complete recovery. It is curious to observe that in circumstances like these sentiments closer to superstition than to science crop up again, instinctively, in the minds of our professionals and liberal-minded directors. Thus a flood of emotional thanks assaulted Papà, privately and at the temple, which he tried unsuccessfully to elude. He was proclaimed a “true chasìd,” a pious person, a kind of wunderrebbe (miracle-working rabbi). I have passed the monster/nightmare exam of the third year of the liceo. The moment of big decisions has arrived. Papà is quiet; he doesn’t express any opinion, leaving it up to me to decide. In making my decision I also have to keep the family economic conditions in mind—and I realize that quite well. The question that returns insistently is, “How can I expect my family to continue to maintain me in my studies?” I also know what my father thinks and dreams of, and which decision he expects from me; but he continues not to pay any attention to the problem. He would be very happy if I devoted myself to rabbinical studies—and to such an extent that he would feel like it was he himself who was beginning those studies. And then, what other university faculty was I to

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choose along with the rabbinical one? I have an idea—I had considered the faculty of medicine for a long time. But it would mean very demanding studies. And then, given the number of daily hours of classes, how would I be able to make them fit with the rabbinical classes? Long ago many Jews distinguished themselves by being rabbis and doctors at the same time. Taking care of the body and the spirit. But times have changed, and one has to choose. I decide that some advice from an old friend and the family doctor, Fiz, might clarify my ideas, and I go to look for him in his office. He stood out, when he was still young, for his diligent and unselfish help during the Messina earthquake. He had distinguished himself during the First World War as a medical officer, reaching the rank of colonel. Some still remembered his brief visits to our home; he would strut, in uniform, while his saber (given his modest height) scraped the cobblestones, reverberating. As a war memento (besides the various objects that covered an entire wall of his home) he had brought back a military bicycle (also painted gray-green), which he used to visit the sick. He had kept the crusty tone of an army doctor, but he could also understand his neighbors’ vicissitudes with great human kindness. He gave his care to the poor for free. At the Green Cross he had organized an ingenious first-aid course: many commonly used objects that could be found in any house were placed on a table. He was able to indicate a use for each one of them in case first aid was needed. In spite of all the honors that he had acquired in almost fifty years of medical activity, he was deported by the Nazis while he was ill in a hospital in town, and he did not come back again. A door with frosted glass with the name of the doctor written across it. As it opens a silvery ringing reverberates in the spacious waiting room. One has the impression of diving into the past: large curtains, embroidered by hand, by the windows; chairs, davenport, table, a crocheted tablecloth, a majolica vase with floral decorations in gold—all in late-nineteenth-century style, sitting there unchanged, maybe ever since he had opened his office many years ago. A slightly moldy smell comes from the wooden floor. Received warmly, I enter the office, furnished in the same old-doctor exofficer, style. Paintings on the walls and some clocks—with hands that tell

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the time with fifteen to thirty minutes’ difference between them; very useful, he had once told me, when there were pests . . . I look at him silently—I still don’t know how to start the discussion. The doctor is old, a bachelor, not lacking in means, and I wonder if maybe he would be pleased to help a student who wants to become a doctor like him. “As you know, I have to enroll at the university, and I still don’t have a clear idea and—” “What?” His voice has a tone of great surprise. “Isn’t it already all decided?” “What’s decided?” “Don’t you want to be a rubì (rabbi)?”7 I half expected it. It was a rumor that had been circulating in the Community for weeks. It seemed that by then everyone had already decided what I would do. “You see,” I remark, “I haven’t yet made a definitive decision; I still have a lot of doubts—” “Doubts?” he asks me, incredulous. “Of course, especially when I think about the satisfaction that my father receives in his rabbinical activity.” He looks at me, half closing his eyes, while the cigar hangs from his lips. He had been a classmate of the president, he is his friend, and he avoids making comments. “And then?” “I would like to study medicine—” “A colleague, then,” he exclaims almost joyfully, a little forced. “But there are difficulties, and—” He interrupts me with a wave of his hand. “You know, first of all,” he declares with a professional tone, “you’re talking about very difficult studies. It’s a very demanding school. To become a good doctor means” (and he adjusts his metal-rimmed glasses with a slight tap) “you have to study a lot, practice a lot, and also have some of the natural bent for this profession. Think about it, my friend, think about it well.” And he smiles kindly, looking at me over his glasses. I get the impression that he’s pondering my words and even more my ideas—as if he’s asking himself if it’s at all possible for a rabbi’s son to undertake such a high-level career.

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“And then,” he continues, “the books . . . the travel . . . the fees—” “That’s the point,” I respond, determined. “How would I be able to do it?” “One solution would be—” He speaks slowly at the beginning as if at first he himself is barely convinced of what he is saying. Then, as he goes on, he becomes more sure of himself; he must have found the best way to avoid letting the matter involve him more directly, having certainly guessed the specific purpose of my visit. His eyes shine, and he smiles, satisfied, while he suggests something to me: “Yes, a solution is possible—still more demanding, but listen, you wouldn’t be the first. . . . Of course you wouldn’t be able to graduate in six years, it would take a few more short years; but it doesn’t matter, you’re young. . . . This is what I’m talking about: try to find yourself work as a male nurse in a hospital. I’ve got good connections in Torino, and I myself could give you a short preparatory course; and since I know what to do and how to teach you a lot of useful things, you can trust in me.” And he places his hand on his chest to give me a greater guarantee of what he is saying. “Keep in mind that you would have the advantage of being in daily contact with doctors, with many clinical cases, and getting practice immediately, which is very important. Of course, it’s a life of great sacrifices . . .” But I’m not listening to him anymore. I thank him, and I realize that my fate is already decided.

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we’re making preparations for my departure for Rome. The Italian Rabbinical College and jurisprudence. Papà cannot contain himself for joy, and he’s going around gathering book after book, each one of which, according to him, might prove to be very useful to me. Mother is a bit less pleased. If I had enrolled in any faculty in Torino, I would have been able to be at home almost every night, but to go so far away, and then it’s Rome, too. How can a mere boy manage in such a big city, alone, without knowing anyone? These are things that Mother thinks and says half aloud, not wanting to take anything away from Father’s great joy and rare peace. The decision made, I, too, am happy, but I can’t conceal a certain hesitancy. It’s the first time I’m going so far away from home, and for many months. It’s been decided, anyway, that my older brother will accompany me to the capital. It’s unthinkable that a youth like me could make such a trip alone. My brother, on the other hand, has traveled for years; he knows the trains, connections, and schedules. He knows what you have to do; I don’t. A few days before leaving I’m nearly overwhelmed by a feeling of nostalgia, in advance, for this small city and old Community of mine, and almost without realizing it I find myself rambling though the streets, visiting the Jewish section, taking particular care to speak with many fellow Jews with the excuse of saying goodbye. I go to see a relative, Lia, the classic figure of a shopkeeper. One gold tooth sparkles behind the habitual smile of this good and generous man, an experienced wholesaler of sweets. A gold watch chain and a pound sterling coin, also gold, hang from his vest. I remember his discretion in

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approaching people he knew were in need of help. There would be a brief conversation and a warm handshake—which also served to transmit the aid that he thought necessary—and then a friendly winking of an eye at his interlocutor, so as to make him understand that he should not be surprised or thank him. Of modest origins, he had known hard times in his youth; he had worked hard, with great determination, and then little by little he had created an excellent situation for himself. But precisely because of the memory of that miserable youth, which he had never forgotten, he knew how to understand others’ difficulties in a flash and to intercede in time and with the utmost discretion. I have met few people like him—who not only gave help but were truly happy to give. He was quite shrewd in business and had the patience of Job in dealing with his always large clientele. He was a first-rate shopkeeper who knew how to harmonize the propriety of the gentleman with the audacity of the top-level professional. He was assisted by his wife, Lydia, who possessed a classically Jewish, refined beauty. She dedicated her entire life to the family and at the same time collaborated in the work of her husband (for whom she was an irreplaceable partner) with extraordinary efficacy. I think it was only when they were getting rather old that they realized that vacations existed, too; but basically their labor never met with a moment of respite. All the religious institutions in the city knew that they would never turn to Lia and his wife in vain. Not only that: once a week, for free, they could come and get very good cookies that had been broken during transport and so could not be put up for sale. On that day, outside the entrance to the store, there was always a big box, and it, too, was full of those cookies; kids who walked by could help themselves to them at their pleasure. His home was always open to everyone, a true home of “Abram avìnu” (Abraham our father). A simple man, he could not have spent much time at a school desk, but he was practical and precise in his thinking, which was always perceptive and permeated with a gently humorous tone and good common sense. During religious holidays, when he was called to the reading of the Séfer, he was always among those who vied with each other to make the biggest donations to charity. When he returned to his seat, his face would be beaming with joy from the tradi-

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tional congratulations. He was accustomed to saying, “Life is a wheel; you receive, but you also have to know how to give.” When I came to his shop/warehouse he took me by the arm in confidence and gave me this good-natured, fatherly little speech: “Listen, my dear friend, you’ve made the decision you’ve made, and I’m not going to argue about that. It’s your business, but let me give you one piece of advice. Aren’t we relatives and friends? To me you’ve already studied enough; you, however, want to go on, and that’s fine. But can you tell me when you’ll be able to make these studies of yours pay?” Lydia had interceded; she had affectionately put her hand on his shoulder, as if to stop him from continuing, and with her sweet smile, she was about to say something. But he didn’t give her a chance, saying immediately, “Excuse me, but I can give him one bit of advice, no? It’s the fruit of my personal experience—” “Sure, ok,” his wife had said to him. “But why put other ideas in his head since he’s already made up his mind?” “No, I don’t want to do anything of the kind.” He smiled kindly. “I only wanted to tell him this: I began from nothing, with a room that was little more than a hole and now, do you see?” He made a broad gesture that seemed to encompass the spacious room. “And you could do the same thing. Go to Rome, that’s fine, there may be a very good piazza. I’m ready to give you a hand. A small place in the beginning; then, a little at a time, you’d be able to make headway, too. And the earnings—dependable and immediate—wouldn’t be lacking, even if they were modest at first. That’s what I wanted to tell you and nothing more.” Lydia spoke up and sidetracked the discussion adroitly, inviting me not only to admire but also to express my opinion about certain sweets. When we said goodbye we hugged each other; Lia also shook my hand warmly, wishing me well, and I realized that something was being slipped into my hand. I looked at him in surprise, but he whispered to me, “Are you or are you not a student, and what’s more, a university student?” I left, and in my hand I found a sum that—precisely because I was a student—was for me a real fortune. Thinking about that conversation many years later, I ask myself what my life might have been if I had listened to his advice. It’s all but impos-

fig. 14. Via Roma, Casale Monferrato, May 2000. Jewish shops were located along this street, which marked one boundary of the ghetto. Photo courtesy of the translator.

sible to answer. Still, I think that in spite of the obstacles, the sacrifices, the anxieties, the worries, and the dangers (which, after all, are more or less a part of any kind of work), the road I followed may have been the best. It’s very difficult to be a Jew and to commit one’s own life to defending Jewish ideals, but it’s also interesting. Where the arcades begin I find the same old shops, even though new, elegant businesses and new facades are now noticeable. Here’s the hardware store of Gallico, who is small and chubby, with more of a professorial than a businesslike manner, seemingly calm and unperturbed; but from his eyes you realize that it is a willed calm, imposed. He would be seated among the merchandise that was for sale—distracted, indifferent, as if he were thinking about other things. When a client approached him, he seemed almost as if he had been awakened from his meditations, and he looked surprised that someone wanted to buy things from him. A little farther on, before the long arcades, Sur Elìa’s used-clothing store. Passing by I am reminded of an incident that happened a few years earlier because of a pair of used army pants that one of my brothers had bought for a premilitary course he had to attend on Sundays. I myself

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had gone to complain because of a kind of kerchief that was found in one of the pockets. After having tried to figure out, with a hint of cunning, the reason for my complaint (saying, “Maybe you found a small hole somewhere?”), and confronted with the reality of the handkerchief, he had passed judgment solemnly: “Listen, you may even be a great student—I don’t know—but I can say that you don’t understand anything about these things at all.” And he had gently but immediately accompanied me to the door, adding that he would take care of everything with Sur Murènu. Under the arcades was the bank of Pavia, Morelli, and Segre, which had the initials P. M. S. The story goes that one day one of the owners noticed an office boy, also Jewish, who was cleaning the windows slowly. Raising his eyes to the sign, he said, “Padroni Mal Serviti” [Owners Poorly Served]. To which the office boy, on the rebound, replied, “Servitori Mal Pagati” [Servants Poorly Paid]. A little farther on, an office that dealt in lubricating oils. The owner, Potu, an expert in business and always fastidiously dressed, led a sophisticated life, not denying himself any pleasure. In his work he had up-anddown luck, which also affected the state of his family—which all the same maintained its dignity, thanks above all to his wife. Friend of the city leaders, a heavy and not always lucky gambler, he had times during his life—as much as it’s given to me to remember—of noteworthy economic prosperity that alternated with considerable difficulties. All in all, he was a free and easy, likeable person, but chancy and not always happy. Not far away a small door led into the house of an antiques dealer without a shop. He was called, who knows why, “Pulentìn.”1 Sometimes non-Jewish boys mocked him, calling him by that nickname. Then Pulentìn would get angry, and raising the cane on which he was always leaning, he would chase after them and make them run away. Still on the Via Roma there were two large fabric stores, and the competition between the “Tunon” and the “Babilonia” was well-known. Through a little “lying” the second name contained the first ten letters of the Hebrew alphabet, from alef to jod. The salesmen, who were not Jews, knew how to use that very well; but that was not all—they had also learned words from the Jewish-Piedmontese dialect, like saròth (misfor-

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tunes), manòth (money), and nainè (look), and even Hebrew words like banìm (sons, used in the sense of “boys”), which then entered into and became part of the Casalese dialect. There’s a story about a peasant woman who turned up in one of these stores to buy a piece of cloth. The woman insisted on a discount larger than the one she had already been offered. The salesman, not knowing what to do, turned to the owner, who said to him, “A ruta ’d zavar par lei, daliela” (May she break her neck, give it to her). The woman, who had worked for years in a Jewish home, answered, “A ruta ’d zavar par lüi, cas la tenga” (May he break his neck, keep it), and she left, infuriated. I also remember another bank, that of the Fiz brothers—who were taciturn, reserved, and well-educated, and one of whom spoke German. One had the impression that, more than just being bankers, they were part of a diplomatic world, so to speak, where privacy and discretion are basic rules. They behaved in the same way when, occasionally, they came to temple or when you met them on the street. A courteous, proper greeting, but almost with an implicit request to maintain a certain distance. It did not happen like that at the “Babilonia,” where the owners were also brothers. One of them was always in the wide entranceway, as if he were taking stock of the situation, ready to strike up a conversation with whoever walked by. Since childhood, whenever I happened to be in front of this store, the question that was regularly directed to me was, “A che ura ’s va a scola?” (What time do we go to the temple?) Once in front of that store I came to blows with two boys who teased me for being an abreu.2 One of these brothers witnessed the scene as if he didn’t see anything and continued with the utmost calm to smoke his cigarette, which at that moment seemed to be the most important thing to him. When I handled them successfully, putting them to flight, he approached me and said, “Bravo, you did well; come, I’ll buy you a coffee.” Maybe the gesture was dictated by the fact that we had the same name, but I deserved the coffee, at the very least. Next came a footwear shop. Beginning with the day on which the owner’s son received his degree, the father had stood at the door of his shop for several days to announce the historic event to everyone, with irrepressible pride and joy.

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Toward the end of the arcades a goldsmith’s workshop, maybe the best in the city. The clients, whether from town or the country, knew that they would be received with friendly, refined courtesy. The owners, a husband and wife, were very well-known throughout the province for their way of doing business—reserved, calm, and courteous—which offered the best guarantee of the products for sale. The Ottolenghi brothers, who had a large trade in textiles, lived under the short arcades. There were seven brothers and one sister. The seven brothers were completely bald. It is said that one of them, living in Milan, had put on a wig. Shortly afterward, in a witty newspaper from Casale, La lanterna monferrina, there appeared a cartoon depicting six hairless heads and one with hair.3 The caption read, “There were seven, but now there are six Maccabee brothers!” It was a quip with a provincial flavor, in which I don’t believe there was the slightest hint of anti-Semitism. Not far away lived Belu, the son of a former court clerk. The nickname—with its customary inspiration from the playful and the insulting that characterizes such nicknames—may have been due to a type of facial paralysis that had afflicted him since youth.4 A freethinker, he was always at the head of the marches that took place on May Day, under the banner of the “Freethinking Society.” I found out after the war that when he was caught by the Germans, he managed to convince the group that it was being deported, shouting the reason why out loud and trying to comfort his companions in tragedy. Unfortunately, like so many others, he did not return. In the central piazza—Carlo Alberto—stands a monument of the king on horseback, wrapped in a Roman mantle. It is said that his son, Vittorio Emanuele II, passing through Casale and admiring that monument, exclaimed, “It seems to me like I never saw my father in a shirt.”5 Not very far from this piazza lived two brothers; one was a lawyer, the other an engineer, the first one married, the second a bachelor. They occupied a prominent place not only within the Community, in which they were council members, but also in the professional, middle-class milieu of the city, for their competence and wealth. The lawyer was always dressed impeccably, with a touch of elegance, and was friendly (formally, I would say) in his manners. For young people like me, who came

fig. 15. Monument to King Carlo Alberto in Piazza Carlo Alberto, Casale Monferrato, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator.

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from the working class, he often gave the impression, quite tactfully, that he still wanted to maintain the proper distance. His brother, on the other hand, had a very reserved and stern appearance, at least outwardly, and he might have given the impression of being habitually sullen. I don’t remember having spoken with him except to exchange a few words occasionally. When you ran into him and greeted him, you often had to guess, rather than see, his response. Regarding the professions, there was another lawyer who also should not be forgotten—one with a rare capacity for legal acuity and for honest, professional diligence. Although he was a tiny, modest figure, he made himself respected on certain occasions by his tone of voice (which at times was grating), and he enunciated his words clearly to avoid any doubt, the same as when he dictated briefs for civil trials to the typist. An earnest antifascist, not disposed to any form of compromise, he, too, was part of the upstanding and respectable middle class of the city. Seemingly bad-tempered, customarily laconic, he had, I believe, an innate sense of great human kindness, justice, and sympathy—sentiments that he scrupulously hid from everyone. I leave the “upper” part of the city, and I return to the historic center of the Community. At the beginning of Via Alessandria, on the right, there was (is there still?) a rusty hinge from the old ghetto gates, fixed in the wall, a few meters high.6 I stop for a few moments to look at it. How much history and how many memories, long since fallen into the most complete oblivion, does that piece of iron, corroded by rust, still represent? In the small piazza not far from there, in the summer, toward evening, local characters would sit on the chairs they brought from home each time so they could enjoy the fresh air, men in their shirtsleeves and women with their fans in continual motion: Duardo (the Marshall), Muisotu, Rusìn, Polda; the sleepyhead Juchanàn and his sister Rusòt, who had a tiny, dark, used-clothing store there at the corner. In order to dupe some peasant Rusòt would swear a kind of oath, so to speak, as proof that the merchandise she offered was excellent: “Cam crova i chinìm dan’t ieui” (May lice fall from my eyes—implicitly, “if what I claim isn’t true”).7 Rusòt was always dressed in black, with her hair very noticeably dyed; she spoke loudly, gesturing a lot with her hands as if not she but everyone

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else was deaf. Babàndu was usually sitting in front of this store, and he kept on talking for hours, mainly through gestures, with Rusòt. Both of them were elderly, and they must have become friends very late in life. In the evening, in summer, they would go for a walk—she waving her fan slowly and he shuffling his feet a little and chewing tobacco. A couple who had met each other in their sunset years and who were also very sweet; old, alone, and poor, but still not overlooked, not even in this case, by the usual gossips. In two houses that overlooked the little back street that led to the temple and that still retained signs, in some of their architectural features, of a distant splendor, there lived two families. I knew the family that lived in one of these houses, which had three small stories. They were people who had attained a certain level of affluence. They usually came out together, all of them dressed in black, with bowler hats and canes; they continued to live in the “ghetto,” but they maintained a proper distance from their neighboring coreligionists and, in general, from all the others they encountered in the temple at the major events.8 But the other house, my father told me, had belonged to a very rich philanthropist, Lelio Sacerdote, who helped all the poor of the city, making arrangements for the distribution of bread and money to all those who showed up at his palazzo on Friday. He had a castle in the Monferrato, too. It was said that once, for the local government elections, he had teamed up with the Catholics in order to support a list of conservative liberals. Finding myself at the center of the ghetto, I could not forget how, always according to my father’s stories, there had been many types of such philanthropists (though clearly operating at different levels) in the past. By my time certain forms of this curious but practical philanthropy were already only a distant memory, which the oldest of the poor called to mind with long sighs of nostalgia. There was, for example, someone who arranged to have shoes and clothes distributed and someone who sent every poor family a keg of wine once a year; others furnished wood for the winter; others had organized a “School for the Encouragement of the Arts and Trades,” the “Society for Assisting Poor Women in Childbirth” (this last one planned by Rabbi Ehrenreich), the “Institute for Charity for the Ill,” and finally the “Hessed Veemet Society” for assist-

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ing “dying Israelites, for conveying deceased coreligionists from their homes to the cemetery with order and decorum, and for being present at their burial.”9 It’s also evident that personalities who were illustrious and famous in the field of philanthropy sometimes stood out because of some of their eccentricities. Thus it’s told that Baron Vitta, an inveterate card player, upon leaving the club where he had spent the evening, would ostentatiously light his cigar using a banknote if he had suffered substantial losses. Walking through those little streets and alleys, the earlier history of my old Community, from which I was about to take my leave, came toward me, and the people whom I actually met and greeted seemed to be mixed up together, like in a dream, with what I had seen since childhood and with Papà’s stories. (I would return later, but for a very short time.) Here, at the corner of the little piazza, I meet the old bachelor lawyer Sacerdote, a well-to-do person, who would go for walks at set times in the afternoon, followed one step behind, and respectfully, by the shammàsh, like a faithful companion. A small, childish voice, almost effeminate, a white goatee that made him look like a cavalier from the 1500s—and full of the small obsessions of an old bachelor. When he gave the priestly blessing at the temple, in accordance with the tradition, he would take on an inspired air. The blessing may have been the only thing left of an old family tradition. His encounters with the president were comic and always ceremonious—raising their hats and bowing—following an unchanging ritual. Sacerdote would turn to him with a “Please excuse me, professor,” and the immediate response was, “Please go ahead and speak, counselor.”10 Beyond the small piazza—the summer “holiday resort” for the poor— crossing through a dilapidated front gate, one entered a large courtyard, the national center for the processing of geese. There had been a keen competition between my paternal grandmother, Sarìn, whom I had never known, and Guitre, Marchìn, and Fausta. The goose salamis, sausages, grìban (cracklings), shùman (fat), and salted meat reached non-Jewish tables, too. At home Papà and Mamma, experts at an artistic level, transformed the kitchen for several weeks between December and January into a true industrial center for the processing of geese for family use.

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It was the same as in summer, when Mother filled hundreds of bottles with tomato sauce and peperonata, a truly precious cache for the winter months.11 Liele, the son of Fausta, was the most involved in this profitable commercial activity. He put in all his effort as an untiring worker. He was, as they say, a fat man, but that did not take anything away from his alacrity and adroitness at work. Always moving, sweaty, in shirt-sleeves, even in winter, he worked indefatigably from dawn on into the night. His fatherin-law was Marchìn—who in his spare time was also a shoemaker—a person absorbed in himself, of few words, and sometimes quarrelsome and violent. Left a widower, and by then middle-aged, he carried out an act a few years later that was a real bombshell in all the chazèr: he had himself baptized, and he married a guià (Christian). War was declared with his son-in-law—a chatterbox, loud, with his own way of being Jewish, yet bound tenaciously, instinctively, and like a good man of the people to the Jewish tradition. Marchìn left the old house, where, however, there was no end to the despair in the family, which was considered violated and shamed in the entire Community. Papà sought to bring a little calm and acceptance; he comforted Liele, whose friend he was, telling him, “What do you have to do with it? We all know that you’re a good Jew, and I’m saying it to you . . .” When he heard these words he covered his face with his thick hands and burst into tears like a baby. One day my father ran into the priest who had baptized Marchìn. The priest stopped him, greeted him quite warmly, and then with a slight smile said, “Signor Rabbi, we’ve lost a sheep—” “No, dear reverend,” my father replied. “We haven’t lost anything, and I’m sorry for you that you really haven’t gained anything.” But the quarrels between the son-in-law and the father-in-law, who was now called Eugenio, flared up ever more violently when by chance they met on the street—the son-in-law vehemently attacking the samdà (baptized person) and the father-in-law, cold and indifferent, responding with a few biting words. There was no way that things in the old family would somehow work out. A state of tension and dejection continued. Even the work suffered from it, but that wasn’t important—it was the sense of shame and almost guilt in which each one of them somehow felt

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implicated. “Povri jüdìm a bagalüt” (Poor Jews in exile), “what sarà” (misfortune), “what cherpà” (shame), “’lè ’n mamzèr” (he’s a bastard), and “mach shemò” (may his name be erased) were the expressions that by then were being exchanged in the conversations between them.12 Then one day the tragedy struck: Liele felt sick, and after a few minutes he was dead, to the despair of the whole family. It was a bereavement for the entire Community. The day after the ex-Marchìn, now Eugenio, was seen standing in front of the death notice, reading the announcement with utter indifference. This tragic conclusion was spoken about at length in the Community, partly because a simple man, without great learning, had known how to stand up for an ancient tradition in such a determined, unselfish—and I would say primal—way. I have finished this farewell walk that has brought back to mind people and milieus that are now part of my life and not just of my memories. When after many years I think back on this Community of mine—which for me has disappeared definitively even though it is kept alive, almost artificially, thanks to the loving self-sacrifice of several volunteers—I feel like I have read something similar in stories that romanticize history. Or else this place really was like this, and this is how we lived—maybe, in spite of the countless difficulties and arguments, even with a certain tranquility, in an atmosphere of shared hopes and expectations. I was to return there during very difficult times, when the storm of annihilation was about to explode. But I think about that brief period only within the general context of events that by then had drawn in all of European Jewry. I had accumulated broader experiences and faced more demanding and often dramatic problems. Even the small Community of Casale, like a grain of sand, had entered this tempest by then; but it was no longer the dear little provincial Community of my childhood and of my first youthful years.

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the departure date for rome: December 2, 1933. It may seem strange that after so many years this date has remained ever present and precise in my memory. I’m not an expert at attempting to give significance to numbers, but I have to report that the second of December has oftentimes signaled important dates in my life: December 2, 1943—flight through the hills of the Langhe to avoid arrest and deportation; December 2, 1944—still in the Langhe, a furious roundup operation from which I emerged alive and well, almost by a miracle; December 2, 1947—a magnificent demonstration at the Arch of Titus for the proclamation of the State of Israel; and finally, at least up to now, December 2, 1951—the birth of my firstborn son, Dani.1 It’s the first time that I’m setting out on such a long trip—one that I will travel again hundreds of times afterward, until I will be able to recognize the area that the train is passing through from a group of houses, a stream, or some hills. Bad weather, a lot of pelting rain, streaming and zigzagging down the window. We cross the desolate Tuscan Maremma, where there are few houses but herds of buffalos and horses that seem abandoned, without owners.2 We have been traveling for many hours. Night descends, and I begin to be aware of a little fatigue, due to the unusual trip; but my brother is with me, and it’s a fine thing to travel together. In front of me on the luggage rack are some suitcases, one filled with books that “will be very useful to me, indispensable,” as Papà said. Departing from the station he had given me the berakhà very emotionally, saying to me, “Thank God for this gift of His. I would like to be with you and study together . . .”3 Mother, more hurriedly, maybe to avoid awaken-

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ing her more private feelings, had said to me in an almost bossy tone of voice, “Take care of your health and, I’m telling you, behave well.” It’s raining in torrents in the eternal city, too. We’re in a taxi, because of the luggage. Via Nazionale, Piazza Venezia—we silently nudge each other while we notice that the entire piazza is encircled by people in civilian clothes, standing still, at a distance of about ten meters from each other, ignoring the rain. Via Campo Marzio, the Pines Pensione—we have arrived at our destination. The atmosphere seems a little sad, almost dreary, and not very friendly. Signor Pines, a little old man with a big black kippà, comes to meet us. He greets us warmly, shows us in, and would like, in a few words, to know all about us. His Italian is not perfect. He looks at us with a slight suggestion of irony that sparkles in his very lively eyes, and all of a sudden he asks us, “You don’t speak Yiddish?” And he asks it in a tone that seems to corroborate his doubts about our authenticity as Jews. I carried around this complex—of a Jew regarded with many reservations by Jews of non-Italian origin—for a long time. Later I would overcome it because I realized that many of these doubts that were spoken openly or made understood were actually not completely unfounded. But that evening I had arrived fresh—fresh from my Community, which for me was my entire Jewish world—and I was not well-disposed to receive such cold remarks and doubts regarding my Jewish existence. Another surprise a little later, at supper. We look at each other in silence, but we are both thinking the same thing—“It’s certainly not Mother’s cooking.” “It’s Polish or Russian cooking,” my brother decrees; that may be so, but it doesn’t change it. This, too, was a new experience, and of some account. At least that’s what I thought that evening and for a relatively long period of time afterward. But then I got used to tasting the foods of many Jewish cuisines, and quite gladly. My mother’s delicacies entered into myth. We went out to get a coffee after having gently turned down the tea that the kindly Pines wanted to give us. The city was almost deserted. And it gave us the impression that the capital, after nine in the evening, was silent, like a small city in the Monferrato. There was a certain coming

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and going of people, but they appeared to be watching the streets and the passersby more than attending to their own affairs. I go to present myself, as I am supposed to, to Sacerdoti, the spiritual head of the Community. I enter his office timidly, partly because the furnishings are quite different from Papà’s study, which was so simple, unassuming, almost rustic. From behind an elegant desk two very black eyes, a raven black beard, a penetrating gaze, and an imposing figure receive me. The welcome is friendly in a formal way, but the tone of the remarks is that of a person busy with much more important things. Since I already know that this chief rabbi has dealings with the government and that he has already met several times with Mussolini and with personalities from the international Jewish world, I suspect that I’m facing something new—a rabbi, that is, who deals simultaneously with religion and politics, and at the same very high level, with the tact that the post requires. I bring him greetings from Papà, who is a rabbi, too; the response is only a slight smile. It’s obvious that I’m the son of a country rabbi. I learn about a scholarship that I can have, depending on my “performance,” and therefore—it’s made clear to me—one that can also be taken away from me “without a lot of explanations.” A brief urging to study seriously, a “and now young man, to work,” spoken in a commanding voice, and I’m dismissed with a quick fascist salute. I respond with an attempt, badly failed, at a ceremonious bow. Nahum Goldmann tells about the time when he went to see Mussolini, accompanied by Sacerdoti.4 Surprised by all the military pomp that he observed from the first moment he crossed the entrance to the Palazzo Venezia, he arrived in the grand reception hall, where, behind the desk, Il Duce was awaiting him; he murmured to his companion, “C’est très drôle ici.”5 Sacerdoti was frightened, fearing that Mussolini had heard that brief comment, and he stumbled; Goldmann smiled at him. I didn’t know this leading personality of the time very well because Sacerdoti died, still young, at the age of forty-nine, in 1935. I think that the longest time I spent with him was when I kept the vigil by his body the entire night, together with my friend Herskovits, who after having shown me the chapters in Job that I should read promptly dozed off, and I felt alone and a little afraid in the great silence that held sway over that

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house. Sacerdoti, however, had had, as they say, le physique du rôle as a commanding figure, for his speeches (which were skillfully delivered), for the priestly blessing (which he gave in grand style), and for his official contacts—which he maintained at the government level and which gave him, but also many others, the impression that he was the first “Grand Rabbin” in the history of Italian Judaism.6 He also played an important role in communicating between the regime and Italian and international Judaism. The problems were many. For Zionism the vision of a fascist mare nostrum could have constituted—within certain limits—a form, so to speak, if not of collaboration, of understanding and therefore of reciprocal advantage.7 Then there was the position of Italian antifascism abroad, which apparently intended to play on an anti-Semitism present in Italy. The announcement that the weekly Israel had been temporarily suppressed set off a polemical correspondence among Sacerdoti, Turati, and Treves; Ovazza’s Torinobased group had taken a firm anti-Zionist position.8 We students at the Rabbinical College heard echoes of these events, which must have been extremely important since Sacerdoti, president of the college, had little contact with us, except for the examination period and encounters during synagogue services. The announcement of his death appeared in the newspapers on the second page, with comments limited to a few lines. Now we’re going to see Lattes, whom Papà had always spoken of to me with special affection and reverence. This indirect knowledge that I have of him and the writings that I have read make me all the more selfconscious, especially after the first visit (to Sacerdoti) that I made a little earlier. On the way there I talk about it with my brother, who doesn’t comfort me at all when he says, “Oh, yes. He is truly a great man. I consider him the most important Jewish personality of our times.” And he makes a sweeping gesture with his hand. I find myself opposite a man who is small of stature, a minute figure, elegant and harmonious in his behavior. He has a grizzled beard, two deep eyes, black, like velvet, but lively and piercing as pins; sometimes they almost seem to fade out behind a veil of meditation or of sadness, but quite quickly they sparkle again, and with a wit that I would come to know deeply only after a long time. And he has a large bald spot, only

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partly covered by his kippà. He welcomes me with a warm and prolonged handshake. I also seem to notice a slight hint of irony—later on even this detail will be revealed to me throughout his entire character, a product of wisdom, doubts, and research dedicated to the truth. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat comforted, because the maestro doesn’t take his place behind the desk, which is very orderly, but seats himself near us. We had come specifically to request some information, but we quickly realized that it was he who would ask the questions. This was the first time that I heard the phrase that he often used to try to clarify certain problems (more for others than for himself): “Excuse me, but tell me— does it really seem to you that . . . ? And why?” Starting off like this, increasingly concise and specific questions would follow, until you realized that you had found on your own the answer to the problem you had posed to him. His remarks were succinct, precise, pointed, and relentless, even though they were immediately followed by a fatherly smile, as if he were trying to soften the severity of certain opinions or comments. But his Jewish and Tuscan spirit would never allow him to renounce this style of his (which was so distinctive and personal), even when he knew quite well that he would not inspire much sympathy this way, but rather objections that were often quite harsh. The little, however, that you knew, and the much that the maestro gave you with this Socratic method of his, were harmonized by a great sense of human kindness and of real participation in others’ problems. He asked me for news of Papà, whom he had known for many years, ever since he, too, had lost a daughter, Nora, during the same period in which Sara had left us. Then he went on to talk about the Community of Casale: “A distinguished and famous Community,” he observed with a slight smile, “partly because of a magazine that was founded by a no less distinguished fellow townsman of mine, actually not much of a Zionist, but on the other hand, very Italian and faithful to the House of Savoy . . .” He reassures me, telling me that everything will be for the best, that what counts is to apply oneself seriously, partly because “we need young people who honestly know what it means to be Jewish and what they must do.” He adds, “Don’t be frightened by either the difficulties that your studies will give you or those that are still more serious, which will

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come to you from people who are more or less influential. You’re young— you also have to get used to learning well this strange and unpredictable world into which you’re now entering.” Another long warm handshake, a slight elegant bow, and I leave, reassured and above all happy for having met a great maestro for the first time. Papà was right. The first contacts with the local Community are not thrilling. I’m practically ignored, there’s the Roman dialect that’s new to me, the way of behaving toward someone who comes from the North (a “cisalpine”), and the first overtures; all this gives me the impression of being considered almost a foreigner. Welcomed, yes—as anyone would be in Rome, without enthusiasm and without opposition—but practically ignored. Even at the temple the Italian liturgy—mine is Ashkenazic (German)— and the different chants seem to confirm that I’m an outsider. So it’s not easy to make friends. I often find myself alone and a little disoriented. But these are only my first experiences. Of course there are exceptions, too—not only when, little by little, I get to know my classmates but especially when it becomes known, in the ghetto area, that I’m a rabbi’s son. Then I’m approached by people I don’t know who make long, vague speeches that I don’t understand until, having been invited for a coffee, I’m suddenly assaulted with marriage proposals. Regarding the candidate (whom the stranger is ready to have me meet the same day), I come to know her family and economic circumstances and, without any hesitation, even the amount of the dowry, accompanied by this artless remark: “Think about it—that’s nothing to sneeze at.” I always managed to save myself, except for one case in which I was able to escape from danger, so to speak, thanks to the aid of my father, who reminded me quite firmly that I was in Rome to study, not to find a wife. I spend my first Sabbath alone, in the Pines Pensione, thinking, not without nostalgia, of home, even though I’m comforted with meals that are truly exceptional, given the agreement we have made. But the meals are justified—in answer to my specific question about why I’m getting such good treatment—by the kindly Pines with these words: “I know, all this isn’t included in the monthly rate, but don’t worry. You eat the way you’re supposed to eat on Shabbàth, and then I’ll have other, richer customers pay the difference. I won’t lose anything.”

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Pines was a true chakhàm (a wise man), a skillful expert on the Talmùd and on all Jewish ritual. He was very helpful to me whenever I turned to him to interpret texts that were difficult for me. His Italian was not always completely comprehensible, but his explanations were very detailed and useful. He was very pleased when, after dinner, he could spend a few hours training me in the actual lessons from various study materials, which were not always easy for me. A new student, Berti Eckert, has arrived—tall, lanky, thin, and with a pair of glasses with thick, dark sidepieces. He also comes from the North, from Gorizia; for now he lives in the same pensione, and so we’re together more readily than with the other students, the Romans, who are more reluctant to become friends. This new companion has a pale face, and he already seems to be, as they say, a serious and self-possessed person. He is rather reserved, and he immediately gives me the impression of being a “first-in-the-class” type—as he actually will be. He has a brisk stride, rapid and long, and maybe it’s because of this that one gets the impression when he’s walking that, given his height, his head is swinging gently, like the top of a tree jostled by a light breeze. He is very precise. He knows how to parcel out his time with Teutonic accuracy, appearing and disappearing quickly, especially right before exams. Sometimes he’s elusive, not to be found, but he knows quite well what he’s doing and what he wants. During examination periods he seems still paler, thinner, and more serious. He knows a lot about Jewish matters, and he helps me willingly, which is a great advantage for me. Nevertheless, we are two university students, and we sometimes give ourselves airs, especially regarding our companions in the Rabbinical College, who are not. The liceo is behind us now, and we speak of it as of experiences victoriously overcome, and thus we feel that which we’re still not at all—that is, “mature.” Occasionally we wear the student hat, and we are a little odd and—even without admitting it—a little self-conscious; but are we or are we not university students? And therefore some entertainment is also customary. We go to concerts and to movies, we visit museums, we make some trips to the outskirts of the city, we willingly drain a few shot glasses, particularly those that we fill with samples of the exquisite liqueurs that my brother sends me. This—having a little drink together—will be-

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come almost a ritual. After lunch, looking out a window that opens on the Janiculum hill, we admire the beautiful panorama that stretches from the Tiber to the statue of Garibaldi; the sun shines on our raised glasses, accompanied by a fervent “Le-chaìm!” (To health!).9 We have maintained this tradition over the years, and when we write each other on certain occasions we don’t forget to raise a glass symbolically, he living in Israel and I in Rome. Then we drink a real toast when we see each other. And even on these occasions the Janiculum and Garibaldi are present. It was a good friendship from the beginning, even though I notice a veiled form of reserve in him regarding me during this period. Maybe he’s still studying, or better, calibrating, my Judaism. And maybe it’s natural, too. He has already attained a high level of Jewish studies and a Jewish life, with a sound Talmudic grounding that leads him to judge people and actions with acumen. I’m still basically nothing more than a Piedmontese peasant who knows about Jewish matters through the experience of a simple, wholesome Jewish life. I’m coming from biblical studies with a smattering of Mishnà, but I still haven’t been introduced to all the subtleties that only a Talmudic preparation can give. I’m rather “rough-hewn” in this sense, and it’s obvious that my speech itself does not escape the always attentive eye of my friend, even when he seems far away or when he listens without saying anything. It is the first time that I find myself facing this new world. And doubtlessly it will be a very useful experience. And later I will improve myself, becoming more polished. And I did, to such an extent that many years later, when I was taking part in a meeting that was attended by a large Ashkenazic crowd, I realized that one of my points—which I thought to be not only good but excellent—had not been given due consideration; it actually was almost ignored (even though I had stood up for it several times, with Piedmontese stubbornness) due to the fact, pure and simple, that the person who presented it was a Jew born in Italy, who did not even know Yiddish. I invented a relative, right then and there, who would have great importance for my proposal: “What would my grandfather, born in Warsaw, say,” I exclaimed, “if he were attending this meeting?” It might seem strange, but the fact is that then that idea of mine was not only agreed to but also greatly appreciated!

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Starting with those first months my relationship with Berti was truly helpful and precious and was the beginning of a long, devoted friendship. I was in search of a clearer and more complete Jewish existence. I had not yet refined my ideas and my orientation with a systematic study of Jewish history and tradition. Berti, sometimes even with a friendly argument, made me take note of these lacunae, and he was a great help to me. He had already achieved considerable cultural sturdiness, and he was prone to judge with a spirit that was more practical and thus better adapted to the reality of the facts. At bottom I was, and in part I still am, a Jewish Romantic, let’s say, of the haggadic type (from haggadà, meaning “parable”); Berti, instead, was a keen rationalist, a halakhic type (from halakhà, meaning “rule, law”), who also had some hints of Jewish Romanticism, which were, however, almost always under control. His reservations regarding me—which at any rate were understandable—were later to disappear almost completely, a little at a time; only a few traces, difficult to identify, remained. But friends—those who are true and genuine, like he is—are accepted just as they are. If a brother is a relative by way of the flesh—our masters say—then a friend is a relative by way of the spirit. And from this point of view I can say that our friendship was destined to become ever closer and more brotherly. One Friday evening at the Pines Pensione. Sitting at our table, as he often does, is an old sofèr who is working for the Community, putting some Sefarìm [Torà scrolls] in order. He, too, is alone; his wife, who sometimes comes to visit him, lives in Fiume.10 Finding himself with two students, his joy is immense. He buries his hands in his long beard— which has glints of copper and is already partly white—and in language that is a mixture of Hebrew, Yiddish, and Venetian dialect he talks to us about the Torà, the Talmùd, and the midrashìm all at once, with a style that seems a little confused, at least to me. Exegetical, juridical, and midrashic teachings intertwine and even create a pleasant, mystical, Hasidic type of atmosphere. One evening, among other things, he told us of an episode contained in the Talmùd: “You need to learn,” he began with a slow voice and with his habitual effort to find the right word in any language, “that once an immoral

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woman (may the Lord keep us far from such calamities) had succeeded in enticing a young man—” He stopped himself and looked at us intently for a long time, as if one of us two could be (here, too, God forbid) a potential candidate for such dreadful experiences. “And she led him to her house. Obviously the sudden, insane passion must have swept away every means of self-control in that unhappy youth, who followed her; just as it is said in Mishlè, ‘He went after her like a cow to the slaughter.’11 Having entered that house the wretch was dazzled by the richness of the surroundings. Imagine, my friends: the door handles were made of gold, and even the staircase and the railing were of gold.” And each time he pronounced the word “gold” his eyes opened wide, and he gestured with his hands, as if he wanted to emphasize that there really are forms of seduction whose perversity knows no limits. “The young man went up the stairs, and he could not stop admiring and being unsettled by so much wealth. They went into a room, and behold, even the bed was of gold, and the various ornamental objects were also of the same precious metal. For his salvation, in this world and in the world to come, Heaven willed that the young man’s hand would settle on one of the zizìth (fringe of the tallèth) of the tallèth katàn (small prayer shawl) that he regularly wore. This contact was enough to bring him back to reality. It was as if he were reawakened from a nightmare, and as the woman invited him to make himself comfortable, he fled from that house of sin and so was saved. Do you see,” he concluded, “what power the mizwòth have?”12 We agreed with this, his logical and saintly conclusion. Later on my comment was less respectful and more like that of a student: “Obviously that woman must have been really ugly.” At the Pines Pensione. For the first time in my life I’m at a lookout point (so to speak) that is invaluable for direct knowledge of a Jewish world that is much larger—because it’s international—than the one familiar to me, which in practice was bounded by the Monferrato hills. Kindly Signor Pines, who speaks several languages (even though imperfectly), recognizes ictu oculi the people who enter and approaches them using the right language.13 He rarely makes a mistake. He has already had me admire and comment on two huge volumes in which his transient customers have expressed their opinions, in many languages, not only

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about the food but also about the personality who manages the pensione. I find famous names there that I recognize through the Jewish press and their works. Even those who are not observant, who don’t eat kosher— when they come to Rome they almost always make a brief appearance at Pines’s a part of their visit’s agenda. During the week the clients are few, but the dining hall fills up on Friday evening and Saturday at noon. On Saturday afternoon there is also the se’udà shelishìth (third meal), to which we students were invited and, naturally, which we took part in quite gladly—the truth be told, not only for the food and the sweets that ended the meal but especially for the beautiful songs that followed one another and that lasted until the first shadows of the sunset, the moment of havdalà (separation, the end of the Sabbath).14 They were old, traditional songs that I, however, was hearing for the first time. The pronunciation was typically Ashkenazic, and they seemed to bring me the echo of the age-old sufferings and hopes of East European Judaism. Rabbi Fabian Herskovits, who later would also become a very dear friend of mine, has barely arrived from Budapest, and one evening he introduces the famous writer Shalom (or better, Sholem) Asch to me. Asch has the look of a country gentleman, he speaks Yiddish—and therefore the conversation with me is spotty—and he does not seem very interested in dealing with young students. But it’s already a splendid experience just to be seated near a personage like him, to hear the sound of his voice, to follow his gestures, to think about how he had come to write so much, including a novel about Moses, which Lattes regarded very highly. There’s a small, bearded lawyer—an excellent orator—lively and garrulous, but sometimes also silent for hours, gloomy, sitting alone at a table in mute admiration—almost with tears in his eyes—for a flower picked on a walk at sunset, which he has placed in a glass filled with water. At other times, with a red and blue pencil, he amuses himself by correcting the errors that Pines has made compiling the menu (with great effort, in a very imprecise Italian), using red or blue marks, according to the gravity of the error. It’s the only copy for the customers’ use. Pines gets angry, and looking at me, he places a finger on his forehead and whispers, “Meshùghe” (crazy). A young chemist from Berlin—elegant, proper, all bows, smiles,

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friendly handshakes, a truly orthodox Jew in modern dress. One evening a family was at the table near ours. Someone grumbles in German that the prices are very dear and that in a nonkosher restaurant you would eat better and at prices that were more honest. The chemist friend leans toward me. After having whispered, “This kind of insult can’t be tolerated any longer,” he rises, approaches the table, and introduces himself, with a proper, measured bow. Then in a rather severe tone he says, “You can do whatever seems right to you, but you should keep your deplorable comments to yourselves.” The critics get up and leave. One Saturday after lunch a few young Tripolitans light up their cigarettes without any concern.15 Pines comes, and his protest is violent—he waves his hands, straightens out his kippà (which usually slips off his head), and then he chases them out, following them to the door with his complaints. The Library of the Rabbinical College. The secretary, Lea Sestiere, skillful and untiring at resolving the great and small problems of the school and of the students, introduces me to a professor whom I knew many years earlier, when he was rabbi in Alessandria. He’s taking notes in a small notebook. He has a reputation for being a great teacher, but he’s also the hard kind, tough to deal with. He looks at me hurriedly, quickly stretches out his hand, and murmurs, “But we already know each other.” And that’s all—he goes back to his work. The liceo complex—getting the jitters from the hard teacher—crops up again. Then I remember that one evening when I was still a boy I had been his guest for dinner. Rabbi Artom, seating himself at the head of the table, had greeted me with few words, which seemed to me—although it wasn’t—like a request to contain my high spirits as a restless child. From that moment on I became so intimidated by his tone of voice that I was afraid to touch the food. He must have become aware of my embarrassment because, suddenly raising his head and interrupting the meal—he was eating a large plateful of pasta hurriedly, and he was left with his fork suspended in midair—he said to me, with a slight smile, “Beh, what are you doing? Eat, it’s good.” Later, with the passing of years, I realized that I was dealing with a teacher whom you could turn to, like a father, even if he spoke few words and learning would always take precedence over everything

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else. He himself gave us the example, rising to the lectern even when he had a fever, maintaining that the doctors did not understand anything, that medicines did not serve anyone but the pharmacist, and that therefore to stay at home would mean only to lose time. His class, taught with straightforward simplicity and precision, was dominated by his concern as to whether the topic he was dealing with was really being followed and understood. Hence a pressing succession of questions, relentless, until he was convinced that everything was clear and that there were no longer any doubts or uncertainties. He often walked among the desks, stopping suddenly to point his finger at a student, putting a question to him, then shrugging his shoulders heatedly and waving his hands when the answer was not satisfactory, and limiting himself to smiling and adding a few words when the query was finally resolved. When we grappled with fundamental topics in their various moral, religious, and judicial aspects for the life of the individual or of the Jewish community, his voice would become almost caustic, metallic, and vehement. Even in their undeniable severity his words were always, if you thought about it, words that a father might speak to a child, without any form of scientific affectation and without frills, yet sincere, honest, and deeply felt. He had kept that typically Piedmontese directness, which sometimes may have been a little unpolished but which was doubtless free of any academic rhetoric. When I went to ask him, first of all, for his opinion about accelerating a course of studies, and—if I got a positive answer—for his help, not only did he immediately tell me, “Yes, you’re capable of doing it,” but he also declared himself available to give me the supplementary classes. Thus for one year, for three to four hours each week, he dedicated his precious time to me. On the appointed days, precisely at the appointed time, he entered the classroom and gave a course of lectures for me alone, with the same care that he exercised in the other lectures in front of all the students. His adamantine honesty and sincerity in expressing his ideas might have often made Rav Artom seem to be a touchy person, difficult to deal with. But this gift of his for scrupulous honesty and absolute sincerity (“absolutely” was an adverb that recurred often in his stock phrases) was the fruit of an education in a family of old Jewish and Piedmontese traditions and of the bitter ex-

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perience of terrible family calamities that had struck him and made him accept life only as a duty, a task that he had to fulfill. Teaching had thus become the exclusive, fundamental center of his entire life. Many years later, on February 25, 1965, when he happened to be in my office, he felt sick. It was I who realized it, because although he was undoubtedly suffering horribly, he didn’t let even a groan escape. He said to me, “Listen, I’m afraid that I won’t be able to teach this morning.” I wanted to call a doctor and see him to the hospital; he refused, saying, “Those things are useless; I’d like to go home, then we’ll see.” I carried out his wish, and I went with him; he fell to the ground on the doorstep of his home. His only and his last concern had been having to abandon the class! Another teacher of international fame, but with quite different traits: Umberto Cassuto. For him Judaism was faith and science at the same time and at a very high level. He was the professor par excellence: courteous, formal, precise, and scientific in every detail; nothing escaped his notice. Sometimes when he was speaking he would close his eyes lightly, as if to concentrate better. His speech was fascinating—spare, Florentine, with delicate tones of the r—and sometimes, when he was about to conclude a subject (which had been treated with the fastidious attention of an artist), he got louder, as if he wanted to underscore the importance of the conclusion, which, however, should have been quite clear and obvious to everyone by then. Between us and him, however, there was always the lectern, and during the lectures no one dared ask questions, nor was it permitted. With Artom, Lattes, and Kahan it was. Cassuto would enter the classroom, usually taking over from Artom, who was also absolutely punctual. When Artom, having finished the lecture, opened the door and was about to leave, he found his brother-in-law Cassuto outside, already waiting. Cassuto would go up to the lectern, carefully extract from his bulging briefcase a large volume of the Bible (which he always carried with him), open it, lean over the pages—studded with numerous, tiny annotations (he sometimes added others while he was lecturing)—and immediately begin to deal with the scheduled subject. The characters, facts, and problems of biblical criticism—through a minute, precise, and penetrating analysis—slowly acquired contours that were ever clearer and more obvious. It was a type of mosaic work, done with

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patience and scrupulously diligent experimentation, in which every tessera found its correct position and surprised everyone through the art of its colors and the appeal of the whole. Thus Wellhausen, Kittel, and other famous critics were often dissected meticulously and neutralized.16 When some problem presented clear difficulties, he would furnish an explanation, concluding, however, with “It might be, but it also might not be.” If instead the solution was obvious, he struck one hand against the other several times as if to emphasize that there was really nothing more to add. Bowed over our notebooks, we took notes without stopping for two hours precisely, even if at some point our hands started to ache. Sometimes he would come down from the lectern, lean on the radiator, and rub his chubby hands—doing even this, I would say, with an almost scientific technique, just as he would carefully and slowly smooth his mustache, whose ends seemed to point upward, like upside-down question marks. The end of the lecture was often accompanied by the sign that he was done—shutting the huge book suddenly, with a crash. It was like putting the final period in an article. Once my father, who had come to visit me, wanted to sit in on one of Cassuto’s lectures, and he took a seat at one of the student desks. But Cassuto had a chair brought in, and he had him sit near the lectern, which brought great joy to Papà (and especially to me) for being given such honor. After the lecture we were able to go up to him and walk with him part of the way; he listened to us with friendly attention and responded to our queries. The Talmùd: an ocean of ancient wisdom, not easily navigable. There was a little fellow of Hungarian origin, with a red goatee, overly polite, and when he smiled his gold tooth gleamed. For him there were no impossible solutions, and everything could be arranged through tact, good sense, attention, using the right words, and never taking rigid positions, since they really did not accomplish anything. That is how the Talmudist Isidoro Kahan appeared to us. He came from the yeshivà (Talmudic academy) and must have had a prodigious memory. Sometimes we got the impression that he hadn’t prepared his lectures, because more than once he stopped himself, half closing his eyes as if to concentrate better—and only a few seconds were needed before he remembered a passage or a commentary that was to be found in another tractate. Some-

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times he attempted quotations in Latin, which he must have known only remotely, turning to us who had come from the classical liceo. “Pater incertum est” quite quickly became a phrase that identified him, without his name being mentioned.17 He was aware of the reputation of his colleagues, and therefore, when he remembered, he took on a professorial manner—which, because of the extreme seriousness of his face when he was in their company, seemed very funny, especially to us, who knew him quite well for his guilelessness and the informality with which he treated us. His Italian was not perfect, and he often invited me to a bar for a coffee, bringing German and Hungarian texts with him—which he said were notes that he himself had made—and translating them to me. I would take notes, and then I would prepare the sermons that he had to give at the Sephardic temple. He never failed to extol the seriousness and zeal of studying in Budapest. He once said, “Those were wonderful times, and how we studied! We devoted ourselves to the Talmùd for twenty-five hours a day.” To our obvious surprise and the question, “But how?” (it was clear from his eyes, which shone with mischievous and genial wit, that he was waiting for it), his response—accompanied by a smile in which his red goatee and gold tooth took part—was, “But it’s very simple. We got up an hour earlier!” Lattes gave courses in Jewish literature and Jewish thought. The materials were all but unknown to me, and I followed them with keen interest. We became aware of his presence in the classroom after he had already entered, with his light, almost muffled footfall and a slight smile; during the winter he would proceed, as in a ritual, to take off his gloves and his violet-colored scarf. He carried the books that he needed, invariably wrapped in newsprint and tied with a piece of twine, busying himself, always silently, in untying the knot with great care. I don’t remember ever having seen him with a briefcase. The materials were new, as I mentioned, and they commanded our attention, stirring up strong emotions, thanks to the method the maestro followed. Opening a book, for example, he would start to read a poem by Bialik in Hebrew, even before giving it an introduction and beginning the translation.18 His was a slow, deep voice that stirred the soul and seemed to arouse distant and mysterious echoes, even if we were unable to catch the meaning of the

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verses. In utter silence the rhythm of the lines would create a special atmosphere of concentration and meditation. It seemed like the history of the past had reemerged, with its experiences of pain and suffering, and that some glimmer of the future lit up our people’s unexhausted hopes. The translation followed—lucid, precise, with comments on the grammar that deepened the nuances of the subject matter—and at the end another reading of the same verses in Hebrew. Bialik, Cernichowski, Shim’onowitz, Schneur, and then in addition, for Jewish thought, Achad Haam, Benamozegh, Buber, Klausner, and for ancient poetry and prose Jehudà ha-Levì and Ibn Gebirol.19 They passed before our eyes and were imprinted in our hearts. In those out-of-the-way rooms of the Rabbinical College, located high up on the last floor of the Great Synagogue, I thus began not only to fashion my Jewish knowledge (which I was doing through the other extraordinary teachers as well) but also, through Lattes, to sensitize myself to the problems and struggles that our people had sustained and that had sustained our people, and to the duties every Jew should take on in order to participate actively in his divine and human adventure. Marveling through the windows at the magnificent Roman sunsets as the sun, beyond the Tiber, descended behind the Janiculum hill, youthful dreams broke free from all restraint, and I seemed to be seeing Herzl in the place of Garibaldi. Later I would begin to frequent Lattes’s home. Besides being his pupil, I also became a friend, and I would get into long conversations with him that ran very late—even when, in about 1936, two public security agents were permanently stationed in the porter’s booth to monitor Lattes and to keep track of whoever went to his home. I was often invited to lunch. I got to know his wife, Emma, his daughter, Lina—untiring and gifted collaborator, “the typist,” as she loved to describe herself—and the grandson, Amos, then a boy, who listened very enthusiastically to my stories as an ex–sports journalist. In Lattes’s home I found a little of my own home again. For me it wasn’t only a spiritual landmark but also a family one. Realizing that the telephone must have been under surveillance, Lattes kept his voice very official and indifferent when I called him. If I told him I wanted to come visit, he would consent with some hesitation. Sometimes he answered me curtly, “I’m sorry, I don’t have

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time, phone me again.” Except later he would excuse himself, telling me, “You know, I have to play the game, too, and it’s also just as well for you.” He treated me a little harshly in his study just once. It was when I had expressed some ideas to him—I no longer recall which—and the maestro became silent, looking at me with a stern and slightly worried expression. When I insisted on knowing his opinion he blurted out, “I won’t respond to you because your reasoning is fascist.” And I don’t need to say that I felt rather bad. Later, in a very friendly way, he explained to me the reason that my definition of the problem had been mistaken. Lattes entrusts me with the job of being the Rome correspondent for the weekly Israel. I know that he’s not easily satisfied, and therefore I accept this first sign of confidence with a great deal of dedication and get to work immediately, as a good reporter should. I write a piece on a public lecture, and I submit it for his inspection. “It’s not bad,” he tells me, “but if I may, I would like—how do you say it?—to play the devil.” The maestro’s pen quickly goes to work; I watch that fine, elegant hand, that clear, precise writing. It takes only a little, and the newspaper piece is practically redone from top to bottom. “How does it seem to you now?” “Beh!” I answer, a little self-conscious. “It’s something else entirely.” “Don’t be upset. That’s just the way it is at first.” Afterward, in fact, things did keep getting better. I still have his letters that begin with an “I greatly appreciated the apologetical value of your words,” or else, “I appreciated your writing for its original and pleasant style, for its sincerity, and for its respectful kindness.” It’s obvious that I preserved these letters and the record of these words with special care and affection, partly because, as is well-known, he was rather severe in judging people and writing. To one woman who had sent him an article “for him to publish,” he had sent it back with this response: “Let me have it again after about ten years, and in the meantime, if you have the time and the will, review Italian grammar a little.” Lattes’s letters contained not only subjects of everyday business but almost always impressions of events and people. Today, many years later, his letters, taken as a whole, give a particularly interesting outlook on events, with observations that are extremely penetrating and even harsh

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but that offer a perfect photograph, so to speak, of an epoch and of its character. In 1958 he wrote me to let me know about the presence in Rome of Prezzolini, from whom he had received a letter that read: “As far as I’m concerned, I don’t have anything against you reprinting the Jewish Stories translated by poor Dr. Beilinson. In fact, I would be pleased if it was noted that I published them in the series Quaderni della ‘Voce.’ ”20 Lattes asked me to meet Prezzolini to talk with him about this publication. Still regarding Prezzolini, in 1958, Lattes wrote to me from the Lido of Venice, where he had moved a couple of years earlier: I thank you for Prezzolini’s article, which is him exactly—the Prezzolini of La voce. Given his bourgeois temperament, there is nothing to be surprised at in his anti-Zionism. Zionism has complicated politics and history, while the world is so stupid that it never learns how to solve the most pressing problems and age-old tragedies. In 1915 or ’16 I replied, in Voce, to an anti-Zionist article by my very dear friend, Professor Felice Momigliano, who had described Zionism as the longa manus of Germany. One should not be surprised that, for Prezzolini and for the bourgeoisie, Zionists today are considered imperialists with lots of money—since many American Jews, and maybe also Italian Jews, are Americans and Italians first and then maybe Jews, just like in the past.21 In 1959, when I was entrusted with the position of director of the Cultural Department of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities, Lattes wrote me: First of all, a double congratulations for the new duties and the new home. I got the news from the president of the Union that you have been appointed to vast, difficult tasks, and I promised that I would gladly give the contribution of my counsel to my exstudent and friend at any moment and in any circumstance, in the confidence that you would fulfill the tasks that have been entrusted to you, with diligence and ingenuity. . . . In order to judge the fruit of your labor, you have to know not what you’re capable of doing

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but what they want of you. If they want you to be meqìz nirdamìm or mechajè metìm (the one who reawakens the sleeping or who revives the dead), they want too much of you. You can’t get blood from a turnip, and Italian Judaism is a field of turnips, beginning with the bigwigs. (You make the two metaphors agree.) Don’t get frightened by my opinion, and don’t get discouraged. The results won’t depend totally on your ingenuity or on your zeal, but on the obstinate material with which you have to work, which is still the same as in the time of Moses. Give me some details so that I can get a less vague idea of your duties, which constitute an innovation in the millenary history of the Italian ghetto.22 In 1961, speaking to me about his health in his usual witty style, which he employed adroitly in certain circumstances, he said, among other things, “Since I haven’t been young for a long time, and the road is traveled slowly, I’m recovering a little at a time. Besides, the Latins said, festina lente, and I, as a good Italian, obey the precepts of the Latin forefathers (of whom?).”23 In the same year: “When the Jews of the Roman Ghetto have abolished their superstitions, their Judaism will also be finished. Let them be what they are and what history has made them. Almost a century after their emancipation, no community council and no rabbi has done anything to enlighten them. Assimilation, with its Latin-Catholic candles, will also come to them. And it will be a much greater assimilation.” Still in 1961: “You, therefore, in spite of your several rabbinical titles and your position as head of the Department of Education and Culture, have become the employee of someone who is Jewishly illiterate and therefore incompetent. It’s an Italian custom to put lawyers in charge of health and professors of economics in charge of war. . . . The Council of the Union has few Jewish concerns and doesn’t react.” In 1962, speaking about an anti-Semitic work, he observed: Regarding the anti-Semitic libel, it’s no surprise. Not even the six million Jewish deaths were able to lessen the hunger of the AryanChristian Moloch. And I doubt that articles in two or three Italian newspapers would be of any use, nor would the official protests

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of the Union be sufficient to silence the anti-Semitic monsters. Maybe if a voice from the Church made itself heard it would be worth much more than all the Jewish statements. When the Elders of Zion libel showed up in Italy, we had Prezzolini write an article in the Resto del Carlino, but the campaign didn’t cease. And why would it have ceased? And you think that a statement signed by the president of the Union would have been able “to catch the attention of world public opinion” and spark a rebellion and change the hearts of the “democracies”? You’re still young and optimistic, but the Jews are the scapegoat and target for the reactions of the entire world. Evidently, we must have a hand in the reactionary wing of the Church, which fears that type of progressive modernism of the Catholic clergy that made itself heard for a few moments by a few voices at Vatican II.24 In 1963, excusing himself for his lateness in responding to one of my letters, he said, in a joking tone, “Old age, work, and family worries can sometimes also render us lazy and make us appear discourteous. At any rate, I ask your forgiveness, and I promise you not to do it again!” Commenting on a meeting of Jewish community institutions in Geneva in 1963, he wrote: I don’t understand how it could be that so many unknown clerical workers and illiterate public bureaucrats, who have absolutely no idea what a Jewish education is, were invited to Geneva, and the only responsible person was forgotten. Reading the Italian Jewish press, I was shocked by the confusion of ideas, the countless factions, the banality with which Israel, Hatiqwah, and Zerajm deal with the great problems of the so-called Hebrew religion. Today C.A.V. agrees with Pacifici; tomorrow he throws him overboard by accepting the contrary opinion of Artom. There’s the Council, which repudiates itself and after months and months replies to old objections. There’s the Union, which doesn’t know what to do and sits on the fence between yes and no. I have posed two or three problems to our teachers and lecturers, but no one has had the courage to respond and speak out. And yet Italian Judaism

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lives, grows, stirs, hopes. In my opinion it doesn’t have long to go, in spite of the Benè Aqivà and all of the three or four Orthodoxto-the-bones youth movements. In Hatiqwah I saw the portrait of Benedetto Croce, who called Judaism a “barbarous and primitive” religion. But many Jews venerate him as a maestro.25 February 17, 1963: “Take care of yourself—don’t get angry with Jews, great and small, and with Christians, tall and short. The world is no longer as beautiful as it was before the original sin (and it’s already been several millennia since then) in spite of the coming of the Messiah, the son of God, and the multitude of his faithful. Let’s wait another few millennia until another Messiah comes. Benamozegh said that the Messiah has not come and won’t come—but he is coming. The journey must be long, full of stones and mountains, and, since the Awaited One doesn’t own a car, like the rabbis, and rides on a donkey, like the Sardinian peasants, it’s understood that he can’t help but be late. But though he delays, wait for him—as the rabbis said with great wisdom.” In 1964, referring to one of my articles that appeared in Il mulino, he noted: Maybe you were very optimistic, as a young person should be. But unfortunately, beginning with Cain (the second human generation), the evil instincts have always prevailed, and neither the Bible, the Talmùd, the Gospels, nor numerous moral philosophers have succeeded in cleansing unhappy humanity. You speak of a light that was extinguished around the tenth century. But men have always wandered in the darkness, and they still continue to hate each other, like the Greeks and the Turks, the Arabs and the Jews, the French and the Americans, the Catholics and the Jews, in spite of the councils and the pretty speeches. There are extremely few who, like La Pira, truly embrace the Jews. At any rate, your article is worthy of praise, which I permit myself to do even if I have to offend your modesty.26 A precious personal testimony about the dissolution of the weekly Israel, which took place in 1938, was given to me in his letter of May 24,

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1964: “Israel was dissolved after the raid on the printing office by Florentine Jews, led by the son-in-law of ——. I spoke about it to the prefect of Florence, who gave the lack of a chief editor—who had left for Erez Israèl—as the reason for the suppression. He didn’t want to hear about a new chief editor who I had proposed to him.”27 Even from these few examples—among the many that I could have mentioned—some characteristics of Lattes’s personality seem obvious. Sometimes he was a severe judge of people and behavior—yet fair, thorough, and perceptive, desiring to spur them on in the hope of some improvement. Also, one clearly cannot ignore the bitter tone that could be said to have afflicted him for almost his entire life; he often found himself isolated from the Jewish world—which certainly esteemed but also feared him—as well as from the non-Jewish world—which recognized in him its most seasoned and dangerous adversary. There were, however, times when Lattes alone, with his wisdom and his tact, could mediate. So it was not only when he approached leading international Jewish figures but when he was in contact with ministers, Mussolini, and Balbo, or else when he received official tasks from the government—like the time he was sent with Orvieto on a mission to London to try to do something about the economic sanctions decreed against Italy for the Ethiopian venture.28 For the extraordinary clarity of his ideas and methodology in the art of defending Jewish ideals, it would certainly be worthwhile to record one of his letters here, to the editor of La rassegna d’Italia, May 1947 (5): Only today I read what Massimo Lely wrote about the Jews and what you wrote as a preface to his letter published in the Rassegna d’Italia last February. Why he would have felt the need now, after seven years, to reprint those pages that appeared at that gloomy time is not easy to understand. Certain ideas always cause harm, whether in a period of persecution or in times of absolution or oblivion. Nor will declaring that he is earnest in what he thinks about the Jews or that those ideas have been professed by him for a long time, candidly, in solitude, suffice to excuse the author. The

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important thing is to see if they are good and true. And to us it seems that they are neither. He says, for example, that Jews lack the human equality that the Romans, on the contrary, had. The Romans, that is, who subjugated the world through violence and imposed the Latin civilization and language on it, were more respectful of human equality than the Jews, who had humankind descending from a single progenitor, who taught love for one’s neighbor and the stranger, who conceived of God as the Father of all humans and dreamed of happy future eras of peace and brotherhood. If one assumes martial, military power or imperialism as the criterion of greatness, then certainly the Jews were not great. But if greatness also lies in moral ideas and in the spiritual vision of life, the Jews were great as well, in a style that perhaps was more humane. Nor should one forget that Christianity was a Jewish product through which the prophetic word of the Bible was brought to the world. To say that the Jews were guided by the reflective and clerical side of human nature to be the managers of societies established through class domination, and that they found their role with the French Revolution—which was willed by the sheer weight of a class of Europeans (no less than by the Jews), already fully developed and dominant—and that the Jews and the middle class are the same society, that is, people incapable of art and of poetry—is to repeat hackneyed prejudices in the form of literary judgments and apodictic historical axioms. An extremely facile method for making the strangest paradoxes and the most dangerous absurdities credible. After which one can also repeat the same old mystical/dramatic theme, adapted to affect the reader as if before a great mystery—which is that “the matter of the Jews is a tragedy and maybe a condemnation.” It should be said, rather, that the tragedy and the condemnation belong to those who are unable to liberate themselves from their prejudices, to see the human being in the Jew, and to exercise toward him that sense of human equality that they call a virtue of the Romans and Christians. Surely it is neither Roman nor Christian to subject the Jew to the scorn and

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hatred of men, at the moment of the atrocities, attributing hateful defects to him and designating him the exponent of class domination and middle-class materialism. Nor is it responsible to speak about Judaism—as almost always happens—without knowing it, thus confusing the naive or ignorant reader with cryptic phrases like “advanced Talmudic philosophy” or with very doubtful parallels between “Casidism” [sic] and “Essene, Hellenistic, and Jewish esoteric knowledge” or between “Protestantism, the enemy of Rome, and the Jewish idea of immanence.” We don’t want to save anyone’s soul, but we wish that the peace and the lives of Jews would not be placed in jeopardy with this kind of literature. Sometimes hatred and persecution have a literary origin or a pseudo-scientific complicity. I have faith that you will want to make space in your Rassegna for this brief response because of the ideal of reconciliation between men that you have always pursued. Sincerely, with best regards.

c h a p t er el eve n

Jewish Rome

it cannot be said that Jewish Rome distinguishes itself in any special way through its activities. It, too, suffers from Rome’s traditional and general slothfulness and indifference. The thing, however, that impresses one the most, especially someone like me who comes from a small provincial Community, is to see the crowd that fills up the synagogue on Friday evening, Saturday evening, and on the main festivals and solemnities. At first I’m truly taken aback, and I think about the difficulties we had getting a miniàn. I had often gone out looking for some fellow Jew, and having found one, I sometimes had to labor to convince him to fulfill the mizwà. Here the crowd overruns the temple and the small yard that surrounds it. It cannot be said that everyone follows the services with “devotion.” The voice of the chazzàn gets lost and muffled in the high dome. In many people’s hands I see booklets with Hebrew prayers transliterated into Italian; usually they are working-class people who pray with voices that are hoarse and shrill at the same time, drowning out the chazzàn and even the ubiquitous clamor of those who are exchanging greetings and news with each other. There are, however, especially solemn moments as well—when, for example, Rabbi Sacerdoti, being a coèn, gives the priestly blessing.1 Utter silence holds sway over the great synagogue (the composite architectural style of which does not seem very well conceived). The service is such that it seems to be in a cathedral—because of the voices of the choir, the sound of the organ, and the beautiful voice of the rabbi. No less characteristic, and also moving, is the moment when family groups gather together under the tallèth to receive the blessing of the father or

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grandfather.2 They draw close together, and there’s plenty of squeezing-in for fear of being left outside the traditional mantle’s umbrella of sanctity; but there’s also a sense of vital emotion in those who give and in those who receive the berakhà. This is one example, among many, of a folk religious fervor that demonstrates how the common Jews—although frequently abandoned to themselves and oppressed for centuries through countless persecutions and misfortunes—remained bound and faithful, even if often only instinctively, to many traditions—including those that not infrequently arose spontaneously from a shared folk consciousness, each of which acquired a completely unique significance as it evolved. This faithfulness, and at the same time dauntlessness—embodied in certain actions that took imagination and that obviously could be regarded in a variety of ways—nevertheless represents a historical treasure that characterizes and gives an entirely unique tenor to the working class that makes up a large part of the Jews of Rome. Swallowed up among so many people, unknown, and sometimes looked upon as a foreigner, I often feel still more isolated, and I think with a touch of nostalgia about my old temple, so manifestly holy, where I know everyone and where I can follow the old traditional chants, which are so different here and leave me completely unmoved, even if many of them are undoubtedly beautiful. I feel the same sensation when I cross through the old ghetto area, which, on October 16, 1943, would become the tragic center of mass deportations. It’s hard to move about, especially during summer, since there are so many people passing through or seated on chairs brought from home. Everyone speaks loudly, calling each other by colorful nicknames, while the children chase each other, shouting. The heavier smell of cooked dishes mixes with the fragrant odor of sweets and becomes intense, propelled by the evening’s west wind. Here, too, no one knows me, and maybe some look at me suspiciously. There is, however, some cultural activity that takes place either at the premises of the Union, organized with great care and dedication by Attilio Milano, or in the homes of the intellectuals and the wealthy bourgeoisie who, on these occasions, advertise their own wealth in various ways.3 Participation at the cultural center came about more readily,

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because as university students (and what’s more, as students from the Rabbinical College) we were also in demand as speakers, though still green. It’s more difficult, however, to break into the other circle, but in the end some of us—the “foreigners”—are accepted. It’s at the cultural center that I give the first lecture of my life—with great fear and without raising my eyes from the text that I prepared and had Berti and Fabian (Herskovits) go over. My success goes far beyond my expectations since even the policeman from the nearby police station, who usually is present, seems to reawaken from his torpor, and he, too, claps his hands. In the private homes lectures usually aren’t given, and there aren’t policemen. A topic is broached, and then everyone has his say. Of all those gatherings I particularly remember, always with warm feelings and gratitude, the ones that took place in the home of Riccardo Bachi, who was well-known in Italy and abroad for his studies in the fields of statistics, economics, and the history of economics and finance. A university professor, loved for his scholarship and feared by students for his frank severity, he then lived on Via Bosio. He was a friend of Luigi Einaudi,4 who wrote of him: I had known Bachi for many years, and from year to year my esteem for the utterly scrupulous researcher, the historian, and the unerring statistician kept on growing. At the same time I learned to appreciate his elevated moral qualities of love for his family and for his country, Italy. But the revelation came unexpectedly one day when we were traveling together, and the train was passing through an almost desertlike region. To a question of mine about a people so far from our character, he quickly became quite animated. His thick head of hair and full beard gave his face a messianic look, his words flowing fervent and lively, narrating the glory and millenary tenacity of his people. In order to explain how the Jews, or rather a tribe of them, survived and lived while all the other peoples of antiquity disappeared, he went back to the work of the prophets, who spoke the words of the faith, which gave humans the will to live. Those words, gathered in the Book, were passed down from generation to generation. Today the words of the prophets, who

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spoke in the name of God, continue to compel the Jewish people to live. Not all Jews are like this—not those who are ashamed to be Jews, who affect disbelief, or who attend only to economic concerns. If Judaism will live, its glory will come from its dreamers and its prophets—from those who will succeed in the modern age in re-creating the ancient Hebrew language of the Bible and making it a newly spoken language. As he gave the reasons for the millenary persistence of his people, the face of my friend [Einaudi added] transformed into the image of an inspired prophet, and on my lips mere historical curiosity died, superseded by complete understanding of an idea that was deeply felt and desired in forging the destiny of the world.5 When I knew Bacchi his large beard, all white, gave him a truly patriarchal appearance. His always warm welcome and unmistakably Piedmontese accent put me even more at ease. Among the different people, I knew in particular his son Roberto—who today is also a distinguished professor of statistics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. The conversations were always at a very high level, and I was often silent in order to listen with the greatest concentration; I had much to learn. When it was late and we took our leave of the professor, he usually gave us this little lecture, like a father: “Friends, you know that Villa Torlonia is here nearby, and it’s extremely well guarded, especially at night. If they stop you, don’t be frightened. It sometimes happens to me, too, even though they know who I am.”6 At the beginning of 1934 a definite anti-Zionist campaign—in reality an intensifying of anti-Semitism—was being rekindled. It would explode in the following months, partly because of events in Torino, and would cause deep wounds within Italian Judaism itself. Telesio Interlandi’s Il Tevere, which fed this campaign, had been described—as De Felice reminds us—in the Corriere padano (under Italo Balbo) as “the official organ of the National Socialists in Italy”—and precisely at a moment when relations between Mussolini and Hitler clearly were not the best.7 Even in Jewish circles a state of tension between Zionists and anti-Zionists was increasingly obvious.

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On the 8th of January the Rome Zionist Group, then reestablishing itself, held its inaugural meeting in a large room at the Continental Hotel. Rather intimidated by the crowd that was present in such a luxurious place, which we were able to admire for the first time, Berti and I observed the different phases of the event, already being relatively well-informed about what was boiling in the pot. Undoubtedly it was no trifling test of the Zionists’ openness to hold such a meeting in one of the best-known hotels in the capital. Lattes was also there, in the front row, certainly one of the inspirers and organizers of the conference, silent and almost withdrawn, as if he were one of the many guests, curious to hear something new from the leaders of that reestablished Zionist group. Introduced by Paolo Fano, delegate of the group, who stressed the importance such a Zionist organization in Rome could assume, Augusto Levi, president of the Italian Zionist Federation, gave the official report. The basic concept the speaker developed was that “the more the Jew is aware of being a part of Judaism and of being obligated to live in such a way as to develop its spiritual values, the more he becomes a valuable individual to the country. Whoever thinks he can make himself useful to the country by assimilating completely actually becomes an unproductive member, because our past, our history, and the ideals and sufferings of our ancestors live on in our souls, and these elements are those that, above all, can create spiritual values. In fact the greatest among the Jews were, and still are, those who not only did not deny their Judaism but rather found in it the best inspiration for all their work. And they gained full recognition, among non-Jews as well.”8 I recall that Levi, trying to avoid misinterpretations, also maintained that our position as Zionist Jews did not in any way detract from the fact of our being Italians, and he put forward this question: “What would I say to someone who asked me which was greater—the love and affection of a child toward his father or toward his mother? These feelings can coexist—neither one is destined to negate the other.” Il Tevere, however, obviously was not of the same opinion, and in a harsh polemical article entitled “Jews” it maintained, among other things, that “the Jew who doesn’t want to assimilate himself, who refuses to be a citizen at 100 percent—maybe he’s nostalgic for the ghetto? It’s incredible to make such claims, especially in Italy.”9

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At one of those meetings—in the home of a Piperno family, if I remember correctly—a brawl nearly broke out one evening because the subject being discussed—the Jewish refugees who came from Germany—had drifted to the political and, so to speak, religious level. A certain Rossi, of the National Library, knowing full well that there were also Zionists present, came out with this infelicitous remark: “I helped some of them, too, as an Italian and with a Christian spirit.” It’s easy to imagine what happened. That was the first time that I got into the debate vehemently, too. The owners of the house, rightly worried by the clamor and also fearing the intervention of the police, tried to calm them down. Rossi was a typical assimilated Jew, Jewish in name only, who nurtured a near hatred for everything that was Jewish. His position therefore was not only anti-Zionist but anti-Jewish—a perfect anti-Semite in short. We succeeded in forcing him to leave, notwithstanding the legitimate and tactful opposition of the owners of the house, but the discussions—the rather scorching atmosphere having by then calmed down—went on for a long time more. From this first experience I began to realize how complex our Zionist work would be. The fact that sometime later, as it was related to me, Rossi had himself baptized didn’t surprise anyone. I don’t have any news as to how he settled his affairs with the Nazis years later. Some news, unexpected by us, mobilizes all the Zionists in the capital. Weizmann has arrived in Rome, and he is to meet with Mussolini.10 A large reception is organized by the Congress of Jewish Studies in the reception hall of the Union of the Communities, which then had its offices in Piazza San Pantaleo. I’m on the guest list, too, and I’m a bit excited when Lattes introduces me to Weizmann and his wife, Vera. I feel somewhat self-conscious in my simple Sabbath suit, while Weizmann, who gives me a reserved handshake, is in a tuxedo and his wife, Vera, is wearing an elegant evening dress. Many of the guests are also in tuxedos. That is not the case, however, with either Lattes or Nahon, who welcome the guests.11 It’s the first time that I find myself in the presence of such a distinguished personality from the Jewish world—president of the World Zionist Organization and a famous scientist. I already know a great deal about him, but now I see him in front of me, greeting each and every person who has come. His shiny bald spot, black goatee, dark and pen-

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etrating eyes, the features of his dignified face (typically Russian Jewish and animated by faint smiles), the straight back, even when he bows slightly, and the measured step—all this offers, to my intrigued and attentive scrutiny, a figure who is, at one and the same time, an experienced diplomat and an austere professor, with refined and detached manners in the Anglo-Saxon style. He is introduced in Italian by an engineer, who gives him a warm welcome, wishing him the best of success for the upcoming meeting. Weizmann responds in French, starting off with these words: “I do not know the Italian language well, but from the person who introduced me warmly and whom I thank heartily, I heard some words repeated several times that in the end I was nevertheless able to understand: ‘We Italian Jews.’ In fact, I cannot understand why there is such insistence on these words, just as I would not be able to understand someone who told me that my ancestors took part in the Battle of Hastings . . .” Expanding, then, on the central subject of his speech (which was grounded on very practical and topical themes) with strong and skillful oratory—measured in tone, nuance, pauses, and in the gesturing of his hands—Weizmann went on to explain the fundamental purpose of Erez Israèl, the important accomplishments already achieved, and thus the great possibilities that had opened up in the country. While I listened to him I remembered the archetypal attitudes taken many years earlier by Herzl (political), Achad Haam (spiritual), and Weizmann (the accomplisher), especially one of his speeches in which he had pressed on, saying, “another dunam of land, another Jew, another cow, another goat, another two houses.”12 At the Excelsior Hotel Weizmann receives some representatives from the Zionist Group, from adei, and students from the Italian Rabbinical College.13 Here the meeting, within certain limits, is less official and also more direct. But once again the speech of the president is directed toward the accomplishments that have already been achieved and the necessity that everyone give his labor so that the job of the rebirth of the ancient land can be consolidated and expanded. People will judge us by what we all can accomplish, and the future of Erez Israèl depends on that as well. On this occasion, too, his professorial and diplomatic modes intertwine quite subtly, but he is without doubt a fascinating figure. To the

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experience that I was acquiring at the side of Lattes could now be added this—which was no less important and possibly decisive for my future activities in the Zionist field and the Jewish field in general. Mussolini receives Weizmann, and Lattes waits at the Faraglia Café, which was then located in the building that faced the Palazzo Venezia. After the meeting Weizmann joins Lattes and dictates an account of the conversation in French. This report, which I had the chance to read sometime afterward, no longer exists, because, as I’ll have occasion to mention, Lattes, before leaving for Palestine in 1939, wanted to have his entire archive destroyed, fearing it would fall into fascist or German hands. I still remember a passage from that report quite clearly. During the conversation Weizmann, among other things, pointed out to Mussolini that he (Weizmann) could intercede to provide Italy with chemical products and even a team of experts. At this point Mussolini asked, “Why don’t you make these proposals to Germany?” “I don’t deal with hyenas,” was the terse and explicit response. And Mussolini: “You’re right, you do well.” Reading over this report with Lattes, the maestro commented, “Do you see how these fascists behave? You can never trust them. Just think— years ago, when I went to Mussolini for the first time, there still wasn’t any sign of official anti-Semitism, not even of anti-Zionism. And yet at the end of the meeting, as he accompanied me to the door—and this was certainly an act of courtesy that I appreciated—he said to me, ‘Professor, tell your coreligionists to be good Italians.’” “‘They already are, Your Excellency,’ I answered him.” And Lattes smiled, making a gesture with his hands, as if to say, “What could I have said to him, seeing that he already knew full well the faithful italianità of our Jews?” The encounter with Mussolini had taken place on the seventeenth of February; on the twenty-third Weizmann would embark from Napoli on the Conte di Savoia, straight for Erez Israèl. Other meetings at the Excelsior with other government officials followed. At the moment of his departure from Rome I was again at the Termini train station with a few others to say goodbye to him. My friend Fabian, like a good Hungarian,

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turned up with a magnificent bunch of roses, which he presented to Mrs. Weizmann after having gallantly kissed her hand. Under the edge of the platform roof we had formed a kind of circle, and we exchanged ideas and feelings with each other. I noticed that another ring had formed around us, discreetly, and at a certain distance—obviously police agents. When Weizmann and his wife started toward the train car, that police ring split apart in perfect synchrony. Another private meeting took place shortly afterward with Jacobson. If I remember correctly, it was Lattes himself who took the initiative of introducing some young people, who might have represented—let’s put it this way—the future, however uncertain, of Italian Zionism, to the elderly Zionist, who was also of Russian origin and a member of the Executive Committee of the World Zionist Organization. March of 1934—the well-known episode in Torino and the arrest of a group of Jewish antifascists.14 This affair might still bear being investigated in some of its collateral details. The entire press exploded violently. It was close to the festival of Pèsach, and in the ceremony of the first two nights, at the end of the reading of the Haggadà, one says, “LeShanà ha-baà Birushaláim.”15 Il Tevere, taking its cue from this phrase, titled its lead article, on March 31, “Lescianà abbaà Biruscialáim (Next Year in Jerusalem): This Year in Special Court.”16 Even within the Jewish world there were reactions and posturing by Jews who sent letters to newspapers reaffirming their italianità, their loyalty to the regime, and their firm condemnation of Zionism. Israel, as De Felice observes, “possibly because of the greater sense of responsibility of its editor and possibly to avoid government actions, maintained a moderate attitude and limited itself to rejecting the accusations of the press, condemning those arrested (‘Joined with everyone in deploring this very unhappy episode, we await the pronouncement of the judges; Italian justice does not discriminate against anyone, Jewish or not’), and hoping that ‘as unhappy as it is, the episode should remain just an episode,’ and not be generalized arbitrarily.”17 The Communities were in ferment, and the Union found itself between the anvil and the hammer, having to face the fascist offensive and also trying to save itself from the fascist Jews who were attempting to supplant the Council.

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In May La nostra bandiera, the work of a Torinese group led by Ovazza, came out.18 We called it “La loro bandiera.”19 In the first issue it was written, among other things, that “the reconstruction of a Jewish Nation in Palestine is a historical anachronism and an artifice that must be opposed. . . . It is not acceptable for there to be citizens in our country who can think nostalgically about a land that is not Italian soil.” There is no denying that the position of Ovazza and some of his comrades was perfectly in line with fascist doctrine. Nor was it even conceivable that one could “think nostalgically about a land.” Those Torinese coreligionists were following the party line, as we said, blindly and completely. Thus the conflict against us worsened, and I could make many observations and comments about this. But when, after the war, I learned of the horrible end that Ovazza and his family came to—butchered by the Nazis and burned in the furnace of the heating system in the school at Gressoney—a sense of pity always prompted me to place a veil over them, as well as over the other fascist coreligionists who met the same tragic end—even if it was because of their own actions, directly or indirectly, that they suffered various kinds of persecution, were subjected to cruel interrogators, and were often arrested.20 On the other hand, the fascist government itself, which considered Zionism a useful tool for irritating England, had intervened to try to calm the storm that had been unleashed a little. This is demonstrated by the fact that in December of the same year, 1934, the Maritime School of Civitavecchia was opened—organized by Revisionist Zionists, who in their ideology, which was derived from Jabotinsky, were rather close to the fascists.21 Although we bore in mind the reasons that could have motivated these youths who came from beyond Germany, from different countries in Eastern Europe, our group never wanted to make contact with these Zionists, who were supported by Italian revisionists who tended to play down the political importance of the venture.22 To us instead it seemed quite clear that this was a direct collaboration between revisionists and fascists, the former being manipulated for Mussolini’s dreams of a mare nostrum. I met Commander Fusco, who ran this school, in Rome, only many years after the war. He was without doubt an outstanding person, very warm, and an able seaman who knew how to navigate even in those

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difficult conditions. He still didn’t understand why we “Zionists” had been against other Zionists. From a distance of many years, having the opportunity of getting a broader and also a calmer picture of those events that drew us Zionists into the middle of rather dramatic matters, one cannot help but notice what was in a certain sense the paradoxical aspect of this entire historical period. The number of Jews in Italy was modest, even if the official state censuses, from 1911 to 1938, provide figures that were based on very debatable criteria and cannot yield precise data.23 If Jews residing in the colonies and those foreign Jews residing in or in transit through Italy are not taken into account, the number would barely exceed thirty thousand all together. We have to ask ourselves, then, to what extent such a minority could have been a burden on Italian life. Certainly not from a numerical point of view, nor from an economic, social, political, or even from a religious point of view, could they have constituted a problem. And then, integrated as they were into the surrounding world from the Emancipation onward, assimilation had swept away many families and much consciousness. The Zionist movement itself, from its hesitant beginnings at the end of the nineteenth century, had a strained life, both because of its numbers, which were quite modest (as they always would be), and because of its different factions, which in this Jewish microcosm of ours often reproduced keenly contrasting points of view. Lattes, Pacifici, Nahon, and Viterbo (Raffaele Cantoni had not yet appeared on the Jewish scene)—although they were, along with rabbis who held positions, invaluable and skillful proponents of Jewish life in general (as well as Zionism), they still represented a small minority within the Jewish minority itself.24 So it seems rather clear that all the clamor later stirred up in Italy by Preziosi (with anti-Semitism inspiring anti-Zionism as well) was nothing else at base but a tool of the regime, like so many other tools, used to strengthen its own position internally and externally.25 Mussolini’s and his officials’ irrationality and slapdash way of doing things revived—even if on a different historical level and under different sociopolitical conditions—the kind of anti-Semitic discourse that had been followed by so many other persecutors, from Pharaoh on. The classic example: “Behold, the people of the children of Israel are

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more numerous and more powerful than us . . . let us be prudent so that, in case of war, they do not join themselves with our enemies and fight against us and then leave the land” (Exodus 1:9 and following).26 It is evidently the irrationality of Pharaoh that advises prudence, against a people more numerous and more powerful, that fears an alliance of Israel with the enemy, and maybe even more fears that Israel will leave the land. It is not really clear what kind of prudence Pharaoh or his ministers would have been able to suggest against someone who was more numerous and more powerful than them. Pharaoh’s is the typical position of any dictator from any era, who on the one hand tries to stir up the hatred of the local population against a minority (which, as such, is certainly not more numerous or more powerful) in order to deflect present worries, but who on the other hand never forgets the benefits that he can extract from an active, intelligent, and able population. Over the centuries the Jews have often found themselves in situations analogous to this one—to be held hostage and persecuted but at the same time exploited, because they were able to fulfill important functions.

c h a p t er t w elv e

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i’m walking along Via IV Novembre, and I stop at the corner of Via Nazionale, uncertain about which street to take, not yet knowing the city very well. I’m approached by a man in civilian clothes. “Police,” he says and leads me through the main gate of the building nearby. He asks for my documents, what I do in Rome, what I was doing stopped at the corner, and he takes notes on everything. I answer, but my voice trembles, and I break into a cold sweat. I also get a bit of a song and dance, a warning that “when you’re going somewhere you keep walking and you don’t loiter, because you can get into trouble.” My fear is excusable—it’s the first time that something like this has happened to me, and I’m shaken. Later I’ll not only improve at dealing with these encounters—partly because I’ll have specific errands, which I didn’t on that day—but also because by then I’ll have refined my technique of being first to ask the officer to show me his identification papers, as the law provides. Of course in those instances when I overdid it—examining the papers at length and responding to the impatient policeman that I also had the right to ascertain whether his papers were expired or false—things didn’t go very well, and I usually ended up at the police station. Liberated from that first policeman of my life, I go, of course, to Lattes to tell him about my incident and to be comforted, as a child goes to his father at certain times. The maestro notices my agitation immediately and sits down near me. “Calm down,” he says to me. “It’s clear that you’re still very young. There are things, even like these, that just happen and that you’ll have to deal with again. Meanwhile let’s drink a coffee and have a cigarette and

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talk about things that are a little more cheerful.” Thus I found a loving family atmosphere, as I had occasion to find in other circumstances as well. I don’t think there were many people who knew Lattes up close like this, and so they never discovered his kindhearted side, which I, precisely because I did know him in this way, was then able to find in his writings, too. Lattes in his family relationships: a boundless love, profoundly Jewish, because it was always clouded over by fears and anxieties. He had had the great pain of losing his daughter Nora, in Siena, at a still tender age, in 1916. Having fled from Trieste shortly before the war, Lattes had taken on the job of rabbi, for the first and last time, in this small Community that could scarcely pay the rather modest stipend. He left Siena immediately, and the loss of his daughter must have left a pain in him that he carried for his whole life. In his study in Rome the only photograph was one of Nora. On her gravestone he had inscribed, “Father, mother, and sister cry bitterly for you on earth, which is a dark desert, and in life, which is a torment without you.” And in the book Leggende orientali, dedicated to her, it is written, “To my Nora, still small and bright, but who doesn’t read anymore because she’s been sleeping for so many years.”1 The troubles that he encountered in his Zionist activity also caused him serious family cares. For many years his family was constrained to live a rather modest and difficult life—and basically this was more or less the fate that followed him for his entire life. For many years they lived in furnished rooms, not even being able to permit themselves the luxury of renting a flat. The opposition of the Jewish world itself (he was an inconvenient person for Jews, too) quite often forced him to live in isolation, weighed down by many worries for his family as well, closed off—as his daughter Lina once said to me—“in the blackest solitude.” Until about 1922 he was continually seeking a secure job, unwilling to abandon his ideas. A truly emblematic episode that may be completely unknown took place when he was advised to go from Rome (after his daughter’s death) to Torino, because “there they were looking for someone to whom they could entrust Community tasks.” (Maybe also in Rome his sojourn was not well thought of in certain Jewish circles.) In an interview with the

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then-president of the Torino Community he heard himself being offered the post of—janitor, at the local Jewish orphanage. When he was allowed to clarify who he was and what his titles and his qualifications were, the president kicked him out of his office. Maybe it’s been since then that upstanding Jewish Torino has not had much sympathy for Zionism, and I have the impression that in general, though certainly at different levels and for a number of reasons, it hasn’t changed much even today. Sometimes at home Lattes vented his disappointment and bitterness, and in a certain sense his family bore the consequences. When I arrived at their place on such occasions, Lina would tell me that “Grandfather,” as we affectionately called him, “is impossible today.” But then it turned out not to be true, or only partially. Lina herself was also very anxious; she was usually worried and much more than necessary. His grandson, Amos, was very dear to him and the center of his life. A smile from his little grandson was all that was needed to cheer up this very restless grandfather. But Lattes also knew quite well how much love he was surrounded with and how well he was taken care of; so much so that when he caught a cold—this was the illness that he always dreaded—he got into bed, took on the look of a person who was seriously ill, and had his family pamper him. Even great personalities have their little obsessions. When I cautiously touched on this subject, Lattes said to me, “And what do you think? That Benamozegh was immune?” Among the many strange habits of Benamozegh, the great Livornese maestro, there was also the one of personally going to the market every morning to do the shopping and then setting about cooking, having his students take seats in the same room. Putting on an apron he would tinker with the pots and pans and at the same time give the Talmùd lesson with his well-known, extraordinary ability. One day, while one of these lessons was going on in the kitchen, the doorbell of the house rang. Lattes went to open the door, and he found himself facing a gentleman in a top hat and redingote who asked to speak with the owner of the house. Lattes returned to the kitchen to tell him. Benamozegh went to the entrance, still in his apron, invited in the unknown guest, and asked him whom in particular he wanted to speak with. “With Professor Benamozegh,” he replied.

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“Just a moment,” Benamozegh said. He went back to the kitchen, took off his apron, returned to the study, and introduced himself, saying, “Here is Benamozegh.” The visitor was the famous Ernest Renan, one of the greatest orientalists of the nineteenth century and the most brilliant historian, though also the most subjective, of ancient Israel. Summertime, time for exams—and on two fronts. At the university I’ve taken part in a discussion class on the philosophy of rights, speaking on Mario Pagano as a “symbol of liberty.”2 I’m not sure that the students have grasped my intentions, but certainly the professor, who asks me “to step up the pace,” has. But everyone applauds me, including the few students in fascist uniform, known spies inside the university. Next are the exams, and they go well. The porter, who always follows these tests attentively, opens the door for me with a warm “Congratulations, scholar.” I spontaneously tip him when I hear that very seductive word. But we’re talking about the first exam. The second front is the Rabbinical College. Here things are not going as I had imagined and hoped, which is to say that they are going decidedly badly. My fault? That could also be so, but there’s no doubt that the general atmosphere has been a crucial factor. Meanwhile I find myself across from a commission made up of nine rabbis, including the teachers, the president of the college, and distinguished guests from the principal Communities. But things get even more complicated when a guest rabbi subjects me to an unexpected kind of questioning: “What else are you studying?” “I attend the Faculty of Jurisprudence.” “That means—” he presses on, while a knowing little smile highlights his goatee and pointed nose even more. He looks furtively toward his colleagues, as if to say to them, “Now we come to the point.” “That means that while you were preparing for the college, you also devoted yourself to studying for exams at the university?” “Certainly.” “And how many exams have you already taken or have to take?” “Four.” “Well!” Then he casts a surprised look toward his colleagues, arching his back and shaking his head, as if to say that he cannot understand

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how it could be possible to combine both. It’s completely silent. I look toward Lattes, and I notice that he moves his head imperceptibly and smiles at me as if to encourage me. But I have already lost my calm and my bearings, and things go badly. A short pause and then the same inquisitor, unrelenting, asks me: “But did you get a scholarship for the studies here or for those law studies?” And he smiles his knowing smile. “For the college,” I answer in a low voice, while I have the sensation that the words of the text are fading. I suddenly raise my eyes toward Lattes, who looks at me, silent and worried; a line appears on his forehead. It’s clear that he’s taking part in the disaster that I’ve run into with apprehension. The next day I’m called ad audiendum by the chief rabbi, president of the college.3 The session is brief because the decision gets communicated to me immediately: I may continue my studies, but the scholarship has been taken away from me. On saying goodbye, however, he again gives me the fascist salute. For several days I don’t dare show myself at Lattes’s; then, finally, I make up my mind, and I telephone him. He asks me, surprised, why I’ve been silent; his tone is the usual one. I say that I would like to tell him some things. “But not on the telephone,” he says to me. “We need to chat a bit at length. Come to lunch, and then we’ll have all the time we need.” Lattes’s words, that afternoon in his study, gradually calm me down. He himself asks why there was that absurd interrogation, and he doesn’t know the answer. He charges me with the responsibility for having lost my temper so quickly, but it was an emotional action that now had to be overcome. “Listen,” he tells me, acting very, very serious—although in the end a mischievous, almost studentlike smile escapes him. “Do you know that something like this happened to me, too, many years ago? I was still a boy, it’s true, but I was treated in a certain sense like you. When my family moved from Pitigliano to Livorno, I was forced to repeat a year of elementary school because the Hebrew teacher did not consider me sufficiently prepared in that material. Now take up these studies again with dedication; don’t abandon this road.”

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I explain to him that without a scholarship it won’t be possible for me to stay in Rome—that I’m thinking of going home to get advice from Papà, who had been very surprised and pained by the outcome. Lattes tries to dissuade me from doing that: “If you leave Rome, it will be more difficult for you to return. You need to look for a solution here, and as soon as possible.” He gets up, makes some phone calls, and then returns. “Listen,” he tells me, “there may be a solution. At the orphanage they’re looking for an assistant who would specifically supervise the young people who have to take the standard exam. You would be able to lend them a hand with Latin, Italian, and philosophy. Obviously it would take a major commitment from you, but I’m sure you’re capable of doing it. I made some inquiries—you would get board, lodging, and a small remuneration. It could work.” At first I’m a little unsure, but then I realize that Lattes’s advice is sound: I would get rid of Papà’s worries, resolve the situation on my own, and let the college administrators know that I’m capable of overcoming this mess that they have somehow put me in. Lattes is satisfied with these thoughts of mine, and he urges me to conclude the matter as soon as possible. Having reached an agreement, I move myself lock, stock, and barrel to the Israelite Orphanage, where I dedicate myself to my new role as tutor and general assistant. The humiliation I suffered strengthens my will to pass the test at any cost. I spend the summer at a villa in Porto San Stefano, at a magnificent location on the Argentario.4 Life goes on more peacefully, partly because I realize that from now on I’ll have to count on myself alone, without depending on any rabbinical bore or having to account for my economic situation to anyone. (Papà, of course, always does his best to be there.) The arrangement, obviously, is still not definitive, but it’s also true that not all bad things lead to harm. The realization that I don’t have a scholarship at my disposal matures me and also prepares me for vaster and more demanding future activities. When, in fact, a few years later the situation comes to a head with the racial laws, and many important people have already left Italy—some of them out of objective necessity—we find

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ourselves in the breach, few in number, facing tasks greater than ourselves but determined to defend to the end, in deeds and not in words, the dignity of an ideal and the right of a people to survive. The year 1935 is characterized by some important personal, familial, and general events. To begin with I have passed the exams at the college, doing quite well; I am congratulated by the teachers, who are almost incredulous that I succeeded in such an ordeal, which, given what came before, did not look to be easy. I’m sorry that Lattes isn’t present. He no longer teaches at the college. It’s said that he has been suspended from teaching because he doesn’t attend the synagogue regularly on Saturday. Yet everyone knows that Via Treviso, where he lives, is far from Via Balbo, too.5 But then, is this the real reason? At Lattes’s home the subject is hardly mentioned, which increases my doubts. I can now be admitted, under special terms, to the new hostel, which in the meantime has opened in Via delle Zoccolette and is managed by Signora Rosenthal (who when she hears herself called “cook” gets furious, even if she is a truly extraordinary cook) and is under the spiritual supervision of my rabbi friend Fabian Herskovits, with whom I share a room. The friendship with Fabian will become ever more brotherly. He has a sharp mind, all the Jewish and Magyar wit, is an excellent speaker, and is a journalist for a Hungarian periodical that he makes a pretense of translating for me into his Italian, which is still rather obscure and primitive. One day he comes home waving a book enthusiastically: it’s a medical tract in Hungarian, and he has recklessly taken on the job of translating several chapters of it into Italian as a trial run. I look at him dumbfounded. “But how is it possible?” I ask him. “Very simple,” he answers. “I translate it into my Italian, and you, if you can, try to touch up my style, which as you know is inspired by Dante and Manzoni!” He’s not convinced by the fact that, first of all, we don’t know anything about medicine and that I pretend to understand his Italian because I’m his friend. “But do you realize that we’ll earn five lire a page, and we’re dealing with some fifty pages?”

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Although I still have my doubts, the last argument is convincing, and the experiment is attempted. We received the agreed-upon compensation after having delivered the translation, but we are not kept on. I have often thought, with a little remorse, what a shock that poor doctor must have felt, trying to understand such a translation, no doubt futilely. The years spent at the hostel were peaceful, on the whole, because of the atmosphere that was created, especially between Berti, Fabian, and me, and because of the gatherings that we had on Sabbath afternoons, when we discussed a variety of subjects, sang traditional songs, and ate Rosenthal’s fabulous sweets. Fabian often recounted midrashìm of his own invention—following the traditional style, that is, but introducing characters well-known to us, beginning with the teachers. Sometimes Rosenthal, who had a very Teutonic demeanor, flew into a rage, even over unimportant incidents, and scornfully locked herself in her room in protest. But then Berti would intervene at just the right moment and very diplomatically; after getting himself a nice bunch of flowers he would knock discreetly at the door and offer the floral homage with a few heartfelt words. Everything would return to the way it had been before, and in fact not much time would pass before the sweets would arrive in abundance. This was the sign that peace had been made. Once, for Purìm, I had the responsibility of reading the Meghillàth Estèr.6 When at the last moment I saw Professor Artom arrive, I felt true panic. I knew that he was a severe judge. I made only one mistake, although it changed the sense of the story a great deal. Instead of reading “and they hung Hamàn,” I read, “and they hung the king.” The correction came immediately, but at the end Artom congratulated me. I was pleased, but his son Emanuele, another of our friends and classmates, chipped in, saying to me, “There’s no reason for you to be happy. My father didn’t pay you a compliment; if he was satisfied it’s simply because the reading, except for that mistake, was perfect.” A life, therefore, that passed by in student fashion, quietly and without great worries, until 1938, after the racial laws, when our classmates of foreign origin began their exodus and the hostel, which in the meantime had been moved to Via Balbo, became more and more empty and sad, until it was closed definitively.

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One evening at the hostel we have distinguished guests for dinner, among them Rabbis Castelbolognesi and A. S. Toaff. The conversation is practically monopolized by Castelbolognesi. For several months now he has been the chief rabbi of Tripoli, and he takes pleasure in describing—with a certain eloquence and even in a witty style—this Community, with its peculiarities, but above all in telling us about Governor Balbo, who according to his tale is by now his friend.7 He’s one of the family at the Governor’s Palace. His eyes shine with joy, and he continues almost without interruption to explain the particulars of his now regular meetings with this member of the quadrumvirate of the fascist revolution.8 He looks around at everyone—even me—with a look that bubbles with unlimited satisfaction. What he’s talking about is so important that he must have completely forgotten a certain exam once taken by a student from the provinces. No one, or almost no one, has any way of stopping the flow, even momentarily, of this story that is taking on the tones and colors of a tale from The Thousand and One Nights. Rav Toaff, silent, enjoys the excellent food and says nothing. Once in a while he smiles, and it seems as if these smiles might be so many silent comments. At the end of the dinner, taking advantage of a very brief silence, Toaff could be heard, turned toward Rosenthal, saying, “My compliments—these beans were so good!” One immediately got the impression that that simple sentence of his had some other meaning, and there were a few seconds of silence. Toaff continued to smile kindly. Toward the end of June Lattes and F. Ravenna, president of the Union, flew to Tripoli to plead the cause of Castelbolognesi with Balbo, but it was useless. As is well-known, Castelbolognesi had suddenly been expelled from Tripoli because he had not been willing, and rightfully so, to obey the orders of Governor Balbo. For a certain wedding—which had duly taken place even without the presence of a rabbi, but against the will of the girl’s parents—Balbo had wanted to impose arrangements contrary to Jewish law. I went with a small group to meet Castelbolognesi at Lattes’s home after his return. He seemed like a destroyed man, disillusioned, maybe because of all he had hoped to be able to do for that Community, for which he doubtless felt all the responsibility, and maybe also because of his fall from the highest heaven of that Tripolitan palace of the fascist quadrumvirate.

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I have been entrusted with the job of teaching Jewish subjects at our school. It’s my first educational experience as a teacher. I find myself facing a class of thirty fidgety, noisy kids; they seem to duplicate and epitomize, in a smaller but significant form, the swaying, noisy crowd of their parents who attend the synagogue. I realize that they—like of course all children their age—have the spontaneous, instinctive ability to weigh and judge the teacher with superior accuracy, and before the teacher is able to know them in depth. I’m a new teacher, I don’t speak with the Roman cadence, and I sense that they’re sizing me up me with curiosity, irony, and even mistrust. In front of me is a small tribe of fidgety fellow Jews with mussed-up hair, smocks that aren’t perfectly white, fingers dirty from ink as if they used them instead of pens to write with, and books and notebooks falling to pieces, looking like single bundles of butcher paper. That’s the first impression I get, even though, naturally, there are some exceptions. I realize that my job is becoming ever more difficult, because I should teach them something that they’ll remember, even after they’ve finished their studies. Taking advantage of a short break, I say to them, “I would like to tell you a little story.” At first they look at me, surprised and incredulous, and then a chorus of “yes! yes!” thunders through the classroom. I take cover in the midràsh; I tell them one, then another, and yet another. Interest grows; there’s complete silence. Where are those insufferable kids that were described to me? I realize that they’re now under control, and I always speak softly. Meanwhile the nearly hysterical voices of other teachers sometimes reach me from outside the room. During the following weeks I find out that the principal has come up to the door several times, worried by the silence, and has asked the classroom attendants, “Did they go out for a walk? I don’t hear anything.” A little before Shavu’òth I tell them the midràsh that explains how all of nature took part in the utter silence at the grand event of the Revelation: not a breath of wind stirs, the waters stop running, humans and animals are quiet, and in the utter silence, behold, the voice of the Lord . . . Then I assign a composition on this subject. One boy writes, “The streat cars didnt go, the traffic cop didnt whistle, the people didnt move,

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the stores were closed, the Tevere stood still like a street and behold . . .” I could have hugged him. When the racial laws came I explained the gravity of the moment to the children (with a certain circumspection), pausing especially to emphasize that from that moment on we would have to be closer to one another, to help each other, and to defend each other from danger. I also spoke of Erez Israèl, which was becoming ever closer to our hearts and our hopes. The compositions that I collect after a couple of hours could provide extensive material evidence for sending me straight to the special court. The kids have understood the situation perfectly, and they lash out against fascism, the king, and Mussolini. I collect that material carefully, and I put it in a case; I want to preserve it, to hide it somewhere. Then a friend advises me to destroy it; the school itself could be in trouble if it were discovered. Walking along a corridor I hear the angry voice of a teacher shouting repeatedly, “Who is Moses?” Absolute silence. The same question is repeated in a still more frantic, hammering tone. I enter the classroom. The morè (teacher) menacingly waves his right hand, which he holds raised over the boy’s head, while with the left, grasping the student by the arm, he shakes him roughly. The boy hides his head under his free arm and every once in a while takes a furtive and frightened look from below to the teacher above. I’m looking on, and I don’t know how to intervene. To a renewed and still more threatening demand, the trembling, tearful voice of the boy can be heard to say, “He’s my cousin!” Persuaded that the response is valid, even from the historical point of view, I speak up and calm down the excited teacher. I will continue teaching until the beginning of the 1938–39 academic year. Right after the departure from Rome of Rabbi Prato, who was forced to leave to avoid the worst, I’m called into the principal’s office, and I’m told that from that day on my duties with the school are over.9 I’m not given a specific explanation, nor do I ask for one; I know quite well that I, too, am on the blacklist of Zionists, closely watched not only by the police but especially by the Community. Zionists and antifascists have not had an easy life in the Community for a long time. Even before 1938 an active member of the same Community, engaged in a rabbinical

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career, and whose first name and last name began with the same letters as mine, said to me one day, “You sign in Israel with the initials ‘A. S.’ You know, someone could misunderstand and think it’s me who’s writing those notes and those commentaries. Couldn’t you change it to something else?” I relate the episode to Lattes, who says to me, “It is true, and it is fair; it wouldn’t be nice for you to be confused with that fellow.” Whoever has the desire to leaf through the issues of Israel will easily be able to discover that after my usual initials “A. S.” there then follow the initials “M. A. S.” (I had added the name of Moses, which can be confirmed at the registry office, too.) By now we’re at the beginning of the African war against Ethiopia. Faïtlovich, a native of Lodz who has been involved with the Falashas for many years, is passing through Rome.10 His work to bring attention to the “Black Jews of Abyssinia” is intense. He considered the Falashas to be descendants of the Jewish people ethnologically. And a broad confirmation can be found in their habits, customs, and prayer texts. At that time they seemed to be in danger, and for a variety of reasons. A very private—and one could say clandestine—meeting is organized. The discussion goes on at length, and Viterbo—who later will be sent to Ethiopia by the Italian government and the Union to deal specifically with this problem—also takes part. We ask Faïtlovich what he thinks of this war. He believes that it won’t be an easy undertaking for Italy. It may be that Italy will succeed—he has some doubts—but it’s certain that at any rate, even in the case of conquest, huge problems will arise in controlling such a vast territory made up of so many groups. The period from 1935 to 1937 underscores the progressive convergence of fascist Italy with Nazi Germany and binds Mussolini more and more to Hitler’s insane dreams. Indirect evidence of this lies in the intensification of the anti-Semitic campaign in Italy, supported especially by Il Tevere and Il regime fascista.11 Attacks against the Jews become increasingly numerous and more concrete, involving always-larger sectors of public opinion. But during the Ethiopian war the Jews are still useful to the regime, and from among the many examples I will cite two. One is at an international diplomatic level, and the other, though clearly of

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minor importance, still highlights how, when it was necessary, the fascist imagination did not overlook any detail in order to inflate the rhetoric of its propaganda more and more. On October 30, 1935, Suvich announced, in a coded telegram to Grandi, in London, “I inform Your Excellency that Chief Rabbi Dr. Angiolo Orvieto is going there on a mission of trust and propaganda in these Jewish circles. I ask Your Excellency to grant him support, discreetly, in the best way possible.”12 There’s an obvious error in the telegram because Angiolo Orvieto was not a rabbi but only head of the mission. The one who was the rabbi and who accompanied Orvieto was Dante Lattes. The goal of this mission was to influence the English government in some way, in the wake of the economic sanctions that had been decreed against Italy. The mission, as could have been foreseen, did not obtain any results. I went to see Lattes after his return from London, and I found him seated in an armchair with one foot on a footstool because of a sprain. Passing through Paris on the way home from London, he had slipped while coming down the staircase of a hotel. To my question, “How is it going, Professor?” he answered me, “See what happens to those who try to meddle in certain things?” Then he told me that his goal had been to try to make it understood that the sanctions would end up binding Mussolini still closer to Hitler, thus increasing the danger for all Jews, including Italian Jews. He added that the failure would not slow down the increase in anti-Semitic propaganda, even in Italy. Shortly afterward articles on the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy reappeared in the newspapers. I receive a telephone call from my father. This was something altogether unusual in those days, at least in our family. It’s about this: my brother, Lelio, from the class of 1911, had been called up, and he has already been in Africa for several months. Papà had received a book by a Roman writer that was devoted to the exploits of soldiers engaged in the conquest of the empire and had reported an episode concerning my brother. The author spoke of having found him in a field hospital, “gravely” ill, and of having found out a few days later that he, together with a Protestant, had fled during the night, not having gotten permission from the doctors (due to his condition), so that he could take part in

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a very important military action. The chapter concluded thus: “In front of me there were no longer either Christians or Jews, but only brave Italian soldiers who . . .” Papà begs me to get more precise news if possible. I go to see this writer, who lived near the Coliseum, after having made an appointment. He receives me with much warmth and repeated fascist salutes, and I immediately get the impression that I am facing a fanatic, who could also be dangerous. I therefore approach the subject with a certain amount of caution. Meanwhile I introduce myself as a student in Jewish theology, which, I realize immediately, makes the conversation simpler and almost friendly. I continue emphasizing that I know my brother very well and that I know the enthusiasm with which he had departed. I add that my father, especially, is very proud to have such a son and that I have the responsibility of thanking him for having written such heartfelt and moving pages and of communicating best wishes to him, on my father’s behalf, for his valuable work. There is just one thing that I would like to add. “Tell me, tell me, certainly, of course,” he encourages me, smiling. I look at him. He’s dressed in a militia officer’s uniform, which increases my uneasiness—but now we’re at the most delicate point, and at any rate I have to deal with it, and so I begin: “A mama is always a mama, and my mother—” He interrupts me, saying, “I understand. Your brother is doing very well. I met him by chance, but not in the field hospital. I give you my word. But you also have to understand that the historic moment suggests certain images for literature . . .” I look at him, stunned. What does literature have to do with it? Fascist rhetoric, yes, and of the worst kind—the usual fraud and the usual deception; but these are things that I can’t say to him. I’m silent. He has to have noticed that I don’t know exactly what to say, but maybe, luckily for me, he’s also thinking that I judge his response to be a white lie to be told to a distressed mother, because after a few seconds he says to me, “I assure you that that’s how it is. I’ll send a telegram to your family.” And he keeps his promise. Another episode from the war in Africa, which is not easy to interpret in relation to the racial laws, with which it is without doubt tightly

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bound. A cousin of mine, Bruno Jesi, had known the tragedy of war since he was just a child, when he had to flee with his family from Udine, where he was born, taking refuge in Casale, with us. His father had died shortly afterward, following complications from a wound suffered at the front. Educated at a boarding school for war orphans, in Aosta I think, where he graduated in classical studies with flying colors, he had grown up in a singular atmosphere that bound him to those sad events, and consequently a passionate love developed in him not only for Italy but for the army.13 He had the keenest intelligence and was gifted; he could have pursued any career with astonishing results if he had not been sentimentally conditioned, so to speak, and with tenacity, to this past of his. When the war in Africa broke out he left as a cavalry officer, a volunteer. Bold and fearless, he distinguished himself immediately for his exceptional ability as a leader. Gravely wounded in several places in an engagement, he had to undergo amputation of a leg. He was brought to the attention of the Ministry of Italian Africa for these exploits of his and was nominated for a bronze medal and the gold medal for military valor. And here, apparently, begins the strange story of how events unfolded. In fact, the conferring of the gold medal for military valor has the date of November 14, 1939, and the bronze May 20, 1940. The decorations were officially given out during the course of a solemn ceremony in a barracks in Torino with the highest military, civil, and religious authorities present—even Cardinal Fossati—in January of 1941. The racial laws had been in effect since 1938. But there is an explanation, as I was told. In the midst of so much indecision on the part of the military and fascist authorities, the intervention of the cardinal himself seems to have been crucial. In the statement of reasons for the conferring of the bronze medal, it was said among other things that “realizing that some of the wounded were about to fall into enemy hands, in spite of the intense fire, he dashed forward bravely and succeeded in rescuing them by throwing hand grenades.” Among these wounded—so Bruno’s mother told me—there was one who, feeling himself about to die, had asked to be attended to by a military chaplain. The three cavalry platoons led by Bruno were practically surrounded, but there was not a military chaplain among them. To send someone to find one was a deadly risk. So Bruno,

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mounted on his horse, was able to get past the Ethiopian lines, reach a chaplain in an encampment, carry him on his own horse, and lead him back in time to the already dying soldier, who thus was able to receive the religious comforts he had requested. It was a matter not only of an utterly daring and humanly moving undertaking but of a Jew who had put his own life at serious risk so that one of his Christian soldiers would not die without the last rites. Hence the crucial intervention of the cardinal. Bruno Jesi must have died in the early months of 1943 as a result of the wounds he suffered in that war. Today in the Veneto, at Perteole, a barracks carries his name.

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the jewish camps—organized by young people who took on all the responsibilities for their management, and a place where leading figures from our Jewish world participated as guests for a few days. Given the times, it was undoubtedly extraordinary that families would allow their children to get together for several weeks, and not even in furnished hotels but in mountain huts that we rented for a modest price and that we fixed up in the best ways. Naturally there was running water, but it was in the form of a brook that flowed nearby. It was also natural that some families came to spend their vacations at the closest resort and to visit us, as the most welcome of guests, especially on Sabbath. But to all intents and purposes our life was independent. Thanks to the camps, I began to know and love the mountains, the joy of great silences, the intoxication of thin air, the majesty of glaciers, but especially the satisfaction of living an intensely Jewish life together, young people among young people, far from the dusty Communities, seriously committed to facing the problems of our Jewish identity openly and to talking about Erez Israèl (the Land of Israel) as the goal of our aspirations. The Sabbath Torà reading, the discussion of the weekly parashà, and the special, even rousing, atmosphere of that once-a-week day were such as to spontaneously draw in even the most distant and assimilated companions. Many young people rediscovered the authenticity of their Judaism precisely by attending those summer camps—and later on winter camps, too—which may have been the most peaceful and happiest times for the young people of my generation. One also began to long for a girl; during romantic walks and the anxious wait for a smile, the kindness of a simple courtesy acquired a

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special significance for whoever gave it and for whoever received it. The 1938 camp at Champsil, near Gressoney, was somewhat dramatic. We found ourselves still more eager to talk about our problems, with more than justifiable anxiety about a future that appeared ever more uncertain and dark, but with the wish to clarify our positions definitively. It’s not difficult to imagine our conversations during the day, hiking or sitting in the meadow overlooking the camp, or else in the evening, gathered around the rustic tables of that type of mountain hut. The subject was always the same—insistent and sometimes anguished: the condemnation of fascism, the House of Savoy, and the Italians themselves, who once again were putting up with those laws passively, except for a few subdued expressions of solidarity. These outpourings, even though they were expressed scathingly, were humanly understandable in young people who had seen their future cut off without pity. But even in that circumstance there was someone who, after having listened to our conversations in silence and with obvious signs of disapproval, had the gall to declare that he had been deeply pained that events were being judged in that one way, without the “delicacy” (sic!) of taking into account the fact that among those present there might be someone who thought about it differently—because we were all Italians, and Italy and those who led her could not be criticized beyond a certain point . . . Regarding the camps, the last one, which I organized (one could readily say clandestinely) with Matlide Cassin (Varadi) and Enrico Levi, at Caviola, also deserves to be remembered.1 I believe, without rhetoric, that this camp, as the last Jewish youth summer event, should be recorded in the history of the Jews of Italy even though the number of participants—about fifteen all together—was quite modest, because it represents the affirmation of a principle of liberty and of Judaism that goes far beyond the number of those present. And here I want to remember the Treves sisters of Florence, who were later deported to the camps of annihilation. Every day there was the danger of being discovered by the police, in spite of the fact that the hosts had welcomed us—even though they knew who we were and were the first to tell us about any hint of a threat. Our bags were always ready for a quick getaway. These “accomplices” of ours are remembered for their human solidarity and

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their sympathy, which often prompted them to sit at our table and to listen with the greatest attention to the Birkàth ha-Mazòn, sung in chorus, at the end of which they would regularly exclaim, “What good kids, they really are good, not like those sons of dogs . . .”2 That was the camp of the “liquidation” of our youth activities. Many would never meet each other again, except in a concentration camp, other luckier ones in Erez Israèl, and still others among the partisans, playing the final round. I have already been stopped by the police many times, visited several police headquarters for verifications, and I have realized that many policemen wear an olive green raincoat and a lightly rose-colored necktie. Together a classmate and I decide to adopt the same outfit. We’re surprised the first times we get on a tram and move our hands to the inside of our raincoats, on the left (a habitual gesture of policemen when they take out their identification cards, which are of dark brown leather, just like my university card), when the conductor, without saying anything, nods to us with his head to go forward. Once I went to a hospital on behalf of Rabbi Prato to ask after someone who was ill. I went into an office and stated the reason for my visit. The attendant came nearer to me and said, “You’re from the police station—you can tell me. Do you know if this patient is charged with something?” I had more than a little difficulty convincing him that I didn’t have anything to do with police headquarters. Notwithstanding these disguises, one day at home I found an “invitation” to present myself at 9:00 p.m. at the political bureau of the district’s Fascist Party “for information.” Not to show up would have been worse, and to go there would mean to meet with some unpleasant surprise; but there was no other choice. I limited myself to bringing with me my “policeman” colleague, whom I left outside the gate with the job of going to the carabinieri to declare my disappearance if, by 11:00 p.m., I had not come out of that building where I had to present myself. A large seventeenth-century hall, poorly illuminated; some soldiers are on guard, and on the walls are swords, harquebuses, and halberds. After having shown the summons paper, I’m left standing there where I am, and no one speaks to me. Every once in a while someone gives me a

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quick, sidelong glance. The fear grows, nearly becoming terror, and I begin to sweat, partly because the minutes pass slowly and no one remembers me. After a long wait—which is one of the methods the police use to try to demolish people psychologically even before proceeding to the interrogation—I am made to enter a large room with a horseshoe table at the center and two lamps at the sides, pointed toward the seat that awaits me. The two rays of light affect my eyes and prevent me from seeing who my examiners are. There must be six or seven. Several voices take part in the questioning, sometimes with studied slowness, other times firing off questions suddenly. What strikes me immediately is the fact that they know everything about me, even details that don’t have anything to do with politics but that can also be easily exploited. For instance: “You left on that day by train for Torino, but you returned on the one coming from Venice.” Or else, “You gave a lecture on the subject of ——, with obvious Zionist overtones.” And so on. They even know that in a few weeks the hostel will be moved to Via Balbo. I’m reproached because it turns out that I have never taken part in any fascist demonstration, and they return repeatedly to the “so-called lectures” given in different cities. They enumerate them, one after the other, in chronological order. I defend myself as best I can and as the fear, growing greater, allows me to, trying to emphasize the cultural, historical, biblical, and certainly not political significance of my chats, which are given quite casually, always drawing a modest audience, because, as is usually the case with religion in general, there’s not a lot of interest. At this point the question, evidently held in reserve, appears. It is addressed to me in an inquisitorial tone, syllable by syllable: “Do you feel Jewish or Italian?” I hazard a “What does that mean?” I hear shouting, some swear words, and then evidently the one who is presiding, in a Mussolini-like tone: “Now let’s finish it. You have understood quite well—you can’t put one foot in two stirrups. You’re either with us or against us. Fascism is clear, transparent, and precise; it’s not pharisaical or Masonic.” I feel like my tongue is stuck to my palate. Then after a short silence I hear my voice responding. And out of distraction, or not to provoke

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them, I use the formal “you.” I remember the dilemma posed by Levi at the Continental Hotel, on love toward the father and the mother. I repeat it word for word. There’s scornful laughter, and then a voice says, “And why not for the little old grandmother, too?” I continue to hear my voice, which defends me and seems to reverberate in the nearly bare hall. “I’m very proud of being born in Italy and of having an Italian heritage, but I don’t see why I should be blamed for also having another heritage, through which,” I add, “I in fact have the advantage of making the great merits of Italian heritage known and appreciated.” And as an example I cite having given three lectures to foreign Jews traveling through Italy, speaking on Dante Alighieri, nineteenth-century Italian literature, and art in Italy, and of having aroused among these people a true enthusiasm for Italy and for the extremely high level of learning in our country. These last words of mine are listened to in utter silence. It’s clear that they have not been informed about these lectures. But to tell the truth, I don’t know anything about them either, because I never gave them. Everyone, nevertheless, defends himself as he can. A few more seconds of silence that seem like hours, and then the ordinary presidential voice: “You may go. Get involved with the Esquiline group soon.”3 A fascist salute, and my defense—and my salvation—is complete. I leave, “to see the stars once more”; it’s 11:10 p.m.4 My “policeman” colleague isn’t there; he must already have set out for the nearest carabinieri barracks. I catch up with him when he’s a short distance from the gate. I’m exhausted. We slowly go back home, where I revive myself with a few shots of grappa. Then I’m struck by the idea of immediately writing down the questions that I was asked, to try to figure out who might actually have been the source of information about me besides the normal one of the police—because it was obvious right away that a file was being kept on me somewhere and that I’m being kept track of very carefully. It’s not an easy job, and for several hours, with my friend, we search for the guilty party. Having crossed off all the questions, only two remain. After a while only one remains, and only one person could have known what I was asked. We’re left speechless, and we look at each other dumbfounded. The denunciation and the information, at least much of

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it, could not have come from anyone except ——, who holds a prominent position in the Community of Rome itself. Nostra Bandiera is gathering its triumphs, even among the fateful hills of Rome. I allow a few days to go by, and then I tell Lattes about the sinister affair. He shakes his head—he’s strongly vexed—but he quickly recovers and kindly says to me, “Your name is Moses, and we write this name in Israel, too. Now, don’t get confused, but by analogy I’ve been thinking about Moses, who was nothing less than the greatest of the prophets. Well then, how much trouble did he get from his brothers? How many rebellions? And do you expect that there wouldn’t be anyone who would get into it with us, when we’re just ordinary Jews? You’re still young, and these experiences are unpleasant, of course, but they’re also useful. They’ll come in handy someday.” In 1937 the internal and external conflicts are growing worse. For us Zionists life is getting more difficult, partly because the Communities and the Union itself have been infiltrated internally, and for a variety of reasons, by bandieristi elements.5 This puts the Communities and the Union into difficult situations, and it happens quite often that these institutions, trying to steer a middle course between the two camps, block themselves, and to all intents and purposes every Jewish activity gets suffocated. Here and there one tries to do something, but by then we were in full, muddled decline. There are some funny incidents, too. In Livorno, for example, on Friday evening, the passage of the Hashkivènu was sung to the music of “Ha-Tikvà,” by Imber, which later became the modern Israeli national anthem.6 Back then the Zionists sang it. When a council member protested, Rav Toaff said that it was an ancient religious chant, and thus there had been no changes! Every day small incidents served to weigh down an atmosphere that was causing everyone premonitions of the worst. To show up, for example, at the university exams in a black shirt meant to be sure of passing; when, later, students appeared in uniform, because, they said, they were about to leave for Africa, a score of thirty out of thirty was given before the student had even signed the record of the oral examination—without having been orally examined. The Union is, in a certain sense, a kind of stronghold that, within the

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limits of what is possible, still defends particular positions—while the bandieristi, who have already made a breach, try to conquer it. At the beginning of the summer the secretary of the Union resigns. I have barely gotten home for vacation when a telegram from Prato arrives, inviting me to take over this position on an interim basis. Although realizing the importance of the position, I am not enthusiastic, because if I accept I have to give up vacation and camp. My father, though, is surprised and scandalized by these considerations of mine. He regards it not only as a great honor to have been appointed to that position but precisely as my duty as a Jew and Zionist to take on such a responsibility. It’s obvious that the decision must have been made at a high level—Lattes no doubt must know something—and therefore there’s nothing left for me but to confirm by telegraph and to depart the same evening. Mamma grumbles, saying, “Some things I just don’t understand,” but meanwhile she prepares my suitcase again, and shortly afterward, on the puffing “accelerated”—or the “decelerated,” as we called it—I’m traveling toward Alessandria to take the “direct” for Rome. I present myself to Prato, who had taken over the position of chief rabbi a short time before—after the death of Angelo Sacerdoti and a brief interregnum of Aldo Lattes. He is imposing—for his build, for his way of doing things, and for his demeanor, which at times is warm but is usually such as to define very precisely the distance between the interlocutor and the Grand Rabbin. His Eminence, as he does not mind being called, comes from Alexandria, in Egypt, where he was very busy both with his rabbinical activity and, at the same time, with his government connections for the diffusion of Italian culture in Egypt. When he came to Rome he was often received by Mussolini, and even Israel didn’t miss emphasizing this important news. Thus he’s also a polished diplomat and often domineering. A brilliant, prominent orator, he is listened to (maybe uniquely) with great interest by his Roman coreligionists, the common people, for his eloquence—which nevertheless finds its way to even the simplest and most untrained heart. When he came to Rome he gave the Community a particular tone—one of priestly royalty, so to speak. Relations with the government, obviously, have almost ceased. But his personality makes itself felt and imposes itself on the world around him.

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When he crosses the “piazza” (the ex-ghetto) the plain folk approach him and kiss his hand.7 At first he lived on Via Arenula. In the morning, when he left home, he was followed a few meters behind by a caretaker of the Community—elderly, tall, shambling, bald as a billiard ball, always ready to bow politely—who carried an enormous yellow bag. Prato regarded Jewish matters as a job to do, and he faced all problems with resolution and authority. A joke went around—spiteful people said he himself had started it: Prato, passing by Piazza Venezia, is called to by Mussolini, who appears at the window: “Wait for me to come down, and we’ll go for a walk.” They set out toward the Coliseum, talking amicably. They’re observed by two passersby, one of whom asks, “That’s Rabbi Prato, but that other one, who’s he?”8 A fervent and active Zionist, he, too, will encounter a crescendo of opposition, from within the Community itself and from the outside, until in 1938 he will be forced to leave Rome. The police force itself, from a certain period on, kept him under surveillance. A small proof of this can be deduced from the following: my already-mentioned “policeman” colleague, Rabbi Bruno Polacco (who died not many years ago, at a young age), had by chance—precisely because of that celebrated raincoat of his—met and then become friends with a real policeman, who got a big kick out of it when he learned that in a supposed colleague he had discovered a Rabbinical College student. One day the policeman had asked Polacco to make him an exact translation of a letter written in Hebrew, addressed to Prato and sent from Rhodes, and he had given him a photograph of the text. We immediately went to Prato. The letter didn’t contain anything at all compromising, and Prato encouraged us to make them a perfect translation, suspecting that someone else had been given the same task. The same thing happened again for a letter that came from London that was also written in Hebrew. Thus the mail addressed to Prato was already under the censor’s surveillance. And we were only at the beginning of 1937. Prato explains to me the reasons for his summons: I have to be alert and follow the intrigues of the bandieristi and keep him informed about everything, about every detail. Thus the game became more demanding and more interesting for me, even though it was not without some risk.

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I remind him that the exams for the title of maskìl 9 are coming up soon. I shouldn’t worry myself, he assures me; he’ll give us a little more time, but everything will work out for the best. For now I should carry out this job with the greatest care and diligence. He and “others” have the utmost faith in me. I am welcomed at the old Pines Pensione, first with delighted and hearty surprise and then with great honor, because of such an important job. Even the prices are commensurate with my new status. I settle into my little room from a few years before. I had dreamed of going camping. Now, from the window, I see the half-empty city, submerged in the summer mugginess; no meadows and mountains before my eyes, just the imposing Parliament. Everything in the office is new to me—not only the room reserved for me but the employees themselves, whom I know, but who now appear to me in a different light—deferential, as one has to be toward a “superior,” but reserved and basically annoyed that a young man has been named to occupy a position that I had never dreamed of but that maybe more than one of them had. Under these conditions my work certainly isn’t made any easier. But realizing that it’s best to maintain a cautious policy (and not only for those reasons that I already know quite well ever since I’ve been frequenting the police stations), I succeed in supervising the work on the best terms and in finding out what is difficult to discover. Nor should one think that summer—however much it may be plainly reflected within the rooms of the Union—is any easier and less full of surprises, even though we don’t hold meetings, and contact is usually maintained with the vice president only. The mail comes and goes, and the telephone functions with a certain intensity. I also have to consider that Lattes is gone from Rome, that Prato left a few days before, that I don’t have anyone reliable from whom I can get advice, and that certain decisions are better entrusted to good sense than to proper experience. In the evening I’m tired, hot, and bored. I go out, get coffee, and treat myself to expensive cigarettes and the movies, even though I’m more and more lonely. I can allow myself these luxuries because the salary is excellent—so much so that I can send half of it home, and this half is a little more than a rabbi of a small Community earns.

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The professors of the college also come to me to draw their salary. I’m still one of their students, but maybe it’s because of the position I occupy that I get the impression of being treated with a certain deference. The most important thing is that nothing bad happens and that some of my timely, and maybe lucky, assistance has served to remedy some anticipated problems. Summer passes, Lattes returns to his office, and therefore I feel more secure even though I’m in a strange, almost comic position. Since I’m secretary, even Lattes is “under” me. When we meet each other in the morning he greets me with a respectful and friendly, “Buon giorno, signor segretario.” These are moments of mutual amusement for both of us. But at a certain point, in spite of the fact that it has been officially proposed to me that my position become permanent, things come to a head. I’m asked by an influential representative of our movement to do things that could be done only by resorting to certain subterfuges and relative compromises. The particular circumstances could, at least in large part, even justify them, but for a good Piedmontese peasant, and especially for a Jew who is and remains faithful to his own ideas and has never on principle accepted any form of compromise, I refuse in the most definite way. I’m consoled by Lattes, too, who shares my position completely. Thus I return to the ranks—that is, among the school desks, giving a definitive goodbye to the secretary’s chair and to the lavish stipend, which had made me very comfortable but which, neither then nor in later circumstances, ever affected my choices.

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in the final months of 1937 the situation of the Jews in Italy keeps getting more serious. Many Jewish refugees from Germany and other countries continue to pour in. The fascist press lashes out more and more stridently, especially the newspaper that is generously subsidized by the Nazis.1 For the beginning of the new Jewish year the rabbis send a message to all Jews: “The Rabbis of Italy to their Brothers” (Jamìm Noraìm, 5698/1937).2 There, among other things, one reads: Everyone knows that we Jews are the children of Jews who were in their turn the children of Jews and that all of us together have a history that is moving through its fourth millennium. Everyone knows that this history was, and is, uninterrupted, and that Jews today are the children of the Jews of the ghettos, who were the children of those who were dispersed after the destruction of the Temple of Jerusalem, who were descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and followers of Moses and Aaron, who on Sinai received and accepted—then defended and taught in every place, for centuries and millennia—truth, commandments, rituals, doctrines, and precepts; and that they made a compilation from this and from their history that together constitute “Judaism.” This is what Judaism is. It is ancestry, history, teachings, and it is awareness of all this. Although some of us have lost or diminished that awareness, and some of us refuse the task, deny their ancestry, ignore history,

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or abandon the teachings, all of Judaism cannot be reduced to them. Their aberrations cannot carry any weight against the facts or alter our essence or the opinion that others of goodwill have of us. The tesciuvà to which the sound of the shofàr again calls us should bring back whoever has gone astray to the recognition of his error. Worries about relations with non-Jews ought not be an obstacle to such recognition. There is no reason for worry. It is not as if we are revealing anything that is not extremely well-known, and in fact we have reason to believe that for some non-Jews the spectacle of certain attempts to sidestep obvious facts that brook no denial, or a sacred legacy that accepts no rejection, is indeed a cause for wonder and suspicion. We should not commit the sin of pride when we affirm ourselves as Jews; we should on the contrary do so with the awareness of our inferiority to the duties that Providence has assigned us. But we can, or rather we must, do so openly, simply, sincerely, and with the firm belief that we give no offense to anyone. In preserving our unfailing convictions, we do not offend religious sentiments that are different from our own, just as in keeping faith with our blood, our history, and our mission, we do not neglect any of our other duties. Rather, only he who has his own religion can be regarded as capable of truly respecting the religion of others; only he who refuses to betray his brothers can be considered incapable of betraying his neighbor; and finally, only after truthful, sincere, and candid premises can one expect to be believed and to inspire trust. No one has the right to put our loyalty in doubt, and no one is asking us, or can ask us, to be unfaithful to ourselves. Since our conscience is at peace, why should we be concerned? What has been said ought to be of value in clarifying to ourselves what our duty is regarding the efforts that are being made toward the reconstruction of a place or a state for the Jews. It is not to ourselves alone that we have to look in thinking about this

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aspect of Jewish life in the world. Recent and less recent history teach us that in the world, too many countries where Jews live have outbursts of anti-Jewish violence. Often all that is needed is a minor domestic problem, due to entirely unrelated causes, and then the origin of the ills, and the sacrificial goat for them, is found in us. Then the long centuries of faithful submission, of willing collaboration, and of intimate fusion pushed almost to the point of forgetting one’s self are of no value. The “hep-hep” and the shout “to death!” have echoed too many times in too many different places not to demand an appropriate solution to the problem for yesterday’s and tomorrow’s victims of persecution. The solution is on the way. It is not our task here to examine the merits and the defects of the location (guaranteed by public law and placed under the aegis of the League of Nations) that emerged at the end of the Great War, nor those more recent proposals that are now before the assemblies of the Powers. We wish only to remember how these human efforts have been foreseen, guided, and ruled by Divine Providence and how it is written in letters of flame that their outcome depends exclusively and solely upon the merit that Israel has acquired observing the commandments. We wish only to declare how uncharitable it is for the satiated to revile the hungry, for the free man to deride the slave, and for he who has a house not to reach out a helping hand to he who is without one. Furthermore, the persecuted and wandering Jews are not only humans; they are our brothers, they are part of us, they are us ourselves. They are not building against anyone but rather for their own peace. They are returning to their Land because there the Temple that, according to the word of the prophet, will become the House of Prayer for all peoples may be rebuilt. For that restoration we pray three times a day with the words of our ancient ceremony. . . . And you young people—ask for the paternal blessing, as you are obliged to. Think with love about these family rituals, which

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you will hear again, echoing wistfully, down to your most advanced years. And when the time comes, dear young people, re-create your new home on entirely Jewish foundations, without giving in to the allurements of assimilation.3 And here are the names of the rabbis who signed the message: David Prato, Alfredo Sabato Toaff, Gustavo Castelbolognesi, Adolfo Ottolenghi, Elia S. Artom, Marcus Breger, Gustavo Calò, Dario Disegni, Kalman Friedmann, Augusto Hasdà, Lazzaro Laide-Tedesco, Dante Lattes, Leone Leoni, Alberto Orvieto, Carlo Rocca, Abramo Schreiber, Isaia Sonne, Michele Albagli, Umberto Cassuto, Enrico della Pergola, Ermanno Friedenthal, Giosuè Grünwald, Isidoro Kahan, Aldo Lattes, Rodolfo Levi, Ugo Massiach, Riccardo Pacifici, Hajim Rosenberg, Ezechiele Segre, Israele Zolli. Il Tevere, on December 21, 1937, in an editorial entitled “One Jew and All the Jews (Including the Rabbis),” attacked this rabbinical message at length. After having referred to a letter from a Jew, published in the same issue, that proposed a “total assimilation as quickly as possible,” it was asked, In whose name does this correspondent of ours speak? In his own name? . . . What instead do the leaders of the Jewish Communities, and therefore the mass of the Jews of Italy, think of assimilation today? . . . There is a pamphlet, dated 5698, which is to say 1937, entitled, “The Rabbis of Italy to Their Brothers,” signed by some thirty rabbis, acting rabbis, or professors in rabbinical colleges in Italy. . . . We want to cite all the names that comprise the list so that it will be quite clear that we are not dealing with obscure people but with the aristocracy of Jewish thought. All the names follow. On rereading them today in that Nazi-fascist paper I feel a certain amount of emotion and also a bit of pride—and not only personally, because my father’s name is also there, but for their example, which was so very high, compassionate, and courageous at such a difficult moment. (Today, unfortunately, almost all these maestros are gone.)

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The editorial continues: What do they say to their brothers? At first this may seem a commonplace, but in the light of current events it acquires a polemical bite: “Everyone knows that we Jews . . . together constitute judaism. this is what judaism is. it is ancestry. . . .” Judaism is what it is, and it is an ancestry; but we will say, to make ourselves understood, a race. And actually, a little farther on, what do the rabbis say to their brothers? They say this, and they use another significant word: “Keeping faith with our blood, our history. . . .” Ancestry or race, blood and loyalty to blood—assimilation is distant. But they say still more . . . they speak of the “hearth,” actually of the “reconstruction of a place or a state for the Jews. . . .” They speak of assimilation: “Dear young people, re-create your new home on entirely jewish foundations, without giving in to the allurements of assimilation.” Only one Jew is with us—the advocate of total assimilation, the rare bird of Italian Judaism, our singular correspondent. With him we’ll go to say goodbye to the fifty thousand unassimilated and unassimilable Jews who, with the rabbis at their head and a passport from the League of Nations in their pockets, move toward the border, following the Jewish tradition. The Judaism which, according to the rabbis, “is what it is.” In a situation like this, always more oppressive and orchestrated, there’s not a lot that can be done. More or less clandestine meetings continue; the Zionist propaganda is prepared more carefully because of internal danger, which cannot be ignored; and finally, for what it’s worth, we write letters (anonymously, obviously) to the most unrestrained newspapers. I write to Il Tevere, commenting quite frankly on their position as Hitler’s lackeys and defending Jewish positions. I sign “Dutch journalist.” Sometimes the newspaper responds. One day this paragraph appears: “An anonymous (!) Dutch (?) journalist (!) writes us on the Jewish issue. His remarks are naive: he takes the side of the rabbis who turned to the League of Nations when Italy had not yet left it. . . . What Dutch arguments! But in the end what do the Dutch have to do with the Jews of Italy? Oh, indeed, that’s the point! They have to do with them inasmuch

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as they’re Jews. The Jewish International . . . the International of Lame Arguments.” Rosh ha-Shanà—I return to the old Casalese beth ha-kenèseth with the same joy as when I see my home again. A circular from the Union asks the rabbis to comment on that message, not neglecting, it is emphasized, to address a respectful thought to the king and the Duce. In such, let us say, emergency situations, the president is the one to make decisions, even those within the competency of the rabbi. And then he knows how to write, as—no offense intended—the rabbi does not. One has to face such problems with a certain diplomacy and the appropriate tactfulness, given the situation. When Papà shows me the text of the speech sent to him from the president, his face is gloomy, and he remarks, “You tell me if I should speak such filth in the beth ha-kenèseth!” We set to work together. Without second thoughts we strip away all that is possible; one cannot avoid mentioning the king and the Duce, but all the president’s bombastic, fanatically patriotic rhetoric, which he wanted to put in Papà’s mouth, is completely eliminated. In the beth ha-kenèseth my father is about to speak. The president tries to get the attention of the people present; he smiles, raises his hand to his chest with a slight tap as if to make it understood that this speech is flour from his sack. While Papà speaks I follow the public’s reaction. The first to be astonished is the president, who realizes immediately that the text has been changed, and he looks around himself with a desperate expression. That short, delicate lawyer—a skillful expert in civil law, an antifascist (though certainly in his own way)—seems to have been overcome by convulsive coughing; he does nothing but cough. But it’s a political protest cough that is intended to emphasize his dissent from the speaker and from the contents of his speech. The service concludes in a rather chilly atmosphere. The president has to have understood that I’m not completely outside the conspiracy, and he acknowledges me with a vague wave of his hand after having taken leave of the rabbi in the same way. In general there’s a type of indifference—which will later be, at least partly, at the root of many approaching tragedies. It cannot be said that there wasn’t any concern, especially for the state of business

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and the professions, which for the moment no law blocked. Nor can one deny a certain resentment, but more toward Vittorio Emanuele III, the “soldier king,” who was collaborating more and more with the Duce, than toward Mussolini. Deep down, however, they all feel that they are good Italians—that they have never done any harm, and so what could they have to fear? Leaving the temple I run into old acquaintances again. Some of the most colorful characters have passed away—so it is with Sur Elìa (the Marshal) and Babàndu. Mandulìn has moved to Torino, and the “Colonel,” as he is now called, continues to live without any worries. After many years I again meet a certain Foa, “the Jew of the hill,” a true peasant, different, a lover of the countryside who has a farmhouse not far from Casale, on a hill from which one can marvel at a majestic panorama of the Monferrato.4 I had once been to his place on a trip with Papà, and I still remember that magnificent spot. He greets me with his usual warmth and asks me if “I have my eye on anyone.” In his spare time he is a shadkhàn; that is, he arranges marriages, and with a certain success, it seems. After the war I found out that he had been deported with his son, who was then very young, and that only his son had managed to be saved. The farmhouse had been abandoned for a long time, and the fields, too. After liberation two German soldiers were found buried on one of his pieces of land, executed by partisans. Life presents some strange things that, together with all the rest, one can never completely understand. I return to Rome to continue my studies, but in reality to now attend to ever more urgent problems—those of young people, whom few actually think about. The news that reaches me from a number of European countries, especially from Germany, is more and more alarming. What is no less shocking is the nearly general indifference, among Jews and nonJews. As for us, our people shake their heads and say “poor Jews”; “poor Jews in exile” is what they say in Piedmont.5 But everything ends there; it doesn’t pass through anyone’s mind that similar things could happen under the blue sky of Italy, protected, it seems, by its ever-popular great star. So one must try to find a way with the youth, who appear to be more aware; but even among them only some seem receptive.

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We’re in January of 1938, and the Italian press unleashes an out-andout anti-Semitic campaign. Particularly singled out for attack are foreigners, university students, and merchants who are resident in Italy, and specific countermeasures against them are invoked. Suddenly a declaration6 that can’t help but raise many misgivings comes out. Although the “Manifesto on Race” won’t appear until July 14, and the well-known National Fascist Party Bulletin on race on July 26, it was probably only a matter of waiting for the right moment to bestow the decorum of law on a situation that by then seemed ready.7 That dramatic summer seemed to reawaken many fellow Jews a bit from their apathy. But for most of them it was only a matter of finding a way to work out private problems, being discriminated against, and safeguarding their own interests, rather than what should have concerned them: the Jewish problem in its underlying essence. There’s a passage in the Informazione diplomatica that says, “The fact that Jews live in Italy doesn’t necessarily imply that a specifically Italian problem exists. . . . The fascist government never thought, nor thinks now, to take political, economic, and moral measures against Jews as such, except, needless to say, when dealing with elements hostile to the regime.” This was already a very obvious trap. Still, the reaction in the Jewish camp, in not just a few cases, was to take the opportunity to extol “the justice and the farsightedness of the Duce” still more. In any case it was one more opportunity to intensify the differences between the bandieristi and the Zionists. Among the many episodes of those days one deserves to be remembered, partly for its satirical aspects, which underscore on the one hand this difference of opinion and on the other the well-known gullibility of the fascists. Two brothers, hearing the news of the Informazione diplomatica, telephone each other. The first one says to the other that he, too, is finally convinced that one must have the utmost faith in Mussolini’s policy. The second does not deny that there are features that could be positive in the declaration, but that does not negate the fact that his worries still remain and that the future always continues to seem rather uncertain to him. The first one persists and extols the genius of the Duce with great fervor. The telephone call is intercepted by the wiretapping department and sent to the appropriate authorities. What hap-

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pens? Here’s the funny part—the brother’s caution and his uncertainty are judged to be rather natural, while the first brother’s words appear in their eyes to clearly be ridiculing the regime and the Duce. The immediate consequence: orders for the capture of the first brother, who is arrested shortly afterward, as he is about to leave home! March 1938, the occupation of Austria. May 3–9, Hitler’s trip to Italy. I’m traveling around Italy, making contact with different people. I often run into Cantoni, who is now shuttling back and forth continuously from Community to Community, not holding back either time or energy. He argues some with everyone, and he succeeds in getting untrustworthy individuals excluded from some of the councils, braving tempestuous discussions, sometimes even with a certain audacity, until he makes his views prevail. He even tries to renovate the organization of the Union. I return to Rome on May 2, and I find triumphal arches and Italian and Nazi flags everywhere. Coming out of the old Termini station I notice that even the great clock that dominates the central entrance is covered with drapery. The taxicab driver—sometimes it’s helpful to take a car in hopes of shaking off the police—asks me, “Do you know why they’ve covered that clock?” Even with taxi drivers, especially in Rome, you have to be a little careful. I respond with the tone of someone who doesn’t have any interest in knowing why: “I don’t have any idea.” “Well, then, I’ll tell you.” He gives me a furtive little glance in the rearview mirror, and he’s already beginning to laugh—a burst of laughter, open, Roman style, of the common people. “It’s che nun se vede l’ora che se ne vada!”8 We’ve come to the racial laws. For the Jews it’s a strike of lightning—and to tell the truth, it is for many Italians (newly “Aryans”) as well. I think I’m not far from the truth if I say that these laws, in their essence, will constitute the first great defeat of fascism.9 The slapdash fascist way of doing things, in an Italy more and more servilely bound to Nazism—in spite of the intense propaganda that had been carried out over the preceding years in the hope of paving the way for passing such regulations—had not taken into account the fact that the Italians, notwithstanding their many defects, were for historical, cultural, and human

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reasons quite different from the Germans. And events afterward would show the failure of this policy of Mussolini’s, especially when the Nazis, occupying Italy, became its absolute masters. Among Jews the general bewilderment is easy to understand. Even the bandieristi find themselves, against their will, in the same boat with the other Jews, including Zionists. It’s true that they will try, repeatedly and along different lines (and even in this situation), to separate themselves—seeking new contacts with officials in any way, bringing out patriotic medals and awards, resorting to apostasy and conversions and to bribery when the case requires fascist authorities (which basically means a very difficult undertaking), coming even to the point of declaring that certain children were born due to female distraction; but in the end they, too, will end up in the same cauldron. Whoever had the means sought a way to safety in other countries. They succeeded in getting visas for places that were unimaginable until then—like Shanghai, for example. But huge problems remained for the vast majority who stayed behind and who either didn’t want to take the initiative, always hoping that in the end they were still Italians, like everyone else, or who weren’t able for a variety of reasons to find a satisfactory solution to their numerous and complex problems. It was a matter of thousands of people who were left without work or without the possibility of continuing their studies (twenty-five hundred professionals, two hundred teachers at every rank and level, four hundred civil servants and government office workers, five hundred private office workers, and some fifty-six hundred students altogether). In an unsigned article, “In the Hour of Trial,” written by Dante Lattes, it was said, among other things: The Jews of Italy find themselves facing a great trial, one which requires the help of all their millenarian faith. They have to reflect on their long history and the manner in which their ancestors, in different eras, overcame such innumerable vicissitudes, so that this difficult and grave situation will also be overcome with dignity. They will therefore accept the discrimination that has been decreed toward them without becoming demoralized, as painful as that may be.

The Racial Campaign Breaks Out

It is a great sorrow today—the sorrow of the Jews of Italy who are faced with an exodus that again forces them onto the roads of the world, onto unknown roads, toward gates that nations rich with many lands keep closed, hermetically closed, to thousands of more Jews. It is a tragic destiny that has gone on for many centuries, that civilization, humanity, and charity are unable to end, and that cannot be resolved with the semantic debates of committees or with the assemblies of diplomats. . . . Another great grief of ours is the discrimination with which school doors at every level have been closed to Jewish teachers and students, from little children still unacquainted with life and the letters of the alphabet, to men of science who have dedicated all of their energies, and possibly all of their lives, to the teaching and research of that which is true. The former, the children, were preparing themselves to open their minds to all the great and beautiful things that are taught in school—to love for Italy, to love of order, to the events of history, and to the small ideas that provide stupendous possibilities of the infinite; and the latter, the teachers, would have continued, as they have until now, to make their honest contribution to Italian learning—either modest or more important—and to human learning, which has no boundaries of mountains or seas or languages or ancestry. We are certain that none of these teachers or scientists ever thought of doing favors for either his Jewish race or his Jewish faith when he taught or cultivated his special branch of learning. In a great number of them the consciousness of belonging to the race that produced Moses and the prophets, the singer of Psalms and the poet of the Song of Songs, and Jesus and the apostles, or to the religion that first preached faith in one God and morality and love for one’s neighbor—in many Jewish teachers perhaps that double consciousness was dead or asleep. . . . The pain of discrimination will remain sealed, with dignity and with faith, in the heart of every Jew; and it will be the sanctification of his capacity to suffer, which seems to have been decreed for him by history, if Israel is, according to Isaiah, the sorrowful “slave” of God. But discrimination also creates many problems that must be

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resolved with thoughtfulness, with sacrifice, and with love. Problems of children and young people who cannot be abandoned without an education, without an occupation, and without a future, and who therefore need schools. And these schools should be furnished with the help and the consent of the appropriate authorities and should be of such a nature as to provide spiritual sustenance and to prepare material sustenance for the children. There are the problems of men who, fallen from their positions, have to find an activity, a livelihood, and a peacefulness that today they have lost. Everyone’s responsibility is great. It is not enough to endure stoically; we have to suffer together, divide the weight so that it does not become too heavy, intolerable, and tragic. God will help us if we can help others—if the strongest sustain the weakest, if “your poor brother will live with you,” sharing your bread and sharing your heart. What we must offer up, as Israel has in every moment of its long and dramatic history, is a great example of faith in God and in man. The ideals of Israel and the history of Israel, even though we are humbled and vilified, are great things; they are divine ideals and sacred history, even according to those who are not descended, as we are, from Abraham and Moses. It is this idea that we must preserve with love, and this history that we must carry on with faith, even if it requires great suffering and great sacrifices. God, in whom we believe, will relieve the pain with His consolations, since He is in this ideal and in this history.10

c h a p t er f i f t een

Dante Lattes Leaves

january 1939. Many important figures, leaders of Italian Judaism at various levels, Zionists and non-Zionists, have already succeeded in leaving Italy. But Lattes is still in Rome, at Via Treviso 31, under constant police surveillance, now more than ever. We have to find a solution. Certificates for Palestine issued by the British Mandate government can be obtained relatively easily.1 The big problem was the passports, which had been withdrawn and which, in spite of repeated requests, police headquarters (with a variety of excuses) still had not released. But time is running out, and a solution must be found. In those months I was giving Hebrew lessons to two kids, children of friends, shopkeepers. Simple people, but very emotionally bound to Jewish matters and even more so after the racial laws. In their home, in the evening after the lesson, we listened to Radio London and Moscow from a—one might easily say—gigantic radio, tall and wide as a chest of drawers. I speak with them, worried about the situation of the Lattes family. I see that the husband and wife exchange glances, and I get the impression that a swift dialogue is taking place between them. They have the children leave the room. They close the door, and then they inform me that they’re linked to a communist cell that can even reach police headquarters. Consequently, they assure me, the passports will arrive, and as soon as possible. Given the admiration that they, too, have for Lattes, they make it a “condition” that they themselves give them to him in person. I speak vaguely to Lattes about a possibility of getting the passports back again. He smiles charitably, but he’s not convinced. Nor for my own part do I bring him up to date on how things are develop-

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ing. He is too worried and long since afraid of everything. I don’t want to involve him in any way in an undertaking whose conclusion, up until this moment, is unknown even to me. Besides, I have good reasons to be worried about myself. A negative result, with repercussions that I cannot foresee, could interfere with the Zionist organizing work that I am carrying out among the young people. In the event, then, of me being arrested—a possibility that cannot be excluded a priori—that work would be blocked, at least the part concerning me. Finally I receive a phone call from my friends: “Today the children can’t come to their lesson; we’ll do it next week. We apologize.” It’s the message I’ve been waiting for; it means that the passports are ready and that they will be delivered at home that afternoon. I go first and inform Lattes about a visit that will please him. Naturally he asks me some questions, and I respond in a general way, with a vague gesture of “Who knows?” to the possibility of having the long-awaited passports. Lattes shakes his head slightly, tries to smile, and allows himself only a “maybe” and is silent. A more pronounced manifestation of sadness and maybe also of fear, which I have already noticed on other particular occasions, shines through his eyes. I realize that he feels more watched and fears that there is no way out. We smoke in silence, look at each other, and wait. The bell rings, I go to open the door, and here are my two friends, dressed in their holiday best even though it’s a weekday. They have a package tied with a colored ribbon as if it were a gift. I introduce them to Lattes, to whom they hand over what really can be considered a gift. “What is it?” Lattes asks. “Open it, and you’ll see,” I tell him. His hands shake a little, but immediately afterward his eyes shine with an almost childlike joy. Here are the passports, in perfect order. The preparations for the departure begin. I go to Trieste twice to bring back certificates and for other matters. The house is emptied. And on this occasion, as I’ve already mentioned, I have my only disagreement—which is rather animated—with Lattes. He has an archive of thousands of letters, many of which are autographed letters from the most important personalities of Zionist culture and politics, as well as from the Italian cultural world. He fears that they could fall into the hands of fascists, notwith-

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standing my commitment to finding a solution for saving this precious historical material, a primary source for several important chapters in the history of Judaism and Zionism in Italy. Nothing can be done. The entire archive ends up in the furnace of the heating system. I am the one who commits this crime, under the dogged surveillance of Lattes. He lets me keep some autographed letters of Weizmann and others, which get lost later on when my house in Asti is pillaged. I remember one of these letters, on pale blue paper and written in 1921. It was from Weizmann: “I’m leaving for America, in the hope of raising funds at a very difficult time.” On this trip of his the president of the World Zionist Organization was accompanied by Albert Einstein. On April 12 of the same year, after an impressive demonstration took place in New York, Einstein enthusiastically exclaimed, “I have just discovered a new theory of eternity.” That same evening, a few hours before the departure, there is a ring at the door. Lattes, who does not want to see anyone and still is not convinced that everything will go so smoothly, withdraws to an empty room. I go to open the door. I find myself facing two police agents. They ask for the professor; I respond that he’s resting. They want to know who I am, and I tell them, “His nephew.” They ask me if it’s true that Professor Lattes and family will be leaving for Palestrina (sic!). I’m also thinking of the worst: Palestrina could simply be an error due to their well-known illiteracy, but it’s better not to trust in that.2 I specify that it’s Palestine, give the departure time, the port of embarkation, Brindisi, and the name of the ship, Galilea. They take note of everything and go away. Lattes: “See, it’s all finished, we’re done for!” I remind him that in that case they would have stopped us immediately, and they would not have gone away. I decide right then and there that in any case I’ll accompany him as far as Brindisi, partly because now I’m not so sure myself that the matter is over. Boarding the train I notice two unmistakable agents who follow us and take seats in the compartment next to ours. I realize then that it’s only that they want to keep track of Lattes until his departure. The maestro still isn’t convinced, and he restricts himself to saying, “Well, let’s say that it’s just like you say,” and then he withdraws into a gloomy silence. The train departs. His wife, daughter, and grandson sleep, and Lattes smokes nonstop.

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“I’m really not sleepy,” he says to me, realizing that I’m looking at him in silence, “and I don’t know why not . . .” A conversation starts up, and we talk about Erez Israèl. “Now look, I’ll have to get used to speaking in Hebrew.” And he smiles because he has spoken this phrase to me in Hebrew. Dawn breaks. On the Bari-Brindisi stretch the trees are already flowering, and it’s only February. “Look how beautiful they are, in a world that’s so ugly,” he remarks. We’re in the lobby of the big Hotel Internazionale, which overlooks the port, waiting for the passports to be returned to us. There are a lot of people, and the two police agents are sunk in armchairs and don’t lose sight of us. Time passes, slowly. We’re seated on a sofa, and Lattes’s feet don’t reach the floor; he keeps smoking the traditional “Macedonians,” checks the clock often, and turns toward me with a doubtful expression, without speaking. The fear still hasn’t left him. Then after about three hours a customs officer with a pile of passports enters, almost running. Lattes turns them over in his hands, surprised, as if he were seeing them for the first time. We’ve done it. The Galilea is already in port, its white profile turning red, reflecting the setting sun. It’s the moment of goodbyes and emotions. An affectionate embrace, and the Lattes family goes on to the last checkpoint. Lattes opens his billfold and calls to me. I get closer to him, and I hear him say, in a loud voice, “I’ve got a stamp here for twenty-five centesimi that I can’t use—it’s a present for you.” The harbor police burst into ringing laughter: “This little old guy—what a card!” The ship starts to move; from the porthole Lattes’s hand is still waving to me. I go to send some telegrams, arranged in advance, to several friends, and I catch the train again. There aren’t many people, but I travel without worries—the two policemen have taken seats in the compartment next to mine. I return to Rome, partly because I have to deal with the exams for the first rabbinical title. It should not be a difficult undertaking. I’m sorry that Lattes won’t be present, but the other teachers know me well by now, and they value me because they have also been able to observe how I got back on top after my famous failure. My reception, however, contrary to my expectations, is rather chilly. The professors are talking to-

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gether among themselves, ignoring me. Then the chair of the committee turns to me and in a rather serious and cold tone says: “Before proceeding I and my colleagues would like to clarify a very important question with you.” “Please tell me, professor.” “We have heard a rumor—from several sources—according to which you are going to have one of those, let us say, pro forma weddings in the next few days. You understand me, right? If this is true, it is clear that this examination would be completely pointless, because rabbinical titles obviously cannot be given in such circumstances. It is a simple question of morality.” Morality, to begin with, does not have anything to do with it for me, and for several reasons. Besides, the kind of inquisition to which I’m being subjected is entirely comic and ridiculous. It’s important to realize that during that period the English (now even they were involved in making my examinations at the Rabbinical College difficult) granted immigration certificates to Palestine grudgingly.3 So we sought to take advantage of them, using every trick possible. One of these was that whoever obtained a certificate would marry, pro forma, and in such cases the Mandate government would allow the spouse to depart, too, above and beyond the fixed quota. These weddings often took place between people who had never even met until the moment of the wedding itself, because the principle was to take the first person who was marked on our lists and wanted to make ’aliyà.4 Most of the time, once they arrived in Erez Israèl, they divorced; in some cases those marriages became permanent. Now, in the course of the year we students had had many occasions to speak of this way of going to Israel in defiance of the English, among ourselves. I had been among the few to defend this solution, maintaining that it was actually a true mizwà, and that should not be disregarded. Some of our teachers’ children also took part in these get-togethers, and so it was natural that the echo of our discussions would have reached their families, too. This was proved by the fact that the chair of the examination committee himself, during a class, had railed violently against this immoral attitude of certain Jews, emphasizing that such behavior was contrary to the laws of Jewish marriage. Now I remembered that during this reprimand

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the teacher had turned toward me several times. The discussions among us students continued, and my opposition to positions that I judged also to be irresponsible became more marked. Now—facing that committee—a quip that my incomparable Magyar friend Fabian had made suddenly came to mind: “I bet you’ll be getting ready to have one of these weddings, and maybe you’ll even know the name of your bride!” These words, I remembered, had been said precisely with the diabolical intention of arousing the curiosity of the teachers’ children who were present and who shared their respective parents’ ideas. Now that everything seems clear to me I smile and I’m about to respond, but then I’m sharply reprimanded. “It’s not exactly something to laugh about; the problem is very serious.” “I can assure you,” I reply, “that I’m completely unconnected with all that.” “All the same, consider this.” And the voice becomes sharp-edged. “We have firsthand information.” I should say so! It had been their children, fallen into the trap of Fabian (who at that moment I could have throttled, even affectionately), who had recounted such nonsense. “Allow me to be precise. Regarding the firsthand information, it is simply a matter of a joke. Everything that I am saying tallies with the simple truth.” Silence, an exchange of glances among the professors, and then it’s decided to admit me to the examination. Afterward I’m asked to go out, and I linger for a little while, waiting to be called back in. The bell rings, and the porter lets me in. The examination went well, and I even receive congratulations; but, I am told, for now the issue remains unresolved, and thus the title won’t be conferred on me just yet. “But how can that be?” I ask, disconcerted. “We still have to make some more inquiries.” “Signori,” I say, and the tone of my voice is agitated, “I was under the illusion that my words had been sufficient. Given, however, this strange situation, I find myself constrained—painfully—to give you my word of honor that everything that was said about me is not true.” The chair of the committee smiles paternalistically, gives a slight tug

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to his mustache, and says, “But we believe you—that’s obvious. These additional inquiries are being made with the sole purpose of safeguarding your good name from slanderers.” “To defend my good name, I don’t think I need you.” And I leave, slamming the door. I return to my little Community. Papà tries to minimize the episode and to calm me down. And then he says to me, “But the solution is actually very simple: we’ll arrange for Rome to receive a certificate from Casale that will prove the simple truth—that you are a bachelor and that there are no banns in sight, all done from here.” The following Saturday at the temple the news that I have finished this first cycle of studies spreads. The old president/principal congratulates me, slaps me amicably on the shoulders, and exclaims, “You see? We’ve done it.” He takes credit yet again. Doctor Fiz also smiles at me in a friendly way—he’s satisfied too—and he seems to be telling me, “Isn’t it better this way than being a doctor?” Now the kind ladies file past, congratulating the young Sur Murènu. Papà stands a little apart, smiling, almost overcome, as can be seen by his glistening eyes. At dinner there’s a bit of a party. Mother is happy too, but as usual she doesn’t want to show her feelings, even though they shine quite clearly through her exceptionally limpid eyes. Mother doesn’t leave out her commentary on what took place at the temple, where she too received her share of the congratulations. She says, “I put up with it,” and then she adds, “At first, in the murènu’s home, we had one, and it was enough. Now we have two . . .” And she raises her hands to the sky almost as if to ask for the indispensable divine protection. In the afternoon we go out to take our regular Sabbath walk. I get the impression, like many times before, that Papà, walking like this without a destination, has something important on his mind to tell me. And in fact, after some vague overtures, he comes to the point. The basic concepts of that talk have always remained engraved in my heart, and now I will try to reconstruct it, briefly, in its essential contours: Look, we’re going through a difficult time, more difficult than can be imagined, and only God knows how all this ugly business will

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end. It’s also natural that in such a chaotic and worrisome situation as this one there will be the most unexpected reactions. But all this is human and understandable. Look, for example, at what happened to you these past weeks. This, too, is an indication of bewilderment, of anxiety that overwhelms even teachers at such a high level as yours. Maybe even they still don’t recognize what the dismal reality is. I understand their position, perfectly in line with the halakhà. But we’re already in a state of emergency, and in a moment like this, when life is in peril for our entire people—and there is no doubt about it—the more people that go to Erez Israèl, the better it is; I agree with you. But this isn’t the root of the problem. Let’s look at our age-old history. We have lived though eras that were peaceful and, taken as a whole, untroubled, as well as eras in which it seemed that everything would come crashing down—and we’ve gone through many. But in every age there has never been a lack of quarrels among ourselves that could have been avoided for the good of all. As you see, history seems to repeat itself according to certain patterns, so that the fulfillment of the Jewish ideal is always difficult—it’s an endless struggle. But don’t forget a fundamental teaching that comes to us from the Bible. As Zechariah says, we continue to be “prisoners of hope,” whatever happens and at whatever cost—and such we will remain until the hope is completely fulfilled.5 This idea ought to give us the strength to overcome incidental events and turn our eyes to the future with trusting confidence. We have to work for tomorrow, not for today. We have passed through persecutions of every kind and in every era—besides deportations, expulsions, massacres, burnings at the stake, and ghettos. Communities have sprung up, flowered, and then disappeared. Ours, too, unfortunately, isn’t far from its end, at least as a place of active Jewish life. And so others will surely spring up; where isn’t important! What counts, however, is always to remain faithful to this ageold hope, which isn’t only a support to the spirit but indeed a historical reality, even though that might seem like a paradox. And

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we are building history day by day, precisely because we build for tomorrow. We are immersed in history, and God is with us, because the collaboration is reciprocal. Problems then take on rather different dimensions and a much greater scope, and one knows for whom and for what one is working. You have already had experiences—good and bad, it’s not important, they’re still valuable, and to the same degree. But remember also that we cannot permit ourselves the luxury of wasting time in arguments that turn reality aside and betray it, because ultimately they remain only abstract and don’t come down and enter actively into our daily life. Little chatter, much action; few words and many deeds. The Jewish faith takes shape and acquires meaning only in this way—through actions. As I said to you, the way things are going we could find ourselves facing still worse problems; by now it seems inevitable to me, but we have to hold on and never give up. Like a rock climber who can gauge the difficulty and the dangers of the mountain that he’s climbing, and peers upward with an attentive eye, searching for the way, while with his fingertips and boots he’s clinging to the rock, yet at the same time suspended in air—thus we have to continue the steep ascent prudently, always keeping the danger in mind but trusting in the tenacity of our muscles and in the never-hesitating will that the goal must be achieved. So, always forward, in the face of any danger, and working for the good of all. Thus, for example, I don’t know if the Lord will give me the chance to see the rebirth of the State of Israel, but it is a certainty that I feel. You or your children will certainly witness this new miracle in our history. And I speak of miracles because most of the events that have defined it seem to have an apparently anomalous typology. You, too, are a prisoner of hope, and you have to work with all your strength and struggle without ever losing courage. Not only that; you also have to be an optimist, even though—and this surely seems like a paradox—Jewish optimism is often born out of despair. Only for prisoners of hope is there a sure tomorrow.

c h a p t er s i xt e e n

Working with Raffaele Cantoni

during 1939 i had many occasions to accompany the young and the not-so-young to the ports of embarkation or to the train stations. This work needed to be done, but the opportunities to leave and to act were always fewer. A lot of doors were closed—those of the many Communities that did not want to have anything more to do with “dangerous” elements (who were even requested not to appear in their offices anymore) and also those of quite a few families, some of whom had even succeeded in discovering that they were of the “Aryan race.” The young people who themselves were willing to do something were getting to be fewer and fewer, either because, in the meantime, they had left or because they were stopped by their own families, who didn’t want them “getting themselves into trouble.” But the problems grew and became graver and more urgent every day. In this long night of human bewilderment and moral undoing I am compelled, here, to recall those persons who never hesitated to offer us their sympathetic help and those homes where we were welcomed like one’s children, at any hour of the day or night, with joy and affection, and where a bed and something to eat could always be found. Of course it’s not possible to remember all of them, but I must mention Rav Castelbolognesi and his family in Milano, Rav Nissim and his family in Padova, Rav Toaff and his family in Livorno, the Morpurgo family in Padova, Franca Muggia and Angelo Fano and their respective families in Venice, together with Giorgio Rossi and his mother in the Lido of Venice. The work now becomes concentrated on the training of young adults and teenagers—two hakhsharòth (at San Marco and at Orciano, in Tus-

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cany) and two centers for the ’aliyàth ha-nòar (youth emigration), first at Valdengo, near Biella, and then in the Veneto, at Alano di Piave. Invaluable organizers and coworkers include Franca Muggia, who will die in a Nazi extermination camp, Berti Eckert, Enrico Levi, Giorgio Rossi, Max and Matilde (Cassin) Varadi, and Tullio Castelbolognesi. Raffaele Cantoni and Umberto Nahon carry the weight of this work of ours. The latter was less impetuous than Raffaele, but no less energetic and daring. He was involved in many undertakings, with his keen intelligence and decisiveness—which could even seem cynical at times, when special difficulties arose. A native of Livorno, he had an English passport that in some respects, at least until June 1940, permitted him a certain mobility impossible for others, even though he was often attacked by newspapers like Il Tevere, which, regarding this detail, devoted articles to the socalled Jewish International. Always present at the most important times and tactful with their specific advice and practical help, Raffaele and Umberto were actually the organizing minds behind all our work, and they often pushed our endurance and our very safety to the limits. We traveled from city to city in order to approach families and young people, to convince parents and children of the urgent necessity of leaving Italy, to organize, complete, and run these centers (which were officially represented as agricultural training centers but where courses in Hebrew language and Jewish culture were also held and where there was a small beth ha-kenèseth), to collect funds, and to try to extract as many immigration certificates as possible from the English Mandate government. Orciano. We’ve spent a wonderful Sabbath, and the parish priest of the town attends the tefillòth, too. He’s pleased with our initiatives, admires our religious spirit, and declares himself ready to help us as much as he can. He’s surprised only that it’s the young people themselves and not a rabbi who recite the prayers, taking turns. During the meal that follows the conversation expands, and it may be the first time that a Jewish-Christian dialogue of such warmth and reciprocal understanding has taken place in Italy. The following Sunday Enrico and I are in Livorno for a meeting. At Toaff ’s home, where we’re having dinner, we seek advice from the rabbi about some problems, and his help is given readily and with that calm and that habitual smile of his that cheered us up and

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encouraged us. He also has us look at his splendid library—a large room surrounded with tall bookcases overflowing with books. He carefully leafs through some rare editions, and he explains their significance to us. It’s clear that Toaff wants this to be a small break from our daily tension. He has also succeeded in putting together a meeting in the Community, and with his presence, occasional participation, and a few words—tossed off apparently without effort—he works it so that we achieve what until then we had not been able to. That afternoon we leave again, for Orciano. In the deserted little station, however, there’s a fellow in civilian clothes who approaches us and introduces himself as a marshal of the carabinieri. Courteously but firmly he informs us that the Orciano hakhsharà has to be closed that night. These are the orders that arrived a few hours earlier from Rome. Nothing can be done about it. We try to get a postponement of a few days. The response is that if we don’t take care of it, he’ll have to take care of it himself. We work all night. The next morning we leave for Pisa, and from there everyone goes home, at least for the moment. Enrico and I, on the other hand, get in touch with Raffaele and make an appointment for the next morning at the offices of the Union. At this point I have met Raffaele Cantoni1 at a meeting and only exchanged a few words with him. Afterward, and for a long time, as we will see, I had many occasions to work with him. One Sabbath, while I was taking a walk before dinner with Berti, we came to the Largo Argentina [in Rome] and ran into Raffaele, who by then was already unmistakable for his brown suit, his Homburg of the same color, and an old briefcase that he often shook as he walked, pursuing his thoughts. It was my first official encounter, so to speak, with this exceptional man. He bored us with a long story for about two hours, seldom interrupted by our timid attempts to express our opinions. Walking among the crowds Raffaele talked, getting himself worked up about certain subjects and thus raising his tone of voice as if we were sitting comfortably in a room and no one could hear us. When later on I had occasion, in certain circumstances, to ask him by signs or with a few words to lower his tone of voice, he would fire off a, “You’re afraid?” still with the same intonation, and so it was better to stay silent.2

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Some observations, however, can be made straightaway. It was never easy to work with him. There were long meetings, sessions that were always rather spirited and often dominated by his shouting, because he seemed almost surprised not to see a project carried out at the same moment in which he articulated it. Chairs were sometimes smashed to pieces, as if such acts would serve to better convince the persons with whom he was talking. There were long, exhausting train trips—“We work by day,” he would say, “and travel by night, so that we save time and money, and by not going to a hotel the police don’t know where we are.” All this frantic and apparently confused way of operating had nevertheless given rise to strong bonds of friendship between us, even though Raffaele may have taken advantage of it, requiring a lot more of us than he would have asked of others. If he wasn’t worried about using an insistent tone and a candid, colorful, and unmistakable vocabulary with persons with whom he wasn’t acquainted, then this was all the more so with his friends. So working with him was never easy, and it was rare not to argue about basic questions and even about small details. But after a few minutes Raffaele had already forgotten everything. An honest and warm friendship remained between us. His writing style could justifiably have been regarded by stylists with many reservations, but he went straight to the point without any second thoughts. And then, when he began to speak, he would often leave his listeners confused at the start. (In public or in private, it was the same thing.) He was, as one sensed, busy concentrating, searching for a word, slowly and almost painfully laying out a certain argument; but suddenly he would explode, his speech becoming rapid, colorful, rich in expressions and images, a true cascade of words and ideas—which were never easy to follow—while his voice kept getting louder, the color of his face sometimes going from red to purple, the veins in his neck swelling—and there was something to be concerned about. One recognized a drive in him that not only was emotional but was precisely the will to commit himself personally, and others, to any enterprise. One could readily say of him that words that come from the heart go to the heart. Ceaselessly he insisted, demanded, and screamed out the necessity of hurrying up and of acting. He sensed in an instinctive and ebullient way, even if it was

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sometimes confused, the classic traditional Jewish formula, according to which one judges a person only by what they do, certainly not by what they say. Raffaele’s Jewish consciousness and religious faith itself should be seen and judged from this point of view if one wants to understand, at least in part, the man who, out of an inner urge more than out of Jewish knowledge, was at times capable of being an authentic interpreter of the prophetic teachings, always striving for an unceasing renewal, pondering ideas and actions, always in motion to achieve something new and better, to struggle with all his strength against every form of stagnation, of compromise, of peace and quiet, which are after all the death of ideas and action. For this he asked, or rather demanded, the same commitment and sacrifice from individuals that he himself made, even if not everyone, for a variety of reasons, was able to sustain it. For a life so active and sometimes chaotic as his was—intensely engaged in many areas, including non-Jewish ones (at least up to a certain period)—it would be difficult to find a biographer who would be capable of reconstructing the traits of such a richly versatile personality with any confidence, maybe not even in its basic contours. As far as I know, he didn’t write anything about himself, partly because he just couldn’t have had the time, busy as he was around the clock with so many activities; nor would he have saved the documentation of rather important events in which he was a protagonist. “My archive,” he would often say smiling, “is this,” and he would point to the wastepaper basket. At that time Dante Almansi, the former prefect, was president of the Union.3 His unusual amount of experience in dealing with the authorities, his levelheadedness in assessing the most delicate issues, the honesty of his circumspect and decisive way of working, and his earnest commitment to stand up for the Jewish cause during the most difficult period in the history of the Jews of Italy, until 1944, produced extraordinary assistance for the entire Jewish community. He deserves to be remembered with affection and gratitude, along with many others. The attacks that were stirred up against him sometime ago were entirely groundless, dictated by either mistaken information or bad faith.4 We’re in the waiting room with Raffaele, waiting for Almansi to arrive.

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Raffaele wants to know all the details about the closing of the Orciano hakhsharà, and then he explodes, knocks over a chair, and practically hurls himself at Enrico, yelling at him, “If there’s a storm, do you, the sea captain, throw the passengers overboard? What kind of captain are you?” Fortunately Almansi appears at the door—a pale face, stern, grayhaired, small of stature, in a frock coat—and his official, aloof voice reestablishes calm. We inform him about what has happened, and he asks us to wait; he will pay a visit to the Ministry of the Interior, and he will report back. He returns after an hour and says to Raffaele, “These young people acted in the best way; there really wasn’t anything that could be done.” Some time later I’m in Rome again, summoned by Raffaele. We are supposed to meet with an American journalist for an exchange of ideas on a variety of issues. My appointment with Raffaele is at Pines’s. I arrive in the morning on time. It’s the seventh of April, and I hear the news vendors shouting: “Special edition! Our troops land in Albania!” It seems as if we’ve picked the perfect day. Raffaele informs me that we’ll meet with the journalist at the Aragno! I’m truly baffled. “But do you think,” I ask him, “it’s really the best place?” During those years that famous café had become an intelligence hub for the fascists; even the waiters were ovra agents. Raffaele, smiling as always, answers me, “You really don’t understand anything. If whoever is keeping an eye on us sees us sitting in that bar, they’ll think that we’re there among friends, drinking coffee and shooting the breeze, but instead we’ll be able to take care of our business calmly.” I have my doubts! We enter, a waiter approaches Raffaele and, after saying “excuse me,” gently tries to remove some whitewash from his shoulder—he must have brushed against a wall. You can hear the booming and practically joyful voice of Raffaele: “Harder, and don’t be afraid—this isn’t home cloth, it’s true English cloth.” I stare at him, and Cantoni says, “What’s the matter? You’re afraid?” The discussion is finished, and having said goodbye to the journalist to go for a stroll, as Raffaele suggests, we set out walking along the Corso toward Piazza Venezia, talking about our problems. We’ve almost come to the corner of the piazza when Raffaele, as if he is seized by an

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impromptu idea, says to me, “Let’s go over to Palazzo Venezia. I want to show you where I used to have my office!” I refuse, telling him that it’s crazy to do such a pointless and dangerous thing—because it’s certain that we’ll be stopped. But Raffaele won’t let up, and he takes me by the arm and tries to pull me forward. When, however, he sees that several agents are already approaching, he abandons this pet mania of his, and we set out peaceably toward Via IV Novembre. Along the way he tells me that many years earlier, from 1919 to 1920, there was a nucleus of veteran shock troops in that building. He, at Fiume, at the side of D’Annunzio, had also carried out some special assignments.5 He had had an office in that building. Then he starts talking about Mussolini, and he tells me about having met him back then and in somewhat of an adventurous way. At night under a pale moon, at an old, abandoned cemetery near the sea, he was waiting for a boat that was supposed to take him to Fiume. In the semidarkness he saw another person; it was Mussolini himself, and Raffaele spoke with him at length. “Well then,” he concludes, “I can tell you that ever since then I’ve been convinced time and again that he was an anti-Semite, and I told him so.”6 Raffaele never gave up this spontaneous sincerity of his, saying exactly what he thought. He almost took pleasure in embarrassing people. During one of our trips around Italy, after 1938, we found ourselves in Florence one evening, six or seven of us at a hotel. We are providing our particulars—full name, parents’ names, and date of birth. The clerk is very kind but somewhat ill at ease (we sense it from his subdued tone of voice) because he has to ask us our race, too. Cantoni’s voice can be heard thundering, “We’re all of the Jewish race! Go ahead and write it, don’t be afraid!” “I do my duty,” says the other man, almost as if to excuse himself. “Fine,” concludes Raffaele, “now you’ve done it.” When, not long afterward, he found himself before the Internment Commission, facing the president, who had been his companion in arms during the First World War, and he said to him, “I’m surprised and pained to see you among the accused,” Cantoni immediately replied, “I’m the one who’s feeling those emotions, seeing that you’re president of this commission.”

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I’m traveling together with Raffaele at night in a third-class compartment; there’s no heating, and it’s very cold. There’s also a noncommissioned officer—on the luggage rack is his knapsack, packed with a blanket. The organizing spirit in Raffaele is aroused: “Excuse me,” he asks, “couldn’t that blanket be employed more usefully?” The kind soldier agrees and spreads out the blanket, under which we somehow try to protect ourselves from the cold. I hope to rest, and that Raffaele will behave himself, but his joyful voice can be heard immediately: “Now, yes, long live the Italian army!” Alano di Piave, where Franca is the astute organizer of every activity and her father, a gifted doctor forced into retirement by the racial laws, is a great help to us, attending to the young people as a psychologist.7 A stormy night, a flood, a real disaster. Near our house is the crumbling wall of an old villa. The downpour brings it down, and the road is blocked. It’s the only road that goes to town. The morning after there’s splendid sunshine, but we can’t get through. People look, talk, and wait for the town to take care of it. Agreeing with Franca, I call the young people together, and I tell them that we have a great opportunity to show everyone what we can do. We set to work clearing the road. We work hard for many hours under a scorching sun. I work with a mattock, and the youths, when I begin, comment jokingly, “Here’s the blow of the duce’s mattock!”8 The country people gather and appreciate us, but they don’t lend a hand. By noon the road is negotiable. Our shoulders and arms are aching, and our hands are covered with blisters, but we’re happy for having done the job. We’re told of the visit of the podesta, who is coming to thank us. While I’m waiting in the doorway a fellow comes up and whispers to me, “Here they are. Now they’re coming to fix everything—as usual.” And with his hand he points to a small group of people who accompany the podesta. The moment for choosing who will leave [for Palestine] has arrived.9 There are not enough certificates, and we find ourselves facing a very difficult task. Every evening for more than a month Franca and I have written up notes on every youth, working late; consequently we already have significant data, but not enough. To complicate things even more several youth-movement representatives arrive. Then there’s also Raffaele and

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Umberto: where are we going to send these kids—to a religious or a nonreligious site? Unfortunately the argument becomes rather lively. Raffaele loses his patience and begins to rail against everyone, his shouts reaching beyond the doors. A chair flies against the wall—in pieces. He is unrestrained. He yells that he can’t understand how, at such a difficult moment, we are wasting time in such useless discussion. “Datì (religious)? From you and from me, forward and backward, enough with these monads!”10 Finally the decision is left (at least formally) to each youth, who naturally first has private discussions with the representatives. It seems to me that this solution sets a bad example at the very least and only leads to confusion. And the results demonstrate it: youths who belong to families that are well-known for being religious choose a nonreligious site, and vice versa! During one of my stays in Rome two sixteen-year-old boys who had succeeded in fleeing from Vienna and clandestinely crossing the border came to me. Someone had given them my name, and now they were before me so that I would help them. There was a solution, but it would take at least fifteen days, and if in the meantime they were stopped by the police? Taken back to the border, their end would have been inevitable. Knowing the police station ambience rather well, I decide to act openly. I take the two boys with me directly to the closest police station. I explain the facts in detail, the pure and simple truth. The officer listens to me, nods in assent, and then he asks the names of the two boys and writes them down. He rings the bell and hands the slip of paper to the policeman who enters, telling him, “A residence permit for one month for these two.” I speak up, telling him that two weeks are enough. He looks at me, surprised, and mutters, “And if I order that it last a month, that means that it’s for a month, understand?” I, too, had applied for a certificate many times. The response had always been negative, justified by the fact that my work here was indispensable. But time was running out, and one day I presented myself at Via degli Amedei in Milan to press for this request. The response that I received was coarse and banal—what did I think I would be able to do “with those feet.”11 After having replied that I hoped that in Erez Israèl they also used their heads, I left that room rather distraught.

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I often had occasion afterward to think about that conversation, searching for an answer, because I am convinced that nothing happens by chance, even if we don’t often succeed in finding reasons for what befalls us. It was during the partisan period, one day while I was resting, sitting on a log behind a farmhouse together with my faithful German shepherd Dick, that I thought I had found an explanation for this event, which by then was buried among very distant memories. From where I was situated my eyes could sweep all the way to the broad valley floor. Propelled by the wind a light mist rose up, rendering the panorama almost fairytale-like, and wrapping fields, vines, and houses in a world of cotton. Even the yellow and red of the dripping leaves of the grapevines, so vivid under the sun, faded and turned pale. In those days you lived one day at a time; you could not even imagine what might happen from one moment to the next. Those were also the moments when one thought about the “what ifs.” Like, “what if ” I had received that fabled certificate? But I hadn’t gotten it. It’s quite probable that the answer that I thought of—precisely when I was going through such a difficult time—was prompted only by the desire to find a rationalization and the comfort that I needed. What came to my mind was what had happened to Jacob, who had struggled against an angel at night. A very difficult passage to interpret. It can partly be explained with reference to the descendants of Jacob, who “would have to struggle in the long night of their history against the gods of paganism and against their followers, and who, though wounded, would emerge from the struggle still unvanquished.”12 The struggle that Jacob endured could certainly signify acquiring experiences and learning to face all kinds of adversity, even by means of a permanent physical affliction. The sudden and therefore treacherous assault by night had aroused an unknown strength in him and reinvigorated his will to struggle and his pride in overcoming the most complex situations on his own, not giving up fighting, even if he was dealing with an angel. After all, I, too, one night in my childhood, must have met with an angel against whom I had fought and won, even though I was wounded, because I had managed to survive. That had made me realize, ever since I was a child, that certain things were not permitted me and taught me

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early on to make choices, to never let down my guard, to sense beforehand problems that others would miss, to overcome complexes, and to commit myself more in order to win. Being denied that certificate—and in that way—had been like a whipping. I had taken up the challenge almost arrogantly and had carried out tasks that maybe, under normal conditions, I would not have had the courage to face. I had helped to save many comrades, especially young people, from the Nazi fury and from the fascists’ shameful actions; now I was taking part in the war of liberation, and all this while many had left, abandoning their posts, worrying only about themselves, about their own healthy legs. Everyone comforts himself as he can. While I was musing over these thoughts I often looked toward Dick, who did not take his eyes off me, because (I’m convinced of it) he was following my reasoning throughout, and he understood it. The proof of this is that he came up to me and put his paw on my shoulder as a sign of agreement. There had been yet another occasion to fool myself, in spite of everything, about the possibility of achieving ’aliyà. It was when Lattes wrote me from Erez Israèl to tell me that he had found out that a certificate was available and that he had hastened to propose my name. Very naively I immediately went to Milan to get further clarification. I even brought Lattes’s letter with me as documentation. Back again in Via Amedei they looked astonished. My request really appeared to arouse surprise and amazement: they did not have any news about this certificate. I could have saved myself the trip if, even for just a moment, I would have considered the fact that the person who was in charge, even when it came to certificates, was unapproachable. The San Marco hakhsharà is still open. Before long it, too, will be closed, on higher orders, like the one at Orciano. Foreseeing that end we try to speed things up. One winter evening, in a heavy snowfall, I try to get to San Marco from Pontedera by car.13 The last stretch of the road is a climb, and we’re blocked. But we’re not very far away. In fact, in the stillness of the night someone from the house must have heard the sound of the motor and then nothing more. A few youths come running down, and I meet them while I’m laboriously trying to continue on up the road on foot. We sink halfway up our legs in the fresh snow. Helped by the

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chaverìm, a little while later I’m seated near the fireplace; I drink something hot and recount the latest news and listen to the most urgent problems. The memory of that evening is quite clear in my memory because I came across some of those youths later, in 1948, in Israel, during the first war; but others, like Marco Morpurgo, had already fallen in combat. And then, this was a group that was looking not for knowledge that was abstract or shelved with history, but for the regaining of their own Jewish identity; many of these young people came from assimilated families, and the racial laws had reawakened in them the sense of human dignity that had been trampled by violence—and they had rebelled. It was a true spiritual revolution that now engaged them quite enthusiastically in the quest for the basic tools with which to reconstruct their own lives and to equip themselves to face the difficulties of the times. The atmosphere was very friendly, as always; the snow continued to rage, the fireplace lit up our faces, and a good glass of wine and nazionali cigarettes encouraged conversation.14 Thus we created a special atmosphere, and we felt a particular warmth, partly because outside that large room there was only the darkness of night and the cold of the snow. We talked until late about the hopes of everyone and for everyone, a single great hope that in spite of everything colored the shared future with a few rosy brush strokes.

c h a p t er s even t e e n

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on the evening of May 5, 1939, I’m about to leave from the Termini train station for Milan. I have documents that concern our young adults and teenagers in my bag and a sum considerable for that time in the right inside pocket of my jacket. It’s the money that the respective families have entrusted to me and that I have collected—almost 150,000 lire in all. I take a seat in a third-class car, and my pocket with the money is next to the wall of the compartment; it’s already some security. A little before the train leaves a fellow in fascist uniform enters and sits down on my left. He opens the evening newspaper, my eyes fly to the first page, and I’m almost paralyzed by the shock. The entire page is covered with the announcement that there will be a meeting between Ciano and Ribbentrop in Milan the next day. Will I be able to get out of the Milan central train station unscathed? It’s not hard to imagine what the “security” for this situation will be like. And if they stop me and they find the documents and the money? Wouldn’t it be better to get off ? But just then the train starts moving. Like a hare caught in a car’s headlights, I stare at the newspaper and don’t even realize that the person sitting next to me on the trip is already reading the sports page. At this point he becomes aware of me, gives me a little smile, and says to me, “Sports fan, huh?” His rather robust voice reawakens me. “Of course,” I respond, and without any effort the conversation continues and does me good. Having seen his interest I show off my past sports-journalist experience. My interlocutor’s face lights up: “You’re a real sports encyclopedia.” I begin to consider that a little friendship could be useful to me, and it’s at that point that for the first time I, too, use the less formal form

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of “you.”1 In Florence he wants to express his gratitude to me for my knowledge, and he buys me a coffee. An idea comes to me like a thunderbolt; I have found the solution, and I can even allow myself a nap. We’re pulling into the Milan station, the train is slowing down, and I take a casual glance out the window. It’s like I expected—at the end of the platform two rows of agents arrayed in the shape of an acute triangle, there where you have to pass through. We start making our way through the corridor; on the left side of the train there’s a soldier every few meters. My traveling companion has kindly allowed me to go first, with a “Please, sir.” I accept; my strategic plan is now ready to be sprung. Having arrived at the door I stop myself, and turning to him I say, “Would you mind getting off before me? After traveling all night my legs are a little stiff, and the steps are a little high for me, so you’d be able to give me a hand.” His hand, sent from heaven, is extended, and the agents, lying in ambush like hunting dogs, scrutinize every traveler, and thus they see that a bearded young man—which during those years set off alarms immediately—is stepping down, helped by a hand in fascist uniform. That’s not all—my traveling companion even offers me his arm. It’s exactly what was needed. We pass—in review, so to speak—by the agents, who are stopping almost everyone. Someone salutes my companion with the fascist salute; I respond with a snappy salute, too. He wants to accompany me to the tram. But I thank him, telling him that I’m tired and I’m taking a car because I’m exhausted. And it was true. Some trips are also allotted to seeking out Sefarìm, which we want to entrust to our young people when they depart.2 This is not an easy undertaking either. Many Communities refuse, although they have a substantial number of them. In one small Community in the Veneto the president denies me a Séfer, saying that he doesn’t feel like sending such a sacred object to Palestine, where no one is religious. The war, along with the Nazis, will pass through that Community, too, and people and Sefarìm will be destroyed. On the other hand, I obtained one from another Community, and I set out for Venice to stop off at Franca’s. Berti, who in turn has gotten another Séfer from another Community, is with me, and arriving in the

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train station we head for the exit. It’s almost midnight, and we start walking at a brisk pace. Holding the Séfer in a vertical position, one’s field of vision is reduced. I see only the sidewalk and the legs of the travelers. I notice that the legs move to the right or to the left, a few at a time; now in the middle there’s nothing but open space, and I continue walking straight ahead. Shortly afterward a row of shiny black boots, arrayed in a semicircle, comes into sight extremely close to me. At this point I shift the Séfer to see better, and I find myself a couple of meters away from Starace, with a bunch of fascist officials at his side.3 They look at me and smile, taking note of my surprise. A quick about-face and I’m gone, accompanied by subdued laughter. Berti is waiting for me, and he is amused. “It looked,” he tells me, “like you wanted to give the Séfer to that famous personality!” We’re in Trieste. The youngsters, accompanied to their departure by their parents, are about to board the ship. It’s December 29, 1939. The war is already raging in Europe. Mussolini is standing on the sidelines, waiting to put several thousand dead on the scales of the inevitable, imminent victory. There are still several matters to deal with. Also the usual chaperone is missing, because he’s sick. Who should be in charge of the young people? Raffaele maintains that either Franca or I should supervise the youngsters. He argues that Franca would be better because there are also girls in the group and Franca could be more useful. The problem is a little complicated due to the presence in the maritime terminal of an English commission that, given the state of war, examines every certificate with Anglo-Saxon circumspection and is very strict. Without its permission nothing can be done. The director of the Sokhenùth (the Jewish Agency), who must formally make contact with the commission, is indisposed.4 Nor is it thought likely that, given his usual prudence, he would hazard even getting in contact with the English by telephone. Raffaele begins to fume and grumble; he walks back and forth, getting more and more worked up. A few minutes of this, and then he’s back with us: “I’ve got it; we’ll arrange everything.” And he goes briskly to the commission table. We’re watching; what’s he up to? We’re surprised by Raffaele’s extreme politeness—hat in hand and a gentle, moderate tone of voice. Regarding the problem of the chaperone, the head of the com-

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mission says that only the Jewish Agency can take the necessary steps. We hear Raffaele say, “But that’s exactly what I was about to tell you. I just now spoke with the director, who agrees completely—by telephone because he is indisposed—and I would add that he has appointed me to tell you that he assumes full responsibility.” “In that case we need an official letter.” “It’s coming,” Raffaele declares. “It will be here in a quarter of an hour at most.” We see him run to the telephone, and we follow him. “Listen, Pepi, we have to do something about the chaperone. What? The commission? But they’re in agreement; it’s you who aren’t doing anything. And then? What then? Send a letter making a request and a commitment right away; it has to be here in a quarter of an hour.” And he ends the conversation. And to us: “Did you see how easy it is to convince the English?” And he’s getting a big kick out of it. Franca gets ready to leave, too. In Haifa she won’t be given permission to leave the ship; she’ll return, and a few years later she’ll be deported with her parents. In the maritime terminal I bring the young people and parents together because I want to say goodbye to them and give them a little talk. I speak quite frankly—now that they’re about to leave for Erez Israèl they should try to be good Jews, committing themselves to building a world of peace and justice, as well. Far from this world of dictators . . . And here I stop myself because I see an officer of the harbor militia approaching. “Is there someone who is ill?” “No, thank you, everyone is very well.” “Speeches are prohibited on Italian territory.” “I know.” “But you were speaking.” “It’s true—I was giving the usual advice to youngsters who are about to set out on a journey, reminding them that they should be disciplined, obedient—” “Fine, fine.” And he goes away very slowly. My speech ends after a few additional, suitable words, spoken in a loud voice so that I can also be heard by the ears of the police. While waiting for the embarkation I observe the crowd that throngs around the large table of the commission, mountains of suitcases ev-

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erywhere. It’s the turn of two elderly people, husband and wife. The president of the commission doesn’t seem to be listening to what the old man, in a trembling voice, is saying, but he painstakingly examines some sheets contained in a blue folder, while he smokes his pipe deliberately and slowly. The old man is explaining that the certificate is legal, authentic. They had to flee from country to country while the Nazi troops advanced. “It was,” he states, “the English consul himself who sent us here.” The response that marks the rhythm of that frantic story at intervals is a single word: “Sorry.” As far as I can tell, it has to do with a type of certificate that should have been transmitted by official channels and not given directly to the interested party. The old man continues, “Signori, the times are exceptional, there’s the war, and besides, the examinations are perfectly normal.” “Sorry.” Desperate, he looks at his wife and then looks around himself, almost as if he’s searching for someone to help him, while his voice continues, “And then? And then?” He shakes, wide-eyed with fear. The president of the commission says a few words in a low voice to a person sitting near him, and he, turning to another person who is standing there waiting, gives the order: “Remove their baggage from the ship; these persons can’t depart for now.” The old man, in a flat voice, stammers out, “And then? What to do?” The response, coldly indifferent: “Then,” says the president while he examines his pipe with intense interest, “then, I have to continue my work. I beg you to step back. You will hear from us in a few days. It is not out of the question that you will be able to leave on a ship soon.” The poor soul slowly takes a few steps back, turns his gaze beyond the large window, at the back of which you can just make out the outline of the ship, and then falls to the ground. He’s helped by his wife, in tears, and the elderly couple disappears in the crowd and the confusion of those departing. In a corner of this covered loading area I see a young woman holding a two- or three-year-old baby girl in her arms. A small group of people

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surrounds them. I approach. Everyone is competing to be involved with the baby. One offers her candies, another a toy, but the baby is far away— she doesn’t listen, doesn’t smile, and she draws back frightened when someone reaches out a hand to caress her. Her eyes stare, horrified. The mother’s face is sunken with hardship, and her eyes—very beautiful, they seem like satin—are as if extinguished. She must have lived through horrible things, but she speaks softly and recounts the story: she lost her husband and two children, killed by the Nazis. She and the baby were saved by a miracle, and now she’s here, waiting to embark. I can’t shake the stare of the baby; she must still have the image of the brutal slaughter in her eyes. The kids are on board. Ritual tears and waving of handkerchiefs. There’s a freezing, blustering north wind. The song “Ha-Tikvà,” sung slowly and solemnly by everyone, gets swallowed up in the wind. The white outline of the ship, with an enormous Italian flag painted on its side, moves slowly away from the dock. Going outside is a real undertaking, with a wind that seems to cut through our legs with sudden bursts. We hold ourselves stiffly and move forward with difficulty. A more violent gust almost flattens us against the wall of a house. By true good luck, it was the only house on that long stretch of road that skirted the sea. January, February 1940. Though realizing that room for action is shrinking all the time, we continue, with a certain abandon, to hope that we’ll still be able to form new groups of young adults and teenagers, and therefore we keep traveling around Italy, from city to city. I go to Fiume with Franca to get in touch with a family, the Bergers, who at first had seemed convinced about the opportunity for one of their sons to emigrate to Palestine. But this, too, is a completely useless trip. They have changed their minds—the distance from their son, during a war that’s already under way, frightens them. We stress the fact that in just such a situation children should be the first to be saved. Nothing can be done. Not long afterward the Berger family, all of them, will be deported and won’t return. Toward the end of April we have the last meeting, in Milan, with Raffaele, Nahon, Franca, Enrico Levi, and a few others. The trams are defaced with graffiti, done with chalk—coarse, vulgar, in typi-

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cal fascist style—against France and England. Raffaele, seeing this spectacle from the window, despondently exclaims, “We can leave now, too. There’s nothing more to do. It’s war.” In fact Cantoni will continue to carry out his activities clandestinely, until he’s interned. In Milan a little while earlier comasebit (the Committee for Assisting Jews in Italy) had sprung up through the work of a few volunteers, without having requested any special permission from the authorities, and it had been quickly closed down, even though, amid so many problems, it had already begun good work.5 Subsequently the Union of the Communities—through the initiative of its president, Almansi, and its vice-president, the attorney Valobra, and with the full authorization of the government—succeeded in founding delasem (the Delegation for Assisting Jewish Emigrants), with offices in Genoa and directed by Valobra himself. This consent, and oftentimes support, from the government is not so surprising if one considers that this institution contributed to the resolution of the problem of the presence in Italy of so many refugees and that, in receiving large contributions from various international Jewish organizations, it brought in considerable amounts of foreign currency. The work carried out by delasem, with a central office in Genoa and representation in some twenty-seven cities (which extended its activities not only throughout the home territory but also to the occupied zones of Yugoslavia, assisting more than nine thousand people in 1942), was truly extraordinary—for the vast extent of its action, which engaged all its coworkers to the limits of their physical and psychological strength; for the infinite problems that were met with every day; for the multiplicity of its forms of assistance, material and spiritual; and for the full awareness of its being constantly watched by the various authorities. It can be said that there was not a day during which we were not alarmed by new events that cropped up, by others that were already under way and that we were afraid would be stalled, and by people who showed up for the first time and who needed to be screened with special care. Among the fundamental problems that mobilized practically the entire office was the correspondence, which was necessarily always very copious in order to maintain contact as uninterruptedly and as swiftly as possible. That,

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however, also meant that the related expenses weighed heavily on the budget. Thus it was that we arrived at a decision that was even brilliant and, although risky in principle, was certainly economical: we made up a postal exemption that did not appear in any regulation except on the postmarks, rectangular in shape, which were prepared with “post-free, cir. N.——” written on them. Thus the mail continued to come and go regularly, stamped by the various offices of delasem, without any trouble from the proper authorities, beginning with the management of the Postal Service itself. For a certain period of time, shortly after the beginning of the war, I dedicated my services to this central office in Genoa. Thus I got to know Valobra more closely; he had an extremely sharp mind, an extraordinary capacity for dealing with all the authorities with dignity and firmness, and he knew how to deal with situations that were often dramatic, coolly evaluating the various alternatives and acting with tact and promptness. In his colleagues he always found ready agreement, not only because of the friendly rapport that he was able to maintain with them but because—and this was something new, at least to me—he knew how to make sure that everyone felt jointly responsible for the common labor. I had new, important experiences. The people who pass through our office bring us into direct contact with the Jewish tragedy, which keeps getting more and more shocking. Every person is a case unto himself, everyone has a wound to be healed—and they are deep wounds. This is why we also witness forms of exasperation that reach unimaginable levels. And one cannot respond carelessly, saying that it’s just egotism. Here you touch the terror with your hand—the will, by now entirely irrational, to survive at any cost, even at the expense of one’s own brother. The office is located in an old building, and the people line up even down the stairs. Unpleasant episodes of impatience occur as well, with serious disruption for us and for the neighbors, who also have the right to live more peacefully. We have to look for new premises. We get into negotiations for a new office. Everything seems nearly worked out when the landlord, having realized who we are and what we are doing, refuses to rent us his accommodations. We keep looking, and finally, in Piazza Vittoria, in the city center, we come into possession of a very beautiful office.

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The English ships have approached Genoa with deliberate audacity, and they bombard it with big guns. The city shakes, and many buildings collapse. The building with that apartment that had been denied us at the last moment disappears, pulverized. In that same building in Piazza Vittoria, which was located about a hundred meters from the Marassi Prison, my cousin Ercul—who was so attached to the traditional melodies of the Casale scola—worked in an office. At the end of 1943, through a trick, police agents succeeded in catching him and imprisoning him in Marassi, from which he was later deported, never to return. During my stay in Genoa I had the good fortune of becoming closer to Rabbi Pacifici and getting to know him better. During the preceding years he had already been a great help to me when I was working with my young adults and teenagers. Habitually—and I knew this quite well—he was always busy, without pause, with a work tempo that was sometimes frantic. Now, with the problem of the refugees, he had increased his task a hundredfold, and it was difficult to comprehend how he found the time to be present wherever his help was needed. That wasn’t all; his activity now stretches to the various internment camps in southern Italy, which he visits often. To be sure, he doesn’t concern himself with keeping the holy scrolls of the Torà carefully locked up in the holy cabinets, as others do. But in the beth ha-kenèseth, in the concentration camps, in public meetings, and in private conversations the Torà always becomes the focal point of the teaching of this true Maestro of Israel; it is the historic document that serves to recall and to underscore the fact that even in such difficult times as those that we’re living through, comfort, hope, and salvation can come only by remaining faithful to what it teaches us. One of the phrases that he often repeats is this one: “With the Torà under your arm you can go to the ends of the earth, serene and secure.” And his ways were serene and secure to the last moment, in the Nazi concentration camp where he had been deported, unconcerned about himself, as he had been in Genoa, refusing to save himself even when his closest friends had made him realize that danger was close at hand. At a meeting with a small circle of friends we ask Rav Pacifici if he can

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devote a few hours a week to a class for us. His response is immediately affirmative, but he points out to us that it would be worthwhile to involve an even larger number of people. But in those times it wasn’t easy to find anyone who was willing to devote even a little of his time to study and to go out in the evening. So, at the suggestion of my friend Grosser, we have recourse to a kind of trick: we circulate the rumor that there are gatherings at Rav Pacifici’s but that not everyone may participate. Interest quickens to an unimaginable degree, and many come to ask us how they can be admitted. We give vague responses and reserve the right to give an answer only after having examined the request. On the other hand we don’t forget that this kind of game was, after all, also useful for knowing who was coming to the gatherings—which, although devoted to study, would often move inevitably toward discussing the state of affairs at the moment. In this way, however, it was possible to organize interesting classes, with a good number of participants, to the great satisfaction of Pacifici. Usually those meetings took place in the evening, in the midst of the blackout. They seemed like clandestine meetings, and basically, at least in part, they were. We arrived separately and left the same way, while Rav Pacifici, standing in front of the door, said goodbye to us one at a time, repeating the request not to stroll around and to go home immediately: “Don’t attract attention . . .” Toward the middle of January 1940 the steamship Orazio left Genoa with five hundred refugees on board. Having barely reached the open sea the ship caught fire, and enveloped in flames, it threatened to founder. The refugees were conducted to safety with great difficulty. I remember having seen some groups of them—their hair disheveled, wrapped in emergency blankets—while they were entering several hotels on Via Balbi. Their faces were fearful, with signs of terror and desperation. They had left Europe just a few hours earlier, had already dreamed of liberty, and here they were, returned to the midst of the firestorm of the war, which was even more terrible than the flames they had escaped. Our relief work of trying to raise their spirits was also extremely difficult. Often the response to our words was only a mute, distraught face and a frightened stare. On January 27, during a ceremony at the temple with the survivors present, “to render thanks to the Most High, who willed

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the rescue of the five hundred fellow Jews who had embarked on the steamship Orazio,” Rav Pacifici, beginning to speak, said, among other things: When man finds himself right there, next to that invisible line that separates the border between life and death, it’s then that all the value of life presents itself again fully, before the shattered human imagination, and the Creator of life receives His praise. Our brothers who are here around us undoubtedly experienced and felt all this; but I would say that we, too, should feel it all with them, because the ship that threatened to founder, enveloped by the destroying flames, is somewhat the image, which is very close to reality, of the terrible, catastrophic situation in which hundreds of thousands of our other brothers find themselves, at sea and on land, today. Not rarely or by chance, but every day, invariably, they face the terrible dilemma of life and death, and they struggle in difficulty and in indescribable fear, in unspeakable suffering and pain. It is true, dear brothers: the ship of Israel is trying to sail into sight of that very distant port, in the midst of storms that rage without cease. The ship of Israel is in great danger, and we have to pay attention to this danger, we have to pull ourselves together, help each other with all our resources, and most of all realize all the tragic magnitude of the hour that is ticking by in the history of Israel. Here is one example, among the many, of the valor and courage of a Maestro of Israel, who knew how to draw on circumstances, even from a dramatic incident, to illustrate clearly, in public, the tragic situation of the Jews and to summon them to unite themselves still more and to redouble their moral and material assistance. “One cannot help but be moved,” observes De Felice,6 “witnessing how the attorney Valobra and his aides were always able to find words of comfort for everyone, how they did not let a religious holiday go by without remembering it with timely words within everyone’s grasp, how they thought of maintaining a ‘correspondence’ with the children and the older kids, trying to gladden at least a moment of their sad existence with a novelette or a little poem.”

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This “correspondence” was maintained with great skill by our coworker Naomi, and De Felice publishes two examples of it (“A Page for the Children”) in document 33 of his work. For Purìm of 1941 one of these little letters, which ended with these words, was sent from Genoa: “And let’s play again, because our joy is pleasing to the Lord, who protects us if we have faith in Him.” And for Pèsach of the same year the little letter ended in this way: “And I enjoy passing close to each child, putting my cheek against theirs to feel their warmth, and looking each one in their smiling eyes to read, ‘Zemantov (good times) will return.’” The messages that Rav Pacifici sent to all the internees also deserve special mention. For Rosh ha-Shanà of 1941 he wrote them, “Today, ideally, I would like to be present in every home, in every Jewish family near and far, to bring to everyone that word of faith and of certainty, of eternal truth, and of love that comes down to us from our Torà. To feel closer to this source of our spirit, to know how to gather the strength needed for everyday life, to join together with one’s brothers, and to fulfill ourselves more and more in the love of God and of men.” For Kippùr of the same year the rabbinical message was preceded by a greeting from Valobra: “We take the opportunity of the new year to say to all those we have assisted, wherever in Italy you may be found, that we think and we always will think of you, even when it might seem like we have forgotten you or that we don’t always do all that we could or should do to help you.” Rav Pacifici wrote, “We are facing some of the biggest problems of our lives . . . and here is Israel, already at tefillà and teshuvà. Here is the vision that Israel offers today: in the midst of a world ravaged by the destruction of war, in the midst of the din of arms and soldiers, in the midst of the most unchecked and fiery passions of hate and rancor, Israel withdraws into its inner life, gathers in its temples and in its homes, and seeks to encounter its God, seeks to encounter Him through repentance and prayer.” In another circular, “Official Communications,” delasem sent out a greeting from Pacifici for the festival of Chanukkà 1941: Hanukkà is renewal; it is the restoration of Jewish spiritual powers, it is the resurrection of these powers when they become

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dulled. Hanukkà is struggle and victory over ourselves, over our own passions, over selfishness, over the seductions that prevent complete self-realization. Hanukkà is the triumph of pure and holy powers; it is the triumph of the ideal over the material, of faith over skepticism and apathy. Well then, in these dark times, in this night of the world, Israel kindles the Hanukkà lights, kindles them and raises them toward God’s heaven so that they might shine clear and steady, like the stars in heaven; Israel raises them so that these lights of the eternal ideals might still illuminate the human journey. We have come to Pèsach 1942, and the Maestro’s indefatigable words of comfort and faith continue, precise and courageous: The first message of the séder is the message of liberty, of equality—it is the message of love. . . . Now more than ever, in this historic hour, we should feel the joy and the power of returning to God, . . . of living in His presence, humbly choosing even to suffer—but with the name of God on our lips, with trust in Him in our hearts, . . . with that certitude that can and must again become our supreme joy, achieving which, we will be able to look confidently to our future, to our future and that of our children. . . . That same Providence that was so near to our Fathers will also be near to us and to our children. Among my duties during the period of working together with delasem in Genoa, there was also the duty of working in the cultural and spiritual sphere (which was to be taken up again later, with the internees in the city and province of Asti, when I moved there with my family). Thus I had many opportunities to be near Rav Pacifici and others. Thinking about him again today, what comes to mind is the image of the rock climber—which my father spoke to me about—suspended over the void, but with his hands and the toes of his shoes clinging firmly to the cliff, looking always upward toward the top—and the metaphor of the “prisoners of hope” to which my father often referred. Never more than during that period of time I spent in Genoa—in the midst of the fury of

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a storm for which our office was something of a barometer, finding ourselves right in the eye of the hurricane—did I realize that delasem, Valobra, his coworkers, and all the internees were, all together, a people who continued to be, with unshakeable tenacity and pride, now and forever, authentic prisoners of hope.

c h a p t er ei g h t e e n

I Return Home

i have returned to my little Community. It’s like diving into the past. Of course the racial laws and the war have stirred up the waters even here, but one gets the impression that these events arrived with a more subdued, muted tone. The times obviously have become more difficult, and there’s the war. But a little at a time a modus vivendi has been found—or we fool ourselves that we’ve found one—and we adapt ourselves to the new circumstances, passively awaiting something better. No one has considered moving away from the soil of Aleramo.1 We somehow manage. The leitmotif that recurs is the usual one: “After all, we’re Italians and we live in Italy and certain things can’t happen in this country.” But it goes well beyond that. The racial laws have also excluded citizens of the Jewish race from military service; all the same, one of my classmates, as he himself tells me, has written a letter to the Ministry of War, saying that at a time like this, even though he is a Jew, he asks to be reinstated to his officer rank and thus to be able to serve his country under arms. After having traveled throughout Italy, having come in contact with Jews fleeing from many countries and having known the tragedy of entire European Jewish Communities, it makes quite an impression on me to return to this provincial city where everything, or almost everything— outside the Jewish world as well—seems to be stopped in time. There are exceptions, especially for those who have already been on the lines at the French front. Another of my “Aryan” friends—whom I run into on the Via Roma, dressed as an officer of the Alpine troops, and whom I pretend not to know, to avoid trouble for him and for me—comes up

fig. 16. Vicolo Salomone Olper, the street in the ex-ghetto of Casale leading to the synagogue, which is approximately halfway down the street on the right. Photo courtesy of www.casalebraica.org.

to me, links arms with me amicably, and says, “Don’t friends recognize each other anymore?” While I try to explain myself, we continue walking along this street, right at the time of the traditional evening stroll. “It would be best for both of us—” I insist. Then he explodes, “Let it go, don’t talk nonsense. I’ve realized that we’re in the hands of murderous brigands, too. You should have seen how they sent us to the slaughter, which had been carefully estimated from the beginning. It’s a disgrace—it’ll be a disaster for everyone. Why shouldn’t I keep relationships with friends like you? Maybe because you aren’t Aryan?” And he smiles, stressing the tone of the last word and squeezing my arm still more to draw attention conspicuously to the fact that an officer in uniform is walking and chatting amicably with a Jew. I’m very thankful to him because during those first days I, too, had also noticed that some old acquaintances no longer acknowledged me. With fellow Jews the situation in general is quite depressing. When I talk about my experiences, about the dangers, about the tragedy that could strike us, too, as quick as lightning, and thus about the necessity to

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act, to do something, I’m looked at in surprise and with smiles of compassion; I must seem like a fanatic in their eyes. More than one person says to me, good-naturedly, “When one is young one always exaggerates; but it’s an illness from which, fortunately, you recover, a little every day.” Even Papà, although certainly for other reasons, gives me the impression of being out of touch with reality. He knows our history quite well and is well-informed, at least in part, about what’s happening, but he relates the entire issue to the problem of faith and deeds. The human problem, he maintains, is a moral problem that concerns everyone and therefore is universal. If what is happening is happening, that means that humanity has betrayed itself and God and is now suffering the consequences. When the moral equilibrium is broken—his thesis continues—there is inevitably a reaction, just like in nature. But I point out to him that even now it’s still true that “God helps those who help themselves.” He answers me, “You’re still a youth of little faith, and I’m sorry for it.” In spite of these ideas of his he has tried to take some initiatives. He has, for example, suggested hiding most of the Sefarìm and their decorations in the old mazzòth oven and walling up the opening, since “we have no idea how the war is going to end.” But the council rejects this proposal of his en masse. The fifty-plus Sefarìm must remain in their place. A few years later they, too, will be plundered and destroyed. When I speak with Papà about the Nazi horrors and the danger that those barbaric hordes will come as far as us, he does not lose his composure, and he responds to me calmly and peacefully: “I’m not worried at all. If they come, I’ll set myself in front of the Aròn Ha-Kòdesh (Holy Ark), and I want to see if any of them will have the courage to touch a hair on my head.” I remind him that, regarding hair, they’ve torn out more than one, at every opportunity and in every place; and then the question of faith—which on my part is still lacking—comes up again. The days go by slowly, monotonously, empty. After so much activity I feel almost like someone on a pension, and I get more and more demoralized. The food-rationing cards, the increasingly difficult problem of supplies, and the air-raid alarms are the only novelties of the day. At the piercing sound of the sirens, day or night, everyone goes to the cellar. Papà, wrapped in a military cape, walks back and forth, mumbling,

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“Here are the fruits of civilization.” We don’t have the radio, which has been sequestered, along with our passports, and the news is only what we can get from the fascist press. To make some use of my time I set myself to reorganizing the many notes I took during the lectures on the Bible, I translate some midrashìm, and I invent some new ones, basing them on passages from the Torà and from the Prophets, which I apply to the events that we’re living through. The winter evenings are interminably long, the sultry summer afternoons are unbearable, and then there’s the blackout. Life becomes more and more tedious. I vegetate, and even the affection and comfort of my parents are not enough to relieve this isolation, this feeling of purposelessness; I realize that the net is tightening around all of us more and more. Contact with a few old friends, the greater number of whom live in Erez Israèl, London, or New York, has become rare by now. Franca has stayed in Venice, and I maintain a little correspondence with her. She is still engaged in some activities, but Venice is a city of transit. Chance willed it that among the few things that were saved from the looting of our flat in Asti were some letters from Franca, which I keep as one of her spiritual testaments. One day she wrote me: “What’s going on with you? Have you begun doing something again? And your physical and moral well-being—you’re sensible?” Franca was right to push me to do something. In many Communities schools had been organized; the same Communities needed rabbis, and Papà was actively engaged in finding a solution for me. He had written to many people, especially to various colleagues. The answers seemed to be dictated by the same mind; basically they said that I was an excellent worker, well prepared, very gifted, but unfortunately too compromised by various activities, too close to Lattes and to his ideas, which made it extremely difficult if not impossible in spite of the goodwill, to maintain my candidacy for a job, whatever it might be, with the Community. I have to say that the fact that these letters were destroyed is probably to the good. Otherwise today, at the end of every one of them, I would still be able to see signatures that I remember quite well but that I prefer not to cite—partly because they are names that are still well-known and remembered today. Reading those letters, certain of Manzoni’s reflections in describing the

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character and behavior of Don Abbondio often came to my mind: “If he found himself absolutely constrained to choose between two adversaries, he went with the stronger, always, however, hanging back and taking care to let the other know that he was not a willing enemy. It seemed as if he were saying to him, ‘But why couldn’t you have been the stronger so that I could have taken your side?’”2 In spite of all that I got in contact with the Torino Old People’s Home, which was looking for managerial staff. Franca wrote me, “You’re right that the old people’s home is quite different from what we dreamed of, and this winter I was offered a similar proposal in Rome, and I turned it down. But that doesn’t mean that the moment won’t come when it is best to say yes, and then I’m certain that I’ll put myself into it with all my goodwill.” She was trying by writing me these words—worried by the state of despondency that I was in—to stir me out of my paralysis. But also knowing my character full well, she added more: As for you, supposing that you end up taking on this job, I’ll tell you frankly that after two days I see you arguing with the rabbi, the administrators, and the families, or at least withdrawing into yourself in the face of so many things that don’t work, convinced that it’s useless to waste your breath and effort, and acting in such a way as to make your life unbearable. Because I have the impression that in spite of the many experiences that you have already had, you still have not learned how to live in a world that is almost always made up of small (or large) obscenities, abuses, stupidities, and whatever else you want besides. You would have to consider this job as a more or less tiresome duty and find a way, outside of it, to do something else more suitable to your tastes and ambitions. And Torino could offer you this possibility. But once again the negotiations were blocked when my Zionist past (and present) was pointed out more precisely to the management of the institution. The city of La nostra bandiera was the least disposed to receive me. No one, in short, was about to get into a fix over me. Thus I continued to languish in the shadow of my Community, thinking often that less than one hundred years after the Emancipation we again ran

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the risk of being swept away by a great tragedy. I felt like a mouse caught in a trap. I couldn’t delude myself. I had learned about many things, I had personally known hundreds of hopeless cases, and I didn’t need any more information about the Nazis. Only one thing was certain: if they ever reached us, everyone would be finished. Several more months of absolute inactivity went by. Then I was presented with the opportunity to be taken on as an agent for a wine business at Castagnole delle Lanze, not far from Asti.3 The owners of the company knew that I was a Jew, but not only did they not raise any objections, I even obtained permission from them to be free on Saturdays and on Friday afternoons (during the wintertime) and for all the other holidays, with the obligation, naturally, that I work on Sundays, from seven to seven. (Knowing that I had been enrolled in the College of Law, they immediately called me “lawyer.”) I accepted, though with misgivings for having so definitively abandoned every Jewish endeavor. This decision of mine seemed to me almost like a betrayal, a form of egotism that should be condemned. Franca, informed by me about what I had done, wrote me: I wouldn’t make it into a question of egotism or of altruism. You know my theory that one is always an egotist, and all the more so when one has the air of self-sacrifice; it’s a kind of sport, like any other! And if the job that you have now taken on is such as to give you a sense of calm, and above all of peace, and if it engrosses you enough during the day to not allow time for gloomy thoughts, then this job is welcome. It would mean that you erred when you began your studies, both sacred and secular, because both set you on paths that are full of complications and responsibilities of the kind that don’t allow respite or times of true and complete repose. I am very happy to be able to think of you busy and not laying around sleeping for too many long hours; but what seems indispensable to me is that once you’ve made the decision, don’t leave any room for recriminations and doubts. . . . There are no longer any more years to throw away. Those who would come to accuse us of egotism or of giving up in the face of responsibility can look around themselves

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and tell us what examples they’ve given us. It seems to me that everyone, young and old, took a great deal of care for themselves when the time came, and we won’t be any better or worse than them and no one will have the right to condemn us, because we didn’t do anything evil, we didn’t flee shamefully in the face of danger, and maybe it has been more painful for us to renounce our dreams than exhausting for us to work for their fulfillment. So, no worries of this kind. Just the other evening, when I wasn’t able to fall asleep (the night was too hot), I tried to imagine what my life would have been if there had not been such a turning point in 1938. I remember that back then I said to myself, “I won’t be able to spend my whole life organizing camps!” Circumstances have changed my activities, and they’ll change them again, and yet we should set ourselves to it in every job as if it were going to last our entire lives and learn not to grow weary—and this is the most difficult thing for me. There are some moments when I think of the future with such discouragement! And then I tell myself that it’s not worth feeling bitter about life in advance; events will help us go forward. But events do not help dear Franca much; she, too, vanishes in the extermination camps in 1943. Castagnole delle Lanze, a small town at the feet of the Langhe, rich in vineyards, orchards, meadows, and wheat.4 The old part is like a castle, entrenched, high up on a hill; the new part stands on the plain near the train station. You can still eat good-smelling white bread, the wine is genuine, the people warm and hospitable even though unpolished, in the Piedmontese style. I spend my time among the contract workers, near the wine making; I learn the tricks of the trade; I find out that the saying, “wine is made with grapes, too,” isn’t only a wisecrack. When, however, the head cellarman signals me from the window to come down, winking an eye, I already know that he’s going to have me taste a new kind of true wine that’s ready. He hands me a glass of muscatel, which shines in the sun like liquid gold and is very sweet. I taste it—slowly at the start like a true connoisseur—and the worker looks at me, happy and proud. I begin to learn that business is business—that you need to use a very

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finely tuned technique to negotiate with the peasants, a special language made of few words and of silences. Sometimes one of them—knowing that I’m a Jew and a lawyer besides—takes me aside to get some advice about a piece of land, a house, or an issue with a neighbor. More than the legal training, which I don’t have, it’s common sense that helps me respond, sometimes even with a certain success. Still, this is a completely new world, which doesn’t stir up any special interest in me and into which I dive, mindful of Franca’s teaching that “we should set ourselves to it in every job as if it were going to last our entire lives.” Jews are not mentioned, but the war naturally is—yet always in harsh words of condemnation, save those spoken by a minority, which—as in every place and even here—represents the Party. But I realize immediately that they are people who live a little marginalized by the others, who fear them. My bosses, three brothers, are always prudent and discreet; they go out in black shirts on official occasions, but privately they let go, and their condemnation of the regime is relentless. When one of them enters the office he sometimes greets me ostentatiously with his arm extended: “Good day to you, sir.”5 But then he comes closer and shakes my hand warmly. It’s a new world, which little by little, after all is said and done, even gives me a bit of peace. The pay is excellent, the respect perfect, I make friends with many peasants—also with the marshal of the carabinieri, the pharmacist, and the doctor—and because of the advice I receive I act more cautiously. I begin to get invitations, and I visit a number of farmhouses. You are received in the “parlor”—which is always kept scrupulously in dim light so as not to “ruin” the furniture and which is opened only for very special events. This is a sign of great honor, even though you notice a bit of a musty smell and you have to look at “paintings” of uncertain authorship and be engulfed in handworked lace, which makes a fine display of itself on the table, the chairs, and the sofa and hangs stiffly from the windows. The whole room is completed with large, framed photographs, as well as some smaller ones, where the mustachioed male ancestors dressed up in their best and the women wrapped in black shawls and surrounded by frills make a fine show. But the wine is good, the welcome warm, and the conversation, in dialect, very good-natured.

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It is certainly true that we never succeed, unless belatedly, in understanding life’s events—and then only partially. My bitterness for having had to change work cropped up again every once in a while. Only later, namely during the hunting down of the Jews, when I am taken into these very farmhouses with the members of my family, as one takes in one’s siblings or one’s children—only then did I realize that if I had remained in any city, without having those friendships that I had made during that period, I almost certainly would not have been saved. The certificate of salvation had been denied me, but the spontaneous love of the peasants of the Langhe was, for me, just as certain a salvation. Who can know the ways of the Lord? At the café/restaurant where I go every day from 12:30 to 2:00, the owner, an old socialist, welcomes me like one of the family. After dinner there’s always a good glass of a fine, bottled wine that launches our discussions in the kitchen.6 In these august premises, he tells me, we can talk; the sign that he has been forced to hang in the dining room (“Here we don’t talk politics, here we work”) is for the customers. “But then I could say,” he adds, “how can you work while you’re eating? Stupider than this . . .” Ruddy faced, he half closes his eyes, which seem like two pins; his hat, which is always on his head, has slid back toward the nape of his neck, and between his utterly white teeth he holds, quite tightly, his inseparable mezzo toscano. While he opens the fine, bottled wine, I marvel at his hands, gnarled and full of calluses, the hands of a peasant who works hard. There in the kitchen we also listen to Radio London; we can watch the entrance through the door in front of us, and the dining room is separate, on the left and far away. The restaurant is also frequented by a young bank clerk; he always wears a fascist uniform and distributes fascist salutes liberally. He doesn’t seem particularly intelligent, and he’s always serious, as if he were on the front line, in the trenches, instead of behind a dinner table. At 1:00 sharp the war bulletin is read; it’s obligatory for everyone to rise, even if they’re lifting a forkful of pasta to their mouth. The young fascist is always the first to rise, and he comes to attention. I try to enter the dining room before or near 1:30, after a brief stop in the kitchen. From there the innkeeper points out that fellow to me with his

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finger—his head down, almost in prayer—and he says to me, “So young and already in such bad shape.” One day, on time for the drink and the chat, I’m in the kitchen, awaiting Radio London, which comes on at 1:30. A few minutes before 1:30 the bank clerk appears at the door. The old innkeeper makes a slight gesture with his hand to calm my annoyance; he responds to the questions that he’s asked while he seems to be fiddling with the radio dial with his hand. “By chance,” his hand stops on the London station at 1:30 on the dot. At the sound of the gong he removes his hand as if he had been struck by an electric shock and exclaims, “What’s that?” The bank clerk, promptly, “Radio London.” “God forbid,” exclaims the innkeeper and immediately changes the station. The fascist asks him to turn it back to London. “Absolutely not, it’s forbidden,” he answers resolutely. Smiling, the bank clerk approaches and tunes in the radio again, saying, “Don’t worry. I assume full responsibility.” When he leaves the old man comments, “And they’re stupid, too!” In every season of the year—in winter with the cold, snow, and ice, or summer—I take the 7:00 a.m. train from Asti, where I’m living at my brother Alessandro’s. He’s a resident of this city, and he performs a number of functions for the local Community—a subsection of the Alessandria Community—and is also the chazzàn, with a most beautiful voice.7 On Sundays instead I leave at 6:00 a.m.; the return is at 6:30 p.m. I, too, am a commuter. During the winter the cars are freezing, and we’re buried in darkness in the evening. I try not to think about anything while the rhythmic “tran-tran” of the local train seems to beat out the routine letters dictated during the day: “In response to your letter of the . . .” In the spring and summer you marvel at the long rows of flowering trees that run along the railway line, and the smell of cut hay or the tart fragrance of wine reaches you through the open windows . . . I spend the short Sabbath interludes at home. It’s like plunging into the past again. Everything appears petrified to me. By means of the Holy See I receive news that Berti, who lives in Erez Israèl, has gotten married. Mazàl tov! I send him a card, which he will never receive. The ancient

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land of the fathers is always near to my heart, but sometimes I get the impression that it’s getting farther away from me; the road of the Langhe does not seem to lead to Jerusalem. On the train I often run into an old notary from Asti, a friend of Papà, a socialist, who comes to Castagnole on market days. He’s a good, honest companion. He immediately alerts me about certain types who take the train daily. For example, there’s an insurance salesman who is not only a provocateur; it seems like he may also be a spy for ovra. One day this fellow strikes up a conversation with me; he complains that there’s no heating and some of the windows are broken. “And all this,” he concludes, “is because of the war, that cursed war.” Knowing quite well who I’m dealing with, I act surprised and exclaim emphatically, “But doesn’t it seem to you that ours is a very small sacrifice compared to that much more serious one that our heroic soldiers are making every day at the front?” He agrees with a nod of his head and is silent. A telephone call suddenly tears me away from my daily work. Papà, who has been complaining of different ailments for a while, now seems to have been struck by a more serious illness. I have to rush home. For a couple of months we will live between slender hopes and desperation, until the sad end of much suffering. I temporarily take leave of my job, and for the first and last time in my life I take on the duties of a rabbi. The entire Community is informed in great detail about what is happening in our home. The doctor, a friend of the president, briefs him about the course of the illness, and therefore, as Mother says, the “bulletin” gets published and sent around to everyone. Since the doctor still is not convinced that he’s treating anything serious, the Community, almost universally, is disbelieving, and there are more than a few who, when they run into us, remind us that we shouldn’t exaggerate, that it can seem to be something yet not be anything—the very words of the doctor. (It’s hemiplegia, as will be diagnosed later.) At this point I take the doctor aside, and I ask him to consult with others. The response, which is not in the best of taste, is, “Even to say only a part of Shema’,8 you have to think it over.” Without losing time I release him from his task, after having told him, “If you know medical science like you know the Shema’, I have to find someone else.”

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Unfortunately the diagnosis is the one that was feared. One day, when the new doctor is about to enter, I see the president and Foa near the door of the house, obviously waiting. They approach the doctor to speak with him, as if what we have said to them after his first visit does not accord with the truth but is fantasy, dictated for who knows what purpose. The doctor corroborates it and enters; they, too, would like to come in “to say hello,” as they declare. I show them the door quite firmly, asking them to go away as quickly as possible so I won’t have to have recourse to other means. Evidently the exclusion of the old doctor had been judged an offense by the entire Community. But unfortunately we have other things to consider. Twice the famous Professor Valobra comes from Torino to confirm the diagnosis, and he reassures us about the excellence of the doctor that we have chosen. The first time Papà is dozing, and he doesn’t realize anything; the second time he recognizes the well-known doctor and greets him: “I’m very grateful and honored that you’ve come all the way here; but why did you trouble yourself so much for me?” His condition, however, after seemingly slight improvements, keeps getting worse and worse. One day, unexpectedly, a visit from Rav Disegni of Torino. We’re thankful for his comfort, and Papà, who recognizes him, thanks him with all his heart. At a certain point the rabbi says to him, “Listen, I have the pleasant task and the pleasure, on behalf of the rabbinical council, of telling you that you have been conferred the title of Rav . . .” My indignation is about to explode, but I’m restrained by my brothers and particularly by seeing that my father is moved, thanks him, and weeps. What really makes me angry is that he finally receives recognition when he is in extremis, with a title that he had duly earned years earlier but that many luminaries of Jewish learning had never wanted to acknowledge. I could not understand whether Papà’s emotion and tears were due to the pain of the affront or, in spite of everything, due to gratitude. But in the following days I saw that he was more serene and peaceful. My father was accustomed to always regarding matters lekhàf zekhùt, and maybe even on this occasion he did not draw on this tradition of his any less.9 For my part, walking the Torino Rav back, I didn’t restrain myself

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from telling him that I considered that announcement useless, made at the least appropriate moment, and asked him to communicate these statements of mine to the rabbinical council, too. He looked at me surprised and stunned, declaring, with more than a little hesitation, “But I don’t understand what you mean.” “I think I’ve spoken rather clearly.” And with a perfunctory goodbye I took my leave. In one of the city’s movie theaters the film The Jew Süss is being shown; a group of worked-up fascists, leaving the theater, attempts an attack on the temple.10 We live in the adjacent rooms. Papà is dozing, and fortunately he doesn’t notice anything—neither the shouts of those bullies nor the attempts they make to break down the door. We do not have a telephone; we’re isolated. There’s nothing else left to do but to try somehow to reinforce the main door and to trust in God. In the dark alley all the windows stay closed, and yet the Aryans, too, must be hearing that racket, and they’re probably following the squalid spectacle through the same windows. A board from the door is giving way. We’ll fix it somehow. Stones fly, and some window panes shatter into fragments. Finally everything calms down, and singing at the tops of their voices, the Aryan heroes of such feats go away. We heave a sigh of relief for the lucky escape and because Papà wasn’t aware of any of it. The next day I go to the police station. They make me wait a long time, and then I’m received very coldly and left standing. I state, “As a citizen, I am duty-bound to report to you that unknown rioters tried to break down the doors of the synagogue.” The commissioner looks at me in silence, with half-closed eyes; he seems like a statue, with the annoyed look of someone who has been unexpectedly disturbed. I’m also silent, waiting. Finally, “And what do you want from me?” “That you start proceedings, according to the rules of law.” “I don’t have men available, and I can’t do anything.” “In the meantime I would like to give a statement against the persons unknown.” “It’s not necessary.” “Since that is how things are, I ask just one thing, appealing to your

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sense of humanity. My father is dying; make it possible for him to die in peace.” “I can’t do anything,” is the nasty response of that good-for-nothing. I leave, outraged, and almost running I go to a true friend, the captain of the carabinieri, a friend of the family, a Friulano, like my mother. He welcomes me warmly and asks me about Papà’s condition, which he knows about. I tell him what happened at the police station, and he says to me, “Listen, if you want, in ten minutes there can be two carabinieri in front of your house, but that way we would be giving those fascists satisfaction, and they don’t deserve it. The best thing would be for a patrol—the same one that goes along Via Roma—to pass by your house every quarter of an hour; then you’ll see that those cowards won’t show up anymore.” And in fact that’s just what happened. A few weeks earlier I had written to Raffaele, who was interned at San Vittoria in Matenano, to let him know about the worrisome condition of Papà’s health and to express to him my deep discouragement in realizing that even in such circumstances the Casale Community Council had acted so poorly.11 Raffaele answered me on October 9, 1941. I didn’t find out about this letter until 1971. Sure enough, it had been stopped by the war censor who had sent orders, dated October 17, 1941 (N. 024775), to the police commissioner of Casale Monferrato and a copy of those orders to the police superintendent of Ascoli Piceno, “registered confidential,” that said: I am sending a copy of a letter that was removed from circulation because of its entire contents by the local provincial War Censorship Commission, sent to Augusto Segré, Vicolo S. Olper 24, representative of the Jewish Community of Casale Monferrato. Please make arrangements regarding Segré, in relation to the routed correspondence, for timely and discreet surveillance.12 Raffaele had written: You’re right to rail against the ingrates, those unmindful of the good done by a Maestro of Israel for so many years; but, my Augusto, the vehemence of your apostrophe would seem appropriate to me

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if all that had happened to you for the first time, unexpected—but instead!! Who can expect appreciation down here? . . . This way you won’t have anything but, let’s call it, nonstop disappointment! . . . May the Holy Blessed One allow you to have him longer and may he be healed; but if that can’t be given to you, stir yourself after the pain and find, in the mission that you have for our Jewish faith, all the energy for working, and put aside the fact that one must suffer, too, and only remind yourself that now that the House of God no longer exists, and that only worthy deeds matter, we have the duty to work solely in such a way that that House will be rebuilt and that that kingdom of God will become a reality—so that all the peoples will realize His truth and worship Him. Today Alfredo, on his way to Pescara and Rome, visited me, and I had a joyful day, like one of those that I spent with you many times, traveling to the different cities of Italy, talking about the eternal problem: the education of our children! My dear Augusto, I sense the future like my eyes see the events that strike my retinas, and I have the definite sensation that a time like this one—in which we have been given the possibility of carrying out the deepest and most useful work of Jewish empowerment for these children—will never come again. Only now that we have gathered them together in our schools is there a way to make them familiar with the resources of our millenary history, of never despairing, of always having faith in God, of being certain that He tests us but will never abandon us. You, too, should work on this theme. . . . You have to work as a disciple. Fortunate are those who, at this moment, can live and work in the fullness of their powers; happy are those who like you are free. You—compared to the former and to me here, idle—you must do something for whoever has the right to spiritual assistance, to have a teacher, to have faith and light! Courage, my Augusto, and when, at whatever moment, you may have the desire to reach toward this faith, remember that the source is inexhaustible because therein lies the strongest faith— love toward our fellow creatures—the most radical feeling of the responsibilities that we have toward those who may be in need of

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us and of our labor. And from you the children are awaiting the word of the Maestro. Shalom! Raffaele. Even at a distance of many years, and maybe even more so because of the long time that has passed, I read Raffaele’s words with the strongest feelings. All his pain at being stuck in an internment camp appears here, and it intensifies his incitement of those who are still “free” to be active. It’s obvious that this inexhaustible passion of his to act, expressed in that completely idiosyncratic style of his—which revealed an unbounded love for the Jewish people—could not help but raise suspicions among the shadowy keepers of that huge prison that all Italy then was. That letter’s language seemed to be a kind of coded message, and therefore the letter was stopped, and I was subjected to “timely and discreet surveillance”—as if the fascist police authorities had not already provided that, and for a long time. I ask myself what I would have decided to do if in that distant 1941 I had received that letter. Cantoni didn’t know that for some time, for various reasons, I no longer participated actively in Jewish life, at least not with that intensity familiar to him. But it’s completely pointless to pose these problems now. A few days after the attack on the temple Papà left us, after having given us his blessing, in complete lucidity, one at a time, with the utmost serenity and consciousness of his imminent end. The formal funeral rites take place in the presence of several rabbis, among whom I especially want to mention Rav Pacifici, who was the first to arrive and to bring us, like a father, his words of comfort, those words that in certain circumstances he alone knew how to find. In spite of my sharp opposition Rav Disegni gives instructions that the coffin be brought inside the temple itself. My opposition, which becomes a protest, doesn’t make any difference. “He was a true zaddìq (a just man) and deserves this exceptional honor.” Belated remorse? Speeches, speeches that never seem to end, but I listen only to the beginning of the first one. In fact, when Vice President Foa (the president, it is said, is indisposed and therefore absent) begins by saying, “We must have the honesty to say, before this coffin, that we have many sins to confess for the way in which we have behaved toward our Maestro,” I leave the beth ha-kenèseth—even though his tone

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of voice, which is emotional, seems sincere—while a relative runs after me to beg me to avoid a scandal. I reply, almost crying, “It would have been better if they had behaved differently when Papà was alive. Now I’m not interested in what they want to say, and I won’t go back in.” I stay outside, waiting. A perfectly orderly service—thanks to the carabinieri, led in person by our friend the captain, who attends the funeral in uniform. When a few days later I go to him to thank him for having taken the trouble to prevent any incident on that occasion, too, for having come to our house (always in uniform and therefore noticed by everyone), and for greeting my mother, with whom he had spoken amicably in Friuli dialect, Captain Bau puts his hand on my shoulder in a fatherly fashion, saying, “Don’t thank me. I only did my duty as a defender of public order and as your friend. Understand that one must always be able to stand up to any abuse, even if it may entail certain risks. A few days ago,” he continues after a brief pause, as if he were undecided whether to inform me about what had happened, “a few days ago I was at the provincial Fascist Party secretary’s for some questions. (‘Did they also deal with what happened to us?’ I asked myself). And without going into a lot of details, I’ll tell you only that at a certain point I was forced to tell him, ‘If you go on like this, as an officer I won’t have any choice but to shoot.’ And I left holding my revolver in my hand.” I have a meeting with the president at his house. He broaches the question, for which he had summoned me, as if he were dealing with a matter of standard administration. “You take your father’s position, under the same conditions, and the Community continues its normal life.” I let him know that he is mistaken, and greatly; that I have no intention of reaching the same end as my father, of being subjected to the habitual and well-known treatment of the Council; that I can stay, at the most, a couple of months more, out of respect for my father, and thus enable them to find another rabbi. He looks at me, surprised, as if I were referring to things that he had never heard of, and he opens his eyes wide, as he often does when he wants to emphasize that the person who is speaking is saying things that don’t exist in heaven or on earth. His repeated requests, made with the seemingly affectionate tone of someone

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who wants to convince a child not to do foolish things, irritate me still more. “I have too much respect for you, especially as my principal, to go into certain details. At any rate, I confirm to you that my decision is irrevocable.” A great scurrying about at home: boxes, chests, and suitcases are being packed, furniture is being dismantled; we are at the beginning of January 1942, and we are moving to Asti. In the late afternoon preceding the departure, I enter the old beth ha-kenèseth of my childhood alone. I sit on a dusty bench; all around me there’s still an empty space because of the benches that were moved on the occasion of Papà’s funeral. “The winter temple” was set up in the old preschool room during the winter. Evening shadows descend rapidly from a leaden sky laden with snow— it’s cold. I look around myself, and again I seem to see the old regulars, poor and rich, seated on their benches in that strange mixture of oneness and separateness that characterized this Community when I was a boy. Then I have the sensation that suddenly the temple is lit up by the hundreds and hundreds of candles of the festive days and of again hearing a voice—limpid, clear, suffused with emotion—that unmistakable voice of Papà when he would begin to sing those traditional songs that I have already largely forgotten. But in reality there’s now nothing around me but pitch darkness, stealing every detail of the temple from my sight. It’s time to say goodbye. I leave my Community, definitively concluding a very important period of my life.

c h a p t er n i n et e e n

Asti and Moncalvo

we settle in on the upper floor of the temple, to the left of the women’s gallery, in rooms adapted as well as they can be for lodging and that once had to serve as library, archive, secretary’s office, and the meeting room for the Community Council. The facade, with four small ionic columns that frame the door, is simple; in front there’s a small yard, enclosed by a fence. The inside follows a neoclassical style. The temple opens onto Via Ottolenghi and borders on the garden of the Clava house (where in those years there was a flourishing vine of the so-called American grape), where the classes of the Talmùd Torà (the study of the Torà; school) were held, taught by my father until 1941 and then by my brother, Alessandro, and which had been the premises of the Jewish elementary school.1 The work of restoring the “New Israelite Temple of Asti” had begun under the direction of Jacob Sanson Ottolenghi and after his death was continued by his brother, Cavaliere Leonetto, the person responsible for the project and director of works. The inauguration took place on September 5, 1889. Various newspapers of the era spoke of it. The synagogue was described in great detail, judged by everyone to be “a true jewel,” and the visit “in advance” by Mayor Garbiglia, the city council, the honorable attorney Giovanelli, and many other important people was highlighted. After having described the “solemn and official inauguration,” the newspapers didn’t fail to emphasize this important detail: “The women’s gallery was completely full. Among the women was the wife of Cavaliere Leonetto, the most gracious Signora Celestina Ottolenghi-Ottolenghi, who came from Lago Maggiore expressly for this event.”2

fig. 17. Asti, synagogue, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator.

In describing the ceremony with the tone of society news, it was noted, among other things, “But best of all, it was pleasant to admire the women’s gallery, which was conceived and constructed with the most felicitous plan by our Cavaliere Leonetto and adorned with the always gracious feminine sex. And since our city is indebted to him (assisted by skillful professionals) for the very successful work that the new temple is, then with even more reason will the gentle sex be grateful to him in their appreciative thoughts for his having been able to design a women’s gallery truly worthy of those who must occupy it—thus resolving the problem of aesthetics, comfort, and elegance.”3 Nor do the newspapers fail to extol the extreme modesty of Cavaliere Leonetto Ottolenghi: “A memorial tablet was placed at the entrance to record how the work itself had been done through the initiative of Cavaliere Jacob Sanson Ottolenghi and through the generous contributions of the faithful. It was also desired to make note of the services rendered by Cavaliere Leonetto Ottolenghi, but he absolutely would not permit it.”4 After a short description of “the solemn pageantry” for the inauguration of the new “temple arisen on the ruins of the old one,” the press also seems to be pleased that this sacred edifice won’t lack for anything: “The superb

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building does not leave anything to be desired, neither in its architecture, good taste, decorative painting, cabinetry, nor with regard to hygiene.”5 In comparison with this general chorus cheering the inauguration of the Asti Temple, the code of worship, issued on the equivalent date of September 5/Elul 9 by the Israelite Community of Asti, makes a contrast, and a rather jarring one: “Modifications Introduced to the Exercise of Public Worship with the Unified Code That Will Go into Effect with the Opening of the New Oratory.” Examining the eighteen articles of this code, the degree of assimilation, which greatly overshadowed the philanthropical merits of the Ottolenghi family, is easy to see. Along with the new building—which was admired by members of other religions, since “everyone was pleased to realize that it added to the dignity of the city”6—new rules were being initiated at the same time that revealed a new push toward assimilation, both because they were issued by “the Administrative Council, in concert with His Excellency Signor Chief Rabbi” (which simply meant that the employee rabbi had obeyed higher orders), and because the public, to all intents and purposes, was becoming cut off from the traditional joint participation in the tefillòth, which was thus taking on a typology very close to the Catholic liturgy. There are decisions that might even seem comical to anyone familiar with Jewish customs and traditions, and yet they constitute historical documentation of the by-then-decadent level of Jewish ideals, which were attempted, after a fashion, to be kept limited to strictly “religious” displays, in their more abstract (and therefore non-Jewish) form, and in changing the “rabbi” more and more into a “priest” and the qahàl into a public of “the faithful” who would attend the “sacred functions” in silence and with that decorum that the Holy Temple required—and now so much more so because it had been restored, thanks to the munificence of the Ottolenghis.7 These eighteen articles, which I quote in part, provide an eloquent photograph of the times in which Judaism was crumbling more and more, under the impetus of that Emancipation that yet again had deluded many Jews, who were convinced that equality of rights—being equal to others—meant renouncing living as Jews. This emancipationist liberty, which sometimes was more formal than real, was paid for at a high price—the loss of Jewish identity:

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1. All prayers and recitations must be made by the Cantor, in conformity with the rules recommended by the Council and by the Signor Chief Rabbi. 2. The responses that were in common use until now are absolutely forbidden to the public. It is equally prohibited, absolutely, to accompany the recitation of the prayers by the Cantor aloud. 3. Putting on the Tefillìn (phylacteries) is prohibited in the Oratory. The faithful, in order to fulfill this precept, must put them on in the adjoining room, which is set aside as a changing room, and when the service is over they must again go to the same room to take them off. . . . 5. The use of the Taled is permitted, on condition that it is clean and respectable and such as decorum requires. . . .8 7. The ceremonial honors will cease being done by private individuals. The taking out of the Bible will always be done by the person who is officiating. . . . 9. The customary congratulations after the reading of each qerjà (reading of a passage of the Torà) are abolished. 10. The Blessing, which, following ancient custom, was bestowed upon the children by the Chief Rabbi, is also abolished. . . . 12. The ceremony of the beating of the ’aravòth (willows; a small bunch of branches are beaten or stripped of leaves as a symbol of God’s forgiveness) on the day of Hosha’anà Rabbà (corresponding to the seventh day of Sukkòth) is absolutely forbidden. . . . 18. The Birkàth Kohanìm, performed until now by the Kohèn, is abolished, reserving the customary recitation to the Cantor.9 And I think that’s enough. Even these few quoted articles—the last one even doing away with the giving of the blessing only by those who, according to tradition, were descended from the priests (those in charge of the rites in the Temple of Jerusalem) and that had been practiced for centuries (and still is today)—provide a commentary on the situation much more effectively than a page of history, written by an expert. I am often asked how it could be that the reform movement that emerged in Germany was not given due consideration in Italy. I think that one

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reason, as I have already pointed out, is probably, at least in part, this: it wasn’t necessary. Assimilation in Italy was already proceeding vigorously on its own, even if it never reached those extremes that characterized German assimilation in that epoch. A few more short notes about the past of this small Jewish center in Asti, which was greatly reduced by the time I encountered it and which maintained and kept alive this cupio dissolvi, except for a few exceptions.10 In fact some families had already gone en masse to be baptized; others followed this route after the racial laws. The Corriere israelitico describes “a splendid soirèe” in the Palazzo Ottolenghi, November 8, 1889, on the occasion of a wedding. Speaking about the bride, Lidia, the article describes her like this: “The gracious young bride wore a very beautiful, light blue satin dress, with the front of the girdle tastefully embroidered in pearls and gold. She wore a necklace of the most stunning diamonds, which made one think that the fantastic treasure of the Count of Montecristo was possible . . .” Among the donations given on this happy occasion, those recorded were to the parish of Castelalfero, to the parish of San Martino, to the Small House of Nazareth, to the Israelite Hospice (in construction) of Jerusalem, to the General Trade Union Association (to the women’s section, too), to the Brotherhood among Soldiers on Leave, to the Shoemaker Workers Society, to the Typographers Society, to the Shoemaker Proprietors Society, to the Hairdressers Society, and so on. When I arrived in Asti the Palazzo Ottolenghi had, for quite some time already, been the Palazzo of the Prefecture. Cavaliere Leonetto Ottolenghi, partly because of the credit he had gotten for organizing two expositions (over which he was president) in Asti in 1891 and 1898, both of which had been visited by King Umberto I, received the following message on March 14, 1899, from Pelloux, the prime minister at that time: “By order of His Majesty the King, I am pleased to announce to you that with today’s decree you have been conferred the transmissible title of Count. His Majesty desires, with this authorization, to grant you a new token of his high satisfaction with the great merit acquired by Your Lordship regarding national industry and regarding this patriotic population. (Motto: Labor and Charity.)”

fig. 18. Asti, bust of Isacco Artom, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator.

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But Jewish Asti was justly proud because of another family, too: the Artoms. Going out of the train station and past the beginning of Via Cavour, the Palazzo Artom is to the right. On the facade is the bust of Isacco Artom—removed in 1938, at the beginning of the racial laws, and later put back in its place after the war. Isacco Artom had been Cavour’s private secretary.11 Attacked by the clerical circles of the era, he had been openly defended by Cavour himself, who in a letter had written, “I have not yet finished speaking when this Jew has already understood me.” Il Tevere, during the racial campaign, latched onto this letter, too, in Nazi style, and one day published the phrase this way: “I have not yet finished speaking when this Jew has already betrayed me.” I know that the Artom family made several attempts at having the newspaper print a retraction, but futilely. In those makeshift lodgings on the upper floor of the temple our family was reconstituted after a fashion. My brother Lelio, who was married, lived in Milan, and I was already an uncle, his firstborn son, Giorgio, having been born in 1939 (and now having lived in Israel for many years). Alessandro became the de facto head of the family. He had always helped the entire family in general with great generosity and us, his two brothers, in particular, so that when we turned to him we knew we would always find a ready and generous response. Now his presence and guidance assumed a special character, because of the many responsibilities he had taken upon himself. Then there was one detail that made him even closer to my heart: his voice, which resembled Papà’s, at least in large part. With his premature death in 1967 the last authentic repository of the traditional synagogue chants of Casale vanished, along with a brother in the fullest sense of the word. The recordings that were made are only a distant echo that recalls a world that by then had disappeared definitively.12 I begin to get to know my fellow Jews a little bit at a time. They are mainly professionals and shopkeepers; there are also the poor. The tinsel of Count Ottolenghi’s era has dimmed quite a bit, even though there are a few families who enjoy significant wealth; but they are among the most assimilated, if not already baptized. There are few young people my age with whom to share worries and hopes. I remember Lino Jona with special affection; of superior intelligence and high-spirited, he lived

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through the Jewish tragedy with great suffering and shortly afterward was torn from our brotherly friendship by an incurable illness. In Asti and sometimes in Torino we would meet with a few other young people, among them Emanuele Artom, who was awarded the silver medal of the Resistance. He was small of stature, almost fragile, and no one could possibly have imagined the moral force and courage with which he would withstand the tortures of the Nazis and the fascists, who then killed him. His grave today is still unknown, assuming that it exists. Our meetings were always very confidential, if not actually clandestine. About four hundred Jews from Yugoslavia were interned in the city and the province. Among themselves they still spoke the Spanish of the 1400s, and it made quite an impression that the descendants of the Spanish tragedy found themselves—four and a half centuries later, speaking that ancient language mixed together with Hebrew words—in a new tragedy, struggling in the net of a new expulsion.13 Professor Bemporad, stalwart antifascist and fervent Zionist, was a famous astronomer in forced retirement, and he became involved with these internees. When I was free of my duties—I had gone back to my job of commuting to Castangole delle Lanze—I would accompany him. He was a dear friend, with an exceptional intellect and conversation rich in humor, who dedicated himself to this mission with great wisdom and enthusiasm. We traveled around in a car to the different towns of the province, some of which were clinging to the tops of magnificent hills, excellent places for vacation but not for internment. Our work hinged on the moods of the marshal of the carabinieri, who in these little towns could not escape anyone’s surveillance and who therefore sometimes took rigid and unreasonable positions. It is also true that it was not always easy for us to speak with the internees themselves. But their nervousness, the ongoing insecurity about their future, the problems of accommodation in temporary lodgings, the need for medical care, the hope, in spite of the situation, of obtaining a few exit visas—all this certainly did not contribute to creating a calm atmosphere, and one can understand their restlessness and the strictness of the marshals, who did not want to have “nuisances.” Sometimes it was one of them who stopped us from getting in contact with the internees, even though we had all our papers in order.

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When, in the first months of 1943, the order came that some of these Jews were to be transferred to the South, I had to work quite hard, with Bemporad, to persuade them. They did not want to leave the place where they were interned, even at the cost of taking to the hills, with all the attendant risks. Some of them succeeded—with many repeated requests, with some support, or for more or less valid health reasons—in postponing their departure. The others decided to undertake the journey when, after long discussions, they were convinced by a very simple, and at least up to a certain point intuitive, fact: in going toward the South they were taking a step toward freedom. In 1943 Rommel and his ItalianGerman army were already defeated; a landing, given the situation, was expected precisely in the south of Italy. Whoever remained in northern Italy would risk greater danger—which is what actually happened. The internees who remained in the North, together with the other Jews, were ravaged after the 8th of September; those living in the South had already been liberated earlier. On Saturdays the beth ha-kenèseth was rather well attended, partly because of the presence of some internees and evacuees who had come from Torino and Genoa because of the bombardments. I especially remember Tedeschi, the famous clinician from Genoa, who was always present and who had an intense charge of religious feeling, which he transmitted to others when they saw him so deeply absorbed in prayer. On Saturday morning, after tefillà, I would begin explaining the week’s parashà. I did this with great pleasure and for many reasons—such as the duty to teach something that I had learned from my teachers and the joy I felt in giving a lecture, which was equal to the joy I had felt when I had groups of youths before me, in the various training centers and in the schools. The most traditional character of the Community was, without doubt, Sur Camillo. A salesman in a variety of businesses and at the same time passionately bound to his temple, he may have been one of the last repositories of the Appam liturgy. This term is an acronym formed by the initials of Asti, Fossano (in Hebrew the letter f is indicated with the p, without a daghésh), and Moncalvo.14 This liturgy is also called minhàg zarphàt, or the French liturgy, a combination of the German and French liturgies, which had come to an end in France after the expulsion of

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1394. Given the modest number of Jews in these three communities of the Appam liturgy (there weren’t even nine hundred people), the texts of the prayers, the machazorìm in particular, were always manuscripts. I remember that on the eve of Rosh ha-Shanà a distinguished gentleman from the Artom home, maybe the butler, appeared at the temple and loaned two large books, manuscripts, for those solemn days, coming back to reclaim them punctually, the day after the end of the holidays. Sur Camillo, who read the Hebrew text, maybe a little hurriedly but almost without errors, had that intense and unaffected ardor for the songs, like Ercul of Casale. For him it was a special honor to recite the daily or the festival tefillòth, it didn’t matter which. He had a certain smattering of the ceremonies, and sometimes I got the impression that he invented them right then and there; but with an “it’s always been done this way,” the discussion was over. Still, I could not help but admire his enthusiasm, which remained intact over the years in spite of the various vicissitudes of his life that had caused him, because of his business, to travel from town to town. He was small of stature, with a big, white, Umberto-style mustache and pince-nez that he waved about jerkily when he was engaged in some discussion, as if to underscore his arguments. He has two sharp, lively eyes, always on the alert, ironic, surprised, incredulous, childishly joyous or sad—in short, he speaks with his eyes, too, with his way of looking at you. He walks swaying a little and sometimes raising a hand to his right side as if to soothe a slight pain that never leaves him. When he walks alone through the streets of the city—always at a steady pace, as if he were worried he would arrive late for an appointment, even if he was just going to a friend’s to drink a glass of fine wine—he often moves around his hands, which thus accompany and conclude his thoughts. He enjoys a good economic situation, but he always dresses modestly, a little shabbily, peasant-style. Nevertheless, he is always very formal; when introduced to someone he bows politely, bringing his hat to his chest for a few seconds like an American saluting his flag, while the wind stirs the small tuft of white hair that remains. When, on the other hand, he greets you, he makes a swift gesture without stopping, raising two slightly bent fingers that seem almost ankylose to the brim of his hat. The years he had spent at school desks had not been many, because

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from the time he was a boy he had had to work—and work hard. But he was endowed with a sharp mind, completely unique and instinctive, to the point that after many years of commercial activity he had also acquired enough juridical experience to make an attorney envious. He has a prodigious memory; he has even classified phrases, verses, and maxims from among the most famous of Italian and Latin writers and poets, and he inserts them into his speech quite often. But in the field of jurisprudence he has gained such a reputation—which moreover is fully deserved—that the peasants, especially on market days, go to him to get his advice. They know that Sur Camillo knows all the loopholes of the law—but also that he is a perfect gentleman and that therefore his advice is always honest. These opinions are not usually requested and given standing in the piazza of the market, but in front of a bottle of good barbera. He is also an expert in the art of wine making. He raises the glass against the light to check the ruby color of the nectar, the tip of his nose and mustache appear at the rim of the glass to gather the bouquet, and then he tastes carefully. If after a few seconds (during which he seems to be chewing) his mustache suddenly seems to gather itself into a ball (because his mouth is becoming round) and almost immediately one hears a click of the tongue—it is because all this is part of a ritual, a sign that the wine has gained the complete approval of the expert. At this point his face relaxes, he smiles, and he is ready to listen, half closing his eyes while supporting his head with his right hand, after having pushed back his hat. He listens, and it is not unusual for him to have the story repeated, word for word. Then another no less skillful tap nudges his hat down almost to the tip of his nose, and he empties his glass, puts his elbows on the table, and interlaces his fingers: “ok, listen . . . ,” he begins and gives his opinion, precise and invaluable. It is said that once, during a court hearing, one party to the case was responding to some questions from the presiding judge, who agreed, with an ever more pronounced nodding of his head, to what he was hearing, when the attorney from the other side was heard exclaiming in a choking voice and beating his fist angrily on the table: “It can’t be anyone other than Camillo who gave such advice!” And another lawsuit was won thanks to the keen intuition of Sur Camillo.

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It cannot be said that he was a scrupulous observer of Jewish custom. The events in his life had caused him to live far away from every Jewish center for many years; but he preserved, as I remember, a tenacious, simple, and honest faith that shunned complicated arguments of the theological type. When he heard these arguments he would be silent, and smiling slyly he would stretch out his hands, turning his face to the heavens. This behavior was fundamentally a theological response, too, because he wanted to declare that for certain problems man knows absolutely nothing and has to resign himself to God’s will. And then he was particularly happy—especially in front of a good glass of wine—if he could find someone who would listen while he recounted episodes of Jewish life of the “old-timers,” especially from Moncalvo, where he had lived for a few years. He would reconstruct the ambience and the attributes of his characters with great color and liveliness, especially because (almost without realizing it) he would act out the various roles, getting up and walking back and forth in the room, mimicking their gestures and trying to imitate the voices of his characters. Among the many episodes this one—which I will try to reconstruct just like he himself told me one day—deserves to be retold: In the ghetto of Moncalvo even the postman was a Jew. The mail was delivered every day, but in a completely unique way. The postman went slowly up the narrow streets with his bag of correspondence to deliver. All of a sudden he would stop and in a loud voice say, “Moshè, mazàl tov—you have a little grandson!” Moshè would appear at the window. “What?” “Yes, yes, it’s certain, it’s a boy!” And he would wave the card. Going on, a little later he would shout (and all the chazèr, naturally, would listen), “Joséf, get ready, tomorrow you have to go to Torino for that wine contract!” And he would hand Signor Joséf the letter. In short, the mail worked—and it was only one day late. He knew—completely by memory—a long poem about the ghetto of Moncalvo by the schoolteacher Vercellana, a non-Jew, who had written it on the occasion of a brawl that had broken out among the Jews. The poem was titled “The Great Battle of the Jews of Moncalvo,” and it

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was written partly in “Monferrino” dialect and in “the Jewish vernacular.”15 This is how it begins: A strange thing happened In the piazza of the market Right in front of the great Pruchè Ah! It was a terrible affair Among the Jewish people And it caused a great racket! And it ends: But with blessed God Who sees everything from above Great troubles will be sent upon them Which will purge my blows And you’ll see these wretches All go to ruin. ................................... In a moment, without any noise All the pains had vanished And in order to stop the troubles right away Signor Luzzati handed out the money. Ah! May such troubles never happen again. Welcome, Lord, Lord! Sur Camillo was also an excellent mathematician. He would make calculations mentally, softly murmuring number upon number, and he enjoyed posing problems, to both the young and the old, whose solutions required that mathematics be combined with common sense. He was very hospitable and quick to offer—since he was very considerate of his guests—anything from a cup of coffee, to the usual prized glass of wine, to a dinner, to which he always did justice. He would click his tongue while he tried futilely to straighten his mustache, and he would burst forth in compliments. He appreciated a good table and the company of friends. “The poor,” he would say, “when you’re in their house, will bend over

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backward to honor you and—as in fact my mother did—will immediately send a member of the family to buy something, even on credit, so as not to cut a bad figure. When you’re in the house of a rich person, he’ll offer you some words, but most of the time not even a glass of water . . .” During the time of the German invasion he did not abandon his city, no matter how much his “Aryan” friends, who appreciated him and loved him, exhorted him to flee. He justified himself, saying, “We’re in Italy, and nothing bad could possibly happen to an honest person who’s never had any trouble with the law.” During that period a Jew from Moncalvo died, and Camillo himself took charge of the burial, managing to have the coffin transported in a pickup truck that happened to be going to that small city. He apologized, then, for sitting on the casket, because there was not any room left in which to stand up. For the return trip he waited for whatever means of transport was available. A German car with armed soldiers came by, and he, without any fear, stopped it and asked for a ride, which he was given. He arrived in Piazza Dante, and one can easily imagine the dismay of those who knew him, thinking, naturally, that he had been arrested. But it made them catch their breath still more when Sur Camillo, having gotten out of the car and ceremoniously taken off his hat as a goodbye, cordially invited everyone to have a drink. The Germans did not pay any more attention to the old man, though he courteously continued to insist. Then someone approached him cautiously, whispering, “Camillo, let it go . . .”

c h a p t er t w ent y

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i have returned to the little town, and I have taken up my job again: “In response to your letter . . .” The same old routine. I reenter a world, which is no longer new to me, of peasants, wine contracts, legal questions, good glasses of wine, of Radio London from my friend the socialist innkeeper, and of visits to some of the farmhouses among these green and pleasant hills. But now I bring something new with me, too; residing in Asti has allowed me to again take up some of my old activities—helping internees, the weekly lesson on the parashà at the temple (which I prepare on the train, reading various commentaries to myself), and contact with new and already old friends. There is a kind of compromise that, however, given the times, can hardly be rejected and in fact has its advantages: working for free in order to be able to carry out at least some, if not all, of those activities in the Jewish field that were so close to my heart. Asti is different from Casale regarding politics—as far as I can tell after almost a year of residency. In Casale one had the impression of a certain passivity in putting up with what happened, except for a few rare exceptions; basically Casale was a rather amorphous mass that lived according to the acronym of the “bug” (that is what the fascist emblem was called): “P. N. F.”—that is, per necessità familiari [due to family needs].1 The ambience of Asti, on the other hand, is livelier. Along with the fascist fanatics there is a certain atmosphere of opposition, with a socialist base, that every now and then you can even feel when talking with workers, shopkeepers, and city employees. (A registry office official, for instance, is an old socialist friend of Papà.) This needs to be said, because although it is true that we sometimes got insulted on the street

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for being Jews (although from 1938 on, in Casale, it never happened, at least to me), there were also people whom you did not know, whom you came across in the train or at a café, and who, realizing who you were, came up to you and whispered comforting words to you: “This won’t last, soon it will pass, take courage!” On the train almost every day I run into workers, students, and peddlers who seat themselves near me and in absolute frankness make comments, upon which my seasoned prudence sometimes cannot help but raise some doubts. But I am very quickly compelled to convince myself that the “Republican Asti” of Carduccian memory is still a reality.2 Asti, the eve of Kippùr, 1942. Professor Florio Foa of Torino, who knows the Appam liturgy very well, has come to give us a hand, as he does every year. The temple is crowded—there are many Yugoslav internees. When, departing from the usual custom—but in order to honor their presence—they are allowed (not without some slight opposition from the Astigiani) to recite a prayer according to their traditional melodies, the emotion becomes widespread; some faces are lined with tears. It is not only the novelty of the chant—there is something special in their voices, something exceptional. All our age-old grief reemerges, our eternal hope is strengthened. The tefillòth having concluded, I sit with Foa on the steps that go down toward the gate, which by then is closed, everyone having left. We talk of many things, many memories are recalled, as is usual on the eve of Kippùr—the few peaceful moments and the sadness of the years that we are living in, the hope, the wish—as the tradition has it—that on that day the Lord will inscribe us in the book of life, us and all the people of Israel, and that he will grant us peace, because the Lord, blessed be He, is ’osè shalòm (the author of peace). In order to start off the discussion— from among the various themes of the holiday, as usual—on a topic that just then presents itself to my mind and heart in a poignant way, I mention that we have appealed to the Lord to rebuild His Beth ha-Miqdàsh (Sanctuary in Jerusalem) speedily and gather mi-jarketè àrez (from the ends of the earth) the exiles scattered among the nations. These are the moments in which—particularly in such trying circumstances—I feel the spiritual and national unity of my people in its fullness.

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Unexpectedly my interlocutor frankly lays out all his italianità, which is Piedmontese and royalist; but that is not enough: he expresses his pain for those Jews who have been seduced by that dangerous illusion that Zionism is—as, unfortunately, events have shown through all the misfortunes that have rained down upon us. He speaks very calmly, sure of himself, as if he were talking about things that were self-evident, as if the fault for what was happening belonged to the persecuted and not the persecutors. I think I am dreaming, and I don’t know how to respond. I look to the starry sky (which, given the darkness, shines with particular intensity) almost for a response, which I would want to fit the occasion, Foa’s age, and the great esteem that I have for him as a scholar. But the response is suddenly given through the curse of a well-known fascist of the city, a criminal who has also lived in Germany and whom I half-see in the darkness of the night: “Juden rauss!”3 The rasping voice, the overexcited tone, the repeated phrase, while for a few seconds he tries to rattle two poles of the gate; to my eyes and my ears it all gives concrete form to the tragic danger that hangs over us. I say to Foa, “Did you hear? I didn’t give you the answer. The history that we’re living through gave it to you.” “Don’t generalize,” he continues as if nothing had happened. “I beg you, all Italians shouldn’t be judged by the same standard of some fanatic like this one. Let’s think instead of the mass of Italians, who are like us and us like them.” “Excuse me, professor, but these fanatics—who are actually common assassins—have already committed many crimes, and they can still carry out more. If, then, the Nazis were to enter Italy in force, as has already happened in other countries—” “Son,” he says to me almost sweetly, as if to a child, putting his hand on my shoulder, “don’t forget that, thanks to God, we’re in Italy, and in this country certain things have never happened, nor can they ever happen.” “You keep stressing Italy, but a little while ago you yourself prayed in Hebrew, crying out for compassion for our exile—” “Certainly, but it’s a question of the exile of the spirit, when unfortunately we distance ourselves from God.” “And the appeal for the rebuilding of Jerusalem?”

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“Don’t confuse things”—his voice is now very professorial—“Jerusalem is the celestial Jerusalem, it’s the messianic era that we’re waiting for, and in the meantime, dispersed throughout the world, we have the duty of making the loftiness of the monotheistic and messianic ideal known . . .” And he stretches out his arms, turning the palms of his hands to the sky, as if to say, “It couldn’t be clearer, could it?” Rome has interned a Garibaldian, antifascist engineer here.4 He is a fellow who may seem a little strange—for the exuberance of his behavior, for his desire to attract attention at any cost, for speaking loudly, and for his not paying much attention to his words—which, even if they are just, honest, and courageous, should nevertheless be weighed with great prudence by a political internee, especially in time of war. The fascist milieu of the city has immediately taken note of him and puts up with him with ill-concealed irritation. The advice of a few good friends seems to result in the opposite effect and to spur him on to say whatever he thinks of fascism and the war, and in the clearest, most unambiguous way. As if all this were not enough, a rumor also goes around—who knows if it was true or false—that he may also be a little too much of a ladies’ man and that his choices, in this case, are not at all conditioned by his political ideas. The fact is that one evening, under the porticos of Piazza Dante, he is treacherously attacked and beaten badly. He has to be admitted to the hospital, where he will remain for about three weeks. He is isolated. My brother and I are among the very few who go regularly to visit him; we stay to talk at length, with a certain uneasiness because of the police agent who is keeping watch nearby but who does not dare get closer because he knows that the religious leader of the Community is there, authorized as well to make these visits. Our friend—usually so cocky, like a student—is moved every time he sees us. In a small town near Asti the fascist provincial party secretary, who evidently must be a native of those parts, has a placard put up in which the population is requested not to have any contact with internees of the Jewish race. A few days later, however, that filth is removed by order of the prefect. It is known that the prefect does not have strong sympathy for fascism, but the instructions are justified with reasons of public order. It is a comfort to see that there are still honorable people.

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I am traveling—like I do every day; I find a seat in a so-called charàbanc full of students, workers, teachers, and merchants. A teacher I know—because he lives near my house—is sitting across from me, talking with a school inspector I know by sight. I’m reading the newspaper, but I hear their conversation because they’re speaking loudly. Suddenly my ears perk up because the object of the conversation is now the Jews. The inspector holds forth in the style typical of a good fascist: “They’re people, let’s put it this way, who rejoice at the bombardments that today are destroying our beautiful cities of Torino, Milan, and Genoa. These Jews always have a lot of money, they have private means, and they don’t give a damn about any of the laws. They’ve never done anything for our country, and they continue undeterred, benefiting from the blood of our soldiers and our workers. They’re deceitful people who live off us honest citizens who are committed to the inevitable victory.” I think quickly: “If I stay silent, when they leave the train the teacher will tell him that right in front of him there was a Jew who swallowed all those accusations without batting an eyelash. If instead I meddle, I run some risk, but at least I can tell that louse what he deserves.” Meanwhile the inspector is pompously finishing his little speech: “We have to isolate this race, but the way they do it in Germany, in concentration camps, and not like it happens in Italy. This way we’ll remove these bloodsuckers from around us once and for all.” At this point I speak up. “Sir, you’ll have to excuse me if I barge into your conversation, but you are speaking loudly and my ears hear, as in fact do all the others. I have to tell you first of all that I’m not at all happy about the bombardments under which so many innocent people, who have nothing to do with the war, die—just as in other countries many other people who are just as innocent are actually being massacred. I don’t have any private means, and thus I work every day, from morning until evening, and in spite of that I’m a Jew.” In the train car a sudden, absolute silence—I, too, spoke loudly—and you can feel an atmosphere of curiosity and tension. Still, it’s done, and I have to go on—and with a resolute gesture of my hand I stop him as he is about to say something: “Excuse me, I haven’t yet finished.”

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“Go on, by all means.” But he says this to me with a kind of smile that seems to mean, “Let’s see where you’re going to end up.” “When I hear someone whom I don’t know loudly proclaiming, as you did, saying essentially, ‘I’m honest, the others are dishonest,’ do you know what I do?” “No,” he imprudently lets slip. “Then I’ll tell you. I immediately place my hand on my wallet because I’m afraid that you’ll take it away from me.” “What do you mean?” he asks in a professorial tone. “I’m simply saying, even to you, that whoever is truly honest and lives honestly doesn’t go about proclaiming it to the four winds, making certain that there are others to hear him say it.” The teacher who is seated next to him has been staring in the direction of the window for several minutes already, as if he doesn’t know me and isn’t listening to my words. “I have to tell you,” the inspector resumes after a brief silence, and I get the impression that he’s straining to say something, and with a certain hesitancy. “I have to tell you, truthfully, that I personally know some Jews and that I consider them respectable people, there’s no doubt, and—” “Please have the courtesy once again to excuse me if I interrupt you.” The tone of my voice—I hear it—is getting more and more abrupt and provoking. “But do you realize the contradictions that you continue to blurt out on this subject? A few minutes ago you maintained that all Jews are dishonest, capitalists, and bloodsuckers, and now you start to make distinctions, which is more than sufficient to show how carelessly you spoke—in fact, I’ll be more precise for you—how irrational anti-Semitism is in all its manifestations, of which you yourself have provided a very eloquent sample—” The other fellow, who is turning a little pale, would like to speak but once again is stopped by my resolute gesture. By this point I’m barreling along; it’s all or nothing: “No. You’ve said so many vile things, so let me continue—I didn’t interrupt your words. Now I’m speaking,” I press on, almost enraged. “Since you also cast doubt on the italianità of the Jews and their patriotism, then out with the documentation. In my family there is a gold

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medal for military valor and many bronze medals, besides a silver medal for medical assistance during the First World War. You, who are so Italian and patriotic, pull out your medals now, if you have any.” I disliked making a display of medals that were not awarded for my worthiness, and at that moment it seemed like I had pinned them on my chest as if they were mine; but given the situation there was nothing else to do. I had finished, I was drained, and now I had begun to be a little afraid, and I was silent. But the inspector himself must have felt the blow because he, too, was pensive and silent, amid a general silence, which was heavier still. The only thing that could be heard, to the point of exasperation, was the beating out of the rhythm of the wheels of the train. But soon he composed himself—I saw him get up and come toward me. The train pulled into a station. He extended his hand and said to me, “Forgive me. You’re an honest person, allow me to shake your hand . . .” (Now he even uses the formal “you.”)5 I couldn’t refuse that hand that was offered publicly. In private, after what I had heard, the exchange would have been briefer. So I also extend my hand, but not in time to shake his, because we are going through the switches, and a sudden jolt throws the inspector against the wooden wall of the car. More evidence that maybe not everything happens by chance. He says goodbye, removing his hat, and steps down from the train, obsequiously followed by the little teacher. I stay in my seat for another twenty minutes, acting like I’m reading the newspaper, but my hands are shaking. In the train car utter silence continues. My bosses, to whom I recount the event, congratulate me and lash out with quite strong words, expressed with all the style and flavor of dialect. But I begin to get worried—this thing could have a sequel. Instead on the next day . . . I have gotten on a train car with compartments, and finding one completely empty I sit down. As I am about to open my bag I hear a scurrying of feet coming from the corridor, and immediately afterward the door opens and some of the teachers enter—elated, all of them jubilant: “Bravo, bravissimo,” they say, almost in unison. “And for what reason?” I ask, showing surprise. “Because you’ve taken care of that windbag like he deserved.”

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“But,” I remark, “I didn’t do anything special. That fellow said what he thought, and I did the same.” “No, no,” they say, almost in unison. “You really gave him what he deserved.” The enthusiasm seems sincere to me, and I appreciate it, but the suspicion crosses my mind that this may also be due to the relations that often exist between a school inspector and the teachers. But at that moment there is another invasion—two workers and two women peddlers come in. They congratulate me, too. One of the two women, with a big, husky voice, nearly bellows, “I should give you a kiss. That’s the way to deal with those lackeys of Mussolini and Hitler, those criminals . . .” The worker takes a little bottle of grappa out of his bag and offers it to me. “A drop to make a toast, ok?” I gladly drink a toast with those good people. There is a fellow, an employee of the bank, with thick hair, combed back but sticking up—as if it were starched, or from a constant, hidden sense of fear. He is pale, thin, always wearing a black shirt, and ostentatiously dispensing fascist salutes. I do not know him personally, but he is the type that makes himself noticed—and then you are obliged to know who they are. When we run into each other on the street, and he is alone, he looks at me or my brothers contemptuously, with ironic little smiles— that typical fascist smile, between arrogance and stupidity. When instead he is with a group of fellow fascists he becomes a lion, and coming near us he turns to his worthy friends and shouts, “Here are my jewels.” (As if to say, “I’m in charge of them.”) One Saturday, coming out of the beth ha-kenèseth, we are walking along the Corso Alfieri for a short stroll when along comes bad luck—we run into a parade of fascists in uniform, with banners and pennants. When they pass in front of us we remove our hats, for the sake of personal safety. Our man—the porcupine, as we call him— carries a pennant. He sees us, points it toward us, and in full voice shouts, “Here are my jewels.” His fellow fascists get a big kick out of it and break out in coarse laughter accompanied by suggestive hand gestures. On April 25, 1945, a little more than two years later, we are coming down from the Langhe toward Asti with the specific task of capturing and controlling several strategic points in the city. With a group of comrades

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we occupy the train station, establish road blocks, and then proceed, according to the orders we received. Two days later, going to the train station for an inspection, right in front of me, along the arcade that leads toward Via Cavour, but facing the other direction, is my porcupine. I recognize him by the unmistakable style of his hair. I quickly explain the story to my two companions; we draw up close to him, and leveling our guns at him I shout, “Here’s my jewel.” He turns around, sees the guns, recognizes me more by the phrase than by my looks—dressed as I am and without a beard. He is petrified, he turns pale, goggles his eyes, his hair stands up still more, and we point our Sten guns at him—only to frighten him, obviously. He turns and begins to run, like at the end of certain Charlie Chaplin comedies. Truly amusing for us and for whoever is there at the scene. On the date of June 21, 1943, XXI, I receive a notice from the Provincial Council of the Corporations, the Office for Labor Service, in Asti— assignment notice number 8, which I still keep and which I recovered, who knows how, from among the few papers saved from the looting.6 It reads, “Selected to offer your labor as a worker.” A few days later the order to present myself at the brick factory at Castell’Alfero follows.7 I say goodbye in my office, and then I go down to the company’s wine cellars. Even this is a good opportunity for making a little propaganda. I invite my winery friends to gather around me for important news: “I’m here to say goodbye to you, because I’m leaving,” I say in a solemn voice. “But why, and where?” They’re all good friends, and they don’t hide their surprise. “I’m going to make bricks.” “Come on, it’s not Carnival yet,” Riccu says. “I’m not joking at all. Here’s the call-up notice—” Then a chorus of general indignation breaks out. (I am sure that within a few hours everyone in town was talking about the foul deed, “the shame of those criminals against the lawyer.”) It is time for lunch, but they do not want to let me go. They talk privately among themselves, and then one of them comes up to me and says, “Come eat with us at Rivella’s (the friend who is an innkeeper). We’ll treat you to lunch.” At the end of the meal we begin the (of course) numerous toasts, given in

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Piedmontese, with that good-willed and allusive style that seems not to mean anything, which is typical of the people of the Langhe but, at the same time, extremely penetrating and wise. In a corner of the room, nevertheless, there is the same old bank employee in a fascist uniform, who as always does not understand anything. Still, he is watching inquisitively, and it could be dangerous to leave him without an answer. So the old Rivella beckons him heartily. “You come drink a toast, too.” “But what for?” “The lawyer is getting engaged,” says Rivella, while all his peasant shrewdness bubbles forth from his eyes, “and we’re consoling him with a toast, because when someone gets engaged it’s a little like he’s going to forced labor. I don’t know if you see what I mean.” There is general laughter. The little Fascist Party leader also laughs and toasts, adding, however, very seriously, “I wish you a peaceful and happy life with your wife.” And Rivella, this time making his face serious, too, exclaims, “At first I was joking, but that’s exactly what I would have wanted to say. You who have gone to school have expressed everyone’s thoughts exactly.” Here, too, is the clever hand of the peasant, but now everyone has become serious and thoughtful. Some of these friends accompany me to the nearby train station. They hug me, and when the train is about to leave one of them pulls out two bottles of aged wine, the “special kind,” from a cloth bag: “For you—enjoy these bottles, they’re good for you . . .”8 On the morning of the appointed day I arrive at the factory punctually. The secretary cannot hide his embarrassment. People arrive: the lawyer . . . the engineer . . . the doctor . . . We are shown in with great courtesy— “Please, please, have a seat, don’t stand on ceremony.” He seems almost ashamed to have to perform this thankless task. He is awaiting the police commissioner, and he wants to be sure that everything proceeds according to the directives; the secretary excuses himself and goes out to meet the important and difficult guest. We remain alone, and I look around: about twenty people, most of them well-known. A heavy silence weighs on all of them; they are worried, almost desperate. I think that it might be helpful to say something to them:

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“Friends,” I begin, “I see that you’re very worried, but I think that it’s not right to let oneself be demoralized like this. If you remember, it’s not the first time that, so to speak, we find ourselves making bricks. Long ago our ancestors, slaves in Egypt, preceded us; but we also shouldn’t forget that the bitterness of the Egyptian bondage—which manifested itself precisely in an order like the one we received today—was after all also the beginning of the freedom that was not long in coming. So we should be hopeful; maybe this is a sign that freedom is not so far off for us either.” And here I stopped myself—not only because I had been overcome by the impression that I was making a nearly rabbinical speech but particularly because of the expressions on the faces, which had remained impassive to these observations of mine and maybe were not hiding their irritation, not even a little. It is not impossible that someone thought, “We’re here only because we’re Jews, and this yokel starts talking to us precisely about Jewish matters instead of staying quiet. And if someone hears him?” Here is the police commissioner. Surprised and annoyed, he asks, “What are all these people doing here in the office?” The secretary responds obsequiously. “I was giving them some basic information; they’re new to this job.” “ok, ok,” he mumbles and opens a folder, which he hands to one of his attendants, who reads the names of those who were summoned in alphabetical order. No one is missing. “ok, ok,” he continues to mumble. “And now everyone to work.” He gives a fine fascist salute. We rise to our feet, and one of us—truly recklessly—salutes him in the same way, too. “Please, sit down,” the secretary promptly continues. We have to wait for the owner of the factory, a doctor from Torino, who because of professional duties—as he telephoned us—was not able to come earlier. When, however, a little later we make contact with him, I have no doubt—in fact I am certain—that the “professional duties” were only diplomatic. He obviously had no intention of meeting the police commissioner. He is an honorable person, as we realize immediately. He tries to fix things up for everyone. To a person who is a noted insurance agent from Asti, well-known in the entire province, he gives this “order”:

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“I know that you have a horse and gig. You must be at my disposal when I come here to the factory. I’ll have you alerted in advance each time so that you’ll be on time to meet me. Don’t forget!” But we already know that he comes to Castell’Alfero very rarely. As for me, he tells me outright, “You’re of no use to me, and so you can leave.” The tone is determined, and it seems like there is no way to reply. Still, I try to make him realize that I have been drafted. The response: “It doesn’t concern me. I’m also a doctor, and therefore I’m qualified to judge. I’m in need of able-bodied workers, and you’re not one.” He always speaks with a resolute tone. I insist: “But what should I do then?” “Whatever you want. You can request an official medical checkup, but I beg you to leave. Don’t make me lose time.” And for the first time he smiles and shakes my hand warmly, as if to tell me, “We’ve understood each other; I hope I’ve freed you from this nuisance.” A few days later I am at the provincial doctor’s for an official medical checkup, which proceeds more like a police examination than a medical one. He makes me take off my shoes, too, as if he could discover who knows what trick. Then he sits down, takes up a pen, and looking at me from over his glasses and syllabifying his words, says, “I’ll write something that will serve you well and be useful to you.” I respond, annoyed, “Do your duty, nothing more.” Finished writing, he hands me the sheet and says, “One hundred lire.” I take the money out of my wallet and toss it on the table. He picks it up without batting an eyelash. I leave without saying goodbye. I am back at my job at Castagnole, welcomed with great enthusiasm by my friends. Many bottles get uncorked one evening on the threshing floor of a farmhouse, where there is no one in fascist uniform, and so you can speak as you like. Everyone wants to know the story of my brief adventure.

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july 24, 1943. One of our restricted meetings at a friend’s house in Asti. On July 11 the Allies had landed in Sicily. I had gotten this news one Saturday morning at temple from a fellow who had heard it on Radio London—thus before local radio spoke of it. Predictions are made, and we even contemplate an eventual collapse of the regime; but in spite of everything it seems unlikely. We talk late, not knowing that during precisely those hours Mussolini is finally losing the throne. The next morning, having to deal with some land-register papers for the company, I plan to sleep in at least a couple more hours, but I am awakened by some kind of clamor that keeps getting louder. I look out of the window, and I see a stream of people; then suddenly they’re singing “The Red Flag” at the top of their voices.1 Am I dreaming? In a few minutes I am in the streets, letting myself be swept away in every direction by the shouting crowd. There are also episodes of intolerance and violence. The people are unrestrained. Busts and photographs of the Duce fly from the windows, and pictures are burned. Some women wearing Fascist Party leader’s hats on their heads whirl around singing, “Arise brothers . . .” It seems to me like we have gone back decades, to when these songs echoed freely everywhere. I pass by my barbershop, under the porticos. Many autographed photos of Badoglio take pride of place hanging on the walls, and no one has ever dared touch them.2 When he visits his hometown of Grazzano Monferrato, the marshal often comes here to have himself attended to. One day I too had met him in this shop. We were two or three customers waiting. We had gotten up to greet him, and he had shaken hands with

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everyone; dressed in civilian clothes, he was “off duty.” One of us had asked him, “Signor Marshal, how’s it going?” “Good,” he had answered. “Just yesterday I won a fine game of bocce.” But which game was he really thinking about? The barber comes up to me and almost hugs me. “You’re happy, right?” “Of course,” I answer. “But what’s the news?” “Don’t you know? Mussolini has fallen.” “Well, I understood that.” “But there’s also something very nice,” he says to me quite merrily. “What?” “Badoglio is the new head of the government, and the king has retaken command of the armed forces.” He is triumphant. “How do you know?” “There’s been an announcement, and it was repeated on the radio. But the war is continuing.” The news worries me more than a little; the barber looks surprised at me for my sudden change and says goodbye a little coldly. I know that the king has never had strong sympathies for the Jews, even if he has never manifested his anti-Semitism openly. Certainly his signature on the racial laws did not bring him honor. I also heard it told that the queen had replied to a lady at court who had made the bleak circumstances of the Jews known to her, “One can’t put the House of Savoy in danger for a group of Jews.” That fascism has fallen is already a good thing, there is no doubt about that, but there are still the Nazis, the war goes on, and therefore our situation as Jews does not seem substantially changed to me. New dangers, even in the near future, cannot be excluded. What can we do? I enter an office, and I get out the documents that I have brought from the company. The clerk, examining them, looks at me in surprise and then says to me, “Look, this is the registry office for births, marriages, and deaths, not the general land office!” I excuse myself and leave. Obviously this is not the best day for working. I am too distracted by new worries. I head for the train station to return to Castagnole. While I am waiting for the train I witness several beatings. A few railroad men, well-

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known for their fascist arrogance, now get what they deserve. Among them I recognize a lanky fellow, a conductor, who always gave me a hard time when he inspected my monthly pass. At first I am glad about it, but then I consider that violence cannot do anything but produce more violence, and who knows where it will lead? And we are only at the beginning. The same scenes are repeated in every tiny station, even against the station masters. During the days that follow my biggest discovery is the fact that the newspapers no longer all write the same thing but express differing opinions. It is true that censorship is functioning and that editions with large white spaces appear. But the editorials, where everyone expresses his own opinion freely, are something magnificent that fascinates me. Every day I buy lots of newspapers, and I dive into the reading. Now even the readers can write letters to the editor, genuine letters that get published, even if they are at odds with ideas advocated by the very newspaper that publishes them. For me this is all new, intoxicating. I take advantage, too, after a lot of hesitation; the change is so wonderful that it still does not seem to me that it can be true. I begin to write some letters, always signing them with different names—one never knows. When I decide to confront the Jewish problem fully and write to the Gazzetta del popolo, we are already at the beginning of September; it is almost certain that the letter, signed this time with my true name, later fell into the hands of some repubblichino, if not a Nazi!3 At Castagnole, on the large piazza across from the station, it was by then a habit of mine, while waiting for the train, to amuse myself talking with one of my bosses, an ex-officer of the Alpine troops who had taken part in the war on the French front and then been discharged for reasons of health, true or invented. He is the sort of peasant who knew, with his brothers, how to create a good economic situation, working intensely and not being too fussy. He is always ready to argue, and often furiously, especially when he is defending his own interests—he does not care who it is. As a private person he tries to assume the position of a good, middle-class citizen of the city, but often his manners and his affected vocabulary, taken together, create a truly humorous spectacle. He is not lacking in that instinctive intelligence and entirely peasant shrewd-

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ness, and he knows how to be the boss and make himself obeyed. With me, during these brief afternoon conversations, he is very warm, partly because he imagines that I might always be able to furnish him important information about how things stand at the moment. He crosses his arms and looks at me, half closing his eyes slyly with a slight smile, as if he means to say, “Go on, between us there’s certain things you can say—you can trust me!” It happened that one time—a real stroke of luck—I had guessed right about some event, which had increased his friendship and his interest in me. Evidently, as an old peasant imbued with vague ideas from traditional prejudices, he is convinced—I am certain of it—that as a Jew I can tap who-knows-what sources of information. Otherwise, during the partisan period, in the middle of winter, he would not have gone so many kilometers on foot through the snow, clambering through the Langhe to come get news specifically from me. When I repeated to him ad nauseam, “But what do you expect me to know? I live here in an isolated place,” he responded stubbornly, “Come on. You know these things.” Especially given his family’s economic situation—if you can really use this expression for someone who was left without a cent—and the fact that without me ever asking him for anything he had helped me many times with loans that were quite indispensable, I believed that his persistence would also be repaid in some way. Thus, on the basis of news that I received from our partisan radio from London and other cities, digested and put into perspective as common sense prompted me, I would make comments—rough predictions that, however, satisfied him—and his satisfaction could not help but be shared by me, too. So, I am waiting for the train, making conversation, and to one of his statements, “This situation will go on for a long time,” I respond, “That’s not so. Believe me, not much longer. One, at the most two days, and then the armistice.” He looks at me, half closing his eyes, carefully weighing each of my words. Then he bursts out, “That’s nice, but it’s not possible.” “You’ll see,” I insist, who knows why. The next day the armistice is announced. The Germans, who have already occupied Torino, shooting on the crowd in front of the Porta

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Nuova train station, are arriving in Asti. It is a Friday, and Mother is working at the stove, preparing the Sabbath meals. I do not want to alarm her more than necessary, and I begin the conversation a little generically: “You know, Mother, don’t get worried, but I’m afraid that we won’t be eating at home tonight.” We live on the premises of the temple, and the danger of being among the first to be taken is extremely serious. “Where then?” she says to me, smiling. I am overwhelmed by deep sadness. Even Mother has not lost her habitual calm; she does not realize the tragic, imminent danger. “I don’t know where, but it’s not wise to stay home. The Germans are arriving, and if we need to we’ll set off and go somewhere.” “But, Signor Rabbi, do you know that this evening is Shabbàth?” “Of course I know, but I’ll take all responsibility. This is one of those cases in which you have to act to save life.” She looks at me surprised, almost not believing it; then, seeing my determination, she begins to worry. I reassure her. “Get ready calmly. Don’t bring anything, only your purse, like you do when you go out every day. I’ll go out meanwhile to take a look around and see what’s happening; I could also be wrong.” I do not really need to find out what the situation is; I know it quite well, and besides, the trucks and tanks are invading the city and could arrive at the temple in a short time. Still, I want to go around quickly and alert at least some fellow Jews—especially those who are convinced that “certain things can’t happen here, because we’re Italians, in Italy and not in Germany.” I take the bicycle, brushing by German soldiers and vehicles, while I am seized by an ever greater fear. As had happened in the past, again now, and would happen even more often in the future, when I had to undertake certain actions, I was always seized by a sense of fear that was sometimes devastating. I succeeded at least partially in overcoming it—in controlling it at least to the point of doing what I had to do. But I still remember the sweating in the middle of winter, the cramps that tightened my stomach in an iron grip. I certainly was never a “hero,” and I often asked myself if these physical reactions of mine were not also signs of cowardliness, of irrational fear. That might also be, but one thing I know for certain—I never refused to carry out what I was asked or what

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I considered necessary to do—maybe a little recklessly but also sustained by the joy that I experienced from “a mission accomplished.” My nerves would relax and even a certain happiness would return to me and my comrades; we would toss down the drinks and go forward, always hoping. The prison of hope did not allow me any escape. I cannot say that the reception from my fellow Jews for my brief visits was exactly warm, except for a few instances; rather, it was forbearing. (“Leave immediately,” I said. “Don’t lose time. They’ll impose a ransom on you, with the promise of setting you free; but afterward they’ll deport you, too.”) There are those who take me for a fanatic, a madman. A person who has the same name as I comes out of his shop—in spite of the moment he is still keeping it open—and in a loud voice, frantic and almost offended, he tells me that I am a traitor because I am leaving and telling everyone to escape: “If they’re going to take me, they’ll take you, too, wherever you might be.” I get out of there, partly because right there, at the corner between the Artom house and the Gerbi bicycle store, some German soldiers, armed with submachine guns, have heard the shouts, and they are watching us. I should mention immediately that about thirty Jews were deported from Asti, of whom only three returned, and that the mother of that person with the same name as me, eighty years old, was deported too, and did not return. But what seems almost unbelievable is what happened during those months when I had already been in the Langhe for awhile. The order to arrest the Jews was given on the radio the evening of the first of December 1943. The arrests began on the second. The Jews of Asti were gathered together in the building that, if I am not mistaken, was the requisitioned seminary—at any rate, they were in the center of the city. They were even permitted to leave, but with the obligation of returning before nightfall. Now then, not only did it not pass through anyone’s mind to try to flee, but even those who (maybe because they were not on the prefecture’s lists) had not been arrested—being left without any means of support and knowing that in that semifree kind of prison they would be able to overcome the immediate problems of eating and sleeping—gave themselves up of their own accord. That group was not deported from Asti until the month of May (1944). It was said

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that some Jews had met in the office of the lawyer Momigliano “to collect a certain sum to offer to the Germans so that they would not follow through in the persecution”—obviously before the arrests. To me this information seems completely inaccurate. Wherever the Germans were, they always used this system: impose a ransom, collect the money, and then deport the Jews. Is it possible to imagine Jews giving themselves up to the Germans spontaneously, offering a certain sum, and asking to be left alone? If, then, the information that I have is accurate, I can say that I understand that the ransom imposed by the Germans on the Jews of Asti was around three hundred to four hundred thousand lire. I have never been able to ascertain exactly what happened in Casale during that same month. I have heard it said, and from several sources, that one portion of the Jews was taken directly from their homes; that others, like Doctor Fiz, were taken from the hospital (where he was a patient); and finally that a group of women, who had found refuge in a convent, was taken away due to a denunciation (and today this still seems impossible to me) by some nun from that very institute. We start off toward the train station, without suitcases or bags, as if we were taking a normal stroll. We are divided into two groups in order not to attract attention. There is also a certain coming and going, the din of the German motorized vehicles, and we pass by unobserved. By my side is the faithful Dick, who walks rubbing his back along my right leg, either because he, too, is afraid or because he is trying to protect me. Every once in a while he looks at me. I raise a finger to the tip of my nose; it is our sign that he has to behave well or else be silent. I have no idea where to go or which train to take—so I have decided to take the first train that is leaving, whatever direction it is going, if in fact the railroad is still functioning. What is important is to get out of the city, which seems more and more to me to be a deadly trap. Making our way, I run into Maria, an “Aryan” girl, a clerk in a provincial office, a good friend who also knows my family. She grasps the situation at once, draws nearer, comes up to me, and asks me where we are going. “I don’t know,” I answer. “Any train.” “Come with me. I’ll take you to my parents—they live in a nearby town. The problem is with the train. But the one for Acqui, by way of

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Nizza Monferrato, is about to leave now. We’ll get off, though, after three stations. From there we’ll have to walk a ways, and uphill, but we can do it in about three hours. You’ll stay there; then we’ll see.” I am truly moved. We get on the train, which is unbelievably packed with people. It is about to leave, or rather it was, because some twenty minutes have already gone by and it is still stopped. From the window I have noticed groups of Italian soldiers in flight; they throw away their jackets and try to hide themselves in any of the train cars. Shortly afterward there is the deafening stream of automatic weapons fire: German soldiers appear, running, shooting in every direction. They are hunting down Italian soldiers. I show my identity card to my brother, who is jumbled up in the crowd in the corridor—all of them packed against each other. He understands right away, and the document gets reduced to tiny pieces that are thrown from the window slowly and carried away and scattered by the wind. Dick has found an excellent arrangement, for him: he is crouched down on my shoes, but I do not disturb him—he must be very worried and bewildered, too. He doubtless senses the danger. The Germans have succeeded in stopping many soldiers, who now, with hands raised and at gunpoint, cross the tracks and disappear toward the exit, which is controlled by the ss. Finally, and slowly, the train sets itself in motion. I look out the window: dusk is falling. Thinking of the Sabbath, compared in Jewish mysticism to a bride, I murmur, whispering the traditional chant, “Come O bride, come O bride.” When we get off at a tiny country train station, it is already night. We set out to walk slowly, and the road climbs unrelentingly toward the hills. I think about my brother in Milan, but I hope for the best because I have alerted him, too, and the rendezvous, in case of an emergency, is at Castagnole—and here we go. It gets darker and darker, and high above the faint glimmer of the stars. Utter silence and cool, bracing air. No one speaks; everyone is thinking about this new expulsion, and unpleasant thoughts run through everyone’s minds. But thinking over the time spent in town, with the Germans everywhere, the confusion at the station and the shooting, I now feel more peaceful, relaxed, and almost serene. I breathe the air of the hills deeply—it has a little of the taste of freedom. It was in fact in the vastness of the desert, where there was not

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anything or anyone, that our ancestors had begun to know this paramount good. But what will become of us? My brother Alessandro is tired and sweaty; he sits on a small boulder and grumbles: “If we’d stayed home we would already have eaten supper by now, we wouldn’t be worried, and if the Germans came—” Here I interrupt him roughly, “Don’t curse! Thank the Lord that he’s given us a first sign of his help. You don’t know the Germans. I know a lot of things that I’ve never talked about but that are horrendous. I beg you—” Mother has drawn near, worried by the tone of my voice, even though she has not heard my words, and so I change the tone. “Get up, don’t be lazy. I’m so hungry I could eat a horse, too, but you’ll see—in a little while everything will be all right.” We go on, and toward midnight, taken in sympathetically by the mother of the girl, we sit down to eat. I get closer to Mother, and I realize that she can hardly hold back her tears, because when she is about to cry she starts to swallow, as if she were drinking. I take her hand tenderly: “You see, Mémi? Tonight we’re not having supper at home?” “And now, Signor Rabbi, what are you telling me?” She tries to smile. “I’m telling you that if you give me your blessing, you’ll make me happy.” (That is what Mother did on Friday nights after the loss of Papà.) She blesses me and hugs me. This is the first stop on a trip that will last nineteen months, but I am content with it—“Blessed be God, day by day.”4 I am cheered up by the blessing Mother gives in the dead of night in a house in the countryside—almost happy for this first step in delivering my family from the Nazi monster. There is also Aunt Albina with us—the one who, when I was a child, had it in for those “dirty fachists.” Grandmother has already been gone for many years. We spend Saturday peacefully in the country. The stifling heat of summer is over, and besides, we are in the hills. A slight, pleasant breeze is blowing. The sun is shining, but with a more subdued, almost rosecolored hue that rests on and softens the green of the leaves of the vines, mottled with verdigris, the black purple of the clusters of barbera, and the sparkling gleam of the muscat grapes. Dick enjoys those peaceful

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hours too, and he runs, leaping in every direction, then returns panting, almost as if to invite me to run wild too. Instead I have to be careful that he does not chase down some chicken or goose, as he keeps trying to do. It would be trouble for the fowl (but also for me) because Dick does not hold back. Then, when I reprimand him sternly, he lowers his muzzle with a repentant expression and even with a certain ostentatiousness about his humility; but he sneaks glances up at me, and he comes to curl up by my side. I am sitting on a lovely patch of grass. He puts his muzzle between his paws and waits until, at another signal that means that peace has been made, he explodes at me, and I have to defend myself from the affectionate blows of his paws and his sudden licking. There is a midràsh that asks, “Why, in Hebrew, is this animal called kèlev? Because it’s kol lev (all heart).” On Sunday we are all at Castagnole, and with the helpful good offices of friends I find our first makeshift accommodations. Meanwhile we try to get news about what is happening in Asti. It seems that for the moment the Germans are preoccupied with taking up secure positions in the area, which is very important because it is on the Torino-GenoaRome line. The Jews, as far as we know, have not had any trouble up to now. A few days later, seeing that the situation seems to be remaining calm, we decide to make a quick trip to town to try to rescue the Sefarìm and their ornaments. We’re running a certain risk, but it’s worth it. The problem, however, is this: where to hide them? We ask the bishop, through a third party, if he is willing to store objects sacred to the Jewish faith. After an initial refusal and subsequent hesitations, we receive the hoped-for affirmative response. We have to get busy; the rendezvous is for that very evening at dusk, just before curfew. We arrive in front of the main door to the bishop’s palace (which we find open, as arranged) with a small handcart with everything that we believe must be saved, closed up in a sealed crate. We enter, and we hand over everything. A priest approaches and informs us that His Eminence, the bishop, would like to greet us. The welcome is very warm, and the discussion, which deals generically with the current situation, goes on at length. Our deeply felt thanks for what has been granted us has probably initiated and directed the conversation along these lines.

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I look around myself, admire the surroundings—elegant, comfortable, and heated—and I think of Mother and my aunt, in their makeshift shelter in a farmhouse, and that if they were here they would be safe and have greater comfort. For a few minutes I live in the hope that such shelter will be offered. I even think of asking for it in a plain and direct way, but as always my stubbornness stops me; I have never asked for pity from anyone. The time for saying goodbye arrives, and the bishop accompanies us to the door, chatting amiably. Suspended from his neck a magnificent gold cross is swinging. When I think over how much I have available in my wallet, calculations that I could not define as truly honorable pass through my mind. The bishop pauses, puts his hand on my shoulder, and says to me, “Son, I bid you farewell like a father. Always have faith in God.” “Excellency,” I respond, “I have always had faith in God and today more than ever—because if God doesn’t help me, who would?” And I stare into his eyes. He smiles—his hand, adorned with a valuable ring, is still on my shoulder. “Very good, son, you’re right—don’t wander from this path.” But the path that awaits us, just outside the bishop’s palace, is submerged in darkness, and the terror of running into a patrol making its rounds seizes us. No one could save us from a round of machine-gun fire. In the silence and the deserted streets our footsteps seem to reverberate, even though they are deliberately light. We are under the porticos, by the squat columns, behind one of which we try to hide, having heard the measured tread of the soldiers who, as we peer out, we see crossing the piazza diagonally, heading toward us. Terror seizes us, and our hair literally stands on end. Almost stammering in reaction, I whisper to my brother, “We’ve done a mizwà, and now this is how it’s going to end?” I have barely finished speaking when the patrol stops in the middle of the piazza, and they start muttering—it is German, unequivocally. Then the soldiers, their machine guns still leveled, switch direction and go the opposite way. We stay there, almost paralyzed. Around us there is utter silence. Then we get ourselves together, still taking the long way home to check whether road blocks have been placed around the buildings near the temple.

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But the way is clear, we enter the house, and in the dark we reach our beds—which already know neglect. In the morning we set out for the station, as if we are going for a walk. We have hardly left, and have covered some fifty meters, when a German officer on horseback approaches us closely and watches us. For us it seems like he is trying to identify us. We have come almost halfway along Via Cavour when, from a distance, we recognize Rabbi Disegni, who is heading our way, although he has not yet noticed us. His figure is unmistakable. Tall, lanky, with a broadbrimmed, Margulies-style hat (his famous teacher at the Rabbinical College of Florence), a white tie, and a barely noticeable goatee. He bears a strange resemblance to Pius XII. We go up to him quickly. “What are you doing here, Rabbi?” I ask him. “I escaped; I fled from Torino.” My brother and I look at each other without speaking, dumbfounded and incredulous. Since I know him well, I cut it short. “Listen, you’re putting yourself in a tight spot. If you don’t get out of Asti, in a half hour at most, you can be sure you’ll be arrested.” The effect, as I had hoped, is immediate. “What should I do?” “Are you here alone or with your family?” “There’s my wife and a son.” “Where?” “In the café.” We are struck dumb; it is a café regularly frequented by fascists. We are ready to do everything possible, but we cannot expose ourselves beyond certain limits—we are too well-known. “Listen, we’ll go to the station and wait for you for a quarter of an hour. Go into this café, and with the maximum calm possible, without attracting too much attention, have your family leave and meet us inside the station. We’ll take care of the rest.” He still attempts a timid, childish rationalization—which means that he, too, does not realize the impending danger. “But don’t you think you’re exaggerating? It seems like you’re seeing Germans everywhere.” “Look to your right.” He turns his eyes and sees three Germans, stopped at a street corner,

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armed, who obviously are monitoring the traffic. Then he turns toward me and looks at me, opening his mouth but without speaking. Fear finally must have gotten the upper hand over his stubborn denial of reality. To speed things up I play the bully: “Remember, the café is close by and so is the station. I won’t wait for more than a quarter of an hour, after which I’ll leave you to your fate.” And I go away, followed by my brother. We met on the platform inside the station. They had even gotten some bags back from the baggage checkroom. The rav had not lost any time. We took them with us to Castagnole, where we found makeshift accommodations for them, too. The rabbi would have liked to live with us. But from the beginning we had already decided that even my married brother’s family would live separately. And this was to avoid being captured all together. Now we had to arrange for three groups. The possibilities for maneuvering in case of an emergency, however, were greater. I even go back to my job, because the atmosphere of the town is peaceful, there is only a modest flow of evacuees, mainly from Torino, and even the slightest news immediately becomes known to everyone. In the meantime Mother is worried, of course, about the house that she had to abandon so precipitously and especially about the heavier clothes needed for the winter, which is drawing near. I insist that we not do anything foolish. Somehow we will find a solution, but it would be extremely dangerous to try to enter the house—which by now could already be occupied—and to leave with suitcases. These are circumstances that also constitute a grave risk because of neighbors who sometimes are more interested than other people in looting abandoned houses. An immediate denunciation cannot be ruled out. That notwithstanding, one morning, waking up, I find only my aunt. Mother, along with my brother, having tracked down a pickup truck, has gone to town. I do not have any way of reaching them—the trains are operating irregularly. I spend the day at the top of a hill that commands a good view of the provincial highway. The long hours stand still. Dick is nervous; he goes back and forth as if he is searching for someone, then looks at me with a questioning expression and curls up at my feet. At every little sound that comes from the bottom of the valley he leaps to his feet and takes off running down

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the slope. Toward evening a pickup truck appears; when it is about to cross the railroad crossing to get onto the road that climbs upward, Dick begins to bark, and he evades every order. He is already dashing for the pickup, taking the shortest way through the fields. It cannot be anyone but them. Mother is all smiles—she has looted sheets, blankets, clothing, coats, shoes—and she looks at me with an I-told-you-so. I am shocked yet again by her foolhardy tranquility, and when I am about to protest she stops me with a gesture. “What do you want? It went well—let’s not think about it anymore.” For her the problem is resolved, and satisfied, she sets herself to tinkering with the cooking stove. I am looking for a farmhouse that will be a little isolated. A peasant, my friend, tells me that Pinulin’s house, if he agrees, would do well. The farmhouse in fact is a little off the beaten path and away from the road; it cannot be seen, even though the road runs nearby, because it is hidden by a dip in the land and by another farmhouse. The house is occupied by a family and by the grandfather, Pinulin (’l grand) and by the granda, the grandmother. The son, Lin, is a First World War veteran of the Alpine troops who always seems ready to climb up a crag or go on the attack, especially in these times in which his traditional enemies, the Germans, have come all the way here; he is married and has two daughters. The father has a patriarchal appearance—an angular face, burned by the sun, with a big white mustache that he often strokes with slow movements, especially after having emptied a glass of that wine that only he knows how to make, all in one gulp. And I can confirm—as later I will have the opportunity to verify fully—that it is a truly exceptional wine. I introduce myself, telling him that I would like to speak with him. “I’m not used to talking standing on my feet,” he tells me immediately. “Better in the house, sitting down comfortably, in front of a good glass of wine. Come inside.” The conversation is completely in dialect, naturally. We begin talking about the weather, how the season is going; I have something quite different on my mind, but the old man, whom I have never seen before now but who obviously knows me, approaches his subject in a roundabout way, asking me what I think regarding a question of boundaries with a neighbor. After having expressed my opinion to him as well as I

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can—which, however, meets his full approval—I finally risk coming to the point. I ask him if he can give shelter to me and my family. Knowing the people of the place well, I speak straightforwardly: “We’re not evacuees, we’re Jews. If you can, help us; if not, never mind, but don’t do us harm.” The old man is silent; he pours me and himself another glass of wine, raises it and looks at it against the light, drinks deeply, and wipes off his mustache. From the wrinkles on his forehead, now more marked, and from his slightly absent look, it seems almost as if he is recalling distant memories. Then, with a slow, broad gesture of his hand, downward from above and repeated several times, seeming to mean “and now listen to me,” he begins: “You Jews are human beings like us.” I am listening to the venerable old man, who always speaks slowly. He seems to be drawing a circle over his head with his hand, as if to encompass all of the farmhouse. He says, “Do you see this house?” “Of course.” “Well then, it’s all yours!” “Would it were so!” “No, no.” With the broad smile of a person who knows quite well what he is saying, he takes a hearty drink again, smoothes his mustache, and then says, “No, no, listen to me. It’s just like I said. You need to know that more than fifty years ago I decided to get married. I belonged to a family that had always worked, and worked hard, but we never had any money. And yet when you marry you must of course have a house. I knew that a Jew from Asti, a certain de Benedetti, who dealt in real estate, wanted to sell this very house and the land around it. So I go to Asti, I introduce myself, and I tell him what I want. The Jew asks me so many questions that I thought they would never finish, and then at the end he says to me, ‘I understand quite well. I know who you are and what family you come from. It’s settled; come tomorrow and we’ll sign the contract.’ I have to remind him that I don’t have any money, not even for the deed. ‘Don’t worry,’ he answers. ‘Come here, and we’ll put it together. I know that you’re good people, peasants who know how to work, and I always get along well with families like these.’ You can imagine my joy; I couldn’t wait to get home. That evening, then, I’m in the piazza, and I

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tell everyone—putting on a lot of airs, it’s true—that l’hai catà (I bought) this house. “The next morning, however, I was preceded by a fellow townsman.” (And here there was a brief pause to refill the glasses with that fragrant and velvety wine.) “That fellow, anyway, goes to De Benedetti, and he gives him this speech: ‘I know that you’re about to sell a house that’s located in my district to someone who doesn’t have even a cent. If you give it to me, I’ll pay you for it in cash. Here’s the money.’ And he unfolds a big handkerchief that he takes out of an old shopping basket. Fine. Do you know how the Jew responded?” (Another brief pause and another slow hand gesture, as if to say, “Now comes the best part.”) “He says, ‘Put your money back in your basket; I prefer the fellow without any cash over you with your money—because if he hadn’t come here first yesterday, you wouldn’t have come today. I’m not interested in why you came here, but I get the impression that you definitely weren’t about to do a good deed.’ And he sends him away. That’s how I was able to get this house and the land. It took me more than twenty years before I’d paid for everything. There are always years that go poorly, but the Jew said to me, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll pay,’ and so a little at a time this house became mine and will be my son’s. Now after so many years it’s the first time that I can do something for a Jew. This is why I told you that this house is yours.” I feel a knot in my throat, I am unable to speak, I am moved, I seem to be living a miracle, and the words of an old Hebrew saying come to mind: “The merits of the fathers fall upon the children.”5 Obviously I have never met this De Benedetti, nor have I ever known who he was, but like a wave that moves toward the infinite, his act of integrity came all the way to me. I remind the grand that he could be running a risk. He reassures me with patriarchal calm, “I already told you that we’re all the Lord’s creatures, and the Lord will help us.” And he stretches out his arms, raising them slightly toward the ceiling—that is, toward the sky. “Thank you,” I tell him, “thank you.” And I do not know what else to say. I get up, and I embrace him. From an unassuming old peasant, who has drawn his experience solely from the hard labor of the fields,

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who through his good fortune has not been corrupted by any form of education or been influenced by political interests and expediency, I have learned a lesson of high human kindness, of an ancient human kindness, unpretentious and great, biblical in flavor, as in the age of Boaz and Ruth.

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the soldiers, abandoned to themselves, continue to flee from the barracks to wander through the countryside, each of them trying to escape the pitiless pursuit of the Germans and somehow reach his own home. One day, entering the rooms of my friend and host, I find them full of soldiers. They are around the tables, drinking, eating, and talking loudly. They are singing, too; they are still living the illusions of a precarious freedom. They are no longer in the military, and they think that the war is really over. At a certain point I cannot put up with this youthful recklessness of theirs any longer, and I bang my fist on the table several times, shout “silence,” and then begin: “Friends, be careful, there’s really no reason to be happy. Don’t delude yourselves—we’re still not free, the war still isn’t over—” There’s a slight murmur of disapproval, but I continue more vigorously. “I repeat: don’t act like children. The worst is yet to come—and for everyone. You’re happy because you’re going home? Well then, now the Germans and the fascists will come to take you one by one, looking for you from house to house. First you faced an enemy directly; from now on you’ll be surrounded by enemies on all sides. They’ll shoot you or deport you if you’re not careful and you don’t get organized. Every home is about to become a war front. Organize yourselves, confront the Germans and the fascists, and struggle until peace and freedom become a reality.” The landlord, leaning in the doorway, is smoking a toscano in silence, but at this point he takes it between his index finger and middle finger and signals me as if to tell me, “Now that’s enough.” And in fact it could actually be dangerous to continue. But I am dealing with a practical problem:

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“You’re still in military uniforms. It’s not safe to go around dressed like this; let’s try to help you.” Meanwhile I take off my jacket and shirt and say to the nearest person, “Take this, it’s yours; we’ll figure out how we can supply the others.” When I am about to leave, in my undershirt, everyone jumps to their feet and comes to attention. I am at the office, talking with a clerical worker. The door opens, and the marshal enters; I greet him as usual, but he passes right by me without responding and goes into the bosses’ room. It seems rather strange to me. I am left musing, with the papers that I had in my hands. A few minutes go by, the marshal comes out, and I greet him, but he does not respond to me and instead responds to the greetings of the others. But I do not have time to figure out the situation because the ex-captain, one of the bosses, appears at the door and signals me to come in. He closes the door carefully and then says to me: “Marshal Legnano was here.” “I saw him. I greeted him, too, and for two—” “Let it go. He’s an honorable man. He came here, and he said to me, ‘My heart bleeds to have to arrest a decent person, but tomorrow morning at eight I have to arrest the lawyer and his family.’” Here is another decent person—circumstances (let us call it that) once again lead me to discover such a person among the most unpretentious. I keep silent, I do not know what to say, and I am nearly overcome with emotion. But the ex-captain of the Alpine troops wakes me up: “Don’t sit there dazed; let’s make a plan.” At difficult moments this military idiom of his resurfaces—“Let’s make a plan.” About ten kilometers from the town the province of Cuneo begins; consequently the carabinieri, especially those from Castagnole, do not go there, beyond the province of Asti. To cross from one province to another, the boss maintains, would be like crossing a border. You have to climb a lot, through the fields to avoid the roads, but a little after the “border,” at the top of a hill, there is a farmhouse that he owns. He himself will arrange to let the tenant farmers know. “Start moving yourselves there,” he concludes. “We’ll see how things work out, and then we’ll decide.” We will be able to set out a little after seven because it is clear that no one will come to look for us before eight.

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That same evening the radio announces the order to arrest all Jews. It is the 1st of December. The morning of the 2nd, we are on our way. It is snowing. Rav Disegni—with difficulty I have succeeded in getting him to change his hat, tie, and overcoat—does not want to hear of walking through the fields. There is a road that runs along the summit of the hills that winds in a half circle. He wants to take that one. It is more convenient, I agree, but I remind him of the grave danger he might be in. One could be observed from a distance of several kilometers. But I cannot convince him. I give him my best wishes, and I set up a rendezvous in a place that Lin, the son of Pinulin, has described to him quite well. My brother Lelio and his family are already on the way toward another refuge. Lin comes with us and carries an old cylinder-type revolver from the First World War, with the same confidence as if he had a cannon and was followed by a group of veteran Alpine soldiers. We take the way through the fields slowly—it is all up and down. Going up the ridge of a hill that keeps going higher it is as if we have collided with a blizzard. Luckily there is a hut where we take shelter to catch our breath. Mother and Aunt follow us in silence, too disconcerted to say anything and maybe not yet convinced of the necessity of the trek. A few sips of grappa, which Lin offers us from one of his flasks (old, like the revolver), and we return to the climb. I feel like this march is taking place outside of time. I also get the sensation of having already gone through this experience. I have read a lot, maybe too much, of our Jewish history, so that now I feel like I am going down an old road once again, that same road that over the centuries our ancestors came to know whenever they fled from persecution and desperately sought refuge. Walking, we leave tracks in the fresh snow. How many tracks have we left in the East and in the West, in the mud, in the snow, and in the sand? These tracks, too many tracks, have marked the rhythm of our history, and every one of them has always been a step toward the age-old hope to survive. But for how long, Lord? I look to the sky while the snowflakes strike my eyes like needles, and my face, which I had shaved completely a few hours earlier, without mustache and beard, makes me feel the cold more sharply. Dick leads the way, go-

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ing back and forth untiringly. He sniffs the air, sticks his muzzle in the snow, and then returns to me, wagging his tail, but without barking. He seems to say to me, “Everything is ok, forward.” We have begun the last leg of the climb that will bring us to the farmhouse, which is completely isolated. Lin stops me, has me turn around facing the route we have traveled, and shows me a somber hut, a ciabot, on the ridge of a hill at the edge of the horizon. “That’s mine,” he tells me. “In case of danger I’ll put up a red cloth that you’ll be able to see from here. If you don’t see anything, it means that there’s no news.” It is almost noon when we enter the house. It is Friday. A big room, with walls darkened by smoke, upon which the reflection of the snow, coming through two small windows with grates, fades into the gray. There is a large fireplace with logs that are blazing, spreading an agreeable heat mixed with the smoke that cannot find its way out through the chimney because of the wind that is blowing and whistling over the roof—which is covered with large stone slabs. Four people—mountain fellows—are sitting on stools around the fire by a big, blackened pot hanging from a hook over the logs. The oldest—he must be the tenant farmer—comes toward us and greets us. The others nod their heads without stirring. They are people of few words. He received instructions, and he welcomes us with mountaineer warmth, but he does not ask us who we are and why we are here. He tells us only that they have put up the pot for polenta, their meal, which they give to us. “You need it,” says the tenant farmer, “we’ll make another afterward.” He has us sit on a bench placed alongside the rough wall, with a plain table in front of us, and disappears. He comes back shortly afterward with a big bottle of wine and glasses. The polenta is ready—steaming, thick, several inches high—and it is given to us with butter. While we are eating the pot is put on the fire again to prepare more polenta. In the simplicity of the welcome and the hospitality there is a power of human solidarity that is found only among those who struggle every day in the midst of poverty to survive. Rav Disegni, with his ingenuous scholarly and religious outlook, still does not understand the situation, and he whispers to me that we need

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to tell the tenant farmer that he should postpone cooking his polenta and allow us the opportunity to prepare the Sabbath meal, which must begin in about four hours. I object in the strongest and most severe manner: “Is this our gratitude to these people who have welcomed us and given us something to eat and drink?” I assure him that we will find a solution within the limitations of what is possible, and I try to calm his growing anxiety. My brother Alessandro, who has a butcher’s certificate for fowl for family use, procures a pair of hens from the tenant farmer, at a high price, and Mother, setting to work immediately, is able to prepare them in time. When Sabbath begins, by the light of an acetylene lamp, hot soup and a bit of boiled chicken are ready. Rav Disegni is pleased, almost merry, and he devours the meal with an excellent appetite as usual—even if he sometimes claims that he eats very little because of his stomach, which nonetheless must be made of iron. He tells me that he feels like he is reliving a Hasidic story. Maybe he is right, but I get the impression that he is continuing to live among the clouds. The next morning the snow is high, but it has stopped snowing; it is cold, and the limpid sun allows us to see the ciabot—which I have gone out to check—quite well. There is no red sign on the whiteness of the snow. Everything is peaceful, at least for now. This is a verification that I will undertake several times a day, walking carefully on the icy snow while Dick capers around me as if he wants to help me. When I stop he comes alongside me and presses against one of my legs with his back. It is Monday afternoon, and here comes Lin. His smiling face— wrapped in a cape and wearing his old, threadbare, Alpine army cap— clears my mind of every doubt. He updates us about the situation: the marshal has informed Asti police headquarters that he carried out the investigation and did not find anyone. Police headquarters insisted on continuing the inquiries, and on Monday morning the marshal reported having painstakingly scoured the area, visiting numerous farmhouses but not having found anyone. He added that the information he had received from various sources indicated that the family had headed toward the province of Torino.1 And what do we do now? To stay in that farmhouse, which was almost in the mountains, would have been very difficult since we would be completely isolated—which could certainly be a positive fac-

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tor but which also meant that we would be far away from every possibility of getting supplies. Strike out into the province of Cuneo? But where to go, not knowing anyone? After discussing it at length we choose the only solution that can be attempted, even though it is certainly risky: if we are no longer thought to be in the province of Asti, we will be searched for in other places—but no longer in this area. Proceeding with caution, keeping ourselves hidden, we can return precisely to the place we left. A certain guarantee is indirectly provided us by the marshal himself, who, however, does not have to get involved in explaining it to us, like before. The following afternoon Lin comes with a cart full of hay, pulled by an ox. Mother, Aunt, and the Disegni couple find places. The others follow on foot at a certain distance, under the continual vigilance of Dick, who has understood his job. I have explained it to him with a few repeated gestures, and he comes and goes, checking to see if the road is clear. I have told Lin not to speak a word to anyone about our presence, that it is extremely dangerous for everyone. One morning I see a cart pulled by a horse entering the farmyard and a peasant who greets Lin very warmly. The old fellow calls me loudly without hesitating. I come out in a huff, and I tell Lin brusquely, “What did I say to you?” He answers, “If I bring you Carlin,” and he gives him a slap on the shoulders, “if I bring you Carlin, you can trust it, if you trust me.” And he acts offended. Carlin approaches and gives me a strong handshake. I do not have small hands, but my right hand disappears in that viselike grip. He does not pay any attention to what I just said, and stroking his cheek with a little bashfulness—which surprises me in a peasant who is so solidly built—he asks me, smiling shrewdly, “Tell me—do you eat bread?” “Of course. When there is any.” “And if it’s white?” “So much the better.” “If that’s so, then there you are,” and he extends his hand toward the cart. “I’ve brought you seven sacks of flour. This way you are supplied for the whole year.” “You’re very generous,” I stammer, “but I’m not in a position to pay.”

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“Don’t worry. I’m not here for that. I’m certainly not going to stockpile it. I’m giving it to you and your family, and when you can I’m sure that you’ll pay me. I trust the Jews. If it comes to the worst—but knock on wood—I will still have done a good deed. But you’ll see, everything will turn out for the best.” Here is another honorable man, an unassuming peasant, a teacher of life, who cheers me and proves that human feeling still exists, that love for one’s neighbor is not just an abstract religious declaration. Before leaving he takes me by the arm as if we have already known each other for a long time, and he says to me, “I don’t live far from here. When you want, come visit me; it’s as if it were your home. There’s always something to put between your teeth, and we’re never lacking for a good glass of wine or even a cigarette.” And he winks. With Carlino a series of treasured acquaintances begins: Notu, Cicchìn, Giuanin, and others whose names after so many years escape me—but not their brotherly friendship and their readiness to come to our aid on every occasion, even at the cost of running grave risks, as in fact they did, and more than once. Just as unforgettable, too, are those winter evenings spent in different barns amid the warmth of the surroundings and the slow ruminating of the cattle, by the faint reddish light of a bulb hung from a wire, settled in the hay, talking about the current situation and listening to the old legends of the Langhe.2 I learned how this Piedmontese dialect, with a particular and unmistakable cadence, could lend itself, as a pliable conversational tool, to expressing ideas and recounting events with extraordinary sharpness and biblical simplicity, at a level that could have caused envy among persons who were highly educated, even at the diplomatic level. The adjectives were few, and the measured words were accompanied by some slight hand gesture, a smile, a slight bending of the head, or a few moments’ interval between one word and another, which served to enliven or heighten the conversation in an extraordinary way. Carlin had a brother who was a priest in Asti. He often went to visit him, walking on the ties of the train tracks, since the train was not running anymore. He went and returned on the same day, some forty kilometers, bringing back supplies of what was needed—oil, salt, and cigarettes. We waited for him in his barn, thinking as well about the bad encounters that

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he could have had. In the silent night we would hear him arriving, with the slow, steady pace of an Alpine soldier. Entering the barn he would take off his knapsack while the sweat steamed from his shoulders. He would calmly inform us about the current situation, speaking slowly, keeping us in suspense when he saw that we were interested in some detail, stopping and watching us, enjoying our impatience. He would restore himself, eating something and taking a large drink, and then, giving himself a slap on the head, completely disconsolate, he would say, “Oh, I forgot the cigarettes.” And shortly afterward, “Luckily I did get one pack,” and he would pull out a pack of Nazionali from a pocket. But the “rations” provided by his brother were then distributed to everyone, and generously. Carlin was not short of that typical peasant humor either. In the summer, when he usually had to get up quite early, he would come up to me the evening before and say to me, very seriously, “Can I ask you a favor? Tomorrow, couldn’t you sleep a couple of hours for me, too?” Giuanin was good-natured and always smiling, while his brother Cicchìn had a hard look, and should the need arise, he knew how to be so but also how to face difficult situations courageously. During the period of the harvest, if I was free from other commitments, I did not skip the meals—true banquets—that followed the wheat threshing. It would be a shame not to be there, but the real trouble was being able to last—because the first meal could take place at seven in the morning, the second about three in the afternoon, and the last one about nine to ten in the evening. And you could not be present at one farmhouse and then be absent at another. Just as beautiful and peaceful were the days when the hay was cut, and I took part in the different jobs of gathering it from the meadow and then bringing it to the hay barn. Or else the job of pruning the vines and the afternoon snacks of bread, fresh garlic, and light wine. Or the evenings when we husked corn on the threshing floor while the radio played popular, patriotic, and romantic songs, from “Comrades, a destiny . . .” to “Come, there’s a road in the forest . . .” and “Mama, my song flies to you . . .”3 Then there was the grape harvest, a chapter entirely unto itself: gathering the grapes, crushing them, the wine that fermented in the vats

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and got stirred with a pole to release the gas (while a lit candle placed on a stool served as an alarm for the deadly danger caused by the grapes’ fermentation), and the several pressings of the marc. These were the activities to which the peasants invited me—as if I knew the tricks of the trade—and in which I took part, especially when we were in a period of relative calm, having several towns under the control of our 2nd Langhe Division. A little at a time I got to know not only the places—this being extremely important for all eventualities—but also the people. There were also peasants who did not deny their help to the partisans or Jews but did so with the utmost prudence, even to the point of refusing hospitality, though furnishing you with what you requested, while excusing themselves in a thousand ways. The house, the fields, and the animals came first, even before the family itself and thus before one’s neighbor and country. Certainly there were, though not many, those who supported the repubblichini and the Germans; but they—almost all of them at least—were watched, and not only by the partisans but also by the other peasants themselves. There were also strange types, unpredictable, subjects worthy of a novel, of those stories that seem to be the fruit of literary fantasy, but who exist in reality and always will exist. Certain characters who, because of their traits, become famous and bring glory to whoever “created” them. In reality the merit of the writer—and it is not a little—consists in carefully observing the world that surrounds him and in reproducing it as it is. Often the greatest work of fantasy is nothing other than a faithful photograph of reality. Thus, to give some examples, there was such a fellow who lived alone at the top of a hill, in a large farmhouse without a blade of grass around it. The house seemed as if it were built on the peak of a bare mountain. Woe to whoever dared to go near that house. You would immediately hear dreadful shouts and the threat of getting shot at. And in fact the barrels of a hunting rifle would appear right away in a first-floor window. He would also come down to town or approach some farmhouse, however the mood struck him. He did not talk with anybody; even when he went into a store he would point out the merchandise with a finger, limit himself to indicating the quantity,

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wait to find out how much he had to pay, pay, and then leave, always with the look of someone who had to be ready for a surprise attack, and his grim and suspicious gaze did not spare anyone. Then, when he had been drinking, he was ready to challenge anybody to any kind of contest, among which the strangest were: running shoeless over rocks, shinnying up trees, and shooting at small objects thrown in the air—and he was also ready to wager large sums. Sometimes at night there were also accidents, as well as “some lessons.” A little way from the first fellow there was another character, ruined by wine, unfortunately, but because of some of his attitudes one could classify him as a romantic. He wandered around the barnyard, always with an absent look, neglecting the work in which his family members, in contrast, were seriously engaged, beginning with his mother, who was over eighty. Sometimes he would disappear, but everyone knew that he had gone to the Riviera di Ponente.4 He kept up this habit of his even during times when it was difficult and dangerous to travel. After about ten days he would return, loaded with flowers, which he offered to everyone as he slowly climbed the road that led back home. The gift was accompanied by a kind of ritual—a slight bow, a smile, and a warm, rather vague greeting. The first resistance groups—the partisans, or, as the Germans and those of the 10th Motor Torpedo Boats called them, the “bandits”—were forming in the region. The beginnings were not easy because of the difficulties of really being able to count on a ragtag collection of people without preparation (or perfunctorily trained when they had done their military service), on groups that were connected with political parties, and on others who wanted to keep the features of apolitical military organizations. I came into contact with the latter. After all, the common enemy we had to fight was the Germans and their fascist lackeys, and we had to be able to defend ourselves from them, too. Our commander, of the “Poli” division, a sea captain, pointed out to us that we would be able to discuss politics at the right time in Parliament, but now we were at war and we had to submit to its laws. The other groups often accused us of being in favor of the king and the House of Savoy, and they even called us badogliani; but such definitions were extremely inaccurate, at least as far

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as I could tell from the group of comrades that I joined.5 And although it is true that when the news spread that Prince Umberto would be parachuted into some area of Piedmont to take part in the Resistance there was widespread enthusiasm, it must be said that it was shared by many partisans not belonging to our groups. In reality then, as is well-known, Umberto did not attempt so much, and maybe this absence of his signaled the definitive sunset of the House of Savoy from that point on. In the meantime we had to get false documents. I had had the parish priest of the town asked if he were disposed to go to Asti and help our group at the registry office. Here, as I remembered, there was an elderly clerk, an old socialist, a friend of Papà, and he would not have denied us his help. On the other hand, to send unfamiliar persons would have been completely useless, but the request of a priest would remove every justifiable doubt. It was a generic promise, because the times were difficult and traveling was dangerous; still, if he were to go, he would take care of the request. But time went by, and the need for documents became more and more urgent. So we organized an office ad hoc. Having obtained some blank identity cards from a municipality—or rather, having stolen them from the office of a municipality—I embarked upon my first piece of work as a document forger. I learned to imitate the writing of the clerks and the Germans for the safe-conduct passes. A little old man went on a bicycle to Torino, where he had the necessary stamps made by a craftsman; after having removed the handlebar from the bicycle, he hid them in its tubes, and he returned to the little town, passing through the various checkpoints. It went completely smoothly. My name is now Mario Ferraris, born in Santa Maria Capua Vetere, resident of Torino, on Via delle Rose, which had been bombed a while ago and all but destroyed. A police force command, to which I get attached, later reaching the rank of deputy commander, is formed. The office will subsequently establish itself at Villa Cora, in Costigliole d’Asti, not far away.6 There are a variety of jobs: those of an administrative nature, having to deal with the municipalities under our control; those dealing with the counterespionage work of obstructing and neutralizing dangerous communications and information; and those focused on the collection and diffusion of news, gathered from different sources, including radio.

fig. 19. Augusto Segre, during World War II. According to his son, Daniel Segre, this photo was probably placed on the forged identity card Augusto Segre used as a partisan. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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Late one evening, together with two other partisans who have joined me at Pinulin’s house, I have to reach a group of comrades. It is a dark night, there is a lot of mud, and we decide to take the main road; we will get there more quickly and get less muddy. Dick, as usual, leads the way. By now he has become quite good at this job—he comes and goes continuously, without resting; when he is on his way back he wags his tail to reassure me that there is not any danger. Suddenly, however, he arrives running, sinks his teeth into my leather jacket, and tries furiously to pull me toward the edge of the road. “He’s crazy,” my companions tell me. I, on the other hand, pay attention to him and make a sign that we should hide ourselves behind a nearby cane thicket. Weapons raised, we wait. Several long minutes pass; then there are some shadows at the bend in the road, and shortly afterward a patrol passes in front of us, walking slowly, divided into two lines at the sides of the road. I caress Dick’s muzzle. We understand each other wonderfully well. We do not move, and after a little while, which seems never-ending to us, we choose the muddy route through the fields until we reach the bottom of the valley. The fear still has not left me, but when I see Dick burst out running back and forth, I realize that we have made it. I owe my life to my faithful friend on another occasion as well. I am in Lin’s farmyard, in front of the farmhouse where my family lived (in one of the wings, separate from the owners’ apartment), playing with the dog, when I catch him by the collar, just in the nick of time. Coming out of the tunnel that led to the farmyard, a bully had appeared—in boots, black shirt, and with an arrogant bearing—going directly toward Lin’s door, after having eyed me closely because of the dog that is barking furiously. Dick is frothing at the mouth, and I am straining to hold him back. I scold him for acting wildly, and then, to avoid more trouble, I take him behind the farmhouse and try to calm him, but I realize that he is still restless, his nose and nostrils trembling. After half an hour I hear loud talking in the farmyard. The dog is agitated again, but I grab him by the muzzle and stop him. Lin looks for me and finds me while I am still trying to calm Dick. “Good for you that you went away. He asked me who you were. I said, ‘A lingéra (a kind of vagabond) passing through, whom I’d given a glass of wine.’”

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“But who is he?” I ask. “Unfortunately he’s a relative of mine, a criminal who already has many people on his conscience. You had a close call.” A few months later this fellow—who lived in Castagnole and feared an attack by the partisans—had, together with another fascist, stationed himself in the doorway of his house (which bordered the road) with a machine gun. With his weapon aimed he was monitoring all the travelers who arrived on one of the few trains that were still functioning on an irregular schedule. All of a sudden, who knows why, he took aim at one of the travelers and shot him dead with a burst. The dead man, as was known, was just an unassuming business representative who came from a local wine firm. It was a Saturday afternoon; I heard the gunfire all the way from Lin’s house, and I was immediately interested in what it was about, so I got in touch with some comrades. The next morning, about ten, we hear another shooting. We learn that Lin’s relative was killed by his comrade of the previous afternoon, in the middle of the piazza. The person who gives me the news tells me that the people are completely satisfied and says that they would like to name a street for the “avenger.” I ask his name. The information is quite depressing: he is the same one who had shouted “Juden rauss” at Professor Foa and me in Asti on the eve of Kippùr. I immediately give the alarm—why is he around here? At the end of the war he will pay for his crimes, as he deserves. But in the meantime we have to investigate. We are passing through a rather difficult time. The episode just narrated is one of many that threw the Langhe region into chaos during that period. Alba fell into German and repubblichino hands again. A German command was set up at Canelli. The danger actually came from these two places more than from Asti, which was exposed to several partisan fronts. With a certain foolhardiness I made a quick trip with Cicchìn as far as San Stefano Belbo to take stock of the situation. With false documents and a horse and gig, we set out in broad daylight, sufficiently armed. A fragmentation grenade, weighing about a pound, is hanging from my belt. Every once in a while I automatically check the safety. Cicchìn says to me, “Cut it out. The fact is that if it explodes, you won’t even realize it.” We have requisitioned the gig and the

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horse—Durin—and the poor horse does his duty as well as he can, given that we sometimes forget to give him fodder or some substitute. When he is reduced to desperation he knocks his harness off with his tail, and he stops. Only then do we realize that we are out of gas. We come to a farmhouse where there are relatives of Cicchìn. We put the grenade under the seat and go in. All at once Cicchìn lets out a yell, clears the window with a leap, and reaches the gig, upon which the peasant’s two children are entertaining themselves, hopping on the seat. Taken on the whole, the district is calm. We return and find out that there has been a raid in town by a partisan group, and there have been several summary executions. We have to expand the inquiries. Maybe something big is being prepared. I am entrusted with the job of going to Asti to find out if there is any movement in those districts. When I am on a mission alone—leaving even Dick at home—I usually travel only with false documents, but unarmed. If you run into a checkpoint and you are searched and found to have weapons, you are executed immediately. And one person alone, what could he do? So I proceed with the weaponry of documents, which I myself put together, and with the hope that everything will go well. Evening is falling, and I realize that it would be better to find someplace to spend the night. I am near the town where my family and I found refuge when we first fled Asti. It is also very cold, I have been walking for many hours, and I have a hunger that grips my stomach like a vise. They are all good reasons for a halt, and if possible a safe one. Except for some patrols, I have not noticed anything in particular. I knock at the door, and Maria herself, the girl who guided us out of the city, comes to answer. She looks at me surprised; she doesn’t recognize me. Of course in the night she can just make out a man wrapped in a cloak, with an old Alpine soldier’s cap and without a beard or mustache; but she recognizes me by my voice as soon as I speak, and she welcomes me with affectionate warmth. Right afterward, though, she raises her finger to her nose as a sign not to speak, and she goes ahead of me on tiptoes. We go up a small, steep stairway that leads to the loft, and then, hidden behind bales of straw, there is a door that leads to a little room with a small window that looks out behind the house. She closes the door and then explains all this mystery to me.

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“Down there,” and she points to the floor with her hand, “is my cousin, who, as you know, is an officer in the militia, and I would not want anything unpleasant to happen. Now, at any rate, I am going to find out the lay of the land. Here you’re safe; be calm. Just take off your boots, and move around as little as possible. Meanwhile, rest on the cot. You look tired—” “And famished,” I add. Now I am worried, too, and not just a little. “Just look at what a mess I’ve gotten myself into,” I say to myself. “Here, of course, it would be very useful to be armed, because if the cousin has realized that someone has entered, and he comes up, what do I do?” I look around—there is only a staff, which is not much in case of an emergency. An hour and more goes by, and my worries increase. Then finally Maria appears with plates and a bottle. Not bad, and indeed a good sign, I say to myself. “Here’s something to put between your teeth,” she begins, “and later I hope I can bring you something hot, too; but you have to be careful. You should know, anyway, that all this time I was trying to bring the conversation around to the Jews to hear what he thought. “‘They’re unfortunate,’ he said to me, ‘victims of a particular political situation. But what can be done? Everyone has his destiny, and they have this one. I’m not so sure about hunting them down, like they’re doing now. I forget about them . . .’ “So then I asked him what he would do if by chance he were to run into one of them.” Her cousin, extending his arms, had said, “Beh, if they’re right underfoot, as an officer I have to do my duty—there’s no getting around it.” The situation is not very promising. I ask her if he had realized that someone had entered. He had heard the knocking, and she had told him that some fellow had come by to make an appointment for the next day, for an office matter. I eat slowly—even my hunger is gone—and then I smoke the repubblichini cigarettes listlessly. Left alone I stretch out in my clothes on the cot. It is cold, and I cover myself with the cloak. I cannot sleep. Suddenly there is a shaking, and it seems like the house is about to collapse. For some time seismic tremors have been recurring throughout the area. But we needed an earthquake that very evening, too? And what

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do I do now? If I go down, I run into the militia officer, and if I stay, I have to reckon with the earthquake. I am in a fine trap. More interminable moments pass, and then there is a big, new tremor. I hear confused shouting from the road. I put on my boots, but I stay still, petrified with fear. I am in a cold sweat, and I collapse on the cot, passively awaiting what will happen. On the other hand, better a cave-in than to fall into the hands of the repubblichino. How much time goes by? Suddenly Maria appears with a cup of boiling hot coffee (“Coffee, coffee,” we would say when it was the real thing) and a small bottle of cognac, which, what’s more, is French. War booty placed at the disposal of a member of the Jewish race. Early that very morning, when the town, after the nighttime scare, is still sunk in sleep, I slip away. Better the cold and the biting air than the prospect of an arrest. On the way thoughts tumble out. A year and more has already passed since we started living this life. We have also had a Kippùr—“the Kippùr of the Resistance,” as I had called it. I had taken out machazorìm and talletòth from a buried metal case for the occasion, and we had sung the old melodies while we took turns at guard duty, scanning the bottom of the valley with a French spyglass, because there were suspicious movements during those days. And it had been a very beautiful Kippùr, spent between poignant memories and unassuaged hopes. Why on that morning walk, in the chill of winter, did my thoughts return to that day? Maybe to find some reason for comfort, for strength in a moment in which I felt more alone than ever and more depressed than before by events—unforeseeable events, like those I had experienced just a few hours earlier. On the other hand, why complain? It had gone well, had it not? Here, out of despair, my optimism revived. I make my report, and I listen to the others. Unfortunately there has been a fire fight around Canelli, and Commander Poli’s father was killed; in spite of his age he had not wanted to forego being present. One gets the general impression that something is brewing. It is Friday, December 2, and a large-scale sweep operation is unleashed. Thousands of soldiers are coming from every direction, and they close in on us like a ring. Tanks, armored cars, police dogs. The siege will last about four days. There is nothing to do but scatter; any resistance would be useless.

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The enemy, not knowing the place well, does not move forward at night. They stop wherever they are, and they fire in every direction, intermittently, all night long. You have to be careful even in the house, because bullets are always coming, and so you have to find a place away from the doors and the windows and hope that some ricocheting bullet does not go crazy. Mother has lit two candle ends in a corner—the Sabbath candles. I want to leave to try to find out what is happening on the opposite hill, where the sharp, repeated echo of machine-gun volleys and the guttural rauss are coming from at intervals. Crawling, I move behind a small boulder and try to see something with my spyglass. I just make out shadows racing from house to house, then the flash of shooting, the fearful screaming of adults and children, and the shrill voices of terrorized women. We are awake all night. Luckily I am at home. There are two fellows with me, and Lin has a cousin and two of the latter’s comrades-in-arms, all three having fled from the recently reconstituted military units. We have set up a reliable information service. Little girls with baskets go to the nearest farmhouse with the excuse of repaying bread that has been borrowed or asking for some. In this way some news circulates from farmhouse to farmhouse. I have placed myself under the roof of the hayloft, and having raised a tile I follow the various movements of the patrols with a spyglass. They circle around an area, and after half an hour another patrol appears, which checks the same place. A sweep operation organized German-style, no doubt about it. We have prepared some hideouts, but with the dogs there is not much we can do. There are still the false documents, including German ones; it is the only card we can try to play. It is reported that a patrol is getting near. I run down from the hayloft, and I hide the revolver and the grenade in a big, rusty anchovy can full of lots of odds and ends, situated next to the door. I get in and shut the door, barely in time. Here they are; a German noncommissioned officer is in charge. They begin to search. In the kitchen is old Pinulin, who is eating but does not lose his composure and beckons them with a friendly gesture of his hand. They enter the barn. My aunt is there, her back turned to the door, reading a book. I did not know that she was

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there. They take a glance, see white hair and a threadbare cape, and they withdraw. My aunt is not aware of them; she will let out a scream later on, when the Germans have gone away, and I tell her, “We had a close call, Auntie!” The noncommissioned officer exhorts his men to look for “bandits and weapons.” Meanwhile he has put his foot on the old tin can, and banging on it with the heel of one boot, he beats out the rhythm of the order. “If it goes on like this,” I say to myself, “we’ll all be blown up right here.” The sunlight is reflected on the window—consequently I can see what is happening in the farmyard without being seen. A soldier approaches our door. The doorknob turns, and precisely at that moment there is a terse order: “Ein Moment.” The doorknob stops. The German has realized that on the side of the farmhouse there is another house, completely closed up and bolted. The reason is simple—the owners have long since moved elsewhere. The German, however, who must have noticed it only then and immediately thinks that it might be some kind of redoubt, takes a step backward, shoulders his machine gun, and calls together all the soldiers under his command. Thus some of the soldiers from the hayloft, and other Germans who were going up the stairs of the house, come running down. Lin, who is truly quite brave, has been at the side of the noncommissioned officer all the time, with the knowing look of someone who is at peace and is not hiding anything. At this point, however, he speaks up and explains the truth simply—and therefore is not believed. The German gives the order to break down the doors. Lin requests at least a written declaration: “You know, when they come back, they might take it out on me. I know those people.” But the German makes a brusque sign to be silent and immediately lets loose a burst of fire against the house. I continue to watch the scene—maybe we will pull through. “Of course, you can count on it,” that reckless Carlin says to me. He had left his house right then just to be near, and he had come, as he said, quite simply “to keep you company.” Doors and windows are forced open, and a great deal of rummaging about and some bursts of submachinegun fire come from inside. I enjoy the spectacle, which goes on at length, almost half an hour. There is no corner that does not get ransacked; it is

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our good fortune. When they leave they must have forgotten about the knob on my door. The commander gives the signal to go. Lin speaks up again: “You have worked awfully hard—come and eat something, the wine is good.” The veteran Alpine soldier has been very clever, even if he has played a dangerous card. The German, who has looked at him, squinting his eyes, says to him, “Other time, t’anks, we always working.” And they go away. “No one is to budge” is the watchword that I send out. The same soldiers, or others, could return. More than an hour goes by—a very long hour, endless—and we do not see anyone. Maybe we have made it. But we still stay there, immobile and dazed. Then comes Mama’s quiet voice: “Come on, children, let’s eat something. It’s Shabbàt, and we still haven’t made Kiddùsh.” The Kiddùsh goes well, my brother does it, but eating? Who can eat? My throat is still tight, as if it is in a vise; I barely get down a little liquid, and then I can drink. Suddenly there is a great commotion, and about fifteen young men, in jackets and armed, come running into the farmyard. Who are they? Lin is outside immediately and then comes to tell me that it is one of his cousins with a group of partisans. I order them to clear out of the farmyard immediately and withdraw to the barn. We are at the top of a hill, in winter, there is not a leaf, and they can be seen from a distance of several kilometers. Night comes, and I am informed by the usual little girls that the area now seems to be free—the Germans with the repubblichini are moving toward Neive. We need to try to reestablish our contacts. The group that was in the barn has already left. With my two companions and the inseparable Lin we start out walking, cautiously, at the edges of the road—it is pitch dark. After barely a quarter of an hour we hear footsteps and a “Who goes there?” My companions put cartridges in their Sten guns. I give them a signal to be silent and to withdraw as quickly as possible, across the vineyards. Actually I do not know who is opposite us, but behind, at home, we have our families. The best thing is to get to the farmhouse and if necessary attempt a defense. We are at home in a few

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minutes, sliding down the slope, through the narrow spaces between the groups of rows of vines. Then I arrange a line of defense, availing myself of the other young men who had stayed behind too. The house lends itself rather well to a certain resistance. A little time goes by; there is utter silence and then the sound of footsteps. It appears that a group of people is coming. They must have sensed that they might run into some danger, and they shout, “It’s us.” They were the ones from before. Off to the barn for a report, while the positions get reinforced with our new comrades. We examine the situation; it is likely that the Germans have made a pretense of leaving and that some Nazi fascist units have stayed behind. However, this explanation does not satisfy me. I have the young men recount to me what happened to them word for word. Very simply, while they were marching they heard some footsteps. They jumped into a ditch, and they called out a “Who goes there” without, however, getting any response or hearing more footsteps. Very simple, right? By sheer chance we had avoided shooting each other. We want to make a trip to Castagnole Alto with Cicchìn and some others to check on several things. When we start walking it is already very late. Even though there is a moon, we do not forego the main road, which is easier and shorter. At a certain point we see a patrol ascending from low down on the road; they are carabinieri, definitely from Castagnole, with the well-known marshal. We are descending on the right side of the road, at the edge, while they are climbing on our left. Wrapped in our cloaks, we do not change the tempo of our footsteps; when they arrive at our elevation, we greet them in unison: “Buona sera.” “Buona sera,” they respond, and everyone proceeds on their way. It is possible that the marshal had recognized me, but he did not see me; he had made a report that said that for quite some time I was no longer living in that area, and therefore he could not arrest me! The beauty of it was that a couple of months later two of the carabinieri who were with him that evening deserted and joined our ranks, specifically under my direct command, in the police section. They told me that the marshal, in response to the question from a carabiniere who mentioned me, had said, “I’m ruling him out. And besides, tonight I don’t have any time to lose. I have more important things to deal with!”

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One day, after more than twenty kilometers up and down through the hills, we cautiously approach a farmhouse at nightfall and ask for lodging. The peasant has some doubts, but he seems to me to be a decent person—with the usual fear of having troubles afterward. In the end, however, he allows us the use of the barn, after having given us some bread, cheese, and a few glasses of wine. We always take turns standing guard; it is an indispensable precautionary rule, for monitoring the owners of the house, too—them above all. We are extremely tired, and we spread out some straw as a mattress to sleep on. Dick curls himself up near me. His vigilance induces me to go to sleep because I know that he will take me by the collar of my jacket at the slightest sound and tug without ceremony. I fall into the deepest sleep. While I am sleeping, however, I get the impression at a certain point that something is streaming over my body, a little everywhere; but the sleep is too heavy. A violent tug from Dick, however, makes me spring up: from head to toe I am covered with cockroaches that run wildly like they are in a race. I undress, and I wash myself in the tub of water for the animals. My companions do the same. We take a good while to clean up our clothes. I carried that unpleasant sensation with me for quite a few days, scratching myself every once in a while as if I still had the cockroaches on me. An order arrives from the Asti prefecture: each homeowner must compile a list of the names of the persons whom he is housing and affix it to the door of the house. We meet with Lin, Carlin, and Cicchìn to decide what to do. Lin says to me, quite candidly, “You may have gone to the university, but you’re a moron!” “That’s possible,” I answer. “But I’ll show you. Here it’s written that the owner of the house has to compile the list. Is that true or not? And so if the owner of the house is illiterate, what can he do?” I try to remind him that you cannot play around with the Germans, but the other friends agree with Lin’s suggestion unanimously. Everyone is illiterate. The required list never appeared on any of their farmhouses. And it came off well! Lin had a sister who had been a patient in a nursing home for mental

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disorders in Torino for quite some time. She seemed healed now, and she would be returning home. We needed this, too?! I tell Lin, who is a little uneasy, to say to his sister that we are evacuees from Torino and that we are often gone because of work—this way she will understand why she does not see us. I do not think that such encounters would be advisable. The woman arrives home and, a little later, noticing that one part of the house is separated, asks why. She is given the agreed-upon answer, and for a couple of days, still not seeing anyone, she acts fine. Every once in a while there is a little quarrel for other reasons, but all in all, one could say, life goes on peacefully. But one ugly day she goes to the farmyard and bellows: “I still haven’t seen those people. If they don’t show themselves it means that they have something to hide. They’re people who must be wanted by the police. I’m going to the carabinieri now!” Lin stops her in time, brings her back in the house, puts her under a close watch, and then comes to me. What to do? The solution is not easy, but there is one—which maybe is somewhat cynical, and all the more so because her ravings were completely logical and pertinent in their substance. And I’m sorry, besides, for Lin and his family, but after some more hesitation I say to him: “There is a solution: call the doctor, have him examine her, and with one of his certificates, have her put back into the same nursing home again for a while. The doctor knows her, right?” “Of course, he’s the one who had her committed the first time. The fact remains that the doctor is fascist.” “I know, but if you call him it’s clear that you don’t have anything to hide; otherwise you wouldn’t call him. In fact, when he comes here and your sister tells him what she’s said, invite the doctor to visit the rooms. He won’t go, I’m sure of it.” It is a risk, but I do not see any other solution. I am sorry for Lin. Maybe it would have been better to have her see us right away, but how could we guess that a person in that condition would reason so sharply? The doctor comes. I have had my family leave the house, and they are at Carlin’s. I follow the unfolding of events from the hayloft. As soon as she sees the doctor, the woman bursts out (and basically she is right):

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“Do you realize that there are people hidden here and that my brother doesn’t want to let me see them? They must be criminals, it must have to do with the law. They’re people who must be reported and right away, without losing time—” “Of course, of course,” the doctor says, while he feels her pulse and takes her pressure. There is also an eye examination; he shakes his head. Lin says to him, “Signor doctor, come yourself and see—” “No, unfortunately, here we go again—another relapse. You’ll have to bring her back to Torino. I told you, if you remember, that it’s an unfortunately difficult case. Modesty aside, I never make a mistake.” And he begins writing. The next day the poor woman leaves for Torino again.

c h a p t er t wen t y- th re e

April 25

we are reporting to Commander Poli. He is a man with a lot of drive, and he knows how to handle things with a steady hand; but he is also a little strange and eccentric. He has grown a big beard and a head of hair that comes all the way to his shoulders. He has a white silk jacket, held in place with a belt crossed by a dagger, and a revolver on his hip. To sum up, a kind of Sandokan.1 It is Saturday, and he has sent me to pick up an 1100 armored car, captured on the 10th. I do not like breaking the Sabbath, but orders are orders, and we are at war. While he is talking he offers us Camels, which we accept, our eyes popping out. How long has it been since we have seen such cigarettes? I take mine, too, and I put it on the table while the others rush to light up. Poli looks at me and asks, “But you smoke, don’t you?” “Sure.” “And why don’t you light it?” “Because it’s Saturday.” A loud burst of laughter. “And what does Saturday have to do with it?” “It has to do with it because, as you know, I’m a Jew.” “Oh, lovely, tell me a little about this business—” “It’s a long story, I’ll tell you later.” When the meeting is over I tell him what the Sabbath is for a Jew, the various rules, and why therefore I am not smoking. His surprise is great: “ok, it’s beautiful that you’re disciplined and faithful to your religion, but here, between us, after such a long time— who would ever know if you’d smoked on Saturday? Maybe the Lord! So—it’s out of fear?”

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“No, not out of fear. But look, I’m just grateful to you for this—that is, for having given me, with the simple offer of a cigarette and so, in a completely simple and ordinary way, if you like, the opportunity to remind myself that I’m a Jew. And you know how much I’ve fought and I fight for my people.” “It’s something that I truly admire. Bravo!” And after a few seconds, “Wait for me, I’ll be right back.” He goes up to the first floor and comes back with a pack of Camels. “Take it,” he says to me. “You deserve it.” On the way back it is already dusk, and I say to my three companions, “Would you like to smoke another Camel?” “Fat chance!” they all answer. “Please, help yourselves,” and I take out the pack of cigarettes. “Swiped from the commander and well done by the police!” I explain how it happened. The driver stops the vehicle, turns toward me, and pointing his finger at me menacingly, decrees, “You’re a fool.” “And what are you saying?” “But it’s simple, isn’t it? Why didn’t you tell us before? You made us all out to be Jews, and observant ones besides.” We hear automatic weapons fire. We get out, and we see some partisans fleeing at breakneck speed on the road that runs along the hills. We realize that in a few moments we can reach a rocky area and try to provide covering fire to give them time to retreat. We get to the place, and the show begins. But the situation is more difficult than we foresaw. The hostile fire is now turned toward us, and it intensifies. We are behind good cover, behind some rocks, but with little space to maneuver; a little further on and we would be in the open. It’s not long until sunset, and we can get out in the dark. But the time doesn’t seem to pass; it’s as if the clock has stopped. The fire is getting thicker, and our ammunition is starting to run out. We’re living, all of us together, one of those moments that could be our last—when it’s not entirely fruitless to examine your conscience. Fear, which has already been gripping my stomach for a while, almost stops my breath. I ask myself if I have ever really done anything good in my life—anything for which it could be said that my life was not lived pointlessly. Moments of acute doubt—and then all of a sudden like a bolt of lightning: “I’m responsible for fifty kids making

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it to Israel. The Germans can take me and kill me, but they’ll never take them!” And I remain pensive but more peaceful. Then there’s a voice: “Hey, get moving, can’t you see that it’s already dark?” We return. One comrade has been shot through the hand by a bullet, at the base of the thumb. It’s swelling, and he’s losing blood. We have to do something. He does not complain, even though his face has turned completely white. There are truly courageous comrades among us who nevertheless cannot bear the sight of blood. One of them says, “Mario, think of something, come on, do it quickly.” And he leaves. I get hold of a rudimentary first-aid kit, and with a great effort I prepare for the “operation.” The blood stains my hands, and I feel cramps in my stomach again, but now with a vomiting sensation, too. I have a bottle of grappa within reach; I take long drinks from it and offer it to my wounded comrade. He drinks too, silent all the time. He’s quite brave! Once the wound is disinfected, I try to stop the bleeding, and I bandage it all. I’m an expert at bandaging; I learned it when I was still a boy, at the Margherita Hospital. It’s done. My undershirt is dripping with sweat, and I sit down on a little cot; if it goes on like this someone is going to have to take care of me. Bit by bit I calm down, light up a cigarette, and look around. Nearby me, sitting, is my wounded comrade—who smiles and cheers me up. We have switched roles now. We learn that in the upper Langhe there is supposed to be a villa belonging to a repubblichino bigwig. We go to check it out. It is a grand villa, encircled by a fine garden. Only the caretaker is there. We surround the house and go in. We are astonished. In some rooms the floors are covered by an infinity of silver objects, plates, silverware, and bottles of liqueurs and French perfumes; in short you cannot even enter those rooms because you would inevitably have to step on something. The police commander takes one of the various typewriters (there are many), has the caretaker (who follows us around with open resentment) give us several sheets of paper and carbon paper, and starts making a catalog of everything that we find. When the catalog is finished he has the caretaker himself sign it, and we sign it, too. One copy is left with him, one is sent to the division command, and one is for our office. Afterward everything is loaded and brought to our office at Villa Cora. Only one thing is not

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listed in the catalog—a sack of unroasted coffee, about a hundred kilograms. It is decided that this will be distributed among the fellow partisans. After so many months a good cup of real coffee! Before leaving I see a schoolbook of the Divine Comedy on a bookshelf. It’s seized as war booty! It should be said immediately that a few weeks later, after the twentyfifth of April, our commander telephoned us, telling us that we had to return everything and that it was still to be found sealed up in the cellar, because the person in question had actually played a double game to aid the Resistance, and the proof of it was that he already held a prominent position in the judiciary.2 How complicated and unpredictable some double games are! Villa Cora, not far from Costigliole d’Asti, was occupied by the “Red Star.” Thus our presence, as soldiers, was not greatly appreciated. That was the least of our woes. Given this scenario, it bears being said, for whatever it is worth, that the treatment we received was always irreproachable. There was a fabulous bedroom in the villa itself for the commander and for me, the vice commander. The other fellows were well accommodated in the cottage. Sunday at noon, if we were there, we two commanders were invited to dinner by the gracious widow Cora. She often invited us for coffee and maintained very friendly relations with us. I still remember the unusual name of the gardener: Celeste, the same name that my maternal grandmother had. Sometimes we returned at night, but we knew the way to the kitchen, where there was always something to eat and drink, maybe even a vermouth; if not, we found some wine. In good weather we would be seated in wickerwork easy chairs in the large garden, under a gigantic tree, with cool drinks that launched friendly conversations about the general situation with the aged signora and her two young grandchildren; but the atmosphere was as if that grand villa were suspended on clouds, far away from the sad reality of the moment. With a little rhetoric one could say that we spent a few hours as if nothing in that gilded world had changed, as if the waves of the tragedy broke upon the walls that surrounded the patronal house without disturbing the normal life of that wealthy bourgeoisie in the least. A few days after the liberation—in the

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midst of the confusion and unrest that was surfacing and with definite alarm—a young and beautiful lady, a guest and relative of the Cora family, declared frankly (with her lisping and coquettish r) that “whatever happens, whoever has money will always manage.” The rest did not interest her at all. She did not respond to the obvious objections that I and other comrades made and instead looked at us with a great deal of pity. At moments it seemed as if she wanted to say, “You’re just envious, pure and simple.” I am visiting Rav Disegni in order to get the most accurate news about him. He is well, and he still displays a great impatience for “these things that never end.” But even though he now realizes that he had a close call, he carries on a relatively peaceful life on the margins of reality, still not quite believing that so much has happened. He then tells me about an episode, in order to show me that at difficult moments he is capable of resolving such situations with insight and dispatch. Thus, not far from his home, there was a kind of fruit and vegetable store. The Disegnis had made friends with the greengrocer, and quite often in the afternoon the rav would go with his son to the back of the shop to listen to Radio London. “Once,” Rav Disegni tells me, “while we’re listening, an officer in a repubblichina uniform arrives and sits down and listens. I start to get worried, but even more so when he stares at me and says, ‘Buona sera, professor.’ “‘Me? Professor?’ “‘Of course, you’re Professor Disegni, from Torino.’ “‘But this is a mistake,’ I answer quickly. “‘There’s no mistake; I was your student at the liceo!’ “I’m dismayed. I don’t dare speak anymore, and I’m thinking the worst. At a certain point I see that that officer is getting up, and he goes to look at a photograph hanging on the wall. So, signaling my son, we leave quietly, and that fellow doesn’t even notice it!” And Rav Disegni looks at me, completely satisfied, as if he had carried out a heroic undertaking. I have him describe the officer’s features to me. He doesn’t remember much—it was in semidarkness, he adds, to excuse himself. So then the details; I proceed step by step. I cite them: “Was he short?

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Very black hair and long sideburns? A barely noticeable mustache? He didn’t make a single gesture with his hands while he spoke?” And so on. The answers are all positive. Then I start to enjoy myself and laugh with all my heart. The rav looks at me surprised and a little put out. “What does all this mean?” he inquires. “It simply means that he’s one of our comrades—a doctor who travels in a repubblichina uniform to have greater freedom of movement.” This comrade was to fall a short time later, while he was helping the wounded. We are going through a very confusing and no less dangerous period. On the one hand, the English have informed us that we can return home because by now the war is almost over, and we have been very capable, of great help, we have fulfilled our duties with courage and loyalty, and they will always be grateful to us for all of that. Now, however, everyone home. It is a piece of cake, as seen from London. On the other hand, we encounter repubblichini who are really partisans and young men dressed like partisans who instead are repubblichini. Nevertheless, it is obvious that we are now at the conclusion. Even the country priest, who comes to Lin’s to bless the house around Easter, stops in the barnyard upon leaving and, turning his gaze toward the part of the farmhouse where we are shut in, says, “Good wishes to all of you. Let’s rejoice—the end of the war is near.” He must have learned somewhere, from some woman during a confession or in another way, that we are there. And we truly rejoice that he has kept the information to himself. Don Abbondio’s housekeeper is a teacher. The spring air itself, with its warmth and smells, seems to be heralding something new. I realize then that I now feel perfectly at home among the people of the district and, as it were, in the surrounding countryside itself—which is sweet and harsh, with its plains and its hills that rise suddenly and its forests. There is also the opportunity to take part, as I am able, in the work of the fields in the open air, and there is the local dialect that I have learned perfectly. “You’re like one of us,” I am often told, to my great pleasure. There is the subtle irony of the peasants, which is not spared me when, with a certain foolhardiness, I join them in the fields: “Signor Magistrate,” Lin says to me. “Let’s see if you can wriggle out of this!”

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This physical contact with nature, which makes me remember the period of my infancy when I was put out to nurse, has always given me simple but genuine reasons for comfort and hope: the joy when I succeed in completing a task, and dripping with sweat, my by-then-dark skin burning under the rays of the sun, I drink that sourish and thirst-quenching light wine in small sips, directly from a bottle that was pulled up with a rope from the well where it was being kept cool; the odor of hay, which bowls you over and almost takes your breath away when you are putting it up in the hayloft; the rhythmic beating of the threshing machine on the threshing floor, with the sun at its peak and a thick cloud of dust that makes you cough; husking ears of corn in the evening under the stars and the songs and the same old jokes of the veteran Alpine soldiers; stopping under the shade of a fig tree while you look for a ripe fig and breathe in the dry, pungent scent of the tree; the grape harvest and being almost up to your neck in the clusters of grapes and the acrid smell of the wine that is fermenting; autumn, with its melancholy, the yellowed leaves of the vines that fall, and an emptiness all around, as if the fields and the houses, abandoned, are slumbering, awaiting spring. Walking in the rain can be exquisite, too, as your boots sink in a grayish mud, slippery or solid, which catches hold of your feet like a vise, and you later discover that all your clothes are covered with splashes of mud. The rain, which runs down your neck, through the opening in your coat, dripping from the threadbare brim of your hat—this, too, has its own aroma and brings you the softened and attenuated perfume of the land—that subdued but always pleasurable smell of manure. While you climb slowly, laden with a hundred things, the valley floor disappears, sinking in the early mists. The farmhouse walls are mottled by the humidity, and the smoke from the chimneys, whipped by the wind, seems to be searching frantically, through different paths, for the one that leads to the sky. There are fewer and fewer houses. The first crags: they are skimmed over and almost caressed by the clouds that drift by and envelop you as in a sudden, friendly embrace, and they force you to stop and wait for it to clear. Even Dick has long been a faithful friend of the good earth; he sniffs the air, wags his tail, and looks toward the valley floor as if to monitor the situation, and then he barks, but in a playful tone. He is happy, and he feels free. And he plays with the snow,

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too, which is falling hard and painting everything white, even the dark inside of the barns. There is the cold and the ice that stings your fingers; but you breathe pure air, and you are sure that not a single German will dare to climb up here. And then you drink foolishly, to the point where you forget that frostbite can attack you treacherously, especially if you have filled yourself with liquor. Later the slow melting of the snow, which drips from everywhere with a nearly musical rhythm, in a crystal-clear atmosphere that allows you to discern part of the vast, snow-covered arc of the Alps in the distance. The timid appearance of the first small green leaves, here and there, like the vanguard of an army in waiting. And finally the eruption of spring, with the exhilarating variety of its colors and fragrances. All these sensations, gathered together here a little haphazardly, like a souvenir photo, have always remained clear and sharp in my memory. The reason is simple: it is not just my wish to recall the setting in which such dramatic events unfolded but to emphasize more particularly my unaltered awareness that this way of living—irregular on the face of it, submerged in nature—would reconcile me with the world, with humankind, and vigorously rekindle my hopes. It is already April of 1945. We had been fooled that the end was near several times: in June of 1944, after the taking of Rome and the landing in Normandy; in July of the same year when news arrived of the attempt on Hitler, which seemed to have succeeded, especially because in Asti a lot of Germans were in the streets with their insignias torn off and living it up. Afterward, however, things had continued more or less as before, wearing us down with all the waiting. Now it seemed, from a good many indications, that the end of so many nightmares was really near. In the meantime there was an important kind of tacit agreement between us, the Germans, and the repubblichini. They did not come anymore into the areas we occupied, except for some infrequent raids, and we, except for cases of necessity, did not pass over this sort of boundary. The big fascists of the different towns not only did not display themselves anymore—they did not allow themselves to be seen going about any longer, staying shut in at home instead. Others had abandoned the field altogether and had gone to hide themselves elsewhere.

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We at any rate continued our activities, without slowing down our surveillance in any way. We traveled around, we gathered information, we monitored places and persons—aided, as always, by the peasants— and more and more openly, especially by those who until then had been extremely cautious about everything. I was a guest once again of Riccu, the wine cellarman of the firm that I had worked for. His house, placed in a strategic position, so to speak, between the town and the beginning of the hills, had always been a safe haven for me. I could have arrived at any time of the day or night—I would always receive a warm welcome and help. A man of few words, he was quick to join in, regardless of the dangers to which he might expose himself. With unflappable peasant composure he gave counsel that was measured and wise. He had muscles of steel, and when he accompanied me and we were climbing, his help was truly heaven-sent. Having left his house with Dick, I had taken the path through the fields, an uphill shortcut but safer than the road. Suddenly I heard the distinct sound of several fighter planes. I looked up and caught sight of three English aircraft that seemed to be enjoying themselves wheeling in the sky; actually they were about to go into action. I was already somewhat high up, and being able to observe them well I guessed that they were about to attack the train station, which had become important after the station in Alessandria had been cut off. I just had time to throw myself into a drainage canal, and right afterward—wheeling like on a merry-go-round, after soaring and making a long loop—they attacked. I saw the bombs drop, two at a time, connected to each other by a chain, right at the altitude of my head; then, with a perfect trajectory, they hit the target. The train-station building remained intact, but the switches blew up like they were twigs. Having finished this operation the planes passed through the airspace between there and Neive several times, strafing at low altitude. I did not move from my spot. In front of me, as if he wanted to protect me, was Dick, lying as flat as possible. He growled, turning his nose toward me often, and he did not move until he saw that I was getting up. A few days later my faithful friend Dick left me forever, mowed down squarely by a machine-gun burst during a very brief engagement in which, who knows why, he had shot forward with a great leap. Con-

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strained to retreat on the run to escape from that ambush, I had to abandon him, without even being able to help him, and so I began to cry, and I cried at length without restraint. I had lost a faithful friend with whom I had shared an important part of my life—who understood me and made himself understood, with whom I had spoken at length and told so many of my sorrows. With his death a part of my life was also truly finished. As soon as it was possible for me, I returned to the site of the engagement, but I was not able to track down his body, which I would have wanted to bury. Even today when I come across a dog that seems to resemble him, I stop to look at it. More than thirty years have passed, but how could I forget you, Dick? I have been following all the transmissions, domestic and foreign, with particular attention for a long time, and I issue a kind of bulletin for the division. In the early hours of the afternoon of April 24 I am able to pick up the last transmission of the repubblichina radio of Torino: “All soldiers must immediately cross the Po and move north.” Here we go! About time, too! I let out a yell and rush outside. We need to get ready to march on Asti.

c h a p t er t wen t y- four

The Prisoner Emerling

major emerling of the wehrmacht, from Munich, commander of the German garrison at Canelli, is our prisoner. Poli telephones me to tell me that I must hand him over to English headquarters stationed at Asti. I try to refuse. He responds that it is an order and that he trusts in me and not in the others. Emerling has to arrive safe and sound; it is an agreement that he has made with the English. In the afternoon, while I am in the garden at Villa Cora having a conversation with the signora, the 1100 armored car arrives with the German. They lead him to me, and he presents himself, coming to attention and imprudently extending his hand, which remains suspended in midair. Signora Cora, seated in a wicker armchair near me, shows some signs of nervousness and whispers to me, “Excuse me, but here we’re in my house, and the major is my guest.” “He may be your guest,” I answer, “but he’s our prisoner.” The signora does not respond to me, and turning to the German she invites him to supper. At this point I get up and leave. While I am in my office the signora enters and says to me, “Don’t insult me like this. You and the commander here must come.” I do not want to complicate matters, I am on duty, and I am already thinking about how to arrange the trip on the following day. I accept. The conversation at the table is generic; it does not engage anyone. I am silent—I do not say a word. Signora Cora shows off her most refined hospitality, especially toward her Teutonic guest. It irritates me greatly. I whisper to myself, “How nasty this evening is.” “More than you would have thought,” I answer and force myself to smile.

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After supper, when we are already having drinks and cigarettes, I interrupt the conversation abruptly, and turning to the German I say to him, in a tone of voice that is almost an order, “Don’t forget that tomorrow we’re leaving at seven o’clock sharp.” He gets the hint, and a little later, rising and facing the signora, he says with perfect manners, “I beg you to excuse me, gracious signora, but I have to retire. I’m very grateful to you for your welcome, and I thank you sincerely.” Attention, handkissing, a slight click of the heels, and he leaves under escort. I am admiring a painting, and I act as if I have not seen or heard his good night. “Tonight you were completely insufferable,” the signora remarks, somewhat offended. “Not at all. It was the least I could do.” The next morning, a little before seven, with the ok of our post commander, I order that a machine-gun clip be fired at a boulder behind the cottage. It is an amusement, so to speak, that we do not want to forego, mainly to see the different reactions. This is the place where the arms were tested after every Allied drop. Only a few moments have gone by when Signora Cora appears in her dressing gown, disheveled, on the grand balcony of the villa. She shouts: “Lawyer, in the name of heaven, what is happening?” “Go back to sleep in peace, Signora. I assure you that nothing has happened.” I enter the German’s room right afterward, opening the door suddenly. I find him ready, even though a little pale. He comes to attention and gives a military salute. “I’m ready,” he says with studied calm. “Then we can proceed.” “Where?” His voice is trembling a little. “To have breakfast. We’re almost late, and we don’t have any time to lose.” A sigh of relief, and he follows me; but seated at the table it seems that he no longer has the appetite this morning that he had last night. He eats slowly, absentmindedly. He looks at us, armed men all around him; he does not seem completely convinced, but he tries timidly to smile. A German officer, then, but like any other person facing danger, real or imagined.

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We leave in the armored car: in front the driver with the commander; in back Emerling and me. Two fellow partisans, their guns at the ready, are in place on the two front fenders, one on each side. We have to be careful. There is a lot of coming and going on the road, a lot of confusion, and anything can happen—and I do not want anything to happen. I want to deliver him to the English safe and sound—and not only to obey orders but because to abuse a defenseless person disgusts me. Halfway there we slow down because of the traffic, and we stop. The two in front jump down and say, “Let’s get rid of him now.” “Don’t be ridiculous. We’re not Nazis.” “But if we say that he tried to get away?” “Don’t talk nonsense. Where would you have him go? The only safe place is this car, where he can stay hidden. And one more thing—at the slightest sign I’m having you put on trial.” The commander agrees with me completely. No one dares speak anymore. Now I am sure that, save unforeseen incidents, I will bring him to English headquarters safe and sound; but I want him to know who I am and that the one to save his life a little earlier (he understood our conversation perfectly) was a Jew. I start a conversation: “If I’d fallen into your hands, I doubt that you would have offered me a ride in a car, escorted by you.” “Well, we’re soldiers, you’re partisans—” and he makes a gesture as if to emphasize that we’re talking about two different things. “To begin with, I don’t accept that kind of thinking; we’re soldiers too, and—” “Of course, of course,” he hastens to say. “I was only talking about a point of formality.” “Drop the formalities, there’s much more to this: I’m a Jew.” He looks at me, falls silent, and grows pale—partly because, and it is purely by chance, I have put my hand on my revolver to straighten my belt. He keeps silent and lowers his head. The only thing to be heard, accentuated, is the sound of the car engine. My comrades smile, excited and amused. Impulsively, as if from a sudden inspiration, he pulls his wallet out of his pocket and takes out some photographs:

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“Here,” he says, in an emotional voice. “These are my children. I swear on their heads that I’ve never done anything bad to Jews.” Now I am the one who is without words. But I recover quickly. “I can even believe that, it could be—but don’t you realize what this gesture means? You are a German officer; don’t you see that you’ve given me proof of your cowardice? Are all the courageous Nazis like this when they’re alone?” “I beg you, I beg you,” he says with passion. “I’m only an officer in the Wehrmacht.” “But still a Nazi.” As if he had not heard, “Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, and all their gang were nothing but crazy criminals—” “But you made war on the side of Hitler.” “That doesn’t have anything to do with it. I was a soldier, and as such I had to do my duty.” “But what a sense of duty! Staying at the side of those whom you call crazy, you became their codefendant. There’s no way out of it.” He begins making subtle distinctions between true and proper soldiers like him and the National Socialists, again emphasizing that the leaders, from Hitler on down, were genuine clinical cases . . . We arrive in front of English headquarters. We get out, set down all our weapons in the car, and are about to enter, when Emerling turns to face me and says, “Excuse me, but one more thing. If the Allies don’t take drastic measures concerning us, I can tell you that in another twenty-five to thirty years we’ll be at war once again.” Now my comrades protest against me, and loudly, for not having listened to them, barely attracting the listless attention of the English soldiers on guard. Now my composure is gone, too, and I answer him, enunciating my words German-style: “Listen to me! Germany is kaput! You’ve lost the war! Can you understand that, Major Emerling? If so, then every night, as long as you live, you should wake up and repeat to yourself, ‘We Germans lost the war, and a Jew saved my life.’ We’ll discuss it again in thirty years, and now go to hell!”

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Commander Poli is waiting for us at the entrance: “Good, we’ve done it, well done!” “We just barely did it,” I answer, embittered, and I tell him how it went. He shakes his head, but one can see that what interests him most now is the conversation with the English officer. There is a friendly welcome, whiskey, cigarettes, and a leather armchair. The German, at attention: “I desire to make a statement,” he says in excellent English. “Please, go ahead,” the Englishman murmurs. “During the entire war I have never committed acts of retaliation against anyone. I have only done my duty as a soldier.” “My job is only to take you on delivery; that’s all,” he responds phlegmatically, removing his pipe from his mouth. He rings a bell, and two mps enter, coming up beside the German. They come to attention and salute. They click their heels at each one of us in turn, rhythmically, and they go away. The conversation continues warmly; the Englishman walks back and forth while he talks, maybe not by chance. In fact, having come opposite the window, he stops, peers intently, and then, as if he had made a discovery of great interest, asks us, “And to whom might that strange vehicle belong?” “It’s ours,” we respond without getting up. “Friends.” The tone is amiable but resolute, velvety and hard at the same time—English, in short. “Friends, the war is over. These things don’t serve any purpose any longer, fortunately. Now everyone can go home, life is returning.” And as he speaks he has already rung the bell. A soldier enters, there are a few words, and the vehicle, including the arms, is sequestered. Poli would like to intervene, and he says something, but it is as if the Englishman’s ear has gone deaf. A general and embarrassing silence. Other surprises like this would await us later, and in equal measure, for the other partisans. I begin to understand the significance of the appeal of last December, when we were asked to return home because “the war was almost over by then.” Since then the Allies had been more concerned about the partisan formations than about the Germans and

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the fascists, who were close to the surrender. Did they fear some sudden attack on a large scale, a real revolution? Has this subject ever been investigated by historians? Neither the materials nor the testimonies would be lacking. In Asti, as in other places, the Allied troops concerned themselves immediately with disarming the partisans. Germans and fascists already in the hands of partisans were able to escape. Who helped them? Who furnished them sanctuary? Who assumed this great moral responsibility, before the world and God, to protect men and gold that were stained with the blood of so many victims, who came from all countries and from different faiths? With the passing of the years many dens of violence and of revanchism cropped up just about everywhere, from America to Europe. Is all this something new, or can it be linked again in some way with Emerling’s declarations and with the strange attitude of the Allies? Who tried, then and now, to take advantage of such situations, the perfect moment for purposes that were completely different from the original ones? The English major reminds us, as if nothing had happened, that we are supposed to bring him another prisoner, another German officer. “For this second case, Major, take care of it as you see fit. We’ll honor your request: the war is over, and we’ll return home.” I say this to him, trying—as far as it is possible for me—to imitate his composure. The Englishman nods in assent, silently, without removing his pipe from his mouth. We return to our post with whatever transportation is available and again take up our work, which is not only demobilization but, wherever it is possible, arranging things for our comrades so that they can work and return to their normal lives. Some of them, for example, get jobs as railway police at the station in Asti and in other places. We go to Alba to deal with some matters and take the opportunity to look around the prisons, which are still partly full of repubblichini. In fact, along the road that takes us from Castagnole to Alba we run into several groups of them, on foot, who are moving along with a certain circumspection, but they chat animatedly, and they, too, seem to have been liberated from a nightmare. We stop and try to talk with some of them. They are a little reluctant and reserved, but all of them blurt out

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the usual justification: in order to save their lives they gave in to violence, but none of them had ever been a fascist. No one knows who has set them free—and so quickly. For them, when they are questioned about this subject, it is a simple and normal matter of ordinary business. But for us there still remains some doubt. In the prison the soldiers get agitated when they see us, and yelling they crowd around the bars, which someone shakes hysterically. And almost in unison: “Let us out of here! We were forced to wear this dirty uniform in order to not get shot, but enough now, enough!” The officers, though, are apart, each one by himself; stretched out or seated on small cots they pretend to sleep or read, but fear has spread on the faces of many of them. They look at us furtively, especially at the weapons we are carrying. A terribly sad spectacle of this Italy in tatters. That evening we take part in a party organized by our division: deafening music, unrestrained dancing, and partisan choirs. The well-known Maestro Cinico Angelini conducts the orchestra.1 With a few comrades I keep an eye on the entrance, which is reserved for our troops only. During a break Maestro Angelini comes up to us, with a somewhat tired and bored look, and begins to talk. A Red Star partisan, armed to the teeth, turns up at that moment. He must have drunk a great deal already, but now he wants to drink a toast with us. In spite of the opposition of a few comrades I allow him to enter, convincing him to leave his weapons at the entrance. Completely happy, he tries to embrace Angelini, who pulls away with a determined gesture. Left alone, we take up the conversation again. “Look at these people!” the maestro exclaims, irritated, and he says strong words about “certain people,” lamenting how much he has suffered for so many months. I ask him, “Maestro, and what should I say then?” When he realizes who I am, he changes his tone immediately. He asks me if I have a job in sight, and to my negative response he exclaims, placing his hand on his chest, “Poor boy, come to Torino. I’ll find you a job, I promise you.” We have convinced Mother—and it was not easy—to spend the summer there where we are. The place is very beautiful, and she can finally

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enjoy the countryside in freedom. Mémi has readily understood what bad shape the home in Asti is in. But she lets herself be convinced—at least it seems that way—by our lies. Seeing it now she would feel a great deal of pain. Actually it is in much worse shape than she thinks. In the meantime we are trying to put our flat back in order somehow. To begin with, Papà’s library—more than four thousand volumes—has disappeared, bookcases included. From news garnered partly at the police station it appears that the repubblichini sold it as pulp paper. There were even some first editions, like the edition of the Zòhar (Splendor) printed in Mantova in 1558.2 Illiterates as they were, they could not have acted differently. In a closet under the stairs I found only a few books and some old correspondence. I am infinitely sorry that many of my father’s Hebrew manuscripts were thus destroyed. My nose for investigation, sharpened by so many months of partisan activity, prompts me to consider that at least part of the furnishings, and maybe even some of the books, may not have gone too far away. I talk with some neighbors, making somewhat vague conversation, but their responses, which are still more generic, convince me that my doubts are not completely unfounded. During the months following our return to Asti we happen to find, in the morning, in front of the door to our house (that is, in the little courtyard in front of the temple), the bathtub, the water heater, a stove, a table—a piece or two at a time, put there during the night, evidently by some neighbor who thinks it is risky at this point to keep those things at home. One of them had the gall to tell me—in the tone of voice of someone who wants to be thanked as well—that just after a repubblichino officer who lived in the rooms of the old Clava Institute (where I kept the library) had fled, he (the neighbor) had entered those rooms and had found that there were still some books and collections of magazines, which he had taken home to watch over until our return, so as to avoid more possible looting! Then he seemed offended when I took back those few things without thanking him or saying goodbye. But the surprises of the return were not over yet. There is a family of evacuees in the place where we lived. I make an approximate list of what is missing, and I go to the police station for

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two specific reasons: to get our housing back, vacated, and to recover what is missing. For some of the things I have even been able to get the address and name of the person who has them. The law, as we know, is equal for everyone, and now therefore it is for me, too. Thus the housing remains with the evacuees until new orders come from the prefecture. I cannot evict anyone. Regarding the other things, they say that they do not know anything about them. When, just to give an example, I tell them that I know where to find a bed and that therefore I will go get it back, they warn me not to do so; this act of mine, in the case in point, would fall under misappropriation. In fact the bed, too, was allocated by the prefecture. I am losing my composure; after having said to the commissioner that I thought that the fascist era was over, I declare that I would be very happy to be tried for misappropriation of objects that are my own property. He does not bat an eyelid and stares at me in silence. My brother drags me away (the word is accurate), telling me—and maybe he is right—that if this is the situation protesting will not help. I go to the prefecture, where I used to know a manager. He is still in his position. The welcome is hearty, and he immediately puts himself at my disposal. A couple of years earlier he pretended not to know me, but times have changed, and it is no surprise when, our conversation finished, he invites me “to have something” in the nearby café. Afterward I take leave of him at the door of the place. “Where are you going?” “I’m returning to Castagnole.” “I have a lot of friends there—say hello to them for me.” “Which?” I can’t restrain myself from saying. “The fascists or the partisans?” “I’ve always liked your sense of humor.” He laughs, and it even seems spontaneous. And then he embraces me in the public street, as a sign of friendship. And thus the people who are passing by can also see that he has always liked the Jews. In the little town, having more time at my disposal, I increase the number of private lessons in Italian, history, philosophy, and law for the higher middle-school students, an activity that I had carried out in

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piecemeal fashion even during the partisan period. And also, with a certain recklessness, I even dispense legal opinions. The compensation in all these cases is in kind: eggs, chickens, cheeses, and wine. Mother is satisfied. “Finally,” she tells me, “you’re making yourself useful to the family.”

c h a p t er t wen t y-f ive

Toward a Normal Life

i would like to go to Casale and then to Milan, which seems to have become an important center for the recovery of Jewish life and for assistance to survivors from the concentration camps. I go out on the main highway, waiting for whatever means of transportation comes along. After a long wait and useless attempts I see a truck coming, and my eyes pop out—I see a huge Maghèn Davìd. At my signal the truck stops. I begin, trying hard to say something in Hebrew; the welcome is warm. The truck is from the Jewish Brigade. I get on the truck, while, as usual in circumstances like these, my tears flow freely. The noncommissioned officer looks at me surprised, smiling, “Well, what’s happening? Why all this excitement?” But then he embraces me. He has understood my emotions—and quite well. They are going to Milan, too. I convince them to spend the evening in Casale, at Lia’s, who (if I find him, as I hope) will welcome us all as family. At the gates to Casale a South African patrol stops us at a checkpoint. They want to arrest all of us because civilians are traveling in a military vehicle, even though my brother and I are still wearing the partisan uniform. “They’re partisans.” “Partisans aren’t soldiers.” The dispute heats up and could even have ended badly if the leader of the Jewish Brigade group had not pulled away from me abruptly and begun to negotiate very calmly and sensibly. He settles everything, and we arrive at Lia’s. Everyone has survived. The house is overrun with lots of people, but there is room for us, too. We will sleep on the floor, with a blanket for a mattress. Late in the evening there are many things that we

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have to tell each other and many kindnesses that Lia and his family do for us, including a dinner that never ends and bottles of wine that only await their turn to be uncorked. And they do not have to wait long. Many Jews were deported, even when they were in precarious health. That is how it was, not only for Doctor Fiz, forced from a hospital bed, but also for the old custodian of the temple, with his paralytic wife. Before leaving the next morning I drop by the old synagogue. It is full of dust and dimly lit, due to the threadbare, darkened curtains that once were red and that dangle stiffly, as if they had been hanged. There is an atmosphere of desolation and abandonment all around; on some benches there are still a few books. The Aròn ha-Kòdesh is wide open, and I realize that there is no longer even a single Séfer Torà—they are completely gone. There is an oil lamp that someone must have lit a little while earlier; its flickering flame makes the atmosphere even more desolate and sad—it seems like a funeral vigil. Why did it have to fall precisely to us—we who were buried alive—to be, at the same time, the grave diggers for our Community? Having arrived in Milan I go to Via Unione, to the Palazzo Odescalchi, which had been the premises of the Antonio Sciesa district fascist group. The courtyard, which is encircled on all sides with colonnades, is swarming with people—of every type and of every language. The office of delasem in Genoa comes to mind. But there people came searching for some hope, for a visa, for a means of escape. In this courtyard instead I see, for the first time, the surviving remnants of the extermination camps, a horrifying spectacle: hollow faces, eyes that are lifeless or shining deliriously; they wear clothes that sag everywhere, they are reduced to skeletons, restless, ready to quarrel and to come to blows over a cigarette. Every kind of black market is going on—to make money in order to leave, it does not matter where. With me is a lawyer from Milan who is desperately seeking any news about several family members who were deported. In a room with tables and chairs a group of about fifty people is gathered. Some do not respond—they are blank; others speak with bitter irony and glance at each other as if to say, “Who are these crazy people who are still searching?” There is a number tattooed on every arm. When these arms move about

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it seems to me like these numbers grow enormous in a dance of death. On the one hand a lawyer who still hopes in spite of everything; on the other outcasts who languish and whose eyes light up with sudden, rapid flashes when they hear talk of food, of money, of visas. We leave, disappointed by our search and embittered by this spectacle; the survivors watch us with an almost amused look. I know that Raffaele is to be found at the Palazzo Marino and that he holds the office of Finance Minister of the North. Having barely passed through the gate, I hear a sharp order: “Guards!” Lined-up soldiers present arms. I turn to see who is coming behind me. There is not anyone; it was the stripes I am still wearing on my khaki jacket that made the Finance Ministry guards jump. I thank them, saying, “Don’t disturb yourselves for me.” The noncommissioned officer takes it amiss. A brotherly embrace, the mutual joy of finding each other safe and sound, rapid-fire questions about how we both got through these long months. Raffaele, arrested in Florence and traveling toward deportation, succeeded in throwing himself from the moving train a little after Padova, after having futilely exhorted some of his companions to follow him in that risky act. Saul Campagnano, a dear friend, did not listen to him, in spite of the fact that Raffaele told him that it was much better to end up under the wheels of the train than to enter one of the Nazis’ camps. A little while afterward, having gone through Milan, he was able to cross the Swiss border. He talks to me about the people who were saved. He tells me about Sabatino Lopez, almost amused. One of his friends had run into him in a street in Milan and had gone up to him, worried. “But Sabatino, you’re still here? Why don’t you flee?” “Of course,” had been his response, “I intend to try to go to Switzerland, but first I have to pay my taxes. It’s a duty I can’t neglect, in spite of everything.” The friend had him give him the tax forms and the corresponding amount, assuring him that he would take care of everything himself, and immediately, but begging him in the name of heaven not to lose any more time! Raffaele, who speaks at the same fervid tempo as always, suddenly

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stops himself, becomes pensive, and says to me, “You’ve come at just the right moment. Precisely today I have to make a decision: either to continue this political activity of mine or to relinquish it and dedicate myself exclusively to Jewish activities. And you know how much there is to do. What do you advise me?” “It’s not easy to answer you. You could be helpful in either position. Let me think about it for a few hours. I’ll be straight with you.” We leave together. He is hungry and wants something to eat. There is a bakery nearby and another shop that sells eggs. He buys bread and eggs and wants me to share the meal with him while we walk. We are already in the Piazza Duomo. I accept the bread—fresh and fragrant—but I do not feel like drinking raw eggs. Raffaele makes a hole in the shell with a pin and begins to suck. Some woman walks by. “Signor Minister, we’re having lunch, eh?” “Minister or not, I’ve got a mouth and a stomach, too.” We end up on Via Unione during the lunch hour. Seated at a table I try to bring the conversation around to the question that he posed to me, but he interrupts me immediately: “I don’t need yours or anyone else’s advice any longer. I’ve decided: to hell with politics. From now on I’m going to dedicate myself exclusively to our affairs.” I am speechless—his declaration is that definite and determined. And Raffaele: “Why such a stupefied look? Didn’t you understand?” I had understood, and quite well, but I was thinking that at that moment and in those circumstances there would be rather few who, with such straightforwardness and spontaneity, would have foregone the possibility of a brilliant political career. But Raffaele Cantoni was a man of swift decisions and, well aware of the risks that he would come up against, had already made the choice that his generous Jewish heart had prompted. He threw himself into the great struggle for the moral and material reconstruction of the Jews and of Jewish institutions in Italy. He identified himself with the great drama of sorrow and mourning that the tragedy of the war had caused, in order to stimulate expectations and hopes, renouncing a personal and perhaps brilliant career, choosing in-

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stead that difficult Jewish path that one can travel only if one is disposed always to give without ever asking for anything in return. And Raffaele Cantoni from that moment on began to give all of himself to the Jews of Italy and Israel, without ever asking anything from one or the other. A few years later, when Ben Gurion said to him, “A person like you would be very useful if you lived here in Israel,” Raffaele had responded: “I perform a job for which I’m well paid and that permits me to dedicate much of my time to the Jewish cause.” “When it’s like this,” the grand old man had responded, “you should continue your activities this way. It will be equally useful.” And the fact that Raffaele was always punctual for all the most important appointments was manifested in this detail, too: he was the Jew who obtained visa number 1 to enter the new State of Israel. During a later visit to Milan, having been summoned there by Cantoni (who in the meantime had become president of the local Community), a seemingly strange episode, to say the least, took place, due to completely unforeseen developments. Still, many years later, thinking over what had happened back then in Milan, a little later in Genoa, and in 1951 in Rome, I cannot help but be glad that, for one reason or another, the outcomes were identical—that is, negative—freeing me from duties that “fate” evidently did not want to entrust to me. As for Milan, Cantoni had decided that I should take over the job of deputy rabbi. These decisions that Raffaele made when he was convinced that one should proceed in a given way often created awkward situations, especially for the persons who came to be involved, and rather often without their knowing, at least until the final moment. The negotiations must have been carried out in that way before I met with the then-rabbi of Milan, who had been named to take over that post a little after liberation. In spite of the fact that he had been a friend of Papà and had known me since I was a baby, he received me in his office with these words: “I’m not a harsh boss, but I don’t let anyone bully me.” I realized right away that these words could not be anything but the result of Cantoni’s decisions. Therefore I answered, “I’ve never bullied anyone, and I don’t see why I should begin with you. At any rate, I con-

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sidered this visit of mine simply as a courtesy visit made to an old friend of Papà’s. I don’t in fact intend to assume any position with this Community.” Raffaele flew into a rage when I related this conversation to him, maintaining that the fault was mine for having given in to attitudes that did not make any sense. And since our conversation was taking place on the street, people turned to look at Raffaele, who was shouting in a loud voice as if he were in his office. Something similar happened to me in Genoa, where I was actually looking at the possibility of being named chief rabbi. Cantoni did not have anything to do with it this time, nor did I ever succeed in finding out with certainty who had interfered negatively in the negotiations— which seemed by then to have arrived at the final stage. Some suspicions occurred to me a little while afterward, even though one could go beyond simple suspicion from the facts gathered. But after so many years it is completely pointless to return to this episode. Since we are on the subject, it is also worth remembering what happened in Rome in 1951, when Rav Prato was already seriously ill. Cantoni, then president of the Union of the Communities, decided that I would be appointed deputy rabbi, partly to continue the commentaries on the weekly parashà that Rav Prato had for quite some time been in the habit of giving every Friday night in the temple, and thus not to break off what was by then a tradition that was followed with a good deal of interest on the part of the public. This time, too, the “decision” arrived in the rabbinical circle of the Community like a lightning bolt out of a clear sky. The reaction was immediate, nasty, irrational, and, I should add, to my good fortune, since in this way I was liberated from a milieu in which I would have had more than just a little trouble. Worth remembering, however, for its ridiculous formulation, is an allegation (among the many) that made the rounds of the Community and that Raffaele himself asked me to explain. I had been seen, it was alleged, on a bus on Saturday, and what is more, I was smoking! I said to Raffaele that he should try to get on a bus on any day of the week and light a cigarette! At this point, according to the old grumbler, the fault was mine because, he maintained, in life you have to know how to stand up for yourself, es-

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pecially when running up against certain challenges, like these. In reality there was nothing left for me to do except to thank the Lord, who, for the third and last time in my life, had liberated me from certain danger! So I go back home—that is, to Asti—waiting to be able to get involved again in Jewish work in some way. Nineteen-forty-six is a difficult year. I am unemployed, listed on the register of those who are looking for work, and I receive relief pay. All this is not very exhilarating. I also give some private lessons, but sometimes it happens that the fee, now no longer in kind, does not get paid in currency either. At a certain point the student is no longer to be seen. This is another period of isolation, even more tiresome, in some respects, than others, because after all that had happened the last thing that I could have imagined was, precisely, being without work. At least some of the various Jewish activities had gone back to being a monopoly, so to speak, of those who had left Italy during the months preceding the war. The working methods in this sphere had to be returned to a sense of normalcy. And inasmuch as the times were not yet normal and calm, and the first attempts to reconstruct Communities, institutions, and activities out of the ruins had their beginnings precisely during those months, it was not necessary to depend so much on persons who had worked throughout the state of emergency as much as on those who were inclined to fit into established, bureaucratized programming, following fixed plans—which made it more difficult, at least for me, to reach agreements. In the meantime I have enrolled at the University of Torino to finally bring a conclusion to the studies begun in Rome in 1933! (And I will not receive my degree until 1951, in Rome.) But I have also done this to find some way out of this circle of isolation in which I am feeling ever more hemmed in. I have succeeded in reestablishing contact with friends and students from the prewar period—particularly with Berti. His letters— for someone who usually writes so rarely—follow each other during this period with a certain rhythm, and at first they surprise me; and then I realize that my old friend has understood my situation perfectly and is trying to cheer me up, writing me from his kibbutz, Yavneh, of which he had been one of the founders and is now one of its most valued members. They are truly exceptional letters for someone like him, who often

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seems to be, if not aloof, certainly a sharp thinker and of few words. The letters reveal a fund of friendship that I had already known well but that he had never revealed to me and, at the same time, a brotherly concern for the situation in which I find myself and for my future. In the first letter he wrote me: It’s still not possible for me to shake off my first impression of the miracle that obviously held sway over you too, in the moment in which you wrote, “I’m alive!” And I’m unable to think more calmly about you, about what you’ll do, about how I’ll be able to see you again, because I’m still overwhelmed by the sensation of the simple joy of knowing that you’re still alive after all that’s happened, after I’d already been on the point of despair. But you’re here, melancholy as always, a person with a sense of humor as always, and that phrase—“Now I’m like a bird on a branch”—is enough to guarantee authenticity. . . . Sometimes I walk out of the kibbutz and circle around to see it from a bit of a distance. I can’t refrain then from comparing the desolate hill of four years ago—where, with twelve comrades, I built a fence and dug a well—with the large and varied settlement that today now stands out from a distance. This is the result of the labor carried out together at the hostels and the camps. We can’t abandon or forget that labor—we have to carry it forward collaboratively, however we can. Do you want to help me, Augusto? On December 30, 1945, he broached a problem—tactfully but with great determination—that he knew quite well concerned me greatly: Your letter made a great impression on all of us. Sara and I reread it, I don’t know how many times. You’re all you in that letter; and I thought, reading it, of your beloved parable of the banana peel, which thousands of people walk near without slipping, while only you. . . . There’s something that’s missing for us in that letter, and certainly something’s missing for you, too. Your letter, so beautiful and so touching, doesn’t work for me. Why not a single word

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about your ’aliyà? Why so many vicious circles to avoid arriving at this solution, which is the only definitive one, the logical consequence of your entire life, the only way to live rather than just waiting to die. . . . The difficulties are many, I know, and the odds are long. It seems like the nations, after the butchery, want to suffocate us in order not to hear the reproaches that human conscience makes to them. But all that—what difference does it make? When all is said and done, they won’t manage to finish us off, and on the other hand, our salvation depends on us alone. . . . The young people who are arriving now no longer bring the encouragement in their hearts that your conviction used to give them. And so why not continue the teaching here that was cut off there? On May 4, 1946, he went resolutely on the attack: You did very well to write me at length, and you’ll do even better if you continue like this in the future. You managed in this way, in one go, to bring us back to our old friendship. . . . Your letters have worried us a lot, and both of us are very stubborn about you. And at the end of these days I’m resolved to tell you everything that I think, to shake you and rough you up so that you’ll be able to break that damned iron ring in which you’re caught. Snap yourself out of it, look at people: they haven’t changed, they’re the same today as they were yesterday, as they were in Moses’s time. Those who suffered are worse because they suffered, and those who didn’t suffer didn’t become better. . . . Augusto, this isn’t the way! You’ve never reasoned contrary to how you’ve acted, which is to say—after so many trials, after so many hours of despair—does the life that God’s miracle saved still belong to you and your body? Why haven’t you realized that after what you’ve gone through, there can’t be anything that can cause you fear? . . . Make this effort, get outside of yourself—the suffering within yourself is nothing, what matters is why one suffers. . . . Here there are thousands of children and young people who need a teacher and a guide. We have to bring about the miracle of restoring their faith. “Only good men make miracles,”

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you write me. And you are a good man. We can’t let you go. Come to Erez Israèl. The first year will be difficult for your mother, but afterward you’ll have found the definitive solution. A month later, in a long letter, after having explained to me why he had been obliged against his will to refuse for the second time an invitation from the Community of Tripoli to accept the rabbinical chair (because the responsibility required by his job in the kibbutz during that period of development was too great), he mentioned to me briefly what the conditions of that Community were and made me a proposal: They’ve been without a rabbi for two years, persecution is rampant, assimilation is spreading like never before, and ignorance of the Torà is habitual and now excused. But on the other hand, almost the entire population speaks Hebrew, the tradition is observed by most people, and Erez Israèl is an aspiration so nearby that thousands of ’olìm (immigrants) could be brought here from there without great difficulties. That unfortunate Community constitutes one of the most important centers for us in the Mediterranean today. . . . Why shouldn’t a person like you be made good use of for the Holy Cause? . . . In the field of education there’s an enormous job to be done, which you’re capable of accomplishing, as principal of the school or education coordinator in Tripoli. Why not? Do you think that you can expect an easier, more comfortable, or more productive life in Asti than in Milan, Tripoli, or Yavneh? All of Berti’s reasoning, in these different letters, besides being dictated by great affection, was based on flawless logic. But that “damned iron ring” in which I was caught, and in which I had also been caught, was not so easy to break either. Maybe I was now feeling, all at once, the effects of a strain that had lasted for many years; maybe I was worrying excessively about the family situation, which was passing through a particular phase, one that made the problem of choices that would have taken me far away from my mother even more complicated. I am attending the University of Torino intermittently, which gives me a method of reconnecting with the world of study, and in a serious way,

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because the law faculty is led by well-known professors, and the discipline and the rigor of the exams take me back to the atmosphere of the liceo. I make some friends, but with fellows whose interests are completely different from mine. I feel a little out of it here, too. What is striking, in the evening (as it already had been in Asti), is not just the fact of people strolling in the streets, and so returning to a normal life, but the lighting, which seems utterly strange to me, sometimes almost blinding, after the five long years of darkness when we went around with those flashlights made in the strangest shapes—even in the shape of pens—and that often left you in the dark just the same. In Asti the ferment of the Resistance and the Liberation, which sometimes seems to have died down, revives suddenly when there are special events. The showing of documentaries about the extermination camps, for example, or about the trials and executions of notorious ss leaders and of their no less criminal collaborationists. People pack the movie theaters in a silence that makes you shudder, some of them weeping quietly. During an intermission I see an internee for the first time since liberation, and he sees me; we get up, and a few seconds later we are in each other’s arms, in tears, while the public, moved, looks at us. Or at the Alfieri Theater, where talks are given by famous personalities, drawing incredible crowds. I remember a speech of Nenni’s and immediately afterward a competition to go shake his hand and exchange a few words with him.1 I, too, would like to speak with him at more length—he was almost mythic for me; but he is swept away, so to speak, by the enthusiasm of the people, who press in from all sides. For Calosso, too—who spoke during the war from Radio London—the welcome is warm.2 I thank him for the comfort that he gave us during that period and for his opinions, which I used to distribute through leaflets. There are at any rate these moments, these encounters that revive enthusiasm and hope, but then you fall back into that gray, almost soporific everyday life, without escape or prospects of solutions fitted to the needs that are ever more urgent. A concrete offer arrives from Rome. It is not very exciting, but it could give me a way to get back into an ambience that I know quite well, and then one thing leads to another, at least so they say. What particularly induces me to return to Rome, now that a chance to resume work in the

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Jewish sphere finally presents itself, is the memory of Raffaele’s words (which he had spoken to me in Palazzo Marino) and the decisions that he himself had made: “You know how much there is to do.” The small Italian Jewish world, which was also torn to pieces by the war, awaited the active commitment of every survivor. Maybe I was fooling myself once again; but I felt the duty of forgoing my many dreams of Erez Israèl—at least temporarily, until my presence would be needed—in order to enter the inevitable fray. Proceeding in this way, I felt above all, was fulfilling a moral obligation toward so many friends with whom I had shared risks and dangers and who had died in the Nazi camps or fallen fighting for freedom during the Resistance.

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several years have already passed since the tragic dates of the first deportation (October 16, 1943) and the Ardeatine Cave massacre (March 24, 1944), but the wounds are still open and bleeding.1 I return to the largest Jewish Community in Italy, where the savage Nazi fury struck without pity and where the phenomenon of the tragedy assumed the proportions that it assumed. Not that the mourning and the suffering in the other Communities had been less. But in a certain sense they had been, so to speak, divided by categories. The smaller Communities, then, that were able to survive had an almost familial character. Here, on the other hand, especially, there is a mass, working-class level. There is not a Jew in the piazza who will not tell you new, terrible details. Entire large families were wiped out.2 In the orphanage, where I perform my job as an assistant for the Jewish section, I see many children who lost their parents. My teaching job is not easy. New problems, psychologically complex and demanding, present themselves to me. It certainly was not that the children lacked for affection or care—on the contrary, they were almost overwhelmed by a large part of the Community; but maybe that was the negative side of the question precisely. We needed to give these children a way to grow up not in an atmosphere brimming over with commiseration and pity, but in one that was peaceful, tranquil, and full of new hopes. When I would see them around me, I would think of the passage from Isaiah: “Then a branch will spring from the trunk of Jesse and a sprout from its roots.”3 The tree had been felled, but a new branch, a new shoot, was sprouting to carry on an idea and a hope.

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But it was not easy to make these concepts understood by relatives, distant and close, who sometimes overran the institute, overloaded with gifts, tears, and sweets. The most obvious solution was to send these children to a new life in Erez Israèl so that they would be able to grow up in a different atmosphere, devoting themselves to a kind of work that was unlike the work that had been done by Roman Jews for generations, enabling them to participate in the realization of a new world. On the outskirts of Rome two centers, hakhsharà-type schools, were established, engaging excellent administrators, some of whom had come expressly from Erez Israèl. The enthusiasm of the children, who came from other Communities as well, was considerable, and also, at the beginning, that of the relatives was no less, maybe because of the novelty of the initiative. But the situation began to change little by little as we drew closer to the conclusion of these classes and thus to the departure date of the first groups of children. In many cases the family bond prevailed over ideals and solutions that, practically speaking, were among the best that there could be for those who had passed through the Nazi storm at such a tender age. Thus the practical results were modest in their total, but they signaled a path, and not in vain. Meeting with Lattes is for me like reconnecting with a secure past and taking up the journey at the very same point at which it had been cut off on that now-distant afternoon in 1939 at the port of Brindisi. The period spent in Erez Israèl from 1939 to 1946, during which Lattes had the misfortune of losing his wife, Emma, had not been easy. The help and the backing that maybe he thought he would find were in reality, except for some rare exceptions, lacking. Maybe the reason can be sought, to the extent that it is possible, in a number of factors: his not having known how, through a clear-cut political stance, to fit into an environment that required such an attitude; his method of confronting problems with that critical severity that often made him into a bothersome personality; and the usual inferiority complex of those who had already known him well in Italy and unconsciously feared having a “dangerous” rival as well. He had lived by giving Hebrew lessons to Italians and translating children’s stories from Italian to Hebrew for Devar jeladìm.4 He had also translated into Hebrew, among other things, the book by Enzo Sereni on fascism.5

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Rabbi Prato, who had also returned to Rome, had invited him to direct the cultural division of the Union, convinced that only a person of Lattes’s merit would be able to make a worthy contribution to the renaissance of Jewish culture in Italy. When he received this invitation the maestro was then seventy years old. And it was precisely those who had helped him least in Erez Israèl—when the matter became common knowledge and Lattes was getting ready to return to Italy—who sent a letter addressed to Rav Prato asking him to reconsider this invitation of his. Lattes, it was pointed out in this letter, was already an old man, and before long he would no longer be able to work and would have to be supported. So was it worth it to have him return to Italy? This is the perfect example to remind us that, even in such a case, man proposes and God disposes. In fact Lattes worked for another twenty years, and in a particularly intense manner, leaving us commentaries on the Bible, studies in rabbinical and Hebrew literature in general, apologias, and resuming, as only he knew how, the publication of La rassegna mensile di Israel—taken altogether, volumes and volumes of writings that only his pen could write.6 During the course of a reception in his honor in Rome after his return, Lattes issued this statement: It is necessary to place the Jewish problem within the framework of the human problem; but the human problem is a moral problem. Jewish political life, above all, should be sealed by the sanction of justice, of morality, of honesty, of purity—of the ideals for which we claim to be the standard-bearers, the advocates, the prophets. We have to restore the human conscience and the Jewish conscience if we want the Jews to finally emerge from these abysses of death and unholiness that swallowed up so many treasures of life and so many treasures of hope. I take the liberty of proposing this path—which may seem naive or illusory—to friends who have done me the honor of welcoming me back among them, since I am convinced that it is the only path for the salvation of Israel. The path of force, of the violent speech, and of desperation is not the upright path; the upright path is the path of education, persuasion,

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labor, brotherhood, mutual understanding, the recognition of mutual rights, and the fulfillment of one’s duty. The Israel of January 30, 1947, published an article by Lattes disputing Benedetto Croce.7 In the introduction written for I pavidi, a book by Cesare Merzagora,8 the illustrious philosopher had written, among other things: Much of the damage and iniquity that fascism did cannot now be repaired—neither for the Jews nor for other Italians who suffered. Nor should the Jews request privileges or preference; rather, their concern should be to merge themselves more and more with other Italians, doing their best to end that distinction and division in which they have persisted over the centuries and which, having given cause and pretext for persecutions in the past, might—there is reason to fear—do so again in the future. . . . The world goes on with too many victims and inevitable martyrs, and those who are not inevitable could be spared—shaped as they are by some surviving stages of a barbaric and primitive religiosity, by the idea of a “chosen people,” which is so imprudent that Hitler made it his own. Lattes commented on these strange opinions of Croce’s: We do not know what these privileges that the Jews might claim are or possibly could be. They are not asking for anything that has not been granted or cannot be granted to other citizens, even though they have had (as has often happened to them) the unhappy privilege of having suffered earlier than other citizens, of having sustained more serious hardships and for longer, and of having had a much greater number of victims than the others. One should also pay some attention to these negative privileges. What, however, is most stupefying is the advice given to the Jews to make up their minds to disappear and to put an end—after so many centuries of resistance and of martyrs—to their existence, to their ideals, to their faith, and to their history. Just like that. It is advice that Benedetto Croce would not give to any other re-

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ligion, to any other ethnic or national group . . . and that he would not give even to the liberals. . . . We have waited for Benedetto Croce, with the authority of his name, to turn to the persecutors rather than the persecuted, in order to admonish them not to seize on the difference in faith of the Jews as a pretext for subjugating them to inferiority and tormenting them. . . . The Jews end up being not so much the victims as the sovereigns of the iniquities committed against them. Thus one arrives at an absurd and unjust moral—that is, the justification of the persecutors and the condemnation of the persecuted, who furthermore would be made to fear massacres and injustices in the future, as well. . . . But without the perseverance of the Jews there would not have been, for example, either Christianity or Islam. . . . The idea of the “chosen people,” . . . that is, of a people who believes that it is their task to spread the idea of the oneness of humankind (which is corollary to the oneness of God) and the messianic hope (which is the crowning achievement of that oneness) throughout humanity and to give concrete form to this idea in life, peacefully, without any coercion—such an idea cannot bother anyone and can be tolerated even by philosophers. In any case, Benedetto Croce’s association between Hitler and the writers of the Bible (up to Saint Paul), who believed in the election of Israel, between Hitler and the Jewish martyrs who were sacrificed for their innocent and pure faith, and between Hitler and his victims, does not seem to be in good taste. And saying that Hitler made the idea of the “chosen people,” which is an “imprudent” Jewish invention, his own makes it seem almost as if Croce wants to cast the responsibility for the massacres and the destruction carried out by anti-Semites and by the appalling war set loose by the Germans on the Jews yet again. A little while after this article of his Lattes received a handwritten letter from Croce, a few lines in a generic tone, upon which Lattes commented, handing the letter to me, “As you can see, he doesn’t say anything.” I have resumed the visits to Lattes’s home, like before; but now we can allow ourselves the luxury of long walks without a police escort, even

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to Villa Sciarra, where his grandson, Amos, by now a medical student, goes hunting frogs for his experiments. I receive authorization to represent the Zionist group of Torino at the Zionist Congress that is being held in Rome. I enter as a delegate, and I exit, at the congress’s conclusion, as secretary general of the Italian Zionist Federation. During the transfer of authority I thus have an opportunity to get to know a young man of rare moral and spiritual qualities more deeply: Giorgio Piperno. He was getting ready to go to Erez Israèl—nominally to participate with his wife in the first Jewish Pedagogical Congress. In reality it was to subvert the restrictions that the English Mandate government had put in place, blocking immigration almost completely, notwithstanding the great Jewish tragedy. The dramatic stories of the survivors of the concentration camps, hounded by the ships of the British Royal Navy and taken to Cyprus or even back again to Germany, are well-known. Giorgio would live for a certain time as an illegal, realizing in every way his dream of living in the ancient land and participating actively in its reconstruction. He was one of the most effective and intelligent leaders of Kibbutz Sedè Eliyahu, and when he died in 1971 from a tragic work accident, he left a gap that truly could not be filled. Giorgio had lived through the storm that had crushed the Community of Rome, a tragedy that had left bewilderment and anxiety in many survivors. In the immediate postwar period it was necessary to have an iron, almost furious will in order to climb up out of the abyss into which the war had thrown us. In reality a lacerating war continued within each of us, one that the cessation of military hostilities had certainly not ended. Giorgio Piperno had lived through and suffered through these events, but he had been able, laboriously, to overcome them and to do so with great faith—that faith that had been extinguished in many and that on the contrary had revived in him, little by little, in a sure but almost irrepressible way, until it healed him spiritually and guided him, without any uncertainty, for the rest of his life. The writings that he left, and that were published a short time ago, testify that he did not confine himself to writing and talking but knew how to become involved in action—ceaselessly, almost feverishly—working with all his strength, almost to the limits of physical endurance.9

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While he was handing me correspondence and documents he would comment—always with his usual open smile and exceptionally lively black eyes—on the most important matters, without concealing a certain haste: that of departing for Erez Israèl as soon as possible. In performing this job of mine—which (in the midst of a thousand disagreements, internal and external, sometimes inevitable, sometimes not) was to last uninterruptedly until 1959—I come to know an old friend better and more deeply—the president of the Italian Zionist Federation, the lawyer Carlo Alberto Viterbo.10 He, too, left us—in 1974. And while with Giorgio a sure young hope was extinguished, with Viterbo the Italian Jewish cultural world and the Zionist world lost a veteran of that famous Florentine coterie that had sprung up around Rav Margulies and that had been one of the most important and most active Jewish centers in Italy. Born in Florence to a middle-class family, cultivated, rich, and assimilated, a student and friend of Margulies and of Alfonso Pacifici, he had been able to recover (and at a high level) his own Jewish identity, mainly through a methodical study of the ancient and modern culture of our people, and therefore to nourish in himself and in others, without uncertainty, an inexhaustible passion for Jewish ideals and for their realization. (He had been one of the very few in Italy to know the Hebrew language at a scholarly level.) And it was not only a question of an abstract spiritual and cultural enrichment to be added to his already vast humanistic learning and to the cult of art, which, good Florentine that he was, he could not ignore. His return to Judaism represented above all a commitment to an active life, to which he remained always faithful. He always defended Judaism and Zionism with eyes wide open, with calm and steadfastness in facing everyone, and with personal sacrifices as well, even at the cost of being deprived of his freedom, as when he was interned for being a Zionist and an antifascist. A brilliant commentator and author of important editorials, written with penetrating intelligence and with a classically Tuscan pen, he was editor of the weekly Israel from 1944 until his death. This weekly was often attacked, rightly or wrongly, by professional critics and by superficial dabblers in Jewish subjects. But the fact that the death of Viterbo was contemporaneous with the disappearance of the weekly—which since

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far-off 1916 had always defended the Jewish cause capably and with dignity—shows how important and irreplaceable the work and dedication of Viterbo had been, even when, especially in the final years, at an advanced age, he had come to find himself practically alone in sustaining the burden and the responsibilities. His presence at meetings, assemblies, and national and international congresses always added prestige and decorum to all of Italian Judaism. Some of his attitudes and ways of interpreting and judging facts, ideas, and people might sometimes have given the impression that there was also a deliberate detachment on his part, almost an aristocratic satisfaction in isolation, a lack of availability except within precise limits, a retreat to established positions that maybe could have been revisited and reexamined. All this also gave cause, as happens in similar circumstances, for disagreements, mistakes, and misunderstandings. And how much stranger such observations—which schematize and condense years of shared work and commitment—might appear if one realizes that, notwithstanding all this, if you wanted to compare the amicable Viterbo to a biblical character, the figure that would come to mind is Aaron—famous, as is well-known, in the Jewish tradition because he loved and sought peace for all his brothers. Leafing through the thousands of pages of Israel that were personally edited, directly into print, by Viterbo, we shall again find an old friend, his ideas, his great strength in withstanding every adversity, and even his warm, open smile (that of a cultivated man and a country gentleman), his peaceful and trusting eyes, his witty and good-natured Tuscan irony, and his distinctive way of speaking slowly, almost a little awkwardly, when he began to talk, in public or in private, but that revealed his ability to concentrate—with difficulty, almost with pain—so as not to forget anything, to be precise and clear, as in his writing. Since, as I have tried to emphasize, Viterbo’s notably manifold activities in the Jewish, and particularly Zionist, field had become increasingly concentrated on the weekly Israel, one has to ask oneself why the death of its editor also signaled the end of the periodical. Objectively considered, such a phenomenon can be explained with reference to economic problems and to the shortage of persons adequately trained to

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carry on the newspaper’s same philosophy—and some attempts must have been made to find a solution, but obviously without positive results. Whatever difficulties may have been encountered, the fact that should be recorded is this: a weekly, the only one with a clear, distinctly Zionist imprint, which since 1916 (except for the interruption of the racial laws and the war) had been able to navigate rough and difficult seas, adroitly avoiding reefs of various kinds, including the Jewish ones, had been wrecked with its captain—and not even in the microscopic Jewish world had there been any substantial reaction to this situation nor any serious efforts to try to resume the work in this direction. Maybe this event, too—which was passed over almost in silence, except for the satisfaction of a few who awaited such an ending, judging it to be a rather natural and therefore inevitable death—is an emblematic example, as we say today, of the habits, of the times in which we live, of the banal conformity (especially of those who shout their nonconformity and do not think it a contradiction), a telling display of the low level of authentic culture in which Jewish Italy had fallen. This entire matter then appears to be even more serious when one pays attention to the fact that at a moment like this we were falling asleep or camouflaging ourselves—right when, for an infinity of reasons, it was crucial to come out more openly in defense of Zionism; for Zionism was now being attacked with the new formula of anti-Semitic political propaganda, by the Right and by the Left—but with the same methods and, after a short while, with the same material, updated from Nazi and fascist times. Speaking of Viterbo, another great figure from the famous Florentine coterie of Margulies comes to mind: Alfonso Pacifici.11 When one thinks of Pacifici or reads his writings, or better yet listens to him, his words often have the secret of magic—due to the art of his polemics, which can be prophetically sweeping or talmudically penetrating; his perfectly Tuscan style; his lengthy sentences, which we often timed when we were young; his digressions, which follow one after the other like a series of tunnels passed through on a fast train; and his ideas, which are richly interwoven with pithy content. When, I would say, one comes in contact with this great friend in any way, one’s soul is often disturbed. The immediate sensation is that of finding oneself face-to-face

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with the traditional figure of a prophet, who springs forth alive from the pages of the Bible. And it is not only because of his words and his ideas but because of his long beard, once copper red and now white, his clear and penetrating eyes, his gestures, and the modulation of his voice. And then you relive (and this is the magical art of Pacifici) all the sufferings and all the glorious hopes of our people in a flash, like in an enchanting dream, beautiful and at the same time painful. But when the speech ends or you close one of his books, and the difficult and demanding phase of reflection begins, then problems still more complex and difficult than before arise, and you spontaneously begin asking countless questions, at least some of which maybe Pacifici himself would not know how to answer. Why is every encounter with Pacifici always a cause for spontaneous joy, sometimes even for excitement? Why does one follow his lengthy sentences with such absorbed attention and excessive strain? Why is there such emotion listening to his speeches? (I remember one of his lines: “Brothers, we have to have the courage to take off the mask that each of us habitually wears and to finally look each other in the face with eyes wide open, then . . .”) And why then are there so many uncertainties and so many doubts that will not go away but rather grow and, above all, do not lead us—as maybe they did not lead even him—to those conclusions that at first seemed so obvious, simple, and direct? Distant and yet always quite vivid recollections of the first and subsequent encounters with Pacifici surface in my mind again: from the old camps (“When you’re sleeping do you put your long beard on top of or under the blankets?”), to the brief meetings at the Pines Pensione in Rome, with Berti, when Pacifici had already made ’aliyà and maybe at a time before he had “rejected” Zionism, which he had defended with words and deeds in so many fine battles. From the meetings in postwar Florence and the long walks along the banks of the Arno, to those meetings in Torino, in the houses of mutual friends, to a chance and extremely happy meeting in the Biella train station, where, in the waiting room, we ate an improvised dinner, seated with kippà and regal dignity at an old and rickety table, entirely taken up with discussing the founding of a yeshivà in Italy, indifferent to the coming and going of travelers

fig. 20. Augusto Segre, as secretary of the Italian Zionist Federation, speaking at the Congress of the Italian Jewish Youth Federation in Florence, March 19, 1948. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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(who, however, looked at us with ill-concealed surprise). While waiting for the train that would take us to Torino, Pacifici, pointing to the tracks with his finger, had said to me, “Look, they give the feeling of the infinite, just like when you’re high up on a balcony and you marvel at the flight of the roofs.” Having been asked to participate with us in an educational program at a youth conference in Florence in 1948, he had accepted with youthful enthusiasm; it was the memory of the old Florence of Margulies that made him exclaim, “My friends, this is music to my ears!” In Jerusalem an interesting conversation took place: after the sudden flaring up of the intensely blue evening sky the night shadows descended rapidly, and the conversation became more subdued, quieter, with a calmer, softer tone, permeated on Pacifici’s part by greater, unanticipated doubts and by more serious worries, which at that moment even took on a bitter flavor—words that were less comforting than when he talked about the Holy City, walking along the banks of the Arno or the Tevere. And I even remember a meeting that was rather agitated, more or less during the same period, in Rome, at the offices of the Union of the Communities, with Lattes, Prato, Viterbo, and Cantoni present. It was the first time that I saw Lattes and Pacifici seated across from each other and, besides that, discussing the Jewish press and Jewish hopes. Pacifici was passionate, as always, and Lattes was subdued, cautious, and sometimes ironic. I had before me two of the most important and interesting personalities of our Italian Jewish world, the very ones who had, although in different ways, given prized contributions, leaving behind unmistakable marks. I asked myself then, and also later, if, since they were both fighting for the very same ideal, it would have been possible to make a synthesis of their brilliance, of their ideas, and of their teachings. It is too easy and perfunctory to say that it was a matter of two personalities who were quite different, frequently disagreeing with each other, and thus incompatible. The fact is, there was truth and sacredness in their ideas and in their struggle in defense of Judaism, and both their perspectives were upheld with tenacity, with great faith, and with supreme integrity. This might be the reason why, in spite of the disagreements that grew

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increasingly intense, a reciprocal esteem and a good friendship still remained between them. Lattes, a student of Benamozegh, a rabbi abounding in Jewish humanistic learning, went in the direction of the people in spite of his aristocratic physical and spiritual makeup.12 Pacifici, who represented the fifth generation of an assimilated bourgeois family, influenced by the great figure of Margulies, went laboriously, but with mounting and overwhelming enthusiasm, upon the more aristocratic road of Judaism. It is obvious that at a certain point Lattes and Pacifici had to meet each other. And during that period of their convergence, even if it was unfortunately brief (but so productive), they worked with great brilliance and to the advantage of everyone. It is enough to mention the emergence of the weekly Israel, and a little later La rassegna mensile di Israel. It is too bad that that collaboration did not continue. But then each of them followed his own way, and they never met on a path of shared labor again. I would say that the distance and the differences grew with the passing of time, and they became deeper and deeper. Pacifici, having reached, as he believed, the summit of his Judaism—aristocratically understood and practiced, as his bourgeois background prompted him—sometimes gave the impression of ignoring, if not putting down with almost orthodox fanaticism, the assimilated Jewish world, of evoking the always foreboding biblical threats, and of launching appeals to establish (in a situation that he judged to be tragic) at least an elite of those faithful to the Torà. On the other hand Lattes—aristocratic, intelligent, and learned, although of modest origins—sought to enter among the people—to understand their social and human problems and their desperation and their historical poverty—in order to urge them toward the recapture of authentic Jewish values, well aware of his mission as teacher in Israel. Not by chance had Lattes been the foremost Zionist in Italy since the end of the nineteenth century. Pacifici, in the excitement of his youthful exuberance, began a form of “integral Judaism” with his 1912 work, Israele l’unico: Ricerca di una definizione integrale dell’ebraismo, which subsequently, not surprisingly, he had to repudiate to some extent but which still served many as a vigorous stimulus toward the abstract renewal of our ideals and also

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as a basis for trying to realize this “integralism” in real life.13 I do not know how valid Pacifici thought the teachings expressed in his book still were in 1934, when he made his ’aliyà and prepared to turn his energy toward the Dorésh Zion Institute.14 But for my part, I have to say that even today I remember quite clearly many of those ideas, expressed with incisive, biblical simplicity. For example—the knowledge of Judaism, unfortunately, only as “translation” and no longer in its untranslatable originality; tragic dualism, introduced with the Jewish idea; a people’s consciousness of death as a guarantee of unfailing life, because from this consciousness of danger arose the voice of the prophets, who gave warnings and changed the course of fate; the physical existence of the people, which still does not explain their spiritual life; this spiritual life of theirs, at the center of which is the uniqueness of the Jewish people, such that one can declare that uniqueness is our power (and, I would add, a kind of atomic power, in continuous renewal and expansion); the mizwòth, as something distinctive that cannot be compared with the legislated norms of other peoples; the Torà as a unique whole. And we should not forget Pacifici’s famous article (“Il caso Cassuto”) on Cassuto’s book (La questione della Genesi), or the kadòsh (separate, holy) as a metaphor of absolute perfection, or Abraham as the father of a multitude, eternal in his descendants, because every Jew contains an entire nation—so that if every individual in Israel is already a nation we can understand the exile and the diasporic existence of our people but, at the same time, the memory and the aspiration to return to the Land promised by God.15 And so on. Weizmann, in his memoirs, writes about having met in Florence “a young and ardent prophet of Zionism”—that is, Pacifici—and he describes the Florentine Zionist group as a “microcosm” of the Jewish people because of some suggestions with which he did not sympathize. Regarding this many-sided personality, it still remains to ask ourselves how it could be that not only in Italy but maybe in Israel, too—although there he was among steadfast and dearly beloved friends—he could remain a de facto recluse. From what has been said up to now we can hypothesize that this isolation was not only the result of the outer world toward him, but that Pacifici himself had deliberately put himself in this

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situation, maybe without wanting to and perhaps without even realizing it. Sometimes I seem to see Pacifici as if he is closed in, high up in a tower, enraptured by the panorama that he enjoys, while he addresses impassioned and often desperate appeals to his brothers to summon them to come up, and quickly—not only to take part in the marvelous view but especially to save themselves from the impending, sweeping, imminent, and tragic danger of a pagan assimilation. He awaits the best, the elect, with brotherly longing; but the real world, which is so far below, with its dramatically human problems, eludes his eyes even though he is so perceptive—because it is also very distant from his spirit. I myself often lost sight of him, because he was so high, too high, at least for me. “Integral Judaism”—but in the end qualitative Judaism or Judaism for the masses? From this comes the most obvious difference between Lattes and Pacifici, as well. From Pacifici we read and heard extraordinarily beautiful things, but we also realized that Pacifici himself sometimes was the first to sprinkle question marks along the route that he had traced, to contradict himself—at least on the face of it—and not once but a thousand times, and in the same speech or in the numerous marginal notes to his writings— which, taken as a whole, appear in their disjointedness to be a sign, no doubt, of the continual torment of this exceptional mind. Enzo Sereni was one of the most impressive figures of Italian Judaism of the twentieth century, due to his intelligence and his organizational ability; he was an achiever of the Jewish ideal.16 He, too, was a victim of Nazi savagery. At the celebrated Youth Congress of Livorno in 1924 Sereni was able to capture and, so to speak, photograph the rather enigmatic figure of Pacifici in a speech in which he said, among other things: The attorney Pacifici once said that Italian Judaism is a qualitative Judaism, which thus has its own problems and its own solutions. We believe that the principles that are valid for Judaism in the rest of the world are also valid for us and that daydreams about a qualitative Judaism and a mission for Italian Judaism are literary fantasies. . . . The truth is that your type of propaganda, attorney Pacifici, has failed, or else it has succeeded only partially, because

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it hasn’t even managed to reach very many people, the vast majority of the Jews of Italy. And it didn’t succeed—and doesn’t it seem paradoxical to level this charge against those who always have been accused of the opposite defect?—it didn’t succeed because it really wasn’t fundamental enough, strict enough; because it didn’t offer a solution to the Jewish question, the question of the proper kind of life for Jewish Italian youth. . . . The solution to the Jewish question is nothing other than the proletarianization of the Jewish people. . . . Jewish youth of the diaspora—bourgeois, intellectual, and mercantile—must proletarianize themselves and agree to establish and to join the working-class cadres that Palestine needs.17

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in “let’s not waste time” I wrote: “Great events are coming to a head these weeks, and the day is not far when we will be called to tasks of great responsibility. Are we truly prepared to face the new developments in the situation? . . . Tomorrow history will judge us for what we were able to do, and I am convinced that the Zionists of Italy can and should also make their contribution, limited but no less precious than that of the others, because everyone is called to the work of the reconstruction and rebirth of Erez Israèl. Let us reawaken our sleeping resolve. The fault is not only with the one who sleeps, but above all with the one who is able, yet does not reawaken the sleeping.”1 The news that arrived in my office during those days convinced us more and more that we were about to reach the final stretch. But contradictory rumors about the postponement of the decision and the extremely controversial outcome of the voting also reached us. Feverish hours of waiting, long and enervating, went by. The offices of the Zionist Federation, on Via Principe Amedeo, were open practically day and night by then, and the telephones rang nearly uninterruptedly, even with calls from strangers, Jews and non-Jews, anxious to have “more accurate” news. Then the news, as much as it had been awaited, arrived unexpectedly. On November 29, the un General Assembly, meeting in plenary session at Lake Success, had approved the plan already adopted by the ad hoc committee and proposed by subcommittee number 1, which entailed the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish State. The voting in favor of the Jewish State produced the following results:

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thirty-three votes in favor, thirteen against, ten abstaining, one absent. (Among those in favor were Czechoslovakia, Poland, Ukraine, and Soviet Russia.) At this point my office becomes a railroad station, as they say, and— here is something new—it is not only the Zionists who come to see and to hear but also those who never were known Zionists (and maybe were even anti-Zionist). Thus it is worth the trouble to take a look at this composite crowd. What is most striking is that this reaction is happening right in Rome, in this Community that, from its extremely long existence, draws an attachment to the ideas and forms of diaspora life like few other Jewish centers do. No demonstration is scheduled for the morning, but in tacit agreement we head toward the Zionists’ home, toward the Federation. We are present—and not without emotion—at a demonstration as historic as the event that we are experiencing. Italian Jews—even among themselves so ideologically diverse—and refugees are to be found side by side, overcoming language barriers with warm handshakes, with embraces, looking each other in the eyes and weeping. You hear conversations in Italian, in Yiddish, in German, in Hebrew. Joy is everywhere; there is a widespread sense of pride for everything that is happening, and it brings back—as before, over the course of the age-old history of Israel—the flavor of a new miracle. The news that after two thousand years of dispersion the Jewish State has been reborn wins over, in those hours so charged with emotion, even those who are most distant. The idea is a success, and enthusiasm grows by degrees as telegrams arrive from Jerusalem describing the explosion of jubilation that took place there that same night, as soon as the announcement arrived. The coreligionist who until yesterday knew you but acted like he did not—precisely because he was quite familiar with you and knew that you were one of those madmen who stubbornly continued to defend certain utopias—now comes toward you with the smile and the joy of someone who sees an old friend again after a long time; he shakes your hand warmly, winks, even gives you a slap on the shoulder, and says to you, “Well! What do you say? You see? We’ve done it!” A little old man, well-known for his skepticism, takes me by the arm and murmurs to

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me, “Did you see? What did I tell you? Convinced now?” The merit, in short, is now everyone’s, and I have to say that I am happy for these spontaneous demonstrations that show how, in the heart of hearts of even the most assimilated Jew, there is something stubbornly chained in the unconscious that is now being liberated and coming out. Raffaele naturally is the most excited of all. He moves around without stopping from one room to another, speaking, shouting, giving orders, making plans. He stops in his tracks in front of my table and, pointing at me with his finger, almost as if to accuse me of having forgotten something important, says, “Do you realize or do you not realize that we need to send a message to the Italian people? We need a poster to stick up in every city.” He grabs the first piece of paper that he can get his hands on and begins to write. Viterbo and I are nearby to give him a hand in coordinating ideas and style, but Raffaele as usual has no time to lose and wants the text to be typed immediately. The secretary, who usually is already trembling as soon as she sees him, begins to type from Cantoni’s dictation. I realize right away that things are starting out badly. Raffaele is proceeding as if he is holding a rally—in an excited voice, almost without pauses; the secretary starts to get confused and makes mistakes, and then Raffaele interrupts himself just to make comments to the typist that are not very kind. She bursts into tears and bolts. Then I myself sit down at the typewriter; I have been used to the impetuousness of my old friend for years, and now in fact he sometimes gets interrupted, by Viterbo or by me, regarding certain details. His immediate response is, “There’s no time to lose,” almost as if the poster has to be affixed to cities’ walls within a few minutes. But finally the text is ready, gone over again, revised, and a little later it is already at the printer’s. I think that this poster, given the circumstances, also has a certain historical interest and therefore is worth quoting here: message to the italian people Rejoice with us! After almost nineteen centuries the right of the Jewish People to be considered free and sovereign in their own State once again has been recognized.

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No People, ever before in the history of Humanity, has resisted the disruptive forces of such a long exile, none has undergone such atrocious suffering, and none has pursued the goal of return and restoration with such a tenacious will. And now the restoration has been fulfilled. It is an event that cannot leave any civilized person indifferent, because this act of justice, finally rendered to the People of Israel, has for a long time been an indispensable requirement for peace and for the progress of all Nations. It is not complete justice because not all that which was owed the Jewish People was given them. The Land Promised by God and by men, the Land that was the cradle of Jewish civilization for thirteen centuries and that is known and respected solely because of that, the Land that other peoples were able only to devastate, exploit, and reduce to desert and ruin, the Land that the labor and love of the Jewish pioneers of these past fifty years has admirably begun to redeem, has been carved up again and again. But that part of it that the Assembly of Nations has allotted the resurgent Jewish People is much more than a simple strip of land: it is the shelter yearned for by hundreds of thousands of wanderers without roofs, it is the place of refuge for those tossed about by the horrible storm, it is the foundation for material, cultural, and social reconstruction. After Theodore Herzl—the founder of modern political Zionism, whose name should be remembered and praised today with special honor—had, some fifty years ago, launched his appeal to the world, a strenuous work of reconstruction, with self-sacrifice and intelligence, with sweat and blood, was begun in Palestine, together with the political preparation that today is bringing forth its fruits. And before the Tribunal of Nations, the marshes that were drained, the stony ground that was ploughed, the deserts that were irrigated, the mountain ranges that were reforested, the schools, the hospitals, the research institutes, the factories, the settlements—the works of the pioneers’ labor—did not count less, and maybe counted even more, than the theoretical arguments

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concerning history and law and those arguments of compassion concerning the distressful conditions of the refugees. This work should continue and will continue as a contribution of Israel toward the progress of all Humanity and particularly toward the progress of the Near East. Italy, separated from Palestine by a brief stretch of sea, which does not separate but rather connects, should maintain, and certainly will maintain, those friendly and reciprocally beneficial relations with the new State that befit the representatives of two ancient civilizations. These relations will be aided by the good memory of their sojourn in Italy that the Jewish refugees who moved or who shortly will move to Palestine, comforted by the kindness of the Italian people and the hospitable measures of its Government, will bring with them. The Jews of Italy, who have furnished many proofs of their devotion over the course of the years, under even the most difficult conditions and even when it was a matter of offering their lives for the Risorgimento and for the Liberation, have no need at this moment to give assurances nor to proffer promises; as Italian citizens they think of their ties with the Jewish State that is emerging in the same way that the Italians of the world feel and demonstrate their attachment to their land of origin. We Jews feel great excitement on this day. What makes it deep is not enjoying the prize of our tenacious efforts with our brothers of this generation, but rather feeling the spirit of our Prophets, of our Dead, of our Martyrs, of our Heroes, of our Teachers—of many, many generations hovering around us—and recognizing in our heartbeats the furthermost vibration of their lives and the sound of their voices, which recite with us, in joy, the words of the psalmist, “. . . this day is the work of the Eternal One!” and utter with us the blessing to the Lord of the world who has brought about the great miracle of keeping us in life and bringing us to this glorious dawn. May the Jewish State live long, progress, and prosper in the family of civilized peoples, for its own good and for the good of all

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Humanity, as was proclaimed from the beginning of its existence, with the divine words, “. . . and you shall be a blessing!” 16 Kislev 5708-29 November 1947 The Union of Italian Jewish Communities—cantoni The Rabbinical Council—prato The Zionist Federation—viterbo The Central Administration for Jewish Refugees in Italy— bernstein 2 As president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Raffaele Cantoni addresses the following message to Enrico de Nicola, the provisional head of state: After nineteen centuries of suffering and waiting the Jewish people has, with the consent of the United Nations, obtained the solution to its problem with the creation of the Jewish State in the land of the Bible. At this solemn moment in the long and tragic history of Israel the Jews of Italy believe it is their duty to reaffirm their love for the land in which they have lived for centuries and of which they are and remain free and loyal citizens. Because of their participation in Italy’s fate, even during the most difficult moments, and because of the proof they have always given of their ability to fulfill their duty toward this country, they feel that they have no need to make promises or give assurances. Their ties with the new Jewish State, which is emerging at this moment in the ancient Land of their faith, will be of the same nature as the ties that unite the millions of Italians spread throughout the world to their land of origin. The Jews are confident that Italy will greet the new State with goodwill and will follow its destiny with friendship, for the peace of the world and the advancement of Mediterranean civilization. With the greatest respect, President Raffaele Cantoni 3 More than a thousand people have gathered around the Arch of Titus. It is the afternoon of December 2. Roman Jews, refugees, youth organiza-

fig. 21. Arch of Titus, Rome, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator. fig. 22. Arch of Titus, detail, Rome, May 2000. Frieze showing Titus’s triumphal procession after sacking the Temple in Jerusalem. Photo courtesy of the translator.

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tions with their flags. The Maghèn Davìd fans new hopes right near that monument that seemed to have symbolized, over the centuries, the definitive end of every Jewish hope. I have arrived after the speeches have already begun. I was not able to leave my office because telegrams and telephone calls were arriving one after the other about what was happening all over the world, from Jerusalem and Tel Aviv to New York—where six thousand people meeting at the Saint Nicholas Arena poured into the streets, singing and dancing; to Chicago and Berlin—where extermination-camp survivors organized rallies; to Hanover—where the refugees of the Exodus organized a series of celebrations; in short, from every part of the world a single voice of joy, of unity, of emotion, suppressed for so many centuries. Around the Arch of Titus strained, emotional faces and unstoppable tears when the martyrs are remembered and when at the end the national anthem “Ha-Tikvà” (The Hope) bursts forth, sung in unison. At this point we witness an event that, spontaneous and collective, also has its own particular historical significance. From time immemorial Jews have not walked under the Arch, which commemorated the destruction of the Temple and the humiliation of the deportation. Now, as if through a shared tacit agreement, many groups file under the Arch of Titus; the ancient vow not to pass under those images of the Roman triumph is defunct. While people move slowly away, heading toward the Great Temple (which is decorated magnificently with the most precious tapestries and curtains and lit up lavishly) to attend a ceremony of celebration and thanksgiving, I stop for a moment to look at the Forum. The first evening shadows are falling. There is nothing but a mass of ruins, the destination of tourists, an attraction for scholars who want to dig in a distant past. Where is the Rome of the Caesars, where are the Roman eagles, victorious beyond the seas, rulers of nations—parcere victis, debellare superbos?4 Where is Mussolini’s imperial Rome, when another empire arose on the fateful hills of Rome, caput mundi?5 Not far away is the Mamertine prison, where Shim’on Bar Ghiora, “defender of Jerusalem,” was murdered, and near there is the Tiber Island, where according to legend the gold candelabrum is buried.6 Out of so much history there is now nothing left but the memory of a power that once was, covered

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with weeds and broken columns, as if it were the symbol of an end without glory. The Arch of Titus stands out in its whiteness in the evening shadows. In 1897 Theodore Herzl, returning from the first Zionist Congress in Basel, had written in his diary, “At Basel I founded the Jewish State. If I were to proclaim it today to the multitudes, they would respond to me with a burst of laughter. But maybe within five years, and certainly within fifty years, this truth will be universally acknowledged.” And now it is 1947! A crown of laurel set down during the ceremony, next to the basreliefs of the ancient trophies of “Judea Capta,” bears the inscription, “After 1877 years the Jewish State rises again.”7 The Rome of the Caesars has disappeared, and forever; the Jewish State has revived. On Friday, December 5, the representatives of the Jews of Italy, led by Raffaele Cantoni, are received by the head of state to express to him, on the occasion of the proclamation of the Jewish State, the Jewish refugees’ sentiments of gratitude for the welcome and the assistance they received in Italy and those of the Jewish citizens of Italy for the sympathy and approval Italy always demonstrated for the Jewish Risorgimento in Palestine. President De Nicola, appreciating these remarks, declares that he has fully understood the position of the Jewish citizens of Italy and is quite certain that they can also contribute to Italian reconstruction while working together effectively for the establishment of the Jewish State.

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the new events also pose exceptional new problems for the Zionist Federation. To begin with, there is the concept of Zionism itself, which is being reexamined and discussed concerning possible new connotations that it might take on. Or should it now be considered a movement that has fulfilled its purpose, bearing in mind that the Zionist plan formulated by the first Zionist Congress in Basel specified that “the purpose of Zionism is the creation of a homeland in Palestine for the Jewish people, guaranteed by public law”? And now the Jewish State almost exists. In the meantime, however, old problems still remain on the carpet. England, now at the end of the mandate entrusted to it, tightens the reins further and begins to stir up the Arab world with new methods, which are added to those that by then had been practiced for years in order to foment conflicts with the Jews. Those Jews who live in Arab countries run grave risks, and there are pogroms almost everywhere. By 1945 there had already been serous incidents in Libya. There is still the problem of the refugees, many of whom did not succeed in reaching Erez Israèl or were stopped during the voyage by the ships of the British Royal Navy and were deported to various places. Consequently illegal immigration—’aliyà “beth”—intensifies, and our office carries out a certain role in this area, too. There are young people with us who want “to go up” to Israel, because they want to leave the memories of the tragedy behind and build a new life.1 We reopen the San Marco hakhsharà—where young people not only from the Italian Communities but also from other countries are gathered. There are also some young people from San Nicandro, members of

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that group of peasants who passed over to Judaism. This, one can say, is a completely separate chapter in the history of Italian Judaism, and in this case it belongs with those instances, which are not unusual, of a spontaneous movement toward the Jewish idea, through considerable inner travail. For the group from San Nicandro the phenomenon is even more astonishing. It is about plain folk who read the New Testament over the course of long winter evenings, and from this they feel that they have been led back to the source, which is the Hebrew Bible. Hence the passage to Judaism, a group conversion that exalts these souls who have become so awakened to metaphysical values and who astonish because of their natural spontaneity, like that of the Patriarchs, and because of their imagination, which seems to re-create biblically inspired, ancestral, expressive patterns. They also write psalms and new prayers that, although rudimentary in style, reveal a strong emotional charge with prophetic roots. I make friends, in the hakhsharà, with a lively, active, imaginative youth who comes from San Nicandro—Pasquale, who now naturally is called Pèsach.2 In Israel he will marry a young Polish refugee girl and fit into the country perfectly.3 The first groups of Libyan Jews arrive. For most of them Italy is a bridge of passage to Israel. Even this first stage is an adventure, a clandestine voyage. I get in touch with several people, in particular with a teacher, Signora Polacco, who is exceptionally skillful and capable in organizing these groups. It is a job that absolutely requires special shrewdness, from the moment they leave Italy until their arrival in Israel. The police authorities close one eye, sometimes both, but there can never be too much discretion and prudence. Anything can happen. Still, the work proceeds with a certain orderliness, even if at times we find ourselves having to sort out problems that are among the most absurd and unforeseeable, due not so much to the objective difficulties of the enterprise as to the confusion, incomprehension, and suspicion that make those problems difficult that in themselves do not present any difficulty. One has to bear in mind, however, the state of mind of these people, uprooted after centuries from a country where they had been able to live relatively peacefully and according to their own habits and customs, in a sociocultural and economic context so different from the one in which they now find themselves.

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Friday, May 14, 1948—5 Iyar 5708. In the Tel Aviv Museum, at 2:00 p.m., the provisional government, under the presidency of Ben Gurion, announces the establishment of the “State of Israel.” The Arab states, after the already numerous incidents that took place during the previous months, now descend into open warfare. The offices on Via Principe Amedeo now discover that they, too, within the limitations of their means, have to confront new tasks that no longer involve the clandestine ’aliyà— which, although still in the midst of some difficulties, is now finally transforming itself into an open ’aliyà for all Jews. We are now dealing with completely unique tasks for circumstances that are utterly exceptional, a true emergency. We are presented with problems that are new in a certain sense, even though we are aided by experiences that already put us to the test during the period of the Resistance—problems like volunteers who ask about leaving for Israel and various supplies that must be sought in different places and conveyed to certain centers. It is even rather clear that at this point, and for complicated reasons, the different authorities, from the police to the carabinieri, not excluding the Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry, are setting themselves in motion, in accordance with their various jurisdictions. We get proof of the more or less invisible presence of these guardians of law and order easily and quite soon. The office is literally swarming with a crowd of people, usually nondescript, who want to speak with me, to give, and to volunteer. Mingled in are agents, who do not escape an experienced eye and sometimes not even an inexperienced eye, because of the ingenuous little ruses to which they have recourse. Here are some examples, which are also amusing: A distinguished, middle-aged man turns up, apparently worried—to the point of checking personally whether the door at the entrance really had been shut; in fact at a certain point he will get up to open it suddenly, as if he is afraid that there might be someone listening behind it. He excuses himself, stammering that unfortunately he finds himself in a situation in which he is afraid of everything. He declares himself a captain of the carabinieri. (“I don’t have secrets,” he says.) On duty not long ago, he states, there had been a shootout, and he had been seriously wounded in the thigh. He, too, had shot and killed a wanted man. Now he fears revenge. “Under these conditions, as you can understand,

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I don’t have any intention of going back to the carabinieri. I have to flee Italy.” I listen to him and tell him that I really do not know how I could help him. He wants to go to “Palestine.” I continue to hold my tongue, stretching out my arms to make him understand that I really cannot do anything for him. Suddenly he gets up: “Maybe you don’t believe what I’m telling you; well then, look.” He unfastens his belt and drops his pants, revealing an impressive scar on his thigh—but at the same time the ruse, too. I have too much personal experience of scars, including scars of war. What he has me look at, and at length, is an old scar. One evening, when I am about to leave, a fellow shows up running, out of breath; he looks around himself suspiciously, goes back to the door at the entrance, and takes a glance at the stairs, afraid of having been followed. He is wearing a knotted red kerchief around his neck partisanstyle, the furbetto. He tells me that the police are after him because he is a communist and that he has to leave this very evening, that by now the police net is closing in. I share in his troubles with a great deal of sympathy, and I do not ask him why the police would have to arrest him simply because he is a communist; but I let him know that I really cannot do anything for him. “But I know that if you want, you can help me leave for Palestine.” “I don’t know who’s had such a fantasy. I just do cultural and journalistic work. I myself wouldn’t know what to do to go to Palestine at a time like this.” I ask him if he wants to spend the night in my office; this I can do. He thanks me and leaves in a hurry, poor guy. In a hurry until the end of the stairs, because from the window I see him leave without the kerchief and at a normal pace. Another episode, less amusing. A woman comes to me with a young man. She says, quite openly, “This is my son. The police are looking for him because he stole a motorcycle. So you must have him leave within two days.” I firmly refuse. And she, in a determined voice: “Be careful. Either you arrange for him to leave, or I’ll kill you.”

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I call two coworkers, and I say to them, “Take a good look at her. This woman has threatened to kill me.” And then I expel her from the office with her son. Things get complicated when the son of an important person from a ministry disappears. Now I receive the police formally; they want to know if that young man called at my office. They tell me his name, and they let me know that I would have put myself in a very difficult position if I had helped him to emigrate. I go resolutely on the counterattack: “I’m pleased that you have come, and I appeal for your help. You’ve seen the people who are waiting. I’ve been putting up with this invasion for weeks. I don’t know how to thank whoever has spread all this nonsense. Please help me in the meantime by getting those people waiting out there to clear out.” The three policemen look at each other, perplexed; they do not know what to do. I insist: “I beg you. I can’t stand it anymore.” They do it, and in a few seconds the office is emptied. But they return to the attack. “Now that we’re calmer, tell us truly for once, how do things stand?” I smile, surprised, and I repeat the entire story, which by now I know by heart, like an actor. They take note of everything, even my name, address, and place of birth, and finally they leave. But naturally the matter does not end there. It is not hard for me to realize that I am being shadowed, which on the one hand amuses me when I succeed, with little ruses, in giving my pursuers the slip, as they say. But on the other hand I worry because I have to be careful about where I go and about the various documents—including “compromising” ones—that I sometimes carry with me. I have read all the newspapers very carefully, and the news of the disappearance of that young man is true. I also get confirmation through a telephone call that I have made to the family. We really needed this, too? But after several weeks things return to normal, because that famous figure’s son is found traveling around Italy. I am offered a ship, complete with armaments; take it or let it be sold to the Arabs. Two rather shady-looking characters make me this offer. I ask for time to examine this “important and interesting offer,” as I say,

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and a list of the equipment is needed as well. I get in touch with the people concerned and receive instructions to drag out the negotiations as long as possible. We are not to rule out the possibility a priori that we might be dealing with con men. The game goes on for some fifteen days characterized by telephone calls and exchanges of telegrams. The ship is to be found in the Adriatic, ready to sail. From information that we gather independently it appears that we are dealing with an offer that is serious, even though it is high-priced. When I finally receive a kind of ultimatum I pass the “hot potato” on to the people concerned. A descendent of Garibaldi telephones me. His generous offer is typically Garibaldian: “We’re putting ten thousand men at your disposal, ready to depart whenever you wish.” The offer is spectacular; it seems to be dictated more by enthusiasm and sympathy than by a reasonable possibility of realization. Still, it nearly moves me to tears, as if a gust of wind of the Risorgimento were blowing through this office of mine, and I think again of the legendary figure of Garibaldi, ready to rush to wherever liberty was in danger and always generously. I thank him, and I ask for time. But the telephone calls grow more insistent every day. I let Raffaele know about the offer, and together we go to the general to thank him personally. Raffaele explains to him how the war that is being fought is a war of liberation to consolidate the new State and that therefore it has to be fought by Jews alone, because this is their duty and their task. Our gratitude is great and fraternally heartfelt. On the international front there are some signs of relief. After the recognition of the State of Israel by the United States and the ussr other recognitions, by, for example, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Poland, follow. The French National Assembly votes for a resolution presented by the minister of foreign affairs, which expresses best wishes to the new state. At this point Great Britain intervenes, with an official request to the French government to delay recognition, since that might hinder Great Britain’s peacemaking efforts with the Arab states. These are news reports, however, that do not explain what these English peacemaking efforts are. From direct news gathered a few months later in Israel, and from a conversation I had a couple of years ago with an Arab in Haifa—which fully confirmed what I had known many years earlier—

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the English were very active, spreading terror among the Arab population residing in the country, telling them that the Israelis would exterminate them. Regardless of the assurances that were given them by the Israeli authorities, from loudspeakers, too (as I myself had occasion to hear), the Arabs were swept away by this English propaganda, and even more so when they were told that the English themselves had organized an orderly rescue operation to have them cross into Lebanon. This actually took place at several points on the border to the north of the Galilee. The English colonial empire went on crumbling, but no stone was left unturned—even in that part of the Middle East—in order to spread chaos in the hope of somehow winning back positions that in reality were already definitively compromised. This is the history that very few remember or want to remember. The Arab with whom I spoke, to my question of whether there would ever come a day when it would be possible to achieve peace between Israel and the Arabs, had concluded, “What I’ve told you is the pure truth. I am a native of Haifa, and all these things were well-known here. That’s when the fight started that’s still going on, in one way or another. If the big dogs”—and he smiled, half closing his eyes, and the allusion was clear—“would let us be and concern themselves only with their own business, I’m sure that there would be peace. Leave to us and only to us the chance to resolve our own problems.” Italy, proceeding with its traditional hesitant caution, still has not recognized the State of Israel, while Cuba, which always formed a bloc with the Arab states, recognizes it. (Cuba was one of the thirteen that had voted against Israel’s creation.) Furthermore, the USSR declares itself disposed to begin normal diplomatic relations with Israel, after having been the first to recognize it de jure, while the United States has recognized it de facto. And then, the speech given to the un General Assembly by Gromyko is one of the most important internationally since 1947.4 Senator Terracini has presented an urgent query to the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs to find out “why they have not yet attended to the recognition of the State of Israel and whether they are considering attending to it without further delay, with the goal of preventing the silence and passivity of the Italian Republic from being

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interpreted as approval of the policies that have incited and continue to sustain the barbarous war of aggression that is staining Palestine with blood, to the horror of all the civilized world.”5 The support of the parties of the Left in Italy for the rebirth of the State of Israel (which is revealed in Terracini’s urgent query), while the center and Right members of Parliament continue to maintain a certain distance—ignoring the event or giving opposed opinions, which appear in various newspapers—can lead one to think that here in Italy we are inclined to politicize every issue. Thus it happens that in Israeli diplomatic circles there is a sense of the advisability of making contact with these parties to try to explain the situation and to try in some way to get such opinions expressed, at least through their press organs, as will convey the idea that the question of the State of Israel has not been monopolized by the Left.6 I am asked to make contact with the extreme Right, expressly to carry out one of these planned stratagems. My task is limited to persuading the msi press to soften itself a little regarding this issue.7 It is certainly not a task I am excited about, but I accept it as a mission that has a precise goal—and obviously I have nothing in common with the people with whom I will have contact. There is no doubt that recognition of the State of Israel by Italy has its own particular importance, bearing in mind the geographic position of this country and the fact that Rome also represents the world center of Catholicism. Therefore I set about even this task with the best goodwill, even though I do not have the slightest idea where I can begin to find a connection, a contact that might give me the possibility of opening this dialogue at a certain level. A chance meeting with several young members of the msi gives me the opportunity. I try to test the lay of the land with a certain appropriate caution. I figure that the best course for me is to broach subjects that I have good reason to believe I can talk about in a language my interlocutors will understand: Rome, its history and civilization through the centuries, law, Roman literature. I draw on my memories of the classical liceo as well as I can, in order to serve up the remains of an education like that, like the one that had been fed to me. I mention that England, with its traditional colonial policy, has always thwarted the legitimate aspirations of Italy and has for many years, with the Palestinian mandate, exploited the

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peoples of that country, thus making an enemy of broad strata of Jewish opinion; but I also emphasize that the traditional colonial British Empire is now crumbling and that therefore this is a good opportunity to resume a sound Mediterranean policy. The sea could now unite, rather than divide, Italy and the reborn State of Israel. Accentuating all this rhetorical talk with many nationalistic elements, I have prepared the dish that I offer to the young msi members, not forgetting to add the reciprocal advantages of an active collaboration between these two great civilizations, the Roman and the Jewish. If I felt a good deal of hesitation in deciding to launch such a conversation, it is even more obvious that similar hesitancies exist among those who are listening to me. The requests for clarification that are posed to me, though vague and maybe prudent, nevertheless reveal the prevailing note of surprise that a Jew, persecuted by the fascists, would now actually turn to them to discuss such topics. I try to dispel, at least partially, such legitimate doubts. The past, I state, even though painful, ought not keep us entrenched forever in the same positions. Rather, this could be a good opportunity for them to demonstrate—in an unquestionable way, given precisely this past—that there are young people in the msi who were not involved in such sorrowful events, and consequently they desire to open a new phase of relations with everyone. One cannot go backward; there is a future that we have to look to with confidence and with shared interests in mind. After several meetings I make it known that I would be happy to meet with the leaders of the party and, in particular, with Michelini himself.8 I emphasize that I have noted that the political line toward Israel in their press has softened a little in recent weeks. This tallies with the truth, and so there are already some results from our conversations. The shifts are not radical, but the slight change is already an important indication to me that the interest in these discussions continues, hence my request for a meeting at a high level. Michelini receives me in his office. I am escorted by a friend, while others wait at a nearby café where they can monitor the entrance to the building. The memory of the partisan experience is not yet so distant. A strong handshake from Michelini. He is a man of rather stocky build. In

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his modest office, standing all around, are some of the young men I already know and others whom I am seeing for the first time. The tone is polite but rather lukewarm. He is trying to weigh me for my character and for my ideas. A certain justifiable mistrust shows through, and actually I am an intrusion into that world. I think I am the only one who smiles a few times, and I am conscious of the strain. The others cannot, or they want to make me understand that all times are historic and that fate can strike at any moment. The Member of Parliament Michelini’s words are not very clear; he talks in the style characteristic of the politician who speaks but does not say anything. At times his sentences proceed haltingly, trenchantly, resolutely, as if his words, too, ought to be carved in marble. It may be that I find myself in that office and that I am speaking with the highest representative of that party—but often the voice of Mussolini comes back to my ear. Because of a wound, sustained in the war, I believe, his gaze is cross-eyed. In speaking with him, and looking at him fixedly, one may get the impression that he would like to avoid a direct encounter, but undoubtedly this is only a matter of his infirmity. Evasive, in fact, he outlines his reasoning more and more, rather ably, touching on different problems, passing from one to the other, and mixing them together. What I begin to understand, vaguely, is that in politics one gives in order to receive; all the rest is lost in the abstract, which is completely useless. We leave it like that, after having agreed to maintain contact, and after I have tried to make it understood, with equally vague remarks, that in a situation like this one certain understandings should be studied at leisure—and that at any rate I think that the first substantive moves, for many reasons, should come from them and, as we say, spontaneously, without preconditions. But the quid pro quo comes out rather clearly in a subsequent meeting with the same young men, sent on reconnaissance to find out about our available funds. As I had foreseen, it is a matter of money. Some small positive results, even though modest, have already been achieved. It is enough. In February of 1949, the Italian press will report the following announcement: “The de facto recognition of the government of Israel, decided upon last month on January 25 by the Italian Government, has been completed through an exchange of letters that took place in Tel Aviv on February 7.”

c h a p t er t wen t y- nine

Sailing for Israel

israel is at war. Once again, like so many times in the course of our history, we are the few against the many. It is a difficult undertaking, but maybe no more so than countless others. I hear news about a partisan type of war. How could it be any different, considering the forces in the field and the weapons the two sides have at their disposal? It is true that volunteers keep coming from every part of the world, and weapons, too, are increasing, especially from Czechoslovakia; but the enemy is one hundred times superior in men and means. In Israel there is a joke going around: the first Israeli successes are due to two causes, one natural and one miraculous. The natural one is that the Lord is helping us, the miraculous one that we now have an army! A long train, composed exclusively of freight cars, with about eight hundred emigrants, concentration-camp survivors from all over Europe. It is the first time that I find myself traveling with them, and in such conditions that inevitably one thinks about other cattle cars from a few years earlier. From today until the disembarkation in Haifa I will be with them; I will live the same life with them, and maybe I will be able to appreciate many things that until today, from my office, with a secretary and telephones, I was not able to understand. I have settled in as well as I can, with my bag and a suitcase, upon which, precariously balanced, I try to sit. Nearby, elbow to elbow, are men, women, and children with faces that still bear the unmistakable signs of the tragedy, in threadbare clothing, with various odors that are not always pleasant. On two improvised beds there is a cluster of young children with fragile and bewildered expressions, very sweet. They might be the symbol of our people, who for

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OCEAN

AT L A N T I C

500 miles

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Casale Monferrato I A Y

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Map 3. Italy and Israel

Rome

T

L

Black Sea

ISRAEL Jerusalem

Red Sea

LEBANON S Y R I A

Mediterranean Sea

WEST Tel Aviv Jaffa Yavne Gedera

BANK

Jordan R.

Tzefat Acco Kinneret Haifa (Sea of Galilee) Tiberias Nazareth Afula Bet She'an Sedè Eliyahu Kefar Ruppin Tiràth Zevì

Givat Brenner Latrun Jerusalem (occupied by Jordan)

Gaza

Dead Sea

Beersheva

I S R A E L

JORDAN

EGYPT

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Eilat Red Sea

Map 4. Israel in 1949

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25 kilometers 25 miles

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centuries have been born, worked, struggled, suffered, and died, always traveling. But now, finally, we are returning home. The psalmist sings that a thousand years are as a day in the eyes of the Lord. I consider that if we are returning home after only two days, there is not really any reason to complain. On my right a young father, with a long, reddish beard and the typical peòth (side locks), holds in his arms a tiny, year-old baby boy, very blond, who plays with his father’s beard, under which he sometimes disappears. The father smiles; in his clear and limpid eyes there is a childlike joy. How many of these fathers and these children disappeared in the Nazi crematoria? The train, after a long and slow turn around Naples, finally arrives at the port. The ship—a small ship, war surplus, built in France, sunk, recovered, and repaired as well as can be—is anchored at an isolated area of the port. The interminable paperwork for the embarkation begins. A long line that winds for a hundred meters: men, women (the old and the pregnant young), young children (restless because they are already tired), bundles, suitcases, trunks, bottles of water and of milk, blankets, all in a thick tangle, difficult to sort out. The ship’s cranes slowly load the biggest baggage. I have set myself to wait patiently. I have a standard passport, but there is a small detail that could give me cause for concern: it is valid only for Switzerland! I already have a certain plan of action: let these eight hundred people by, present myself among the last ones, when the people behind the table near the ship who check documents are already tired, and then, with the help of a person with whom I have already made contact, try to obtain the embarkation stamp. I am somewhat worried when, still feigning complete indifference, I present myself to passport control. One finger on the page of the passport where my photograph is and the other ready to turn the page and show the one with the visa. My friend takes my passport, shows the photo, and flips through the pages, saying, “It’s really getting late, and even I can’t stand it anymore—I’m tired.” The others are too, and it is stamped in a second. I thank them, smile at my friend, and get on board. I am informed that my place is in the infirmary, aft. This is already preferential treatment, considering that the others are given accommodation

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in the hold, on beds that are leaning against each other on wooden scaffolding with several levels. They are packed like sardines, the air is heavy, and the heat is intolerable. Some women are crying, and the children are complaining. Maybe this makeshift and, because of space, only possible arrangement for accommodating so many people brings the concentration camps back to mind. It is obvious that this is a completely different situation, but whoever has returned from the death camps cannot help but associate the harsh Nazi experience with these improvised wooden scaffolds. On many faces there are signs of suffering that are just short of despair. I am there looking, motionless, on the last step of the hold. A woman’s eyes, filled with tears, stare at me—almost hatefully, I think. It seems like a dialogue is unfolding between us. I cannot stand it, and I go back up the stairs hurriedly. I sit near the hatch to catch my breath and wipe off my sweat. We are leaving the Gulf of Naples; on the right you can see Capri, and on the left we are rounding Sorrento. It is beginning to grow dark, and there is cool air that refreshes and calms the nerves. I take a look in the hold; they have switched on some reddish light bulbs, and that jumble of people, sweat, smells, and the indistinct buzz made up of words, moans, and children’s cries stirs up varied and contrasting feelings of pain, bitterness, and dejection, but also of hope, in my soul. Above everything this tenacious ancient will to survive, at any cost, rises once again. I realize at that moment that to understand the vicissitudes of our people in depth it is not enough to read many books—to read about it, as they say. We have to live a reality, descend into this ancient martyrdom of the children of Israel without having any pretense of finding an explanation but becoming, in turn, captives who can lose everything in the abyss into which we have been thrown—apparently even every human connotation—except for the most important thing of all: hope. And when desperation finds its final refuge in hope, then at the same moment we rediscover, as if by a miracle, this strange, prodigious strength to rise from the abyss in which human cruelty has cast us. I look at the starry sky and the lights that shimmer in the distance, and I seem to be living a nightmare, which nevertheless is a reality, maybe like many others. A bell rings—it’s time to go eat. People are pushing and complaining; no one has the patience to proceed in an orderly fashion; everyone

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wants to be the first to enter the big room where large tables and benches are lined up. Once again hunger rules the scene—irrationally. Some squabbles break out. From the bridge, in German—harsh, rasping, and not open to objections—a peremptory order comes down: “Attention! Get yourselves in order in a line and do it silently. If not, you don’t eat. Understood?” In a moment I am next to that fellow, and, in Hebrew, I attack him with angry words. “Stand aside, I don’t have time to lose. I’ll explain it to you later. Meanwhile, watch,” he tells me, as if he were giving me orders, too. I look down—everyone is silent; they enter the large hall in a line, in order. “You see?” the officer tells me. “What do you think? That I’m a Nazi? Unfortunately experience has taught me that this is the only way to make these people obey us anymore. I’m responsible for the voyage taking place in an orderly way, and I have to act like this, against my will.” I try to tell him that maybe there are other methods, a little more humane. He looks at me smiling and makes a gesture with his hand as if to tell me, “You really don’t understand anything,” and he goes away. I am on the bridge, talking with the captain. I want to know why everyone has gotten the order to stay belowdecks—heaven help whoever shows himself. He explains to me that Egyptian reconnaissance airplanes have been reported. The ship has to seem like a simple freighter. “Look up,” he tells me. I raise my eyes, and I see a French flag waving. “For the moment it’s fine like this,” and he looks at me smiling. “Later you’ll see how clever I am.” He offers me something to drink. Several hours go by in utter silence. The ship would seem nearly abandoned if it were not for a few sailors who come and go. The captain, with his spyglass, continues to scrutinize the sky and the sea. One feels alone, and the sound of the engines is subdued; then the sound gets more intense—the captain has given some orders, and now the movement has accelerated. (The captain had said, “Gather way.”)

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“What’s happening?” “Look there, toward the horizon.” And he hands me the spyglass. In the distance a slight, dark brush stroke stands out on the horizon. “What is it?” “Israel,” he answers me with a sigh, like someone who has had a great weight removed from his chest, and immediately he adds, “Look at the flagstaff.” The Israeli flag is fluttering. For me it is a moment of great emotion, and I go out on the bridge while the people come out en masse from the hatchway where they have been forced to stay for several hours. All eyes are fixed on that slight dark streak that keeps getting bigger and more pronounced. The ship slows; it has received some orders. Among the people, reawakened as if from a long nightmare, there is now a great deal of animation and bustle. The first distant ribbon of the land of Israel has revived and reinvigorated body and soul. Everyone is busy packing, exchanging ideas and impressions. Now faces are smiling, and in their eyes, which shine with new light, the ancient hope reappears, almost speaking. I strike up a conversation with a middle-aged couple; the woman is moved and weeps without restraint. “What’s happening?” I ask. “Aren’t you happy?” “But of course—it goes without saying. But I’m crying because of the joy that in a little while we’ll again see our son, our only son.” “So you already have a son in Israel?” “Yes, but our emotion and impatience are due to the fact that we can’t wait to tell him that he was right and we were wrong, that even though he was very young he saw things much more clearly and realistically than we did.” “What do you mean?” “Look, years ago our son wanted to make ’aliyà, and we didn’t want to give him permission. The distance, the imminence of war, etc. But he dug in his heels and left, almost against our will. He said, ‘I want to be free, I want to live in freedom, I want to be a Jew openly, without anyone persecuting me.’ And we, absorbed in our own affairs, didn’t understand those words of his, which seemed to us only to be dictated by the usual, irrational enthusiasm of the young. Later we understood, at our own

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expense, that he was right. Now we’re rejoining him; he’s undoubtedly already waiting for us in the port. We got a good lesson from our son.” How I would have liked it if other parents had also been present at that brief, moving conversation, which contained within itself the history of many, many other episodes that I myself had experienced when I was involved with the youth emigration. The ship is slowly approaching Haifa. For the first time I can now make out Erez Israèl. The sun is about to set. The magical colors of an eastern sunset, the restless flight of the seagulls, the light thin fog that barely veils the gulf, which is dominated by Mount Carmel. The sky, which was as if it had suddenly burst into flames, is now rapidly fading, and night is falling. Meanwhile the wind has ceased, and the unexpected warm air that hits you at the moment of that first, emotional encounter with the ancient Land seems almost like an affectionate embrace. People are unbelievably crammed on the bridge. The ship has stopped. From the distance come light signals, to which the captain responds. All at once, amid the shouting and the exclamations in every language, there spreads an unexpected and general silence, as if through a tacit agreement. The ship is moving slowly, and the lights of the port of Haifa have already appeared distinctly. The signals from the port to the ship, and vice versa, continue. But this silence that makes the noise that comes from the machine room sound more pronounced is of brief duration. Slow, solemn, and in unison, the song “Ha-Tikvà,” the song of hope, arises, first a little faintly, as if murmured, as if only with effort can it come out further than the mouths, the souls, and the hearts of the people, but it keeps getting stronger and more powerful, then slowly fades away and disappears again into utter silence. I realize that that song that I had heard many times seems to me on this occasion like a prayer, with roots that reach down into the ancient history of Israel and that nevertheless still seems new, almost improvised, the expression of a spontaneity that now comes out of confidence in a future, which only having one’s own home can guarantee. How many times have I dreamed of this voyage? How many persons did I accompany to their departure? At this moment—although I cannot stop looking steadily at the lights reflected in the water of the port of

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Haifa—I review my labor of so many years. Names of friends with whom I had worked and with whom I had shared these dreams come back to my mind. But I am alone. Some of them have already been living in Israel for quite some time, others were lost in the gas chambers. Leaning on the ship’s rail, it seems like a dream to me, too, just like it did to my ancestors, returning from the Babylonian exile: “When the Lord brought back those that returned to Zion / We were like unto them that dream . . .” (Psalms 126:1). On the ship there is a coming and going of people busily preparing to disembark. Deep night—in the sky brightly shining stars that seem nearer to me, almost within reach, so to speak. A young woman, hunkered down on a blanket, is rocking a baby in her arms; in a tired and hoarse voice she hums a song, slowly and sweetly, in Yiddish.

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i’m a guest of Kibbutz Sedè Eliyahu, where I meet a group of my “kids” again—already married and with numerous children. It’s a Friday evening. They are all around me, and the conversation is a stream of memories of times spent together, of how I spent the war period, and of how they were able to integrate themselves into the work of the country. I notice that there is a large group of kids—who look at me without much goodwill—gathered at the entrance to the room where we are meeting. It’s Sabbath, a day specially dedicated to them by their parents. I do not lose sight of them; they are muttering, and then finally one of them approaches and, turning to his father, asks, “Why are you wasting time with this guy?” His father answers, “If it hadn’t been for this guy, neither you nor any of you children would be in Israel today.” The unexpected answer, which everyone has heard, transforms the group of kids all at once. Now they are all around me, and they begin to bombard me with questions, insistently but also with a great deal of friendliness. Their parents are now on the sidelines, and they look on, amused by the scene. One of the children puts a hand on my shoulder, another wants to sit on my lap, another plays with my beard, still another wants to arrange my kippà better, and the questions rain down without interruption: “Who are you? Where do you come from? What did you do for our parents? Come on, tell us, tell us everything.” And I—I speak with some difficulty because I feel a lump in my throat, and the emotion is enormous. I caress several heads, and then everyone would like to be caressed, and they jostle each other to get closer to me.

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At that moment I realize that I am receiving a great gift, maybe the greatest of my entire life, a magnificent gift: the love and affection of those children—and I feel that the number of lives saved from the Nazi hunt was infinitely greater than what I had thought up until that moment. I’m strolling around the kibbutz when Michael invites me to accompany him while he brings supplies to the front line with a rickety cart pulled by two mules. They have already been fighting for several months in Israel, and the “front line” is to be found everywhere and quite often near populated centers. But life continues almost normally, and it is faced with calmness and courage, even though with great sacrifices. A sabra (a person born in Israel) urges the mules to run almost at a gallop, while a big cloud of dust surrounds and engulfs us. The defense ditches are bypassed recklessly—this is my immediate sensation—although it is true that I often close my eyes so as not to see. The sun is about to set, and the mountains of Jordan flare up in a violent red. Suddenly Michael beckons to me and says, “Here’s where Marco fell.” The young and dear friend from the San Marco hakhsharà had gone down the same road a few weeks earlier, taking the place of an absent comrade. Marco was outside the door of his house reading a book, “Desire for Life,” when he had been asked to replace the other fellow, and he had left immediately for this duty. When they gathered him up, he still had this book stuck in his pocket. We arrive at Tel-Atun. While the supplies are being unloaded, I cautiously climb the hill and slide into a trench. I see a young man—he can’t be more than eighteen years old. He does not take his eyes off a field of olive trees not far away. I ask him some questions, and he answers me with few words, always staring straight ahead, with the light machine gun in his hands. He must not have much of a desire to chat because he cuts it short, telling me, “Nothing special—everything’s normal, like usual.” The next day I go to Tiràth Zevì to pay homage at Marco’s grave. We go down a magnificent road with conifers; to the sides are perfectly ploughed fields of dark fertile earth. At the end of the road, on the other side of several freshly dug trenches, a square piece of land, secluded, enclosed by tall trees. Marco rests here. I cross the trenches and stop for

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a few minutes near the grave. Distant memories come back to mind: the summer camps, Padova, San Marco, long hours spent studying, making plans, dreaming of a freer, more peaceful, more tranquil life. I look at the mound of earth—dark earth, good earth—that you, Marco, intended to work and in which you now sleep your long slumber. “Desire for Life” (Taavàth ha-chaijm) is no longer anything more than a simple book that can be found on your bookshelf and that you did not finish reading, like your life, which was also cut short after a few chapters. The tall, intensely green trees stand out against the pallor of the sky and contrast with the now nearly black color of the earth, gathering in the shadows of the night, which is falling swiftly. Very close by the mournful cry of the jackals. I return by climbing over the security fences; the searchlights are already coming on at intervals, suddenly, and scanning the surrounding area. I hear the bursts of automatic weapons in the distance; the echoes reach as far as the kibbutz, as if they were carried by the cool, light evening breeze that causes the leaves of the trees to flutter slightly. I begin to imagine an ambush in the shadows; it is the atmosphere of the place and of the moment that makes one’s imagination run wild. I visit the children’s houses. They take precedence over all other construction. There are kitchens, bedrooms, classrooms, a dining hall, a specialized staff, and a working organization that uses the most modern techniques of the new generation. Perfect order, everything spickand-span. The littlest ones all have their own personal cabinet with an animal drawn on it that they recognize and thus know where to put their own toys. The biggest ones have already written their own names on the doors. The best of whatever the kibbutz may have at its disposal is destined for the children; then come the others. Sometimes one still hears it said that the kibbutz signaled the end of the family. I think of so many young children, even in Italy, abandoned to themselves, who wander around courtyards, sad, wet, and dirty, or play in the streets while their parents are at work. Here no child is abandoned but instead enjoys the best treatment. When the parents return from work, in the early hours of the afternoon, they go to get their children, and they are with them until night. Then they bring them back to this center, and they can go to sleep peacefully and get up early in the morning without disturbing their

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children and without the worry of leaving them untended, to themselves. The Sabbath, then, is a day devoted completely to the children. Relieved of these worries, people can dedicate themselves to their work—which is very hard and exhausting—with greater diligence and serenity. They are people of few words; it seems sometimes like you encounter irritable types who barely say hello to you and go on their way. The heat, the dust, the generous land (which, however, demands the greatest dedication and a grueling effort), the gun always within hand’s reach—all this makes these men and women pioneers in the most authentic sense of the word. I often marvel at Mario, one of my “kids”—even-tempered, calm (sometimes seemingly even too calm), but sure, proud of himself and of his own work, in whose eyes shines the tough, intelligent will to endure and to continue to build, while still at war. The kibbutz cannot permit itself any slackening in the rhythms of work, even if a certain number of people are in the trenches. Mario now walks with the slow and confident walk of the peasant; he has calloused, powerful hands, and he also organizes the work shifts. In case of an emergency he has the job of handling a machine gun. I still remember him as a boy, with red hair and the chubby, sweet face of a city boy. Now he commands my respect—for his solid, peasantlike figure and for his face, lined from hard work and bronzed by the sun. He still has his undiminished smile from the past. When he smiles the boy I knew comes back to my memory. I get up when it’s still night. I go with Giorgio, manager of the division that deals with fish, to help with the fishing in one of the many fish ponds, not far from the kibbutz. I eat breakfast, and I walk out when dawn is about to break. A clear pure sky and bracing air. In the silence of the new day that’s dawning one feels a sense of great peace; it seems almost impossible that in many parts of the country fighting is going on. Many chaverìm (comrades) are coming out of their houses to return punctually to work. A truck brings us close to a fish pond where they are already pulling in the nets. Hundreds and hundreds of large carp swarm and are gathered, sometimes by hand, in small wooden boxes. From here the chaverìm, arranged in a line, pass them from hand to hand up to the truck, where the boxes get emptied into a large tank filled with water that has been set on the truck. The fish are under the illusion, at least until

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they get to Tel Aviv, that they have been returned to their natural environment. The sun is about to rise. Suddenly, it seems, the mountains to the west of Sedè Eliyahu flare up bright red. The water of the fish pond reflects the surrounding images. The fish continue to wriggle and leap, sparkling in the first rays of the sun. Quips and witty jokes are exchanged among the workers, many of whom are immersed in water up to their thighs, but the work continues speedily, without breaks. When the truck leaves Giorgio takes me on a tour of the area, and with joyous pride he shows me many details about this work division, which is so important to the economic life of the kibbutz. The description of the places and the technical details of the project are interwoven with the story of military encounters that took place nearby. He goes from one topic to the other, from work to war, with the same tone of voice, as if both were part of a normal life: “We went to work loading a truck when shots were heard from that hill—and then we had to respond. Then, back at work, we finished loading the truck . . .” Around noon I’m invited to the gan yeladìm (kindergarten), where a small birthday party for a child is taking place. The children are seated in a circle at the center of the room. They listen to some records, and then small musical instruments are handed out. One of the children gets up on a chair and directs the orchestra with a great deal of grace and with a certain authority; his companions perform simple musical pieces quite well. A paper crown is placed on the head of the guest of honor; everyone applauds, including the parents who are gathered together in a corner of the room. Sweets and games complete the party. Yet again I marvel at these children, who are wonderful. From this ceremony I realize that they are educated to organize things by themselves, to assume responsibilities beginning at the youngest age, even if behind them an able and wise hand carefully pulls the strings of the various activities. On a farm wagon with creaking wheels, pulled by a mule (at a slow pace) that sinks in the sand, we head toward a date palm to harvest dates. I marvel at these trees with tall trunks and clusters of dates, with luxuriant vegetation all around, for the first time. I feel like I’ve entered a fairy tale, and I’m waiting for a fairy to appear, when I start to taste the sweet, sweet dates, selecting them from the huge clusters that get put in the wagon.

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Friday afternoon, busy preparations for the Sabbath. People return from their jobs earlier than usual, and the showers are crowded. Toward evening, leaving my small wooden house as the darkness of night is swiftly falling, I can see the flames of the candles shining through the windows ever more clearly. I walk toward the large dining hall, where there is also an aròn (ark) with the Sefarìm and which therefore also acts as a synagogue. The chaverìm arrive in their Sabbath clothes, everyone in white shirts, which accentuate their perfectly shaved and intensely tan faces even more. After dinner I’m hosted by friends, who offer sweets and drinks. The children run wild; they know that on this day their parents are completely at their disposal, and it is very pleasant to see these families in groups going around the kibbutz, taking walks, playing, and also meeting together to study the weekly parashà. I depart for Nazareth. As I’m leaving the kibbutz I see the barbed wire that surrounds it. Yet again, barbed wire around Jewish homes. For the past ten years Jewish history has been, in a way, the history of barbed wire around a camp. This time, however, we have put up the wire ourselves to defend ourselves; the situation is quite different, and now the wire no longer represents the segregation of a minority for racial reasons but is a sign of security and confidence, and even of hope. Through this wire runs the hopeful conviction that we will be able to reconnect ourselves with the world, with equal rights, while the Nazi-fascist one was made to isolate us from the world, and forever. Still, I hope that even this wire represents only a brief interlude and that quite soon and forever these signs of conflict will disappear, however they may be justified. We arrive in Nazareth in an armored car. I’m traveling with Max, an army officer, representative of the Ministry of Religion. The car stops right in the middle of a square. Through the slit I see a large crowd of Arabs who are moving in all directions, groups of them—hunkering in circles, with a type of rosary in their hands—talking leisurely, as if they were seated comfortably in armchairs. I ask Max if he is really sure we should get out here. He nods yes to me, smiling. I accept the invitation, though certainly with some hesitation, which to me, new to this experience, seems quite justified. It’s the first time that I find myself in the midst of so many Arabs.

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In Max’s office I see many pass through, coming to request the most varied kinds of permits. A monk who comes from Cana—which is famous in the Gospels for the miracle, as it is said, of the transformation of water into wine on the occasion of a marriage feast—also turns up. He warmly invites me to go there to visit him, assuring me that now I will find only wine that is already wine and excellent. Monsignor Vergani, vicar general for the Patriarchate of the Galilee, also arrives. He’s Piedmontese, and thus it’s natural that the conversation with me takes place in dialect and with the most animated warmth. Having realized that it’s the first time that I’m visiting “the Holy Land” (as he calls it), he asks me what my impressions are. I respond, telling him that among so many the most novel is without doubt the one that I’m experiencing at that moment—that is, seeing him, for the first time, seated on the other side of the table. I also add that, at least for me, I feel like I’m living a historic moment. He smiles and silently raises a finger and shakes it slightly, as one does with an impertinent rascal. Max, who like a true Tuscan has not understood our conversation, looks at us with an inquiring expression. I stretch out my arms, as if to ask his pardon. What I said may have been impertinent—I don’t deny it—but one also cannot ignore the legitimacy of my surprise if, after so many centuries, I can now see with my own eyes that the roles of who comes to ask and who decides to give have been reversed. Was mine a rash, unthinking response? It may have been, but it was also spontaneous and historically accurate. The purpose of the illustrious prelate’s conversation, however, is to arrange a visit to a number of religious buildings drawn into recent military engagements and to ascertain what condition they are in. Thus, a little while later, in a large car flying the Vatican flag, I, too, find myself invited to participate in this inspection. Max and I have some Franciscan and Maronite monks, charged with making this investigation, as traveling companions. We visit a lot of buildings, places under the control of Israeli soldiers; on every one of the buildings there are huge signs, upon which is written, in Hebrew and in English, “holy place.” On the return trip, a little before reaching Nazareth, Max stops the car at a military headquarters and gets out to settle some business. We stay

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in the car, in our places. We talk about this and that, and then suddenly a Franciscan turns to me and says, “I know that not far from here they sell jars of truly exceptional marmalade, and since we don’t have any left in the monastery, I’d like to get some supplies. Will you give me permission to get out?” I answer that I, too, am a guest like them and that therefore I do not have any authority—so much so that I stay in my seat and do not get out. After having consulted with a Maronite, he tells me, “We two are getting out; we’ll do it quickly.” I do not answer. They actually return after about a quarter of an hour, carrying several jars of marmalade with them, which they have me admire. A little while afterward Max returns, and we leave again, without anyone saying a word about the marmalade, which is hidden in a knapsack. We stop near the Franciscan convent, and since it is already night we are all invited to dine—a kosher dinner, we are assured—with the nuns who live in a separate wing of the imposing building. The mother superior, originally from Lombardy, receives us with affectionate warmth. The table is elegantly and sumptuously laid. The dinner is excellent. At the end the mother superior, who to her great delight has exchanged a few words with me in Milanese dialect, says to me, “Now I would like you to taste one of our specialties, a truly delicious rarity: the marmalade that we ourselves prepare with rose petals.” I notice immediately that the Franciscan and the Maronite, preoccupied, are staring at her. It really is a truly exquisite marmalade. At this point, however, associating the earlier episode with the fragrant marmalade to which I render all the honors due, I can’t help myself from making a spontaneous remark: “If I were to have the good fortune of having such a marmalade at home, I certainly would never search for any other elsewhere.” And the unforeseen happens: the Franciscan and the Maronite, who also were enjoying the marmalade gluttonously, both begin at the same time to cough, as if a mouthful had gone down the wrong way. Their faces are nearly flushed. Everyone looks on, surprised and even a little worried. I, instead, smile, and Max looks at me with an expression that is

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inquisitive and, in turn, surprised by my lack of concern, which verges, he may think, on the irresponsible. The following morning, after having slept magnificently in the novitiate of the monastery and having had an excellent breakfast, once again enjoying that extraordinary marmalade (only Max and I were at the table), we leave, headed for Tel Aviv. On the way, as if he had suddenly remembered something that he meant to ask me about, my friend wants to know why I had acted with “such cynicism” the evening before. I then tell him the story of the marmalade that was bought while he was at headquarters. Max understands and smiles; at the end of my story I add that politics is truly unpredictable since it even gets mixed up with marmalade. We leave for Jerusalem, going on the “Burma Road,” because the city is still under siege. It’s a road that was “dreamed up” in a short time— one that goes around certain hills, barely leveled and paved as well as possible with perforated metal plates, like those found at the airports, too. Our car is part of a column of cars that travel together for greater safety; there’s also an escort that precedes us and brings up the rear of the line of cars. We are enveloped in a cloud of dust that penetrates everywhere inside the car. It’s nothing but up and down. After a difficult climb we get onto the old road; by now we are close to Jerusalem, which can already be seen in the distance. At this point, even though the road is all curves, the driver steps on the accelerator and maintains his speed. I am surprised and even a little worried. But a fellow traveler, pointing to the left with his hand, to some houses on the ridge of a hill, says to me, “Do you see those houses? It’s a small, abandoned Arab village; but bursts of machine-gun fire often come from there.” I’m the guest of a friend who puts me up in a perfectly furnished little room in the cellar: “This way,” he says to me, “when the sirens go off, you won’t have to go down the stairs.” Near this room there’s another, inhabited by an older married couple. I’m assigned a daily water ration, which has to serve a variety of purposes. To reach my room I have to cross a yard. I’m warned—and later reminded many times—always to keep to the right, along the wall, because it’s not unusual for bullets shot from the not-distant Old City to reach the yard. The room is comfortable, partly because it has a small library, and I can turn on the light with-

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out worry when there’s a blackout in the city—while those living on the upper floors have to be sure to keep the windows carefully darkened. I’m walking toward the Sokhenùth, going along King George Street. On the left a wall of reinforced concrete has been erected, blocking the view in the direction of a large garden; but on the other hand it protects us from gunfire, which is not unusual. Here and there along the wall there are small openings, through which you can see the Old City and the red headgear of the Jordanian soldiers. It is advisable to walk alongside this wall. After several meetings I’m invited to visit Theodore Herzl’s study, which has been reconstructed just as it was in Vienna—with the same furniture and library. The person who accompanies me shows me many details of that room, which I had entered with a certain excitement. On the table there’s even the white helmet that Herzl wore; it’s the same one seen in a period photograph, in his hand, while he renders homage to the emperor of Germany, on horseback, in Jerusalem. Through a door in the study you can gain access to a large balcony that allows you to look at the Old City in the distance. If I’m interested in the panorama I can go out on the balcony, but only for a few seconds, not more, because it’s dangerous to linger for very long. I do not forego this opportunity, and thus for the first time I have the chance to gaze at this part of the city, hoping to be able to visit it soon, with greater calm. Another nineteen years will pass before this desire of mine will be realized! I take a trip by car through the city. I go along Ben Yehuda Street, and thus from the ruins of some of the houses I can verify de visu how British policy sometimes manifests itself.1 Here and there along the roads are bonfires in which the garbage, which cannot be hauled away, is being burned, thus avoiding other problems. The people come and go at their usual pace, as if even the war were a fact that by now is a part of daily life. I visit some friends, and thus I have the chance to meet other people with whom the conversations are similar to those one would normally have in a small, provincial city. We ask each other about mutual acquaintances, and every once in a while some catty remark pops out—someone is being badmouthed, as they say. The conversation is interrupted only to listen to the latest news on the radio, and then we get back to talking,

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while we enjoy something to drink and some sweets, too; the traditional family atmosphere is broken only by mortar blasts or by the rapid firing of automatic weapons, which, however, does not disturb these friends, who are too involved exchanging information. I go to visit the Italian Temple, which also has an attached museum that collects treasures of Italian Judaism. There I learn, to my great sorrow, that another young man, whom I had been responsible for at one time, has fallen in combat. In the museum I also see once again a large chanukkjà that comes from my Community. A label commemorates my father. I see myself as a child again, barely managing to light the oil lamp by standing on my tiptoes. Now this object, even though it is still part of my childhood, has become a museum piece. To me it seems abandoned, alive only in the memories of a few; but I also think that there are still many things that it can recall and cause to be remembered, even for the naive tourist. A Bernstein concert is announced. I’m offered a ticket, and I gladly accept, particularly out of curiosity, I have to say, to see the few who will come to appreciate the illustrious conductor. Instead the room is full, completely sold out. This is my first surprise. An audience that is enthusiastic—as this Israeli one knows how to be—about music. The concert is devoted to Brahms. With interest I follow the music and also the original style of Bernstein, which I venture to judge is very American, in directing the orchestra. To tell the truth, I should say that one could speak not of one but of two concerts. When in fact we come to the “pianissimo,” we hear another orchestra, the one that is playing outside, with artillery and automatic-weapons fire, sounds that arrive softened but quite clear. Consequently my attention passes from the orchestra to the audience. No one moves, lets himself be distracted, or shows signs of impatience. Only here and there does someone occasionally blink their eyes—and it must be people like me, certainly not Israelis. At the end of the concert there is well-deserved applause that will not stop. Afterward I walk out into the deepest darkness, led by friends who know how to get their bearings and choose the safer side of the street. On the way we talk only about the concert, while I think about my little room in the cellar. Arriving there I

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start reading a book. It has been a very moving evening for me. I have the impression of having discovered a new aspect of this strange Jerusalem life. My eyes follow the story of the novel while my ears listen to the nowuninterrupted distant rumbling of the artillery and the tense rattling of the machine guns. Still traveling around the city, I go to ’En Kerem with Weiss of the Sochenùth and Levinsky, my colleague from the Swiss Zionist Federation. Guided by Father Paolo, I visit the Church of John the Baptist. The mosaics are quite beautiful. At the exit the monk says to me, “Now you are our masters. We’re in your hands.” An act of humility that seems excessive to me and entirely out of place. I respond: “Father, permit me to remind you that concerning masters, there is only one and this is the Lord, master of everyone.” I notice a certain confusion in the friar, who maybe did not expect such a response. He extends his hand to me, trying to smile, but without saying anything. On the road again we give a lift to a soldier. His hand and part of his arm are bandaged. We ask him what happened. He must have been wounded in combat. But the young man does not lose his good humor, and he tells us, “No, it’s nothing like that. It’s more ordinary. Those boys”—and he nods toward a group of soldiers walking along the road—“were afraid to toss hand grenades. So then I—I’m an expert—I taught them how.” We know quite well that this is not true, because no soldier will tell you where he is stationed and what battles he has been in, but we enjoy this quip, and we laugh with him. I go to the Cassuto home. The maestro has not yet returned. I find only the signora and the children of their son, Nathan, who was lost in a concentration camp. The mother of these children, who was able to save herself from Auschwitz, was also killed, a short time before, in an ambush, while she was on her way to the university on Mount Scopus. Many sad memories resurface, and the signora is barely able to hold back her tears. The professor returns. His hair is completely white, he is still youthful, but one sees that he is trying to control the pain of the tragedy that torments his heart at every moment. He is convinced, by means of a very subtle line of reasoning—which it seems to me has little to do

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with reality—that his son is still alive, somewhere in Russia. He has never wanted to recite the Hashkavà (prayer for the dead) and the Kaddìsh2; he is awaiting the return of his son. I listen silently to this story of his, and I marvel at his faith, but I also have the impression that with great courage he wants to escape or deny a very sad reality. Sensing my doubt, at a certain point he says to me, “Look at my grandson here. Well then, yesterday he was grazed by a bullet, but nothing happened. It’s already ancient history. What’s done is done. We have to think of the future.” I had learned many things from the maestro. Now, however, I hear a new and great lesson, which seems like the finishing touch to his commentary on the entire Bible, which I studied with him years and years earlier at the Rabbinical College. This tenacious, trusting confidence of his in the future, through the rising generations, brings back to my mind one of his teachings, often repeated during his lessons, when the world still seemed calm and the premonitory storm clouds were still far away: here in this world the life of the individual returns and continues in one’s children and in one’s students—who faithfully transmit the traditional teachings and who therefore should also be considered one’s children. I remind the maestro of these words of his. Now he seems to me to be in better spirits and also a bit moved by this memory of mine. He nods in assent, but without speaking. The moment has arrived to go to Yavneh, where I know I will find Berti, my old study companion in Rome. I would like to spend Kippùr with him. Traveling to Yavneh is not easy. The kibbutz is on the front line, and Berti, when I expressed this desire the week before, had been quite evasive. He limited himself to reminding me that the Egyptian front was only about a kilometer from the kibbutz and that he would let me know in time if it was possible for me to come. But I haven’t heard from Berti; evidently he does not feel like assuming the responsibility for receiving me in the kibbutz at a time of such singular emergency. Having a pass at my disposal, however, I decide to go to Yavneh anyway. The most difficult problem is finding a bus. Taking whatever form of transport comes along, I’m able to get as far as Gedera. I stay patiently by the side of the road and wait for some car to pass; by now I’m not very far from

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Yavneh. Sitting on a low wall there’s an old man who eagerly strikes up a conversation. He wants to know everything about me. I’m already used to these interrogations from people I don’t know. By having to reply to the same questions, I’m even perfecting my skill in the Hebrew language! When he learns that I’m coming from Jerusalem, his eyes light up, and he begins: “You did very well to go there, a true mizwà. Too bad that you couldn’t get to the Kòtel (the Wall of the Temple); but you’ll see—in one of the next visits you’ll be able to fulfill this duty, too. Could we possibly be left without the Kòtel? Tell me . . .” If I had had the chance, I would have expressed my opinion too, but the old fellow jumps from one topic to another. Now that he knows everything about me, he wants me to know all about him and his ideas. “Did you see,” he continues, “those trucks and armored cars that burned when they were ambushed not long ago, not far from Jerusalem? Well, you know what I say? I say that these wrecks weren’t left there for no reason. They’re there to teach us something—they’re kind of like a symbol of life today.” To my sign of surprise, he gestures me to be quiet: “Now I’ll explain. It all comes down to a question of conscience, duty, and dignity. The road is straight and clear, and because of this it can be followed to the end. Do you follow me? You who are young, you ought to understand these things like this.” And he snaps his fingers, pressing his middle finger against his thumb. “So, on the road to Jerusalem there’s those cars—destroyed, burned, overturned. They remind us that there have been victims—” “And how could I forget that incident?” I have succeeded in interrupting the old fellow. “Very dear friends fell there.” “So much the better,” he resumes, undeterred. “That way the example will be clearer to you. So, there have been victims, destroyed vehicles, but the road is that one and it remains that one. And then another car arrives and another, to continue the journey of those who fell, to continue their work, to go farther forward. We can’t and we shouldn’t stop—do you understand me? En bererà (There’s no choice), there’s no other solution.”

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The interesting philosophical, historical, and moral lesson of the old man—from whom, truthfully, I didn’t expect such interesting thoughts— would have gone on until who knows when if I had not seen a truck stop at that moment. “Where are you going?” I ask the driver. “Tell me instead where you’re going.” The tone is not excessively courteous. “To Yavneh.” “Get in. Don’t make me lose more time.” I get in, and the fellow takes off immediately, without saying another word. He’s really something, I’m thinking; who knows where he’ll take me. He drives, still silent, and listens to the news broadcast, but he does not deign to look at me. He picks up speed, and it starts to worry me— because although he’s an excellent driver the road is blocked in some places with defensive pits, alternating with each other to the right and left every hundred meters, reaching almost to the middle of the road. Thus the forward motion of the truck is a continuous zigzagging. After a quarter of an hour, when a secondary road leaves the main road and I am about to tell him that I need to get out there, the driver makes a gesture to me with his hand as if to tell me to be patient. And in fact the vehicle turns onto the road and, still accelerating, heads directly for the kibbutz. In short, it’s only at the end that I realize that the truck is actually from Yavneh. He takes me right to the front of the chadàr ha-òkhel (dining hall), says goodbye, and smiling (finally!), asks me, “But why were you so worried?” and leaves. I ask for Berti; he’s not there, he’s on a mission, and he will return shortly. I sit down and wait for him. I have learned that in Israel you are always rushing and there is never time to lose; however, you also have to have the patience to wait, and without complaining. Berti arrives on a bicycle, a little surprised to see me but also pleased that I have decided to spend Kippùr with the chaverìm of Yavneh. That visit of mine will become historic, so to speak. In fact I was the only guest to go to Yavneh on that solemn holiday. Even today, when I arrive at the kibbutz, there’s still some old fellow who duly reminds me of that day. In the evening, at Berti and Sara’s, we go over the “good old days” when

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we were students in Rome. Then I talk about my racial experiences and the war, and Berti talks about the hard work that, however, he has had the joy of seeing come to fruition, strengthen, and spread. The next day in fact he has me take a walk through the kibbutz and admire the jewel of his and the chaverìm’s efforts: the poultry house. Scientific systems of chicken farming, first learned from others and then perfected by the chaverìm, have allowed for extraordinary development in this activity. The exportation of eggs and chicks is intensifying, notwithstanding the times, and the former teachers, the Americans, now come to study “the latest” from this poultry house, which is possibly the most important one in all of the Middle East. I also visit the trenches that surround the kibbutz, the antitank ditches. Several types of light weapons are arrayed in one hole, while not far away there’s a stunning heavy machine gun of Czechoslovakian manufacture in position. Berti half-jokingly asks me, “If you had to operate one of them, which would you know how to use?” I take a look, and I tell him right away which of them I am familiar with. “It’s worth knowing.” Now he has a sphinxlike smile. No other remarks are necessary. While we continue our walk a series of artillery shots starts up from the direction of Gaza. Evidently they must be small-caliber cannons. They couldn’t be very far away. We hear the noise of firing, and shortly afterward, a few hundred meters away, medium-sized columns of earth fly up. From what I can judge, the Egyptian gunners are not very skillful. After a little while I ask Berti, “And why don’t we respond?” “It’s very simple: we don’t have artillery.” The eve of Kippùr, a Kippùr of war. In fact, while the preparations are being made, the coming and going of trucks with soldiers and munitions does not stop, and the sentries on the tower, close to their automatic weapons, scrutinize the horizon with binoculars. Wearing the traditional white shirt, the chaverìm head for the large hall, then still made of wood, which also serves as a beth ha-kenèseth. Many children are away; as a precaution they’ve been evacuated to Bene Beraq. Wrapped in the tallèth we listen in the most absorbed silence to the voice of the chazzàn, who

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intones the Kol Nidrè3 with the classical, ancient, Ashkenazic melody, which, I realize, makes me feel a lump in my throat, that evening more than usual. You had to have been there, at this war front, on this occasion that is so solemn for the entire Jewish people, to experience these feelings that make shivers run through your entire body. This time the chazzàn has to raise the tone of his voice because the sounds of motors and the acrid smell of gas enter through the open windows on the hot wind that is blowing with a certain intensity. Suddenly a chavèr (comrade) enters and whispers a few words to another. That fellow immediately takes off his tallèth and exits, and shortly afterward some fifty chaverìm follow him. The chazzàn continues as if it were nothing. We recite the confession of sins: “We have sinned, O Lord, forgive our transgressions.” I feel an almost physical pain in following this prayer. While a group of young men goes toward war, to once again spill their blood for their own people, we at the same time bow our heads and declare ourselves guilty. Guilty of what? The prayer continues: “Today it will be decided, who for life and who for death.” The engines roar; overhead the fighters shoot swiftly past. “Who will live and who will die.” I hear my voice saying, “Lord, have pity and protect these brothers, this people already so harshly tested.” Walking out I find an old friend, Beppe, armed—he who has always been antimilitarist—and waiting to leave. The impression is enormous—the eve of Kippùr, in a religious kibbutz, an antimilitarist who is leaving for the front: his home, his family, and the entire kibbutz are in danger. Beppe says goodbye to everyone with a very strained, sad smile, although he does not forego some of his usual witty one-liners. I find myself among old friends again, remembering times past, speaking almost in whispers, as if overwhelmed by that strange, foreboding atmosphere. In the distance at intervals one hears the echo of bursts of machine-gun fire—that distinctive, nervous, rapid, mechanical stammering—alternating with long silences and violent resumptions of sudden bursts. I wake up because I hear the striking of some kind of a warning bell. It’s a matter of seconds, because as I peep out, asking myself how this could happen on Kippùr, Egyptian airplanes are already arriving, circling over the kibbutz. I’m standing in the doorway in pajamas, watch-

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ing, when the furious voice of Berti reaches me: “Don’t act like an idiot, jump into the trench.” But, and not intentionally, I don’t move, and I keep looking until, still flying low, the airplanes go away. It seems to me they were Spitfires. That would come as no surprise. Completely normal for the English, naturally. I receive news that the young Ben Zion Pavoncello has fallen in action while on patrol near Latrun. Another young man from our group, originally from the “ghetto” of Rome, has sacrificed himself for the rebirth of our people. An unassuming and enthusiastic boy, he had decided on ’aliyà in order to start a new life, to no longer be a vendor of souvenirs, and also as a reaction to the tragedy that had struck the ancient Roman Community in October of 1943 and in the following months with the Nazi deportation. Now he too rests in that earth that still awaited the effort of his labor. Can it be that there is an enemy in every Arab and that every Arab sees an enemy in us? This is a question that should be put neither to the Arabs nor to the Jews, but rather to those who, from 1948 on, have pulled the strings of international politics and, without exposing themselves, live at the expense of others—and not only of Arabs and Jews. Before returning to Italy, off to Sedè Eliyahu for another quick goodbye to friends and to spend the festival of Sukkòth with them. Transportation is irregular in this area, too. I find a ride that takes me as far as Afula. From there I catch a bus that goes to Kefar Ruppin, but I have to get off at a crossroads and proceed by foot toward Bet She’an. It’s Friday, sunset is near, and I begin to get worried. Luckily a military car comes by and gives me a ride as far as Bet She’an. There’s a roadblock. I ask a soldier the way to Sedè Eliyahu, prepared to cover it on foot. I’m answered with a single word—asùr (forbidden). I insist. The response is, “It’s almost night, the road isn’t safe, and it’s crazy to go alone, on foot.” “But in a little while it’ll be Sabbath—what can I do?” I ask, disconsolate. “And has someone ever told you that it’s forbidden to spend Sabbath in Bet She’an? Go into town and look for a place to stay.” And that’s it.

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Slowly I come to the little square of the town, after having passed by many houses—abandoned and even half-destroyed in the previous clashes. What to do? Where to go? And right at that moment, just like in an authentic Hassidic story, I hear the echo of “Lekhà Dodì,” the traditional Sabbath hymn. It surprises me that the melody is identical to the one from Rome. Is it a hallucination, or is it true? I go toward the chorus of voices. I enter a small villa—the singing gets stronger—and I enter a room where ’Arvìth (the evening prayer) is being recited. My joyful astonishment is boundless when I recognize many old friends among the soldiers—and right from Sedè Eliyahu. I again find Paolo, Giovannino, Ventura, Franca, and others. There’s a hearty welcome, and Paolo says to me, “Welcome, in the name of the army. You’ll spend the Sabbath with us!” We walk out; it is night, and the moon is rising. The stars are shining intensely, and among those ruined houses and the tall palm trees stirred by a gentle breeze the lights and the shadows create an unearthly atmosphere above this town, like in a fairy tale. Paolo disengages me from my silent, romantic reverie, putting a mess tin in my hand and telling me that we are now going to dinner. There are a lot of tables in one large room. “That one there,” Franca says to me with ostensibly great superciliousness, “is the table of the General Staff.” The commander and other officers, to whom I introduce myself, wishing them “Shabbàth Shalòm” (Good Sabbath), actually do enter. The high-ranking officer gets up and makes the Kiddùsh. Then the dinner begins, in the midst of chattering that keeps growing louder, until the point at which the commanding officer gets up and says, “Chaverìm, you may talk, but without making such a racket; if not, you’ll make a bad impression on our guest.” There are some bursts of laughter, but the request is accommodated immediately, with discipline. The talking becomes more subdued. Giovannino still has the face of an adolescent, and his military uniform does not seem right for his age. But they are all very young, and I have to admit that I feel a bit of envy. Maybe it’s the uniform that attracts me, bringing back to mind the times in the Langhe, which still are not too

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distant from my memory; or maybe it’s knowing that they are committed to an undertaking from which I am excluded. Paolo puts me up in his room, located in the house that is serving as headquarters. There are telephones ringing all the time, the coming and going of soldiers, and sounds of motorcycles and cars. But I’m very tired, and I fall asleep immediately and deeply. In the morning, after tefillà and breakfast, I go around with Paolo. We visit a lot of houses—some beautiful, some ugly, some intact, and some devastated by bombs. Visiting a dead city makes a certain impression. Not far away a hill rises; it’s the ancient Bet She’an, with four strata, rich in precious archeological objects, many of which are still hidden in the earth. It has been mined all around. I visit the mosque, the cemetery, and the tomb of a sheik. The small “Eastern” gardens that surround the houses are quite beautiful. There are some that could be theater sets. Often, when entering some of these gardens, we are flooded with a sharp, violent, almost intoxicating fragrance that comes from the plants and flowers and that is difficult to bear. Better to go out to the open air of the streets. In a small courtyard, among burned rags and pieces of wreckage, a skull with vacant eyes and gaping mouth appears; it gives the impression that, satisfied, it is smiling at the sky of Bet She’an in eternal admiration. In the distance Mount Gilboa, and Saul, Jonathan, and David seem to spring forth alive from a page of the Bible.4 Toward evening headquarters becomes lively, the telephone calls become more frequent, and the cars come and go nonstop. Paolo, too, is very busy with his work. I wait for him, seated under the short colonnade. When he comes out I ask him what is happening. “Nothing special,” he answers with a lack of concern. “It seems that there’s some movement of Iraqi troops.” That’s all. After dinner, the alert having ended, I sit with Paolo on the steps of the colonnade, under a magnificent moon that seems to transform the entire landscape as if by the tap of a fairy’s magic wand. Each of us recounts his own past, plans are made, jokes are told. The silence is almost absolute. Some of the time we are silent, too—silence also has its own appeal, and one thinks about many things. Certainly I never would have thought that I was speaking with a dear friend who much too soon

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would be carried away from our affections by a grave illness. It has gotten late. The mosquitoes are unrelenting, and there’s the mournful cry of the jackals. Paolo gives me a slap on the back: “So, fellow citizen, it’s late—let’s go to sleep.” Waking up the next morning I get the feeling that we are in a state of alert again. It is evident from the coming and going of vehicles and from the ringing of the telephones. It’s getting late, and I’m worried that I won’t make it in time to reach Sedè Eliyahu. But toward noon everything seems to have returned to normal. There’s a jeep that’s going in the direction of Tiràt Zevì; the ride is guaranteed. Under a high sun and somewhat of a chamsìn (sirocco) we cover the few kilometers in a short time. I arrive as the kibbutzniks are finishing building the sukkà. In spite of the stifling heat I pause for a few moments to admire it. This customary hut, which Jews all over the world construct on this occasion, seems to me to be more natural here, more alive, more harmoniously part of the surrounding countryside—quite different from those that, even though they are often beautiful, are built in the cities and are almost suffocated by the surrounding buildings. Headed for Haifa, I spend a few hours in Tel Aviv to say goodbye to some friends. Walking along Rothschild Avenue I see a lot of people around a villa. It is the embassy of the Soviet Union. I find out that the president of Israel, Weizmann, is about to arrive, to take part in the festivities for the October Revolution. Here is the president, and immediately the Soviet ambassador appears at the door, hurrying down the stairs to embrace Weizmann affectionately and at length. It is futile to ask oneself why certain memories remain forever fixed in one’s mind. I depart from Haifa on a ship of the Adriatic Line. Leaving port, the tugboat that has guided us detaches itself, and a few sailors salute; leaning on the rail, I salute, too, and I shout a leitraòth (until we meet again), deluding myself that they can hear me. I marvel at the magnificent panorama: Haifa and Mount Carmel, which move farther and farther away, enveloped in a light fog. A stop at Limassol, and then we head for Smyrna.5 We pass not far from Rhodes, a magnificent island, which also induces one to dream of a more pleasant and peaceful world.6 At Smyrna a two-day stop. Whoever, like me, has an Israeli visa cannot go ashore.

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The police will not even allow you to speak a word about this subject. The response to my request is, “No, you can’t disembark,” and that’s it. If you continue to ask for clarification there is no response—it is as if they are deaf. When two English travelers, who are coming from Cyprus and who therefore could go ashore, declare that if I am not given permission they too will stay on board, the response is, “It’s your business, stay on board,” and my new English friends keep their word and stay on board. I speak about it with the captain, a pure-blood native of Trieste. He smiles and shakes his head. “What can I tell you—it’s politics. On the one hand, Turkey doesn’t recognize Israel. On the other hand, do you see?” He points to the cranes in full operation loading bales of cotton. “They don’t pass up business. For two days we’ll load cotton, and do you know where it’s going? To Venice, but everyone also knows that afterward, with the same ship, I’ll take it to Israel. That’s politics. Don’t be offended—you’ll be just fine here.” And like a good Triestino, he immediately offers me a drink. From Smyrna to Pireaus, to Bari, and finally to Venice.7 I have returned to Italy after about a three months’ absence, after having visited almost all of Israel and several war fronts.

c h a p t er t h i rt y- one

A Happy Encounter

at a camp in the swiss alps. A seminar for social workers is ending, and the “exams,” which are actually straightforward discussions with the participants about the various materials studied, are beginning. My friends insist that I preside over the committee, and I have to accept, even though I had been thinking more about a few days of rest rather than about work obligations, especially in the midst of the utterly beautiful landscape that surrounds us. Among the examinees I notice a girl who attracts my attention for several reasons, particularly for her rather deep gaze, veiled in melancholy, that contrasts with her adolescent face. These “exams” begin, and the very ambience of the camp creates a certain college atmosphere. Thus the questions are presented in an almost studentlike tone, and the comments, always kindly, enliven the discussions, even if they might sometimes give the impression that I would like—although in a purely friendly fashion—to tease the examinees. I realize that the girl I had noticed is no longer in the room. The exams continue in the afternoon, too, but there’s no trace of her. Intrigued, I ask for news. After several “inquiries” I find out, to my great surprise, that she has withdrawn from the exams. The reason? “I came here to study and not to be teased by that man”—who, then, would be me. Made still more curious by this episode, I try to approach this girl to try to clear up her doubts (which for her are, rather, certainties) about the way the exams were run—and thus began a series of conversations with Iris that, the following year, would conclude in marriage. She had been in Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen for fourteen months, after having passed through the prison of Modena and the camp at Fos-

fig. 23. The wedding of Augusto Segre and Iris Steinmann, Asti, May 31, 1949. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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soli. On returning from Sweden she managed to see, at police headquarters in Modena, the signed denunciation against her and her uncle, who did not return. As it turned out, there had never been any investigation against that informer, and therefore he had never been tried. But this is not unusual, not even in Italy. As a good friendship gradually develops (it often begins like this, arriving at last at the momentous “yes”), without me for asking details about those terrible months spent in the death camps, Iris nevertheless tells me about some incidents spontaneously. These are the experiences—not reworked by historians but suffered in the spirit and in the flesh—that make up history. A history that should never be forgotten. Even today, quite often and without reflecting, one hears it said that it is necessary to forgive. This is a way of thinking that pays no attention to remembering. To remind oneself and others of such experiences means to recall the horrors of that extremely unhappy period to the old and new generations’ minds and to educate the young to no longer let themselves be swept away by such bestial, irrational ugliness. To wish instead to let bygones be bygones, as some continue to insist, and today maybe more than before—“What’s been has been, whatever happened, happened; let bygones be bygones; let’s forget the past”—means to act with criminal irresponsibility and to train the rising generations once again for the worst. After several days of traveling in freight cars sealed with lead, Iris arrives in Auschwitz. Now the first selection takes place. In front of her is a young woman with a babe in arms, about a year old. An ss soldier approaches her and asks the woman if that baby is a Jew. In response she timorously clasps the baby to her breast and faintly nods yes with her head. Brandishing the butt of his revolver, the ss soldier exclaims, “Too pretty to be a Jew!” and smashes its skull. The woman falls to the ground, but no one pays attention to her; meanwhile the baby’s blood soaks the ground. Behind, petrified by terror, Iris awaits the first selection in a daze. Those who are sent to the line on the right go directly to the gas chambers; among them is also that poor woman, who has been forced to get up and continues desperately to clasp her own baby to her breast. But it is only the beginning. An ss

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soldier announces that the camp is a bit farther on and that whoever is tired from the journey and does not feel like walking can make use of some trucks that are there in line. Iris can barely stay on her feet because of the strain of the journey and the shock experienced shortly before, but she decides to take the risk of even falling to the ground on the way, rather than using those trucks. And it is her first deliverance. All those who get on them are also taken directly to the gas chambers. One evening, after the long, grueling roll call, eighty girls are given orders that on the following day they are not to go to work but must remain shut up in their barracks. The reason is not explained, but “camp radio” makes it known that these girls are destined for the experiments section. Death, amid the most atrocious suffering, is almost a certainty because the Nazi doctors operate without anesthesia. Iris and four other friends, who are among the eighty selected, discuss what to do until late at night. This might be the solution: in the morning get in line with those who are going to work. If they are discovered, they run the risk of being hanged. Better hanging—they all agree—than the tortures of those experiments that paranoid Aryan minds can devise. And that is what they do. Filled with fear, they get in line the following morning. Spending the day in hard labor, they carry stones or bricks on their shoulders, from one place in the camp to another, and without any purpose—because later they often have to carry them back to the first place. Whenever any messenger arrives by motorcycle, the sound of the motor alone makes them anxious. But nothing happens, and it seems strange, considering the Nazis’ Teutonic, scientific exactness, even in programming these murders. And of course the number that is tattooed on the left arm of each girl was written down on a list. The mystery gets explained when they return. At the last moment it had been decided that forty girls were enough. There had been a veritable hunt in the barracks because everyone had tried to escape and to hide themselves; but having reached the number of forty, they had stopped and thus had not realized that the number remaining was not forty, but thirty-five. The morning, and it is still dark; four girls at a time go to bring back great drums of thin, hot, watery soup, which does not have any substance but which at least warms the stomach a little. They go in fours because

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the degree of malnutrition is by now such that two alone would not be able to do it. Quite often, when they are on the way back and they are moving cautiously—partly because of the effort that they have to make— they are treacherously attacked by Russian women, prisoners of war or political prisoners, who easily knock down the girls by shoving them and seize the drum. These Russian women are physically better off than the Jewish women because of the treatment they receive and the packages that get sent to them from home. Nevertheless they are incapable of stopping themselves from manifesting, in this way, too, their anti-Semitism— which is still so rooted in the Russian people and in whoever governs them. The notorious doctor Mengele—who today lives free and rich (from property that drips blood) in a Latin American country of which he has become a citizen, defended by a group of ss killers—personally directed the selections at Auschwitz many times. A slight movement of the hand, to the right or to the left, after a quick glance at whoever was facing him, and the fate of that person was inexorably sealed. Iris went through many of these selections. At the beginning of each of them it was not ever known which of the two lines would be doomed; but little by little it became clear to everyone who would have to suffer the sentence. The scenes of desperation, brutally repressed, are easy to imagine. In Bergen-Belsen, where the survivors of the concentration camps from the east were brought together, evacuated because of the arrival of the Soviet army, the confusion, chaos, and hunger reached ghastly extremes. The job of twisting scraps of cloth, and even of paper, to make ropes, was given to a group of girls. Each girl had to produce a certain number of meters per day. In the evening, toward the end of work, an ss soldier of huge stature would enter, and holding one of the two ends of the rope in place with one foot and pulling the other forcefully, he would test its strength. If the rope broke they were flogged and beaten. Once the rope made by Iris broke. The backhanded blow to her head made her fly from one corner of the large room to the other. For about ten days she suffered from an extremely bad headache. When she was liberated by the English, she weighed 28.5 kilos.1 The bestial violence of the Nazis was unleashed against such a girl.

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She spent more than a year in Sweden—at Vaxjö and Landskrona—to be cured and to come back, a little at a time, to blossom once again after such an appalling experience. The assistance that, together with the other survivors, she received from the doctors, from various organizations, from the entire nation (with displays of warm fellow-feeling), and from the government itself, beginning with the king, Gustavus Adolphus, left her with precious memories and gave her the possibility of having trust and hope once again. A trust and a hope that, given her young age, she had never abandoned completely, not even during her long imprisonment. At night, for instance, when she went to lie down on those thick, wooden prison boards, she would usually talk about menus with one of her companions. The conversation went something like this: “What should we eat tonight?” the friend would ask. “A nice plate of pasta,” Iris would answer. “No,” the other followed hard on her heels. “It’s already two nights in a row that we’ve been eating this stuff.” “Well, then, a nice cutlet, with a salad for a side dish.” “Now this is a good idea.” And like this, in that filthy hive, where there was almost no air and the most intolerable odors spread, these two girls, with their stomachs seized by hunger, continued to dream, even through the menu, of freedom—to cherish hope with youthful tenacity. Her group arrived in Italy, supplied with clothing and food, and got in contact with various officials in the Milan train station in order to obtain some aid. After having explained where they came from and what they had gone through, they heard the officials say, with bureaucratic coldness, “You weren’t the only ones who suffered. Here, too, we were all affected, some in one way and some in another.” And that was all. In order to return to their own cities each of the survivors had to come up with some kind of a solution—relinquishing cigarettes, for example, which were supplied to some railroad worker, who thus would let them get on the train. But the joy of seeing the beautiful Italian sun again and especially of embracing their relatives again was too great for them to complain about these trifles. These are a few of the many incidents among those experiences that

fig. 24. Augusto Segre with son Daniel, Rome, circa 1953. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

fig. 25. Augusto Segre with daughter Tamar, Rome, circa 1967. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

my wife lived through and suffered and that could be collected in a separate book, because they make up history, too, and as stated above, they ought to be remembered and recorded. There are so many of them, and they are disconcerting. That the question of racial persecution against minorities, whichever minorities they may be, has not yet been sufficiently investigated is shown by the fact that people avoid dealing with it. (People want to forget the ugly and the evil quickly.) Already spreading in various forms, orally and in writing, is the claim that these death camps never existed, or that they are a Jewish fabrication, or even that if they existed they were organized by Zionists who did not hesitate to kill other Jews in order to achieve recognition for the State of Israel! How these schizophrenic claims can be reconciled with the swastikas that have made their reappearance (even though they are sometimes drawn

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Italian-style) and with the anonymous telephone calls that proclaim that the gas chambers are still ready to wipe out the Jews is not really such a difficult problem to resolve—if one considers the serious mistakes committed even by the democracies, which have for a variety of reasons—intentionally or not—neglected to educate the new generations to live in a healthier and more moral atmosphere. Today we realize that there is the danger of once again rushing fatally into an abyss. Thus the author of Ecclesiastes was right when he wrote, “Is there nothing new under the sun?” One has to consider whether what happened in those years could not happen again or if the period from 1945 to today is only a truce.

c h a p t er t h i rt y- two

The Slansky Case

the slansky trial shocked the world—and not only the Jewish world.1 Anti-Semitism, which today is essentially political, is being stirred up in a number of countries, in various forms, old and new. The label changes, different colors and designs appear, but the contents of the bottle from which it is applied are always the same, the usual poison. That little bit of shame and maybe of unconscious remorse that remained in the consciences of those who witnessed the appalling genocide without intervening and now once again hold the strings of international politics in hand make it so that the use of the word “anti-Semitism” is avoided. Now “anti-Zionism” is in fashion. Even though the words may change, the substance does not—it is the same. Here is the Slansky trial, here are the death sentences, carried out with cynical coldness. The existence of the State of Israel arouses the imagination of imperialist states of the Right and of the Left; it gives them new appeals, a new variant for racial anti-Semites. What is Zionism in reality, in its actual modern form, which was well accepted among the national liberation movements of the last century, when it introduced itself on the political and diplomatic level for the first time? What is real Jewish history in its age-old evolution, which amply justifies the legitimate right of the Jewish people to live in their own land, like all other peoples? What are the magnificent contributions in religion, culture, and science that the Jewish spirit has given profusely to the entire world? What exactly is the historical reality of that land that even today continues to be labeled “Palestine”? All this has been—systematically and deliberately in many cases—disregarded, distorted, or destroyed; thus many books and a

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great deal of Jewish archeological evidence have been obliterated, mercilessly and without second thoughts, in the vain hope of making even the Jews who were their originators forget. All these attempts, which often took their toll on the spirit and in the flesh, nevertheless did not succeed in their intent. Jewish history continues. Here then is the Slansky trial, too. After years of harsh imprisonment Mordekhai Oren, one of the accused, is suddenly set free. He arrives at Ciampino Airport from Prague, via Zurich. Accompanied by his wife, who had gone to meet him in Zurich, he looks very tired and severely tested by the long years spent in prison. He is surrounded by a swarm of photojournalists, and he is intimidated by them. I get the impression that he may also be afraid; his wife is not very far from him, but he looks around himself frequently, with a certain apprehension. I approach him, speak to him in Hebrew, and bring him the greetings of the Italian Zionists, in the name of the Italian Zionist Federation. I realize that my words are augmenting rather than diminishing his anxiety. He looks terrified. “Calm down. Now you’re in Rome.” “But do you realize,” he answers me, “that I’ve missed the connection for Tel Aviv, and I have to wait until tomorrow morning?” “So what? Now you’ll go to a hotel, you’ll rest, eat dinner, and then take a tour of the city. Rome at night is very beautiful, I guarantee you.” It’s as if he doesn’t hear, because he continues to ask, more to himself than to me, “What will I do now that I’ve missed the connection?” “Don’t worry. Here you’re free, you can believe me. Tell me what happened this morning instead.” I’m trying to change the subject, and Oren actually begins to recount the story: “You mean tonight. I was awakened suddenly, forced to dress myself in the clothes that they handed me, and in a hurry, and then, followed by some soldiers with their weapons leveled, they make me go out into a courtyard and get into a small van. Some soldiers, armed of course, get in too, and we leave. No one speaks. They don’t take their eyes off me, but they don’t say a single word to me. What to think in those circumstances? I fear the worst. The trip is long. I don’t know where we’re headed. We slow down, and then the van stops. A lot more time passes. Then the door suddenly opens. It’s dawn, and I’m on a vast flat area. I

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get out, and following the orders I’m given, I go around the van, and an airplane appears in front of me, which they make me get into. Shortly afterward, the departure. Where to? Only when the airplane lands in Zurich do I finally realize that I’m free, and I still seem to be dreaming.” “No, it’s not a dream, it’s true, wake up,” I tell him with friendly bluntness. For the first time he smiles, and when some journalists approach him, he is feeling more confident, and he issues this statement: “I have been set free, but I still have not been cleared. I have not committed any crime, neither in Czechoslovakia nor elsewhere. I was convicted not only unjustly but groundlessly, and now I will fight with all my strength so that that conviction, which does not bring honor to those who pronounced it, is canceled. When I was arrested I was a socialist; now that I have been set free I am a socialist, and I will remain one for all my life. In spite of my terrible misfortune, after having restored my body and my spirit, I will again take up my struggle for human progress, for freedom, and to contribute with my strength, as well, to the creation of a better world.” Some years afterward I will meet him in front of my office, where, while he was passing through Rome, he wanted to come say hello and thank me. He embraces me and says softly, “Excuse me for that night—I couldn’t think rationally. Only after my return to Israel, thinking back on those hours spent at Ciampino, did I realize how much you’d done for me with your warm words.”

c h a p t er t h i rt y- t h re e

Life Goes On

i have returned once again, after many years, to my old Community and to the Langhe, to introduce places and persons to my wife, with the unspoken hope (or illusion?) that she might more deeply know and appreciate this world of mine, of which I had often spoken to her. I didn’t realize that with the passing of the years memory may have overrated it and lent it a vividness and importance that never existed. In fact I alone can see it again, because it actually does not exist any longer—it has been shattered and blurred into the usual general history. Or do I unconsciously reject this reality and mix it up with the fantasy so unbridled as that of memory? However it may be, it seems to me that the experiences lived in these places and with these people are among the active components of my thought and action, even today, and that they are transmitted by me to others anonymously. My wife, who has always been sustained by a very practical and thus also a simpler and more peaceful sense of life, wisely does not give much weight to all these flights of fancy and puts quite straightforward questions to me: “It’s natural that every one of us in some way feels tied to his own past and that it lives on in different ways within ourselves, but why do you think that others would be interested in a city, in a synagogue, and in a countryside that they’ve never known? And then, haven’t you always maintained that the past is valuable when, in the present moment that’s being lived, it helps you think about and seek the future? If this is so, then the names, the places, and the dates count for little; what counts is the experience that one has absorbed and that one passes on.” If this is so, then the past, as the lived reality of an individual and of a

fig. 26. Former ghetto area, Casale Monferrato, May 2000. Photo courtesy of the translator.

community, never disappears from the setting of this world but entwines itself with the pasts of many others, and all of them together contribute to laying the foundation of a future, for everyone. It’s like finding yourself in front of a great mosaic that you admire as a whole—the colors, the designs—but without always being aware of the edges and the small size of each tessera. From Jerusalem to Paris, Geneva, London, Brussels, and on and on, wherever I have been and continue to go, for conferences and conventions, or when I give lectures before a public that is sometimes unfamiliar, or lessons in a classroom—the direct contact with whomever I meet is made easier for me by these experiences of mine, and I am enriched by the experiences of others. One could say that it is an instance of osmosis at a spiritual level—of the acquisition of experiences that can be grasped even from the tone of voice of whoever is speaking, even if names, dates, places, and episodes that have converged over the generations to form a certain knowledge have by now already been swallowed into nothingness. How many Communities have, over the course of the centuries, arisen and disappeared? And how many others have then arisen and once again vanished in the great abyss of oblivion? And of these, for how

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many do we no longer have the slightest testimony? And for how many others do we find only brief and generic accounts in some history book or in some article for specialists? How many of today’s Communities are already disappearing like the others, and how many others, over the course of a period of time not readily definable, will follow the same fate? And yet they all carry the evidence of history, and they leave invisible evidence in us, just like ancestors whose names we no longer remember but whose lives, in reality, we extend. Thus, when it is possible to leave behind any sign of an experience, be it communal or private, it can certainly be useful—although in the end, if you think about it, it is not entirely indispensable. One fact seems certain: that whatever the past, even if it has sunk into oblivion, in extending and renewing itself from generation to generation, in life as it flows on, it symbolizes—in its totality and also in its mystery—a trusting confidence in life, a steady hope that projects itself into the future, a visible and invisible sum total of this age-old patrimony of the richness of human experience. If we take a block of fine marble, upon which the artist will engrave the unmistakable proof of his genius, and we follow him step by step in his work, we will also witness rather ordinary phenomena upon which, precisely because they are ordinary, we never pause to meditate with sufficient thought. The eye in fact is bewitched by the work that is coming forth from the miraculous hands of the sculptor. But the artist, as he works, carves the marble with the chisel, and bit by bit some pieces of the material fall to the floor and are then swept away as useless; the more chips fall on the floor, the more the work takes on a clearer and more precise form. Here it is, the finished work—the studio gets cleaned of the last chip, and the masterpiece is presented to the admiration of everyone. The eliminated parts are never exhibited or admired by anyone, although these, too, were marble—and fine marble—and without their “sacrifice” the work of art would not have emerged. Now we admire only the idea that has been translated into reality. How much human “dross”—disappearing, “sacrificing itself,” or “being sacrificed”—has given more precise contours and purer and more evocative lines to the great human adventure? An analogous phenomenon is offered by nature, the greatest artist of

fig. 27. Augusto Segre at home, Rome, date unknown. Photo courtesy of Daniel Segre and Tamar Segre.

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all times. A fruit or a tree without doubt has its ephemeral importance. But both represent a brief cycle, one loop in the continual renewing of nature itself. There is an analogous phenomenon in the life of animals and thus also of humans. Life therefore, in its various manifestations, continues, from generation to generation, whether vegetable or animal— just as the forest becomes an image of a whole, more beautiful and important than a single tree, as the sea with its blue stands out and fills one with wonder more for its vastness than for a single wave that emerges and disappears, and as humanity, in its totality, presents a more evocative and fascinating panorama than a single individual can offer. If a tree falls the forest still remains, forever; if a wave is swallowed up the sea does not change; if a man dies humanity continues to exist and evolve. In the end, in these notes of mine about real life, I have only paid homage to a chip from a great block of marble, to a small tree in a great forest, to a modest wave of the great sea. Maybe not so much to cause the prospective reader to ponder the importance of what I have narrated as much as to recall to mind the fact that, as far as possible, one should not forget even a chip, a tree, a wave, or a person. And all this is not, indeed, to perpetuate the memory, as they say, but to bear in mind always that the constituent elements of our being, our thinking, and our actions quite often have their roots in a distant and fascinating mystery. A final observation, even if it is very obvious, should not be left out. What has been said up to this point has not in any way had either the claim or the purpose of revealing, and thus of highlighting, any uncommon, idiosyncratic, or unique element in the community life of a given Jewish group from any particular or special social, religious, or cultural perspective. The difficulties, the various conflictual problems, the negative and positive aspects, and the light and shadows considered are not only, in the end, phenomena common to the Communities that have been spoken of but readily to be found among any other group of people who gather themselves around any religion, politics, or culture and who make such ideologies the center of their own lives. It is natural that every group expresses itself in a way that corresponds to its culture and interprets, sometimes in a distinctive way, the problems that are actually common to all of humanity and that therefore, objectively, do not ever have

fig. 28. Entrance to the synagogue, Casale Monferrato, September 1996. Photo courtesy of the translator.

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anything exceptional about them. In the case at hand we should not forget that the age-old history of the Jews, often made up of marginalization, persecution, humiliation, and massacres, has left a mark on the spirit and on the attitude of the Jews, both negatively and positively. And even the internal conflicts have often been nothing other than the direct or indirect consequence of external factors. It is necessary therefore to use the utmost caution in passing judgments, which sometimes get generalized quite carelessly, thus falling (for that which concerns us) into one of the most common and worn-out forms of anti-Semitism. If, in short, similar reflections were to be made regarding any other group, one could with extreme ease find many analogies with the various events examined here—and in certain cases they would be even more pronounced. For the day of Kippùr I am present at my old temple. We are few. The missing, however, make us feel these large empty spaces, the long rows of deserted benches—or better, they make them weigh more heavily upon us. It’s like finding yourself once again in a small family after years of absence. I take the floor, and I speak, recalling those old walls and the cherished persons who have left us, entrusting us with tasks no simpler than their greater responsibilities. I underscore the fact that this synagogue, too, is fading away, but the life of Israel continues and will continue. The hope of the Jewish people goes far beyond this very old Community. I notice the old principal, who listens to me attentively and with pleasure; he does not forego looking around himself, as if to gain approval. At the end I go to say hello to him. He embraces me, and in a loud voice, trembling a little but in a way that everyone can hear, he exclaims: “Bravo, you spoke very well. I always said—do you remember?—that you were one of my best students. And then I have to add that it seemed to me like I was seeing your father, a true chasìd (a pious person) again.” He hasn’t changed, he’s always himself! The ladies, too, wearing the inevitable small hat, come to congratulate me. One of them, moving her hand gracefully, exclaims, “It’s like I can still see you when you were a baby, with golden blond hair!” Here’s an interesting historic detail about my person that I didn’t know. On the eve of Kippùr I had gone, as the tradition intends, to the cemetery. It had been a long time since I had visited the graves of my family,

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partly because I remembered the words of Papà: “Don’t come to the cemetery often, like a lot of people do, which almost turns a grave into a cult object. Leave me in peace. And anyway, I won’t be there.” I have not again returned to my Community since I learned that the temple has been restored perfectly and brought back to its “ancient splendor.” These restorations, however, also erased many things that were part of me—even the faded curtain and the damp stain on the wall to the left as you entered, which aroused my imagination as a child. For me it’s no longer my synagogue. All that atmosphere in which I had been able to find again all the characters whom I had known has definitively disappeared. It’s natural that the new generation can’t help but be very pleased with this restoration, just like the generation of 1866—which had brought back to “new splendor” the old scola from the end of the 1500s—was. One could point out that in those times, the late 1800s, there was still a numerous and Jewishly active Community. But all this today can’t be attributed to eager volunteers who, with great zeal, wanted such a restoration to be done. To be a real nitpicker, one might add that the flawless work that employed artists and experts also gave dignity and maybe renown not only to Casale but to all of the Monferrato and a mark of legitimate pride to the few Jews who live there. But for someone like me, who lives far away, the impression is that now we have only a magnificent museum. The old scola, however, does not exist any longer. But this, too, is not anything unusual, as we have already noted. It’s the first day of school for my daughter, Tamar. Last night she was very excited and busy with preparations, school bag, notebooks, smock, and bow. This morning she was already ready when I got up. We walk out, she gives me her hand, and looking at me out of the corner of her eye she murmurs, “Are you embarrassed to walk out with me, dressed like this?” I pay her my compliments on the white smock and the blue bow, and I say to her, “I would also like to have a beautiful smock like yours, and such an elegant bow, and to go to school with you.” She’s satisfied, and she smiles. As we’re crossing the Sisto Bridge, she asks me, “When does the holiday of Sukkòth begin?” I get a big kick out of this, thinking that already on the first day of school she’s acting like an ideal student.

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While I’m introducing her to the teacher the bell rings; the classes are about to begin. I say to her, “Tamar, here it is, your first day of school,” and I remember my first day of school, as a teacher, in that same building, many years earlier. Tamar’s hand is still hidden in mine, and with its warmth it also transmits a slight hint of trepidation to me. A new, important chapter of her life is opening before her. In that affectionate handclasp I have the sensation of also transmitting to her, in turn, something of my old Community and, at the same time, the ancient Jewish hope for a more just and better world.

n ot es All notes are the translator's unless otherwise indicated. introduction 1. Several fundamental historical works are included in the list of references: see Cohen 1988; Davis and Ravid 2001; De Felice 2001; Della Pergola 1976; Leon 1960; Milano 1988, 1992; Roth 1946; Sarfatti 2006; Zuccotti 1987. 2. A well-researched and beautifully illustrated series of guidebooks provides a wealth of information about Jewish sites in Italy for both the reader and the traveler. The most prominent and accessible places are described in a summary volume, Sacerdoti and Falco 2003. More detailed guides from the same series, one for each region, are also available, some in English and Italian editions, some only in Italian. See the reference list for specific titles. 3. For many years the only (and still excellent) Italian Jewish cookbook was La cucina nella tradizione ebraica (Vitali-Norsa 1970), which was an expansion of an earlier community cookbook from Padova. Today many more Italian Jewish cookbooks are available. For a sampling, see Agostini 1995; La cucina della memoria 2001; Machlin 1981; Passigli 1993; Pavoncello 1985. 4. It was once the custom to declare a “local Purim” when a community was saved from natural or human-caused catastrophes, such as earthquakes or riots. The notion was based on the annual holiday of Purim, which celebrates the sparing of the Jewish community of Persia, as described in the biblical scroll of Esther. Local Purims proliferated in Italy, some individual communities celebrating several each year. Venice, for instance, celebrated three different Purims; one, the “Friday of the Bomb” (venerdì della bomba), was established as recently as 1849, when an explosive cannonball launched during the Austrian siege of Venice broke through the ceiling of a synagogue during evening prayers and hit the floor before the Holy Ark but failed to explode. Even tiny Pitigliano celebrated its own Purim, the “Night of the Orvietans” (notte degli orvietani), commemorating an occasion when a group of reactionary dragoons from Orvieto attempted to sack the ghetto of Pitigliano but were instead attacked by Pitiglianese peasants who thus saved the local Jewish population. This local Purim was celebrated yearly on the anniversary of the event from 1801 until the 1930s. For a study of the four local Purims of Padova, see Zorattini 2000.

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Notes to pages xix–xxii

5. Although, at less than fifteen thousand, Jews still make up only a small minority in a city of two and a half million. 6. Segre recalls the apam rite being performed in Asti on Yom Kippur. See chap. 19. 7. The walls and the gates were dismantled in 1848, but the ghetto continued, and civil and political equality remained elusive. See Milano 1988. 8. Primo Levi is the main exception but in one work only: “Argon,” the first chapter of The Periodic Table (1984), describes Levi’s Jewish ancestors in Piedmont, focusing especially on their Jewish-Piedmontese dialect. Most of his writing in which Jews appear deals with the Holocaust and takes place in Auschwitz, where few Jews were Italian. Next to Primo Levi, Giorgio Bassani may be the most widely known Italian Jewish author, thanks to the success of the Academy Award–winning film version of his novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis (1977). A comparison of the film with the novel shows, however, that even in this case the film added more overtly Jewish details than the book contained. As Primo Levi discovered his Jewishness in Auschwitz, so Dan Vittorio Segre, author of Memories of a Fortunate Jew: An Italian Story (1987), discovered his in Israel. Neither had experienced much of his Jewish heritage before, in Italy. Dan Vittorio Segre (not related to Augusto Segre) came from an uppermiddle-class background, and—like Carlo Levi, Natalia Ginzburg, and Primo Levi—he provides no testimony about the substance of traditional, religious, working-class Jewish life in Piedmont. My comments on these authors, of course, do not concern the literary quality, importance, insightfulness, or value of their works; my point is simply that these authors do not provide rewarding perspectives on Jewish life in Italy, beyond the assimilated world they knew. For a fuller evaluation of the Jewish element in the works of these authors (except Dan Vittorio Segre), as well as in the work of other Italian Jews such as Italo Svevo and Alberto Moravia, see Hughes 1983. Hughes calls Augusto Segre “the most vigorous and challenging of contemporary [Italian Jewish] memoirists” (1983, 24). 9. Edda Servi Machlin’s books, however, should not be forgotten. Machlin experienced the racial laws as a teenager and survived the Nazi occupation by seeking refuge in the countryside. Her Child of the Ghetto (1995) is a memoir of growing up in the small Tuscan town of Pitigliano. The Classic Cuisine of Italian Jewry: Traditional Recipes and Menus and a Memoir of a Vanished Way of

Notes to pages xxiii–xxviii 453 Life (1981) is well-known in the United States as an excellent cookbook, but it also contains personal memories and information about life in the unique, rural Jewish center of Pitigliano. Alexander Stille’s Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Families under Fascism (1991) is not a memoir, but much of it is based on interviews and personal and oral histories. (Stille’s documentary, archival research is thorough as well.) This excellent book narrates the experiences of five Italian Jewish families from different regions and different socioeconomic classes during the period of the racial laws and the Nazi occupation, providing a moving account that captures the paradoxes and ironies of the trap in which Italian Jews found themselves before and during World War II. 10. delasem stands for Delegazione Assistenza Emigranti Ebrei (the Delegation for Assisting Jewish Emigrants). This organization was funded by Jewish charities outside Italy. 11. Sur is the Piedmontese dialect form of the Italian signor, a respectful form of address. 12. The historian Renzo De Felice prized the contents of these chapters for their documentary testimony. De Felice was the author of a major study of the subject, The Jews in Fascist Italy: A History, translated by Robert L. Miller (2001). It was originally published in Italian as Storia degli ebrei sotto il fascismo (1961). De Felice’s comments on the unique importance of Segre’s testimony appear in the preface to the original Italian version of Memorie di vita ebraica (De Felice 1979, 15). 13. See, for example, De Felice 2001; Michaelis 1978; Picciotto 1991; Sarfatti 2006; Stille 1991; Zuccotti 1987. 14. The number forty-five thousand comes from what became known as the “racial census” because the fascist government conducted it after having passed the racial laws and exaggerated the number of Jews in order to maximize the supposed threat they posed to Italy. With the number at a mere forty-five thousand (in a population of forty-four million), the government’s case was unconvincing. 15. Segre describes this same episode in an interview with the journalist Nicola Caracciolo. See Caracciolo 1995, 111–12. 16. Scola (or scuola) was the everyday word for “synagogue” (sinagoga) or “temple” (tempio). See chap. 1, n. 4. 17. Augusto Segre’s books on the Jewish holidays are: Purim (1966), Shavuoth (1966), Shabbath (1972), Yom Haazmauth (1974), Tu-Bishvat (1975), Pesach (1975), and Rosh ha-Shanà e Kippur (1978). Two more were to come

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Notes to pages xxviii–2

later: Chanukkà (1980) and Sukkoth (1984). His commentary on the Torah, Mosè nostro maestro (Moses Our Teacher), was published in 1975. After 1979 (i.e., after publication of Memorie) he published two more books of commentary: Abramo nostro padre (Abraham Our Father) (1982) and La scala di Giacobbe (Jacob’s Ladder) (1985). His prefaces include, for example, the preface to Il movimento sionistico-chalutzistico in Italia fra le due guerre mondiale (The Zionist-Pioneering Movement in Italy between the Two World Wars) (Eckert 1970). Segre also translated this work from Hebrew to Italian. 18. After finishing this memoir Segre did in fact write another book with a parallel title: Racconti di vita ebraica: Casale Monferrato–Roma–Gerusalemme, 1876–1985 (Stories of Jewish Life: Casale Monferrato–Rome–Jerusalem, 1876–1985) (1986). This book, however, is not written as a memoir. 1. once upon a time 1. A glossary of Piedmontese, Jewish-Piedmontese, and Hebrew terms appears at the end of the book. Segre also glosses many of these words within the text, in parentheses, and I have occasionally added endnotes defining key words (e.g., minianìsta) so that this information does not interfere or get confused with the text. I have left intact Segre’s Italian spellings of common Hebrew terms that have entered English as well as Italian in order to give the reader a taste of Italian Jewish pronunciation of sometimes familiar terms (e.g., the Italian kashèr rather than the English “kosher”). In addition, Segre provides notes detailing his explanations, citations, and glosses. 2. When “community” is capitalized, it refers to a formally and legally constituted Jewish Community. Thus, it is capitalized when Segre is referring to the narrow legal sense (e.g., “the Community of Casale”) and uncapitalized in other contexts. 3. “Andüma, l’è tardi.” Here Segre uses the local Piedmontese dialect to report conversation. Later, other characters from other regions, such as the Veneto, speak in their own dialects. 4. “Ciau, Elvira, mi vadu a scola.” Sur Elìa speaks in Piedmotnese dialect. Scola was the common word for “synagogue” among Italian Jews until the era of emancipation, according to Fortis 2006 (s.v. scóla). Fortis provides citations for Piedmont, Torino, Venice, Trieste, Mantova, Modena, Ferrara, Florence, Livorno, Pitigliano, and Rome. It is tempting to relate scola to the Yiddish shul (also meaning “synagogue”), but Fortis derives the Jewish Italian scóla either

Notes to pages 4–8 455 from the Italian scuola (school), in its old sense of “confraternity” and “the place where members of a confraternity meet,” or directly from the Greek scolè. 5. Beth ha-kenèseth (Italian spelling) is the Hebrew term for “synagogue” (literally, “house of assembly”). While this term entered local Jewish Italian dialects, scola was the more common, in-group word. S.v. bèd a chenésed in Fortis 2006. Fortis provides citations for Mantova, Livorno, and Rome, as well as Venice, but says the term was known everywhere. 6. Chazèr is a Hebrew word literally meaning “yard,” “enclosure,” or “courtyard,” as Segre indicates. It entered most if not all local Jewish Italian dialects as the usual Jewish term for the ghetto. S.v. hasèr in Fortis 2006 for citations from Venice, Piedmont, Moncalvo, Mantova, Verona, Trieste, Reggio Emilia, Modena, Ferrara, Florence, and Rome. Fortis also remarks, “In the [Venetian] dialect, the word means the ghetto not only in a physical sense, as a space of confinement, imposed on the Jews since 1516, but above all as a meeting place of gossips, where everyone knows each other and everyone knows everything about everyone else—the closed place in which the local characters who animate the small Jewish world move about” (2006, 264). 7. “Or d’amor t’è madre.” 8. Giuseppe Gatti (from Casale Monferrato), Discorso religioso, pedagogico, sociale. La rigenerazione politica degli israeliti (A Religious, Pedagogical, and Social Discourse: The Political Regeneration of the Jews) (Casale, 1848), 24 pages.—Au. 9. A minianìsta is one who obliges himself, as Segre says, to be part of a prayer quorum (miniàn). S.v. minianìsta in Fortis 2006. In the Italian communities of this era, being a minianìsta was a role for elderly men, especially those who were poor, and sometimes there was a small stipend. Attending the miniàn also afforded minianìsti the opportunity to request alms from the well-to-do members, the signori—except when they were all on vacation, as happens later in the text. 10. The plural of “Séfer” is “Sefarìm,” meaning “Torah scrolls.” 11. It is interesting to observe how these last words correspond to an addition to a passage from Proverbs (15:15) that is found in the book of Ben Sirà (Ecclesiasticus). What this may show is how a current of Jewish knowledge was still alive at the folk level in those times.—Au. 12. Literally, “half Tuscan”: a favorite, common cigar made from Tuscan tobacco, half the size of a full-size toscano, or “Tuscan,” cigar.

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Notes to pages 8–13

13. Barbera is the popular, local, Piedmontese wine. 14. Purim is an annual Jewish holiday that celebrates the rescue of the Jews of Persia from annihilation in ancient times. The biblical scroll of Esther, which tells this story, is read on Purim. When a particular Jewish community was similarly rescued from a potential tragedy (manmade or natural), a “local Purim” might be declared and celebrated annually. Local Purims were particularly widespread and popular in Italy, and some communities, like Casale, had more than one. See introduction, n. 4. 15. Leone Ottolenghi, Brevi cenni sugli israeliti casalesi e sul loro Sacro Oratorio (Brief Notes on the Jews of Casale and on Their Holy Oratory) (Casale, Maffei Printing, 1866).—Au. 16. L’Educatore israelita (The Israelite Educator), one of the first Jewish newspapers in Italy, was founded in Vercelli (Piedmont) in 1853 and published until 1874. It was subtitled “Monthly Newspaper for the History and the Spirit of Judaism.” 17. The following is Segre’s transcription of the article from L’Educatore israelita (1866) titled “Restoration of the Holy Oratory in Casale”: On the thirtieth of September, the formal opening of the restored and enlarged Israelite oratory of this city took place. In attendance, besides the immense gathering of Jews and Catholics, were the prefect of the district, the mayor, and the commandant of the fortress. At about four in the afternoon, the holy Bibles, splendidly adorned, were carried into the temple amid religious songs and preceded by many men with lit torches. They were welcomed at the magnificently illuminated door of the oratory by the Most Excellent Signor Chief Rabbi Ehrenreich and the administrative council of the Community. Then, in perfect order, they took their places before the Holy Ark. This ceremony, which was very stately, being completed, the rabbi, greatly moved, read a prayer in Hebrew that he had composed expressly for this occasion and gave his solemn blessing to the people and to His Majesty the King of Italy and his august family. After this, the students of the singing school—directed by Maestro Sommo and accompanied on the harmonium organ by Maestro Navaretti—sang the hymn composed for the occasion by the abovementioned chief rabbi and put to music with taste and intelligence by Maestro Ezechiele Levi of Vercelli, who had been appointed by the council. Considering the short time since the choir was founded and the tender age of

Notes to pages 14–19 457 some of the youngsters who took part in it, we have nothing but praise (and much of it) for the manner in which they sang not only the hymn but many other pieces of sacred music as well. Finally, our chief rabbi read a speech for the occasion. After having spoken of the magnificence of the restoration and of the manner in which the faithful ought to behave in the house of the Lord, he spoke about the current situation in which Jews live. Comparing it with that of the past, he described how we should act in order to be good, upright, and useful citizens. “Those who are ashamed to be Jews,” he exclaimed, correctly, “are fools. It is not birth that earns a man fame or dishonor; it is his actions which raise him or debase him.” This speech, full of the noblest sentiments and rich with sage ideas, was listened to in the most devout silence. At about 6:30 the ceremony ended in complete satisfaction for the many who took part; and in spite of the great number of persons gathered, there was nothing to criticize for even slightly disturbing the celebration, which everyone had attended with attention and respect. Even after the ceremony the crowd flocked to admire the temple, which met the approval of everyone—for the elegance and richness of its ornaments, the splendidness and sumptuousness of its Holy Ark, the arrangement and harmony of all its parts, and, finally, for its rich illumination—due mainly to the two new bronze candelabras, each one with a capacity of eighty candles. We cannot do less then bestow a word of praise upon the administrative council, which commissioned and supervised the restoration work on the temple with such foresight, as well as all those other persons who spared no effort so that this celebration would prove to be worthy of the high purpose for which it aimed. This day will be retained by the Jews of Casale as one of the sweetest and dearest of memories.—Au. 18. Vercelli is a town about twenty-five kilometers north of Casale, also home to a historic Jewish community. 19. Cupio dissolvi: desire to disappear (Latin). 20. A virginia is a type of cigar. 21. Niggunìm: melodies (Hebrew; plural of niggùn). 22. It is interesting to note that the Yiddish term schnorrer existed in at least one Jewish Italian dialect, Jewish-Venetian, according to Fortis (2006, 398),

458 Notes to pages 21–31 who cites the phrase re dela znòra—“king of the schnorrers” (the title of the famous novel by Israel Zangwill). Fortis also states that there are no references to the term in other Jewish Italian dialects. S.v. re dela znòra. 23. Yaakòv: Jacob (Hebrew). 24. That is, he went to cash bonds or collect other interest or dividend payments, here meant to describe Mandulìn making the rounds to collect “debts” ironically. Primo Levi cites the same expression in The Periodic Table (1984, 17). 25. Sur Murènu: Signor “Our Teacher”; that is, the rabbi. Murènu is a Jewish-Piedmontese dialect term, based on a Hebrew root, for “our teacher” (the rabbi). Fortis cites moréno for Venice and references other scholars’ citations of moréno for Mantova, Reggio Emilia, Modena, and Rome and morénu for Piedmont (2006). S.v. moréno. The phrase “na brahà n’tla buca” is in JewishPiedmontese dialect. 26. Liceo: lyceum. Since the 1930 reform of the Italian school system, the track known as the “classical liceo” (i.e., that in which Greek and Latin are studied) corresponds roughly to American high school, except that it is five years long instead of four. It follows three years of middle school (scuola media, ages eleven to fourteen). The first two years of classical liceo are called ginnasio (gymnasium) and are followed by three more years of liceo. The other “high school” tracks are composed of five years of liceo. Students normally graduate when they are about nineteen. Segre later refers to five years of ginnasio and three of liceo, meaning that before the reform of 1930, when he was in ginnasio, the term referred to the three years of middle school as well as the first two of liceo. The term Università Israelitica (Israelite University) may seem confusing at first. Università here has nothing to do with today’s “university” but refers to guilds and corporate entities of various types, including legally chartered Jewish Communities. Università Israelitica was an ancient official term for a Jewish Community in Italy, but by the early twentieth century it was giving way to Communità Ebraica (Jewish Community). 27. “Knight” and “Knight Commander of His Majesty’s Kingdom.” 28. Ginnasio: gymnasium. See n. 26, this chapter. 2. the rabbi’s family 1. Trincotto is the old name of the building where the synagogue of Casale was built in 1595.

Notes to pages 35–45

459

2. Moses Mendelsohn (1729–86) was the founder of the German-Jewish Enlightenment. 3. Segre immigrated to Israel in 1979 and settled in Jerusalem. He died in 1986. 4. “The Hour of Trial,” in La settimana israelitica (The Weekly Israelite), Florence, May 28, 1915.—Au. Coèn: priest; that is, a member of the priestly lineage, a descendant of Aaron. 5. In Il vessillo israelitico (The Israelite Banner) 10 (1915).—Au. “Unredeemed lands”—terre irredenti—refers to areas adjacent to Italy inhabited at least partly by Italians but under foreign control, particularly Trieste and Fiume and the borderlands with Austria farther north. “Redeeming” these lands (i.e., incorporating them into Italy) would, theoretically, complete the national unification begun in the nineteenth century. The “Sabauda dynasty” refers to the House of Savoy, Italy’s royal dynasty. The publication quoted here, Il vessillo israelitico, was one of Italy’s early and important Jewish newspapers; it was published in Casale Monferrato, and then in nearby Torino, from 1874 until 1922. Segre discusses Il vessillo in chap. 6. 6. In Il vessillo israelitico (The Israelite Banner) 10 (1915).—Au. 7. Udine is in far northeast Italy, near what was then the border of the AustroHungarian Empire and thus near the front. 8. Caporetto was the disastrous battle in which the Italian front facing the Austrians in the northeast collapsed. 9. “Su fratelli / Su compagni / Su venite in fitta schiera . . .” 10. “Avanti popolo alla riscossa.” According to Italian historian and folklorist Sandro Portelli, “Avanti popolo” (also known as “Bandiera rossa” [The Red Flag]) is “the most important fighting song of the Italian working class” (1976, 6). 11. The fasces were the symbol of the Fascist Party: a bound bundle of wooden rods with the blade of an ax projecting outward. The fasces were also an ancient Roman symbol of authority. Segre’s word for “hurrah” here is alalà. Andrew Canepa writes that “the nonsense cheer Eia, eia, alalà was invented by Gabriele D’Annunzio during the occupation of Fiume in 1919–1921. It was later adopted by the fascists” (personal communication, August 2003). 12. Negri (singular: nègro), the word translated here as “terrible,” was one of the most widespread terms in the Jewish Italian dialects. There are citations in the literature from Piedmont, Moncalvo, Mantova, Modena, Ferrara, Trieste,

460

Notes to pages 46–55

Florence, Livorno, Pitigliano, Rome, and Venice. The word evidently entered Jewish Italian from Spanish (negro: black) and has a generically pejorative meaning. There is no direct connection in Jewish Italian between nègro and the English “Negro,” except in the generally negative associations with the color black that are widespread in European folklore. S.v. nègro in Fortis 2006. 13. In Italian nonna is both the formal “grandmother” and the informal and affectionate “grandma,” “grammy,” or “granny.” Segre clearly has the latter sense in mind, yet “grandma,” “grammy,” and “granny” convey specifically American connotations. Thus I have left nonna in Italian. 14. “Aunt” is used here not in the literal sense but as a term of affection and respect used to refer to all older female relatives. Segre uses the Piedmontese word magna, not the Italian zia. 15. “Il ponte di Bassano” (The Bridge of Bassano) was a sentimental World War I song about a farewell kiss on the bridge of Bassano del Grappa, not far from Venice, the site of an important Italian stand against Austria during the war. 16. “Storie di briganti celebri.” 17. “Jewish Venetian history,” in the previous sentence, refers to the history of the Jews not only in the city of Venice but also within the larger territory that once was part of the Venetian Republic, including places such as Udine and San Daniele del Friuli. 18. “Ti no far tante ciacole, dì sempre che la xe cotta”: a proverbial phrase spoken in Venetian dialect. The young Segre’s confusion (in the following paragraph) evidently comes from taking the proverb too literally. Cotta, the Italian word translated here as “cooked,” carries the metaphorical meaning (in the proverb) of “done,” “finished,” “ended,” or “over with.” Thus, “Don’t chatter so much; always say that it’s finished.” 19. These were Italian fascist youth movements. 3. it’s not always easy to become a rabbi 1. One becomes a bar mitzvah when one attains religious majority (at age thirteen). The traditional Italian Jewish phrase in the text is entrato da miniàn (entered the minyan), meaning that one could be counted in the quorum (minyan) of ten males above the age of thirteen that is required for certain prayers, including the public reading of the Torah. Chamòr is a Hebrew insult that entered most, if not all, Jewish Italian dialects.

Notes to pages 55–74 461 2. The Mishnà (repetition, study), the work of the Tannaìm (scholars, repeaters), gathers together traditional Jewish learning, especially the juridical part, as well as the examination of this learning. The definitive arrangement was established by Rabbì Jehudà ha-Nasì (the Patriarch) (165–210 ce).—Au. 3. Rashi was an important eleventh-century rabbi and scholar of the Talmud and the Torah. Maimonides (1135–1204), or Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, was a key rabbi, physician, and scholar of Jewish texts. 4. The Zóhar, written in Spain in the thirteenth century, is the most important work of the Kabbalah, the Jewish mystical tradition. “Rambam” is a traditional acronym referring to Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (see n. 3, this chapter). Rabbi Isaac Abravanel was a late fifteenth-century biblical scholar and an important leader of Jewish communities in Spain and Portugal during the expulsions of 1492 and 1497. 5. Literally, diminutio capitis means “lessening of the head” (Latin), here referring to a lowering of prestige. 6. This event took place during the revolution in Venice against Austrian occupation, in 1848–49. See Roth 1946, 493. 4. the community council 1. From Talmùd (in Aramaic, equivalent to Gemarà), “study,” the work of the Amoraìm (interpreters, commentators); the Talmud explicates the Mishnà, investigating its biblical sources, examining its contents critically, and searching for solutions to new legal problems. There exist redactions of the Babylonian Talmud and of the Palestinian Talmud (fifth to sixth centuries ce).—Au. 2. Leonardo Bistolfi (1859–1933) was the most important Art Nouveau sculptor in Italy, as well as a painter and writer. 3. Martin Buber (1878–1965) was an important Austrian-Jewish (then Israeli) philosopher, translator, and educator, best known for his work on Hasidism and his classic work I and Thou (1970). 4. This tradition has its roots in the Talmud and became most popular in Eastern European Jewish culture, especially with the rise of Hasidism. Làmedwaw is the number thirty-six in Hebrew. See the glossary for more information. 5. first experiences 1. Coram populo: in public (Latin). 2. Santini are Catholic holy pictures.

462

Notes to pages 77–91

3. Homus novus: new man (Latin). 4. “Libiam, libiam sui lieti calici” (Let’s Drink from the Merry Glasses) is from the opera La traviata. 5. A balio is the husband of a wet nurse (balia). 6. That is, they would have been eighteen or nineteen years old. 7. Giacomo Matteotti (1885–1924), a socialist deputy in the Italian Chamber of Deputies, was murdered by Blackshirts after criticizing the fascist government. 8. Ad audiendum: for a hearing (Latin). 9. The scale was one to ten, ten being the best. 10. In Italy public school teachers are called professors. 11. Mirabello is a very small town about a dozen kilometers south of Casale. 12. Traducem: Latin, referring to “traducianism,” the doctrine that a child’s soul is generated by the child’s parents (in contrast to “creationism,” the doctrine that God creates a new soul for every human being born). 13. Voi is a more formal form of “you” than the ti form that a father would normally use with his son. 6. casalese anti-zionism 1. Pitigliano is located about halfway between Florence and Rome. It probably earned the nickname “the little Jerusalem” for a number of reasons, including its proportionately large Jewish population in the mid-nineteenth century (possibly over five hundred Jews in a town of about six thousand). See Salvadori 1991; Machlin 1981, 1995. For Il vessillo Israelitico, see chap. 2, n. 5. 2. Il corriere israelitico: “The Jewish Courier.” Italy gained Trieste after World War I. See chap. 2, n. 5. 3. Israel was an Orthodox, Zionist periodical that began publication in Florence in 1916. 4. Grìban: cracklings—pieces of goose skin fried in their fat; the crisp part remaining when rendering goose or chicken fat. The word is known in Jewish Italian dialects in different forms (e.g., grìboli or grimboli in Jewish Venetian) and derives from Yiddish. See Fortis 2006, s.v. grìbole. 5. Attilio Milano, “Un secolo di stampa ebraica in Italia,” appeared in the volume of the Rassegna mensile di Israel (The Monthly Review of Israel) in 1938, Scritti in onore di Dante Lattes (Writings in Honor of Dante Lattes).—Au. Milano’s reference, in the quotation’s first paragraph, to the publication as

Notes to pages 94–112

463

“being under the emblem of a ‘banner’” refers to its title: Il vessillo israelitico (The Jewish Banner). 6. Erez Israèl: the land of Israel. This is the traditional Jewish phrase referring to what was then Palestine, part of which would become the state of Israel. 7. Israel (March 18, 1937/Nissan 6, 5697).—Au. Chaverìm: comrades, friends (Hebrew; singular: chavèr). 8. Mazzinian: Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) was a republican revolutionary, a nationalist agitator, and the great prophet of the Risorgimento, the movement for Italian independence and unification. 9. Ras: a fascist title used for the party’s official provincial bosses. The title was a colonial linguistic borrowing from East Africa. 10. Sic et simpliciter: thus and simply (literally); pure and simple (idiomatically) (Latin). 7. jewish festivals and solemnities 1. Papalina: skullcap (Italian). 2. Parashòth: plural of parashà (Hebrew), which is the section of the Pentateuch that is read on the Sabbath. 3. Here Segre’s father uses the formal voi instead of the familiar tu for “you,” his most serious rebuke to his children, as Segre mentioned earlier. 4. Mazzòth: plural of mazzà (unleavened bread). 5. A “landau” is a type of four-wheeled, covered carriage. 6. Talmùd Torà: study of the Torah (Hebrew); school for the study of the Torah and of Jewish religion and culture generally. 7. Ella: the most formal form of “you,” used in the previous sentence in the phrase “all the explanations you [ella] desire.” 8. Av is a month in the Jewish calendar that comes in late summer, corresponding roughly to August. The Temples were destroyed in 586 bce and 70 ce. 9. Buona sera: good evening (Italian). 10. Isaiah 1:15. He would have been facing the same direction the congregation was facing (east), and thus his back would have been turned to the congregation as he chanted. 11. Shevàt is a month in the Jewish calendar that comes in winter, roughly corresponding to parts of January and February. 12. Hamàn is the villainous character in the biblical book of Esther. “Hamàn’s ears” correspond to the Ashkenazic Purim pastry known as hamantaschen, fa-

464

Notes to pages 112–131

miliar to American Jews. Edda Servi Machlin writes that “there are perhaps as many versions of this sweet as there are Jewish families in Italy” (1981, 226). 13. Chanukkà (Italian spelling and pronunciation) is a holiday celebrating the victorious Maccabean revolt against the Greek/Syrian emperor Antiochus Epiphanes and the rededication of the Temple in Jerusalem in 165 bce, celebrated in December. Kislev is a month in the Jewish calendar that corresponds roughly to December. 8. community and family life 1. Here Segre uses the word scola for “school,” referring to the temple. See chap. 1, n. 4. 2. The Green Cross (Croce Verde) was founded in Torino in 1904. It began as a civilian, nonmilitary first-aid service, becoming involved at the front in World War I. (My thanks to Massimo Moraglio of the Università di Torino for information regarding the Croce Verde.) 3. An almost identical saying exists in the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Berakhot 57a. S.v. pomegranate (Encyclopedia Judaica 1971). 4. Falasha: Ethiopian Jew. 5. Marshal Rodolfo Graziani (1882–1955) was a chief of staff and colonial governor. 6. For more on Emanuele Taamrat, see Kessler 1985, 133–34, 141, 144–46, 148, 153. 7. Rubì is another widespread Jewish Italian dialect word for “rabbi,” attested to not only in Piedmont but also in Mantova, Modena, Ferrara, Florence, Livorno, and Rome. In Venice rubì had a somewhat different meaning, referring to someone who had the specific role of reciting prayers for the dead, attending the funeral watch, and accompanying the corpse to the cemetery. S.v. rubì in Fortis 2006. 9. farewell visit 1. Pulentìn: Little Polenta. 2. Abreu: Jew (Piedmontese dialect). 3. La lanterna monferrina: “The Monferrato Lantern.” 4. Belu: dialect form of bello (handsome or beautiful) (used ironically here). 5. “L’avìa mai vist me pare ’n camisa.” King Vittorio Emanuele II is quoted as speaking in Piedmontese dialect.

Notes to pages 133–145

465

6. At least as of March 2007 the hinge was still there. 7. Cf. “Giuro sui qinim degli occhi miei” (I swear by the lice of my eyes), a traditional oath in Jewish Venetian dialect. See Siporin 1982, 344. 8. Segre uses “ghetto” here to refer to the area that had been the ghetto until 1848. 9. Hessed Veemet: Kindness and Faithfulness (Hebrew). See Genesis 24:49. These Hebrew words could be translated differently (e.g., “Piety and Truth”), but this is the sense of Segre’s Italian translation in his glossary. 10. “Cal scüsa, profesur” and “Cal diga, avucat” (in the Monferrato variant of Piedmontese dialect). The sense is very formal. 11. Peperonata: sliced peppers cooked with oil, vinegar, tomatoes, and onions. 12. All these expressions are Jewish Piedmontese, and they occur in similar forms in other regional Jewish Italian dialects. 10. rome, friends, and teachers 1. Langhe is a district of the Piedmont region, southwest of Casale. The Arch of Titus is in Rome, in the ruins near the Forum. See figures 21 and 22. 2. The Tuscan Maremma is the southwest coastal area of Tuscany. Segre’s “buffalos” probably refers to the small native cattle of the Maremma or water buffalos. 3. Berakhà: blessing (Hebrew). 4. Nahum Goldmann (1895–1982) was a Zionist and a founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress. 5. “C’est très drôle ici”: it’s very odd here (French). 6. Le physique du rôle: the physique for the role (French). 7. Mare nostrum: our sea (Latin); the Mediterranean Sea. This refers to the fascist concept of returning Italy to Roman glory, when the Mediterranean was a “Roman Sea” because it was surrounded by the Roman Empire. 8. Filippo Turati (1857–1932) was a Socialist deputy in the Italian parliament and an antifascist; he escaped into exile in 1926. Claudio Treves (1869–1933), another Socialist deputy in the Italian parliament and antifascist, also escaped into exile in 1926. For the tragic story of Ettore Ovazza, see Stille 1991, 17–89. 9. The toast, le-chaìm, is usually translated literally from Hebrew to English as “to life.” Segre’s translation, alla salute (to health), is a traditional Italian toast, independent of the Hebrew but equivalent to it.

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Notes to pages 146–154

10. Fiume, near the Istrian peninsula, today is known as Rijeka and is part of Croatia. It was once part of the Venetian dominion and was claimed as part of Italy by Italian nationalists during the period leading up to and after World War I. 11. Mishlè is the Hebrew name for the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Folklorist Dan Ben-Amos, responding to my query regarding the source of this story, writes, “The old man [i.e., the sofèr telling the story] knew his Bible. In the book of Proverbs there are several warnings that the father imparts to his son, among them warnings to avoid prostitutes. You will find them in several chapters, but in 7:5–23 there is a sequence of verses describing prostitutes, their seductive behavior and their ways of trapping young men. 7:22 includes the metaphor of going after the prostitute ‘like a cow [in the original in fact ‘bull’] to slaughter’” (personal communication, August 11, 2006). 12. For another version of this story, see Bin Gorion 1976, 629–31. Several sources of the story in the Talmudic-Midrashic literature are cited. 13. Ictu oculi: in the blink of an eye (Latin). 14. The “third meal” of the Sabbath, on Saturday afternoon/evening, is a festive celebration with singing, discussion of Torah, and storytelling, especially well developed among Hasidic Jews. The existence of this custom in Rome at the Pines Pensione probably comes from Pines’s Ashkenazic background, rather than from an indigenous Roman Jewish tradition. 15. Orthodox Jews do not smoke on the Sabbath. 16. Julius Wellhausen (1844–1918) was a German biblical scholar and Orientalist. Rudolf Kittel (1853–1929) was a German Old Testament (Hebrew Bible) scholar. 17. Pater incertum est: Dad doesn’t know (Latin). 18. Chaim Nahman Bialik (1873–1934) was one of the first modern Hebrew poets and is also considered Israel’s national poet. 19. Shaul Tchernichovsky (1875–1943) was a modern Hebrew poet and translator. David Shimoni (Shimonovitz) (1886–1956) and Salman Schneur (1887–1959) were also modern Hebrew poets. Achad Haam is the pen name (Hebrew, meaning “One of the People”) of Asher Ginzberg (1856–1927), a Jewish thinker and Zionist leader. Elijah Benamozegh (1822–1900) was an Italian rabbi in Livorno and an author. Joseph Gedaliah Klausner (1874–1958) was a Jewish scholar, Zionist, and chair of both modern Hebrew literature and Jewish history at Hebrew University. Judah Ha-Levi (1075–1141) and Solomon Ibn Gabirol (ca. 1021–58) were Jewish poets and philosophers in Spain.

Notes to pages 156–159 467 20. Quaderni della “Voce”: “Notebooks of The Voice.” Giuseppe Prezzolini (1882–1982) was an Italian writer and journalist who founded a review titled La voce. 21. Longa manus: long hand (Latin). Felice Momigliano (1866–1924) was a philosopher and teacher. 22. Meqìz nirdamìm and mechajè metìm are Hebrew phrases that identify God, very familiar to the traditional observant Jew because they are repeated regularly in daily prayers. 23. Festina lente: make haste slowly (Latin). Lattes may be punning on the title of a popular, central work of Jewish literature (actually a tractate of the Talmud) titled Pirkei avot in Hebrew, which may be translated as “The Precepts of the Fathers” in English. Lattes’s phrase here is “precetti degi avi . . . latini,” which I have translated as “the precepts of the Latin forefathers.” Lattes humorously expresses his dual sense of Jewish and Italian cultural ancestry in this simultaneous, ironic reference to Jewish wisdom literature and to a Latin sense of pleasure, both being “precepts of the fathers” (or forefathers). An Italian/Hebrew linguistic pun is involved, too, on the Italian word for “forefathers” (or “ancestors”), avi, and the Hebrew word for “fathers,” avot. 24. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was an anti-Semitic forgery from Czarist Russia that claimed to reveal a secret Jewish plan to conquer the world, then (in the early 1900s) in its final stages. The work is still popular in anti-Semitic and anti-Israel propaganda today. The Resto del Carlino was an Italian newspaper published in Bologna. 25. The three Italian Jewish newspapers Lattes mentions here (Israel, Hatiqwah, and Zerajm) were published in Italian. Hatiqwah means “The Hope” in Hebrew; Zerajm means “Seeds,” also in Hebrew. Carlo Alberto Viterbo (C. A. V.) (1889–1974) was an attorney, journalist, linguist, and Jewish leader who carried out work in Ethiopia with Ethiopian Jews in 1936–37 (see chap. 8). Alfonso Pacifici (1889–1981) was a Jewish leader in Italy (see chap. 26). Elia Samuele Artom (1887–1965) was a Jewish scholar and one of Segre’s teachers at the Rabbinical College in Rome (see chap. 12). Benè Aqivà (meaning “Children of Akiva” in Hebrew) was an international religious Zionist youth movement. Benedetto Croce (1866–1954) was an influential Italian philosopher, historian, antifascist, and critic. 26. Il mulino (literally, “the mill”) was a bimonthly of culture and politics published in Bologna. “La Pira” probably refers to Giorgio La Pira (1904–77),

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Notes to pages 160–171

an Italian Catholic politician, international figure, and mayor of Florence (1951–64). 27. Erez Israèl: the land of Israel (Hebrew). See chap. 6, n. 6. 28. When Italy invaded Ethiopia (Abyssinia) in 1935, the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions on Italy. Cesare Balbo (1896–1940) was one of the four leaders of the fascist revolution and air marshal. Angelo Orvieto (1869– 1967) was an Italian Jewish poet and writer and editor of the literary weekly Il Marzocco (Florence). 11. jewish rome 1. Coèn: Italian variant spelling of cohèn (“priest” in Hebrew). 2. For another description and interpretation of this Italian, and especially Roman, Jewish custom, see Stow 2001, 48–49. 3. Attilio Milano (1907–69) was a major historian of Italian Jewry. His classic work is Storia degli ebrei in Italia (History of the Jews of Italy) (1992). 4. Luigi Einaudi (1874–1961) was an economist, senator, and president of Italy (1948–55). 5. Luigi Einaudi in Riforma sociale (1931).—Au. 6. Villa Torlonia was Mussolini’s residence in Rome (1929–43). 7. For De Felice’s argument, see De Felice 2001. See also Michaelis 1998, 217–40, which disagrees with De Felice’s assessment that Il Tevere was subsidized by Hitler and argues instead that it was the “unofficial organ” of Mussolini. Telesio Interlandi (1894–1965) was an anti-Semitic and racist Italian journalist. Corriere padano (The Po Courier) was a newspaper. “National Socialists” refers to the German Nazi Party. 8. Israel (Jan. 18, 1934).—Au. 9. Il Tevere (Jan. 30, 1934).—Au. 10. Chaim Weizmann (1874–1952) became the first president of Israel (1948– 52). 11. Umberto Nahon (1905–74) was a Zionist and community leader. 12. A dunam is a unit for measuring land in Israel (one thousand square meters), equal to about one-fourth of an acre. 13. adei stands for Associazione Donne Ebraiche Italiane (Association of Italian Jewish Women). 14. For an account of this incident, in which two young Jews smuggling antifascist literature into Italy were caught, leading to the arrest of their friends as well, see Stille 1991, 49–52. Eleven of the total of seventeen arrested were Jewish,

Notes to pages 171–178 469 and elements of the press and government portrayed the incident as evidence of Jewish disloyalty. This was one of the first indications of Mussolini’s coming anti-Semitic policy. 15. Le-Shanà ha-baà Birushaláim: next year in Jerusalem (Hebrew). 16. See Michaelis 1998, 230, in which the Il Tevere article Segre cites here is analyzed. 17. Renzo De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo, p. 154.—Au. 18. Ettore Ovazza (1891–1943) was a Jewish fascist and anti-Zionist. La nostra bandiera literally means “our flag.” See Stille 1991, 52–62, for more on this publication; see 19–89 for Ettore Ovazza. Also, see De Felice 2001, 143–48, 208–17, for more on La nostra bandiera and Ettore Ovazza. 19. La loro bandiera: literally, “their flag.” 20. Gressoney is a ski resort in the Italian Alps, near the Swiss border, that served as a jumping-off point for Jews trying to escape into Switzerland during World War II. 21. Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky (1880–1940) was a founder of revisionist Zionism. 22. The youths were from Betar, the revisionist Zionist youth organization founded by Jabotinsky. 23. The census figures for Jews in Italy during this time period are generally considered to be inflated, although still extremely small—forty-five thousand in 1938, in the official census, in contrast to the thirty thousand Segre suggests. Either count was still less than a tenth of a percent of the national population. For the demography of Italian Jewry, see Della Pergola 1976. 24. Raffaele Cantoni (1920–71) was a Community and Zionist leader. See esp. chap. 16. 25. Giovanni Preziosi (1881–1945) was a fanatic anti-Semite and the translator of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion into Italian. 26. This translation is from Segre’s Italian quotation from the Bible. 12. students and politicians 1. Leggende orientali: “Oriental Legends” (Italian). Full title: Leggende orientali: Leggende e favole di antichi maestri (Oriental Legends: Legends and Tales of the Ancient Masters). See Lattes 1927. 2. Mario Pagano (1748–99) was a professor and legal philosopher in Naples. 3. Ad audiendum: for a hearing (Latin).

470 Notes to pages 179–196 4. The Argentario is a round peninsula off the extreme southwest coast of Tuscany, in the Maremma region. Lattes here refers to a summer vacation beach area known as the “silver [argento] coast.” 5. Via Balbo is the site of a synagogue known as the Oratorio di Castro. The main temple, on the Tiber, would have been even farther from Lattes’s home. 6. Meghillàth Estèr: Scroll of Esther (Hebrew); the biblical book of Esther that is read aloud in the synagogue on the holiday of Purim. 7. Tripoli, the capital of Libya, which was then an Italian colony, was home to an indigenous North African Jewish community. 8. The four leaders of the fascist revolution (in 1922) were Italo Balbo, Emilio De Bono, Benito Mussolini, and Cesare Maria De Vecchi. 9. Davide Prato (1882–1951) was a Zionist leader and chief rabbi of Rome (1936–38, 1945–51). 10. Jacques Faïtlovich (1881–1955) was a scholar and activist. Lodz is in Poland. 11. Il regime fascista was a daily newspaper published in Cremona, edited by the notorious fascist propagandist Roberto Farinacci. 12. Renzo de Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo, p. 177, n. 3.—Au. Fulvio Suvich (1887–1980) was the fascist undersecretary for foreign affairs. Dino Grandi (1895–1988) was a fascist minister and ambassador. 13. Aosta is a city in the far northwest region (Valle d’Aosta) of Italy, bordering on Switzerland and France. 13. from police stations to the secretaryship of the union 1. Caviola is near the Austrian border in northeastern Italy. 2. Birkàth ha-Mazòn: blessing the meal; that is, the prayer sung after the meal. 3. Esquiline is a section of Rome. 4. “To see the stars once more”: these are the final words of Dante’s Inferno. 5. Bandieristi: the fascist, Jewish, anti-Zionist supporters of Ovazza and his newspaper, La nostra bandiera. 6. Hashkivènu: Cause Us to Lie Down (Hebrew); a section of the daily evening service. “Ha-Tikvà”: “The Hope” (Hebrew); a variant spelling, Hatiqwah, occurs earlier (in chap. 10) as the name of an Italian Jewish newspaper. 7. The area Segre refers to, known simply as “piazza,” is actually at the

Notes to pages 198–209

471

boundary of the ghetto and even today is considered “the most Jewish of the Roman squares” (Migliau and Procaccia 1997, 90). Jews still habitually congregate on this street to talk, especially late on Saturday afternoons. 8. This is an Italian version of a joke often collected in the United States, which folklorist Richard Dorson identifies as “The Man Who Knew Everybody.” Interestingly, even in the United States the setting for the joke is often Rome, but the “unknown” character accompanying the joke’s protagonist is often the Pope rather than Mussolini. See Dorson 1960, 168–71, 172–74. 9. Rabbinical title.—Au. 14. the racial campaign breaks out 1. Segre here refers to Il Tevere. But, see Michaelis 1998, 217–40. 2. Jamìm Noraìm: Days of Awe (Hebrew); that is, the “high holy days,” the ten days beginning with Rosh Hashanah and ending with Yom Kippur. 3. Tesciuvà: repentance (Hebrew). Hep-hep: a widespread folk etymology asserts that “hep” stands for Hierosolyma est perdita (Jerusalem is destroyed) and dates to the era of the Crusades (or, alternatively, Roman times) when it was a slogan supposedly shouted by conquering soldiers. Whatever the source, the phrase “hep, hep, hep” was part of the language of anti-Semitic pogroms in Germany in the nineteenth century. See Graetz 1891–98, 3: 351–52. 4. “The Jew of the hill”: ’l abrei d’l bric, in Piedmontese dialect. 5. “Poor Jews in exile”: póvri jüdìm a bagalüth (Jewish Piedmontese). 6. Informazione diplomatica, Feb. 16, 1938, n. 14.—Au. 7. “Manifesto on Race”: Manifesto della razza. The actual title was “Manifesto of Racial Scientists” (Manifesto degli scientisti razziali). For the text of the manifesto in English and the history of its creation, see Gillette 2001, 305–23. 8. The punch line of the joke (untranslatable in one phrase because it is a double entendre in Italian) simultaneously means “so that you don’t see the hour when you leave” and “because you can’t wait to leave.” It turns on an Italian idiom (non si vede l’ora), which literally states “you can’t see the hour” but figuratively means “you can’t wait (until) . . .” In terms of the joke, “you don’t see the hour” (i.e., you don’t see the clock because it’s hidden by the drapery) is the literal level, disguising the idiomatic level’s taboo idea that “you can’t wait” (to leave—to leave Rome because of the fascist display or possibly even leave Italy because of fascism itself). The taxi driver is expressing a politically taboo sentiment at the idiomatic level, disguised

472

Notes to pages 209–224

by a childish pun on the literal level. There is also the notion of naive, clumsy fascist attempts to hide the truth (covering the clock) that don’t fool anyone. 9. This hypothesis is attributed to the historian Renzo De Felice, a close friend of Segre, who solicited the manuscript of Memorie di vita ebraica and wrote the preface to the original Italian edition. See De Felice 2001. 10. Israel, Sept. 8, 1938.—Au. 15. dante lattes leaves 1. This may seem to contradict what follows. The emphasis should probably be on “relatively”; that is, compared to getting passports, getting certificates to enter Palestine was less difficult, at least at this moment. 2. Palestrina is a town about twenty miles east of Rome. 3. See n. 1, this chapter. 4. ’Aliyà: immigration to Israel (Hebrew); literally, “going up,” “ascent.” 5. Zechariah 9:12: “Return to the stronghold, you prisoners of hope; / This very day do I announce that I will restore double to you.” The phrase “prisoners of hope” was used by H. Stuart Hughes for the title of his groundbreaking book on twentieth-century Italian Jewish literature Prisoners of Hope: The Silver Age of Italian Jewry, 1924–1974. Hughes quotes from Segre’s passage above in Prisoners of Hope (1983, 84), and it seems that this must have been the source for Hughes’s title, although he nowhere says so. 16. working with raffaele cantoni 1. To better understand the complex personality of Cantoni, who was under the surveillance of the ovra [Organizzazione Volontaria Repressione Antifascismo (Voluntary Organization for the Repression of Antifascism), that is, the secret police] from 1930 on, some data (summarized here) from the official documentation—which was kindly brought to my attention by Professor R. De Felice—are very interesting: On May 14, 1932, the Royal Prefecture of Milan notified the Ministry of the Interior, General Administration for Public Security, Central Political Records Office, that the accountant Cantoni, on December 12, 1930, then under arrest, had been denounced to the Special Court for having tried to reestablish a Masonic lodge named “Italia” in Milan and was acquitted in March 1931 for insufficient evidence and given a warning. On May 3, 1935, the Ministry of the Interior, General Administration for

Notes to page 224

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Public Security, notified the Honorable First Section (Central Political Records Office) that the accountant Cantoni, having an antifascist past, had become president of the Milan Committee for Assisting German Jewish Refugees. From a letter of the Minister of the Interior (August 27, 1936), signed by Carmine Senise [prefect and head of police], it emerges that: (1) Cantoni had been part of the “Italia Libera” [Free Italy] society and a Freemason; (2) On June 30, 1935, he had been pardoned through amnesty from the crimes of contempt and refusing to obey, committed in Venice; (3) On November 11, 1919, he had been charged in an arrest warrant from the military court of Torino for desertion; it was revoked following an injunction for release on bail on January 2, 1920. (This was what happened to the solders who had followed D’Annunzio to Fiume); (4) Being a person of “proven antifascist belief, who by visiting groups of Jewish refugees from Germany would take advantage of them to carry out the insidious work of defamation and defeatism against the Regime, it would be best to relieve him of the post of President of the Committee for Assisting Jewish Refugees from Germany, with offices in Milano, Via Amedei 3.” The prefect of Florence (January 17, 1940) notifies the Ministry of the Interior, General Administration of Public Security, that Cantoni meets with the leaders of the organization “Irgun Olé Italia” [Organization for Italian Immigration (Hebrew)], which has, “among its educational goals, that of promoting and organizing the immigration of the Jews themselves to Palestine. . . . It does not appear that Cantoni has given cause for criticism for his political behavior, nor that he is involved in the traffic in currency or in the exporting of diamonds and precious objects.” On June 6, 1940, the director of the Passport Office of the Ministry of the Interior writes to the Division of General and Classified Affairs, Central Political Records Office, informing them that Cantoni requests “authorization for expatriation to Palestine where he would go to settle definitively.” On June 10, 1940(!), the Chief of the Division of General and Classified Affairs grants that they will offer no impediment, but already on June 12 the minister, under Pennetta’s signature, orders that Cantoni be “interned in the Urbisaglia (Macerata) concentration camp.” On August 4 of the same year the prefect of Macerata, Venditelli, hastens to notify the Ministry of the Interior that Cantoni is being removed from Urbisaglia. They are dealing with a “fanatic,” who, together with the lawyer Nino Contini, son of Lionello, deceased, upsets the order and “imposes his will on the other Jews, forcing them not to eat certain, particular foods that their religion forbids” and, with “his old Masonic mentality,” wants to form

474

Notes to pages 224–226

“a committee to assist indigent coreligionists, with attendant duties and powers.” On August 12 the same Pennetta, by order of the Ministry of the Interior, arranges for Cantoni to be interned at Tremiti. (Note that the words “concentration camp” are crossed out on this form.) No documents have been found regarding his subsequent transfer to San Vittorio in Matenano. For more information on Cantoni cf. Sergio Minerbi, Raffaele Cantoni, un ebreo anticonformista [Raffaele Cantoni, a Nonconformist Jew] (Carucci Editore, 1978) [Minerbi 1978].—Au. The concentration camps mentioned above were located in the Macerata province, the Marche region (central Italy, near the east coast). 2. Segre presents Raffaele Cantoni as usually speaking in Venetian dialect. Here, for example, he says, “Ti ga paura?” 3. Dante Almansi (1877–1949) was president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities from 1939 until 1944. 4. Susan Zuccotti summarizes the controversy Segre is referring to: Almansi served the union brilliantly, restoring order to an organization torn by dissent on the question of reconciling fascism with Zionism. . . . After the German occupation, Almansi and Foà decided that Rome’s Jewish Community should continue to function exactly as before. They refused to close the synagogue, or to stop or even reduce the number of services. They discouraged the circulation of alarming information. . . . The motivation of Almansi and Foà remains a matter of speculation. Critics say they were reluctant to disperse the community upon which their power and status depended, without clear cause. The more charitable suggest that their decision was a natural product of their personalities and careers. They were conservative, cautious, rational men. . . . They were determined to avoid provoking the Nazis, as the closing of the synagogue and the disappearance of the Jews might have done. . . . A leading critic of Almansi and Foà is Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli, who claimed after the liberation of Rome that he had desperately tried to convince them in September 1943 to close the synagogue and the Jewish Community offices and advise Roman Jews to hide. According to Zolli, Almansi and Foà both told him they had private assurances from high places and ignored his warnings. They in turn later denied that Zolli had ever warned them. . . . Katz . . . revived the controversy in 1969 by unequivocally endorsing Zolli and condemning Foà and Almansi. . . . Zolli and his family survived the Nazi occupation of Rome by hid-

Notes to page 228 475 ing with Catholic families and, according to some, in the Vatican itself. After Rome’s liberation, Jewish Community leaders charged him with abandoning his post and his people, and relieved him as chief rabbi. The Allies reinstated him, but bitter recriminations from both sides further divided the Community. In a sensational move in February 1945, Zolli effectively resolved the feud by converting to Catholicism. (Zuccotti 1987, 106–7, 300, 301) Zuccotti references Almansi 1976, 251–52; Katz 1969, 199–306; Newman 1945; and Zolli 1954, 139–63, among others. 5. Gabriele D’Annunzio (1863–1938) was a flamboyant, self-indulgent poet and politician who led a coup to claim Fiume (today known as Rijeka, in Croatia, near the Istrian peninsula) for Italy in the aftermath of World War I, in 1919. The events looked backward to Garibaldi’s invasion of Sicily but have also been called a “dress rehearsal for fascism” (Smith 1997, 293). 6. In confirmation of this verdict of Cantoni’s cf. Popolo d’Italia (People of Italy), July 4, 1919, where Mussolini wrote: If Petersburg does not fall and if Deniken marks time, it is because that is what the big Jewish bankers in London and New York want, bound as they are by racial ties to the Jews who, in Moscow, as in Budapest, are getting back at the Aryan race, which condemned them to dispersion for so many centuries. In Russia 80 percent of the leaders of the soviets are Jews. Bolshevism isn’t, perchance, the revenge of Judaism against Christianity? The idea is food for thought. It is possible that Bolshevism will drown in the blood of a pogrom of catastrophic proportions. World finance is in the hands of the Jews. Whoever has the people’s savings is in charge of their politics. Behind the puppets in Paris are the Rothschilds, the Warburgs, the Schiffs, and the Guggenheims, who have the same blood as the rulers of Petersburg and Budapest. Race does not betray race. Bolshevism is defended by the international plutocracy. This is the fundamental truth. The international plutocracy dominated and controlled by the Jews has a paramount interest in all of Russian life, hastening its process of molecular disintegration to the point of convulsion. This passage was quoted by Roberto Farinacci in “La chiesa e gli ebrei” [The Church and the Jews], the inaugural lecture given at the Milano Institute of Fascist Education, Nov. 7, 1938 [Farinacci 1938, 6].—Au.

476 Notes to pages 229–244 7. Alano di Piave was the site of the Zionist summer camp from approximately July 20 to August 20, 1939. Alano di Piave is located in the province of Belluno, northwest of Venice. See Marzano 2003, 180. 8. Duce means “leader,” but one source of the group’s humor seems to be the double meaning of the term duce here, also referring specifically to Mussolini, the leader (Il Duce). Mussolini liked to be photographed doing hard, physical labor. 9. We are still at the Zionist summer camp at Alano di Piave, part of whose purpose was the selection of forty-five youths to send to two places in Palestine (Givat Brenner and Mikveh Israel, one secular and one religious). For more details, see Marzano 2003, 180–81. 10. Datì, meaning “religious” in Hebrew, is followed by da ti, “from you,” in Italian, punning on the different meanings of the same sounds in the two languages. 11. Segre was stricken with polio as a child. See chap. 2. 12. Dante Lattes, Nuovo commento alla Torah (New Commentary on the Torah), 104–5 [Lattes 1976].—Au. 13. Pontedera is in Tuscany. 14. Nazionali cigarettes: nationals; the common brand of cheap, governmentmonopoly cigarettes. 17. who leaves and who stays 1. He uses voi rather than Lei (formal) or tu (familiar). One could say that he is using the fascist form of “you,” since fascism wanted to do away with the formal Lei and substitute voi as part of its cultural revolution. 2. Sefarìm: Torah scrolls. See chap. 1, n. 10. 3. Achille Starace (1889–1945) was a Fascist Party secretary and a leading anti-Semitic member. 4. Sokhenùth: agency (Hebrew); a nongovernmental agency that supported the World Zionist Organization and social-service programs in Israel. It was crucial to the settlement of Israel and is usually known in English as the “Jewish Agency.” 5. comasebit: Comitato Assistenza Ebrei in Italia (Italian). 6. Renzo De Felice, Storia degli ebrei italiani sotto il fascismo, p. 416 [De Felice 1961].—Au.

Notes to pages 248–268

477

18. i return home 1. Aleramo was a legendary tenth-century hero who received all the land he could cover riding horseback for three days and three nights; the area included the Monferrato. 2. Count Alessandro Manzoni (1785–1873) was the author of I promessi sposi (The Betrothed) (1825–27), often considered the most influential Italian novel ever written because of its role in making Tuscan the literary language of modern Italy. 3. Asti, in turn, was not far from Casale (approximately thirty-five kilometers to the southwest). 4. The Langhe is a hilly region southwest of the Monferrato region and Casale, well-known for several wines. 5. Here Segre uses voi. See chap. 17, n. 1. 6. Bottled wine is stupa in the local dialect. 7. His voice can be heard, thanks to recordings made in 1954 by Leo Levi, the Italian/Israeli ethnomusicologist who undertook fieldwork in the 1950s to preserve Italian Jewish traditional music. He was also a native of Casale. His work is now available on a cd. Listen to Spagnolo 2001, selection 1 (“Mizmor le David” [Psalm 29]) and selection 42 (“L’emancipazione israelitica” [The Jewish Emancipation]) for samples of Alessandro Segre singing. 8. “Listen” (the beginning of an important daily prayer) (Hebrew).—Au. 9. Lekhàf zekhùt: in the scale of merit (Hebrew); that is, benevolently, assuming the best intentions, “giving the benefit of the doubt.” 10. The Jew Süss was an explicitly anti-Semitic film made in Nazi Germany in 1938, directed by Veit Harlan. 11. Matenano is in the Macerata province, the Marche region (central Italy, near the east coast). 12. Ascoli Piceno is also in the Marche region, not far from San Vittoria in Matenano. 19. asti and moncalvo 1. The “American grape” is the Concord grape. 2. Corriere astigiano [Asti Courier], Sept. 7, 1889.—Au. 3. Cittadino [Citizen], Sept. 7, 1889.—Au. 4. Gazzetta del popolo [People’s Gazette], Sept. 10, 1889.—Au. 5. Corriere della sera [Evening Courier], Sept. 8–9, 1889.—Au. 6. Gazzetta del popolo, Sept. 10, 1889.—Au.

478

Notes to pages 268–283

7. Qahàl: community, public, collectivity (Hebrew); alternatively, kahàl. 8. Taled: variant spelling of tallèth (prayer shawl). 9. Birkàth Kohanìm: blessing of the priests (Hebrew). See Stow 2001, 48–49, for the importance of this part of the liturgy in Italian Jewish tradition. 10. Cupio dissolvi: desire to disappear (Latin). 11. Count Emilio di Cavour (1810–61) was prime minister of Piedmont in the 1850s and then the first prime minister of newly united Italy in 1861. Cavour is considered the central figure in the unification of Italy. 12. See chap. 18, n. 7. 13. That is, they spoke Judeo-Spanish, or “Ladino.” 14. Fossano is southwest of Asti, and Moncalvo is north of Asti, but all three are relatively close to each other. For more on the Appam liturgy, see Disegni 1956, 78–81. Daghésh is a Hebrew grammatical term referring to a dot that may appear in certain consonants, changing their pronunciation from “soft” to “hard.” 15. Giuseppe Niccolini, A zonzo nel Monferrato (Strolling through the Monferrato), anastatic reprint (Il Portico: Casale Monferrato, 1977), p. 299s [Niccolini 1977].—Au. Segre gives the title in dialect: “La gran battaja dj’abrei d’Moncalv.” The selections from the poem are also in dialect. The original date of publication is 1877. 20. commuter 1. “P. N. F.” of course stands for Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party). The subversive, satiric reinterpretation, “due to family needs,” provided the rationalization for many who became Fascist Party members. Reinterpreting acronyms and the names of businesses and organizations is still a popular genre of satiric folklore in Italy today, especially among children. The name of the Ford Motor Company, for example, is said to mean fatto oggi rotto domani (made today, broken tomorrow), and the name of the Italian department store Upim is said to stand for università professori in mutande (university professors in underwear). See chap. 9 for another example. 2. Giosuè Carducci (1835–1907) was a leading political poet of the Left, an academician, and a Nobel Prize winner in literature (1906). 3. “Juden rauss!”: Jews out! (German). 4. “Internal exile” (usually to small villages in remote locations, especially in southern Italy) was a common form of punishment for political dissidents

Notes to pages 286–318 479 under fascism. One such instance resulted in a very important literary work of the 1930s, Carlo Levi’s Christ Stopped at Eboli (1947). 5. “The formal ‘you’”: Lei. 6. The “xxi” of the document Segre cites indicates the twenty-first year of the fascist era. Fascism established a new calendrical reckoning in Italy, year 1 (I) being the year of the fascist March on Rome (1922). 7. Castell’Alfero is several kilometers north of Asti. 8. In dialect, “To’, pia ste stupe, a fan sempre ben.” 21. the nazi invasion 1. See chap. 2, n. 10. 2. Marshal Pietro Badoglio (1871–1956) was a World War I general and later chief of staff who held many military and political posts under Mussolini and was appointed prime minister when Mussolini was ousted in 1943. Although Badoglio was an establishment figure from the fascist period, his administration was supposed to be “nonpolitical,” and it marked the definitive break with fascism and the beginning of negotiations between Italy and the Allies. 3. Repubblichino refers (derogatorily) to the troops of the Republic of Salò, the puppet state Hitler created for Mussolini on the shores of Lake Garda in northeastern Italy after Mussolini was rescued from house arrest by Nazi paratroopers in the Abruzzo region on September 12, 1943. In order to avoid confusion with “Republicans” as members of the Republican Party in the United States, I have left the term in the Italian (repubblichini). 4. Psalms 68:20. 5. See Exodus 20:5–6. 22. partisan life 1. “Headed toward the province of Torino”: that is, in the opposite direction. 2. For an excellent description of the winter-evening storytelling custom in barns elsewhere in northern Italy, see Mathias and Raspa 1988. For a visual reenactment of winter storytelling in barns, also in northern Italy, see Olmi 1978. For a similar custom in Tuscany, see Falassi 1980. 3. “Camerati, una sorte,” “Vieni, c’è una strada nel bosco,” and “Mamma per te la mia canzone vola.” 4. The Riviera di Ponente is the area of the Italian Riviera from Genoa west to the French border.

480 Notes to pages 319–365 5. Badogliani: supporters of Prime Minister Badoglio. See chap. 21, n. 2. 6. Costigliole d’Asti and the other towns mentioned in this chapter (Alba, Canelli, San Stefano Belbo, Neive, etc.) are all located in the Langhe, south of Asti. 23. april 25 1. Sandokan was an influential fictional pirate in Italian popular literature, originating in a series of novels written by Emilio Salgari (1862–1911). See, for example, I pirati della Malesia (The Pirates of Malaysia) (1896) and Le tigri di Mompracem (The Tigers of Mompracem) (1900). 2. “The twenty-fifth of April”: that is, the end of the war in Italy. 24. the prisoner emerling 1. Cinico Angelini (1901–83) was the conductor of a popular dance orchestra featured on the radio during the war years and again in the 1950s at the San Remo music festival. 2. The Zòhar is the most important work in the Jewish mystical tradition (Kabbalah), originally compiled, it is thought, in the thirteenth century. 25. toward a normal life 1. Pietro Nenni (1891–1990) was a leader of the Italian Socialist Party, an antifascist, a senator, and a government minister in the late 1940s and 1960s. 2. Umberto Calosso (1895–1959) was an antifascist exile and broadcaster for Italia Libera (Free Italy). 26. return to rome 1. “Here, on the evening of 24 March 1944, the ss commanded by Herbert Kappler brutally murdered 335 people, mainly civilians, in reprisal for a partisan attack in Via Rasella, in which 32 German soldiers had died. None of the victims (one was a fifteen-year-old boy) had anything to do with the partisan attack. Rounded up with the collaboration of the Rome Police authorities, they included prisoners from the Regina Coeli prison and from the Gestapo prison . . . as well as hostages the Germans had seized in Via Rasella. The total included some 75 Jews, and exceeded by five the number of victims ordered (ten Italians for every German)” (Migliau and Procaccia 1997, 157).

Notes to pages 365–386

481

2. See chap. 13, n. 7. 3. Isaiah 11:1. My translation is from Segre’s Italian version of the Hebrew. 4. Devar jeladìm: the children’s edition of the Hebrew-language daily newspaper Devar, published in Mandate Palestine and then in Israel (1925–94). 5. This is probably Sereni 1951. 6. La rassegna mensile di Israel: “The Monthly Review of Israel” (Italian), the leading journal of Italian Jewish culture, literature, the arts, and politics. (Segre would later become editor, from 1975 to 1979.) 7. Benedetto Croce (1866–1954) was the leading Italian philosopher of the twentieth century. 8. Cesare Merzagora (1898–1991) was a politician who became senator and acting president of Italy in 1964. I pavidi: “The Timid” (Italian). 9. Segre’s mention of Piperno’s writings probably refers to Piperno 1976. 10. For more on Viterbo, see chaps. 8 and 10, esp. chap. 10, n. 25. 11. Alfonso Pacifici (1889–1981). 12. For Benamozegh, see chap. 10, n. 19. 13. Israele l’unico: Ricerca di una definizione integrale dell’ebraismo: “Israel the Unique: The Quest for an Integral Definition of Judaism.” Integral Judaism: Ebraismo integrale (Italian). 14. Dorésh Zion: Seekers of Zion (Hebrew). 15. “Il caso Cassuto”: “The Cassuto Case” (Italian). La questione della Genesi: “The Question of Genesis” (Italian) (Cassuto 1934). 16. Enzo Sereni (1905–44) grew up in Rome as an assimilated Jew, learning about Zionism as a teenager. He immigrated to Israel in 1927 and was a founder of Kibbutz Givat Brenner. In 1944 he was parachuted into northern Italy to help organize the Italian partisans but was captured immediately and sent to the death camps, where he was killed. 17. Israel, Nov. 20, 1924.—Au. For the significance of this meeting in Livorno in 1924 as a turning point for Italian Zionism, see Marzano 2003, 24–28. 27. the state of israel is reborn 1. Israel, Nov. 27, 1947.—Au. 2. The quotations, respectively, are from Psalms 118:24 and Genesis 12:2. 3. Enrico De Nicola (1877–1959) served as Italy’s provisional head of state (1946–48) and as president of the Republic (1948).

482

Notes to pages 388–396

4. Parcere victis, debellare superbos: spare the conquered, war down the proud (Latin). The quotation is one of the most famous in all of Latin. It comes from book 6 of the Aeneid, as Aeneas stands in the underworld watching the triumphal parade of Rome-as-yet-to-come and listens to his father (Anchises) narrate Roman history (the Roman future, from Aeneas’s perspective). At the climax of the passage, Anchises outlines Rome’s mission, which is not to produce good artists or astronomers but “to rule” and to “spare the conquered, war down the proud.” I thank Professor Mark Damen for identifying this quotation and its significance. 5. Caput mundi: capital of the world (Latin). 6. Shim’on Bar Ghiora was murdered in 70 ce. The gold candelabrum was stolen from the Temple in Jerusalem and is depicted on the Arch of Titus. 7. “Judea Capta”: with Judea having been captured (Latin). The phrase appears along with an image on a series of coins issued by Titus after the conquest of Judea in 70 ce. The image shows Judea as a captive woman with her hands tied behind her back. I again thank Professor Mark Damen for his help with this quotation. 28. new activities of the zionist federation 1. The Hebrew word for immigration to Israel, ’aliyà (often transliterated into English as “aliyah”), is a noun derived from the Hebrew verb literally meaning “to go up,” “ascend.” 2. Pasquale: Easter (Italian); Pèsach: Passover (Hebrew). 3. For more on the converts of San Nicandro, see Lapide 1953; Cassin 1962. 4. “The Jewish People suffered extreme misery and the greatest privations during the last war. It can be said without exaggeration that the suffering and the miseries of the Jewish People are indescribable. It is very difficult, with dry numbers, to express the losses and the sacrifices of the Jewish People at the hands of the fascist occupiers. In countries controlled by the Hitlerians the Jews were almost completely exterminated. The total number of Jews that were massacred at the hands of the fascist murderers is around six million. Only a million and a half Jews survived the war in Europe. But these figures, which give some idea of the losses suffered by the Jewish People at the hands of the fascist aggressors, do not give any idea of the situation in which the surviving masses of the Jewish People found themselves after the war. A great part of the Jews who survived the war in Europe found themselves bereft of their countries, of their homes, and of the means of earning a living. Hundreds of thousands of Jews are wandering

Notes to pages 397–425

483

through the different countries of Europe, seeking refuge and the means for living. A great many of them live in refugee camps, where they continue to suffer great privation. . . . The United Nations cannot and should not remain indifferent in the face of this situation, because such a position would be incompatible with the other principles that were proclaimed in our charter, principles that provide for the defense of human rights without regard to race, religious conviction, or sex. It is time to help the Jews, not in words but in deeds. . . . And the fact that not a single western European country was capable of ensuring the defense of the basic rights of the Jewish People, nor of compensating them for the violence they suffered, explains the aspirations of the Jews for the creation of their own state. It would be unjust not to take this into account and to deny the Jewish people the realization of this aspiration” (Israel, May 22, 1947).—Au. 5. Israel, May 25, 1948.—Au. Umberto Terracini (1895–1983) was a founder of the Italian Communist Party, Resistance fighter, and president of the Constituent Assembly that wrote the Italian constitution in 1946–47. 6. There is a great wealth of data available with which to explain how in the following years the attitude of the USSR (and therefore of the Italian Left) toward the State of Israel was gradually transformed—including the hypothesis that the Left’s political monopoly over the rebirth of the State of Israel had been widely justified, along with its recognition by the USSR and by parties tied to it, simply as part of a political game and not indeed as part of those legitimate aspirations of the Jewish people so brilliantly expounded by Gromyko himself in the 1947 un General Assembly. Whoever would like to follow this evolution in its details can consult the book by Luciano Tas, Cartina rossa del Medio Oriente [Red Map of the Middle East] [Tas 1971].—Au. 7. msi: Movimento Sociale Italiano (Italian Social Movement), the main neofascist party at the time. 8. Arturo Michelini (1909–69) was the leader of the msi. 30. israel at war 1. De visu: with one’s own eyes (Latin). 2. Kaddìsh: the liturgical formula extolling the Lord, also recited by persons in mourning or on the anniversary day of the death of a relative.—Au. 3. Kol Nidrè: formulaic prayer for the cancellation of vows, which is recited on the eve of Kippùr.—Au.

484

Notes to pages 428–439

4. King Saul and his son Jonathan were killed on Mount Gilboa, according to the biblical narrative (1 Samuel 31). 5. Limmasol is in Cyprus, and Smyrna is in Turkey. 6. Rhodes is part of Turkey. 7. Pireaus is in Greece, and Bari is in Italy. 31. a happy encounter 1. This is less than sixty-three pounds. 32. the slansky case 1. The Slansky affair was a Stalinist show trial in Czechoslovakia in 1952, directed from Moscow. Rudolph Slansky, Czechoslovakian Communist Party secretary, and others, including Mordekhai Oren, were charged with “Titoism,” spying, and sabotage. Slansky and ten others were hanged in December 1952.

g l o s sa ry In order to help his Italian readers with unfamiliar words, Segre compiled a glossary made up of terms in Jewish Italian dialect, Jewish Piedmontese dialect, and Hebrew that appear in his memoir. (Some of these terms are glossed within the text as well.) I have followed Segre’s Italian conventions of Hebrew transliteration.—Trans. Abram avìnu (also, Avrahàm avìnu): Abram our father. An expression that indicates a home where abundance reigns and that is warm and open to everyone. aggàdico: Italianized form derived from haggadà (see below). ’aliyà: literally, “going up” or “ascent”; immigration (to Israel). ’aliyà beth: clandestine immigration to Palestine during the British Mandate, until 1948. Beth (or bet) is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet. ’aliyàth ha-nòar: youth immigration. ansanaranà: see shaà raà. ’aravòth: willows. A bunch of branches that, on the last day of Sukkòth (see sukkà), known as Hosha’nà Rabbà (see below), is beaten or stripped as a symbol of the forgiveness of God. Aròn ha-Kòdesh: Holy Ark, which contains the Sefarìm (see séfer). ’Arvìth: evening prayer. asùr: prohibited. banìm: sons, boys, children (singular: ben). baracùt: blessing. Jewish Piedmontese dialect form derived from a Hebrew root meaning “to bless”; used here in the sense of “blessed.” bar mizwà: literally, “son of the commandment.” Rite of passage for males at the age of thirteen marking the attainment of “religious majority.” baroucabà adonài: “welcome, in the name of the Lord.” The first word, in Piedmontese dialect, stands for the Hebrew barukh ha-bah (welcome). The second word, adonài, means “Lord.” Thus the phrase may be translated as, “Welcome [in the name of ] the Lord.” berakhà: blessing. beth ha-kenèseth: literally, “house of assembly”; synagogue. Beth ha-Miqdàsh: literally, “house of the holy place”; used to indicate the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

486

Glossary

Birkàth ha-Mazòn: Blessing of the Meal; the prayer of thanks to God that is recited after the meal. Birkàth Kohanìm: Blessing of the Priests. chadàr ha-òkhel: dining room. chakhàm: sage, learned man. chalomòth: dreams (singular: chalòm). chamèz: leavened substance. chamòr: donkey. chamsìn: sirocco; from the Arabic for “fifty,” maybe to indicate that this wind blows fifty times a year. Chanukkà: literally, “dedication”; the so-called Festival of Lights that lasts for eight days, usually in December. It recalls the reconsecration of the Temple of Jerusalem thanks to the Maccabees in 165 bce, after their insurrection against Antiochus Epiphanes. chanukkjà: the lamp with eight lights (plus one used to light the others) that is lit to celebrate the holiday of Chanukkà (see above), which lasts eight days. chasìd: pious person. chavèr: companion, friend (plural: chaverìm). (More particularly, a kibbutz member.—Trans.) chazèr: courtyard, court, ghetto. chazzàn: synagogue officiant. cherpà: shame. chinìm: lice (singular: kinnà). en bererà: literally, “here’s no choice.” gan yeladìm: kindergarten. goìm: the nations; non-Jews and therefore also Christians (singular: goi). grìban: cracklings, made with goose skin; the word is German in origin. guià: Jewish Piedmontese dialect form for “female Christian” (see goìm). haftarà: passage from the Prophets section of the Bible, read on the Sabbath and other occasions. haggadà: literally, “story,” “legend.” Also (as Haggadà), the text that is read at the séder (see below) on Pèsach (see below). (Most generally, the narrative part of the Talmudic literature; usually contrasted with halakhà [see below].—Trans.) hakhsharà: training; center for professional training before immigration to Israel (plural: hakhsharòth). halakhà: law, norm; the part of the Talmudic literature with legal and ritual content. (Usually contrasted with haggadà [see above].—Trans.)

Glossary

487

halàkhico: normative (see halakhà and midràsh). Hashkavà: prayer in memory of the dead. Hashkivènu: Cause Us to Lie Down; a section of the daily evening prayer. “Ha-Tikvà”: “The Hope,” a poem by Naftali Herz Imber (1856–1909); from the Hebrew tikvà (hope). This was the anthem of the Zionist movement and today is the national anthem of Israel. Havdalà: Separation; the ceremony and prayers that are recited at the end of the Sabbath and other festivals. hòra: a popular Israeli dance; the word is of Romanian origin. Hosha’anà Rabbà: the seventh day of the festival of Sukkòth (see sukkà). Hosha’anà is a poetic composition that is recited on the days of Sukkòth. Kaddìsh: a prayer exalting the Lord that is also recited by persons in mourning and on the anniversary of the death of a relative. kadòsh: separate, holy. kahàl: congregation, collectivity, public, community. (Kahàl appears in the text as qahàl as well.—Trans.) kashèr: suitable, good; food permitted according to the traditional laws. kèlev: dog. Kèren Kayèmeth le-Israèl: Jewish National Fund; an institution founded in 1901 with the purpose of acquiring and reclaiming desert and swampy areas of then-Palestine and planting trees. The acquired lands became the inalienable property of the Jewish people. kibbutz: collective settlement in Israel. Kiddùsh: Consecration, Sanctification; the traditional blessing on wine that is recited on Sabbath and on the other festivals. kippà: skullcap, cap. Kippùr: literally, “pardon,” “expiation”; the calendrical day dedicated completely to prayer and fasting. Kol Nidrè: Aramaic for “Kol nedarìm,” the prayer for the annulment of vows made during the year, which is recited in the evening at the beginning of Kippùr (see above). Kòtel: wall; in particular the remaining wall of the Temple of Jerusalem. làmed-waw: literally, “thirty-six” (lamed = thirty, waw [or vav] = six); hidden saint. In Hebrew the letters of the alphabet are also used to indicate numbers, in this combination “thirty-six.” (According to a legend the world is spared destruction because of the deeds of thirty-six hidden saints—that is, saintly people who go unrecognized.—Trans.)

488

Glossary

le-chaìm: literally, “to life,” to health; a toast. leitraòth: until we meet again. Lekhà Dodì: “Come, my friend”; the beginning of an acrostic poem in honor of the Sabbath composed by Shlomo Alkabetz Halevy, kabbalist of Tzefat (1500–1570). lekhàf zekhùt: literally, “in the scale of merit”; that is, benevolently, assuming the best intentions, “giving the benefit of the doubt.” machazòr: a book; a collection of prayers for festivals and solemnities. mach shemò: may his name be erased. macòt: blows, clouts, hits. Maghèn Davìd: Star of David. (The familiar five-pointed star, a symbol of Judaism and Israel. Maghèn means “shield.” Thus, literally, “shield of David.”— Trans.) mamzèr: bastard. manòth: a grain, a small coin, money; from the Hebrew maà (plural: ma’òth). maskìl: intelligent, learned; also a rabbinical title. mazàl tov: congratulations. Mazàl (Hebrew) literally means “constellation” or “fortune,” and tov (Hebrew) means “good.” mazzòth: unleavened bread (plural) (singular: mazzà [matzoh]). Mechajè Ha-Metìm: “(the Lord) who revives the dead.” meghillà: a book in the form of a scroll. There are five biblical books referred to in this way: Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther. Meghillàth Estèr: Scroll of Esther (see Purìm and meghillà). Meqìz Nirdamìm: “(the Lord) who awakens the sleeping.” meshùghe: crazy (Yiddish); from meshuga’ (Hebrew). mezuzà: a case containing a piece of parchment upon which are written passages from the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21) and that is affixed to the right doorpost as one enters rooms from the outside. Mezuzòth (plural) are placed at the home’s entrance as well as between rooms. midràsh: study, exegesis (plural: midrashìm); a particular mode for interpreting biblical texts. When the exposition entails teaching with a legal character, one has a halakhic midràsh (see halakhà), and if it concerns ethical or religious teaching, one has a haggadic midràsh (see haggadà), which interprets the texts through historical and legendary traditions. The Gospel parable is tied to this vast rabbinical literature. mi-jarketè àrez: “And I [the Lord] will gather them from the uttermost parts of the earth” (Jeremiah 31:8).

Glossary

489

miniàn: quorum, number. Boys who are thirteen years old enter the miniàn; that is, they achieve religious majority and are bound by the observance of the precepts (see bar mizwà). Miniàn is the minimum number (ten) prescribed for particular prayers. minianìsta: one who participates regularly in a miniàn; Jewish Italian term derived from miniàn (see above). Mishnà: literally, “repetition,” “study”; a collection of traditional Jewish doctrine, especially the legal portion, as well as the study of this doctrine. The definitive arrangement was compiled by Rabbi Jehudà ha-Nasì (the Patriarch), 165–210 ce. mizwòth: commandments, precepts, norms, good deeds (singular: mizwà). morè: teacher. murènu: literally, “our teacher,” rabbi; from the Hebrew morénu. Musàf: literally, “added”; prayer service added on Sabbaths, New Moons, and festive and semifestive days. na brahà: a blessing (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form). naìna: look, see (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form). nainè: to look (see nàina); from the Hebrew ’ain. niggùn: musical theme (plural: niggunìm). ’olìm: immigrants (singular: ’olé). parashà: section of the Pentateuch that is read on the Sabbath (plural: parashòth). peòth: “corner” or “end” of the beard and the hair (“locks of hair”) (singular: peà). Pèsach: Passover, Passage. (Calendrical festival marking the exodus from Egypt, liberation from slavery, and spring.—Trans.) pòvri jüdìm a bagalüth: “poor Jews in exile” (Jewish Piedmontese dialect expression). Purìm: literally, “lots,” “fate”; the “festival of lots,” which recalls the events narrated in the book of Esther. On this occasion the Meghillàth Estèr (Scroll of Esther) is read (see above). qerià: the reading of a section of the parashà (see above). (Alternatively, qerjà, as it appears in the text.—Trans.) Rosh ha-Shanà: literally, “head of the year”; New Year festival. Rosh ha-Shanà la-Ilanòth: New Year of the Trees. rubì: rabbi (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form). sabrè: literally, “prickly pear”; nickname indicating a native-born Israeli. (“Sabra” in English.—Trans.)

490

Glossary

samdà: apostate, convert, someone who has been excommunicated (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form); from the Hebrew meshummàth. saròth: troubles, misfortunes (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form); from the Hebrew tzarà (plural: tzaròth). schnorrer: sponger, freeloader; a word of German origin. scola: synagogue; literally, “school” (scuola) because the synagogue is the center of study as well as prayer. séder: literally, “order”; the ceremonial Passover meal. séfer: literally, “book” but often referring to the Séfer Torà, the scroll written on animal hide that has conserved its form since ancient times, when the public reading of the Torah (see Torà) was instituted. It contains the Pentateuch, written by hand. selichòth: penitential prayers (singular: selichà). se’udà shelishìth: literally, “third meal”; term referring to the meal on the afternoon of the Sabbath (Saturday afternoon). shaà raà: ruin. Shabbàth shalòm: good Sabbath (literally, “Sabbath peace”); a greeting. Shaddài: Omnipotent; the Lord (Genesis 17:1). shadkhàn: matchmaker. shammàsh: synagogue attendant, beadle. Shavu’òth: literally, “weeks”; Pentecost, the festival held seven weeks after Passover begins (singular: shavua’). Shemà’: literally, “listen”; the beginning (and name) of a daily prayer (Deuteronomy 6:4). shochèth: ritual slaughterer. shofàr: ram’s horn that is sounded on Rosh ha-Shanà and other occasions. shomèr: supervisor, guard, observer. shùman: fat (referring to goose fat in the text). Simchàth Torà: Joy of the Torah; holiday celebrating the completion of the annual reading of the Pentateuch (aloud, in the synagogue) and the immediate recommencement of reading it again, starting with Genesis. sofèr: scribe; the person who writes texts in Hebrew, especially the text of the Torah on vellum. Sokhenùth: literally, “agency”; specifically the “Jewish Agency” that acted in many ways as a government before the founding of the State of Israel. sonè judì: “Jew hater,” anti-Semite (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form). sukkà: hut, tabernacle, booth; in plural form (Sukkòth) it refers to the fall harvest festival during which temporary huts are built.

Glossary

491

taanè coi guìm: literally, “argue with the Christians” (Jewish Piedmontese dialect form). tallèth: mantle, prayer shawl; worn during certain prayer services. tallèth katàn: small mantle, small prayer shawl; worn daily, under one’s shirt. Talmùd: literally, “study”; more commonly it indicates the two major compilations of Jewish law and commentary (the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds). The core of the Talmud is the Mishnà (see above), which is commented upon and explicated in the Gemarah, the second main component of the Talmud. The Talmuds were completed in the fifth and sixth centuries ce. Talmùd Torà: literally, “study of the Torah”; school in which one studies the Torah and Jewish material in general (see Torà). tefillà: prayer (plural: tefillòth). tefillìn: phylacteries; two leather boxes that contain verses from the Torah (see Torà), provided with an aperture made of the same material through which a strap, also of leather, is threaded. One is worn on the left arm, the other on the highest point of the forehead. They are worn daily during morning prayers. See Exodus 13:1–10, 11–14; Deuteronomy 6:4–9, 11:13–21. teshuvà: return, in the sense of “repentance.” tevà: ark that contains the scrolls of the Torah (see Torà). Torà: Torah; teaching, law, the Pentateuch. ulàm hafükh: literally, “the world is topsy-turvy.” wunderrebbe: miracle-working rabbi (a word of Yiddish origin). yeshivà: Talmudic academy. zaddìq: righteous, just. zavàr: neck. zizìth: fringes that the Torah orders to be placed at the corners of clothing (Numbers 15:37–41). Today they are placed at the four corners of the tallèth (see above). Zòhar: “Splendor”; the title of the most important work of the Kabbalà (“tradition,” but specifically the mystical tradition), composed in Spain in the thirteenth century by Moshè de Leon.

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References 497 Salgari, Emilio. 1896. I pirati della Malesia [The pirates of Malaysia]. Genova: Donath. ———. 1900. Le tigri di Mompracem [The tigers of Mompracem]. Genova: Donath. Salvadori, Roberto G. 1991. La comunità ebraica di Pitigliano dal XVI al XX secolo [The Jewish community of Pitigliano from the sixteenth to the twentieth century]. Firenze: Giuntina. Sarfatti, Michele. 2006. The Jews in Mussolini’s Italy: From equality to persecution. Trans. John Tedeschi and Anne C. Tedeschi. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Scholem, Gershon. 1973. Le origini della Kabbalà. Trans. Augusto Segre. Bologna: Il Mulino. Segre, Augusto, ed. 1966. Purim. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, ed. 1966b. Shavuoth. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, ed. 1972. Shabbath. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, ed. 1974. Yom Haazmauth. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, 1975. Mosè nostro maestro [Moses our teacher]. Fossano: Esperienze. ———, ed. 1975b. Pesach. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, ed. 1975c. Tu-Bishvat. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———, ed. 1978. Rosh ha-Shanà e Kippur. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———. 1979. Memorie di vita Ebraica: Casale Monferrato–Roma–Gerusalemme, 1918–1960 [Memories of Jewish life: Casale Monferrato–Rome–Jerusalem, 1918–1960]. Rome: Bonacci. ———, ed. 1980. Chanukkà. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———. 1982. Abramo nostro padre [Abraham our father]. Rome: Carucci. ———, ed. 1984. Sukkoth. Rome: Unione delle Communità Israelitiche Italiane. ———. 1985. La scala di Giacobbe [Jacob’s ladder]. Rome: Carucci. ———. 1986. Racconti di vita ebraica: Casale Monferrato–Roma–Gerusalemme, 1876–1985 [Stories of Jewish life: Casale Monferrato–Rome–Jerusalem, 1876–1985]. Rome: Carucci.

498 References Segre, Dan Vittorio. 1987. Memoirs of a fortunate Jew: An Italian story. Bethesda: Adler and Adler. Sereni, Enzo. 1951. Mekorot ha-fashizim ha-Italki [The sources of Italian fascism]. Tel Aviv: Hotsa’ot ha-Kibuts ha-Me’uhad. Siporin, Steve. 1982. Continuity and innovation in the Jewish festivals in Venice, Italy. PhD diss., Indiana University. Smith, Denis Mack. 1997. Modern Italy: A political history. Rev. ed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Spagnolo, Francesco. 2001. Italian Jewish musical traditions from the Leo Levi collection (1954–1961). cd sound recording. Jerusalem: Jewish Music Research Center, Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Rome: Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Roma. Stille, Alexander. 1991. Benevolence and betrayal: Five Italian Jewish families under fascism. New York: Penguin. Stow, Kenneth. 2001. Theater of acculturation: The Roman ghetto in the sixteenth century. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Tas, Luciano. 1971. Cartina rossa del Medio Oriente [Red map of the Middle East]. Rome: Edizioni della Voce. Tedeschi Falco, Annamarcella. 1997. Liguria. Itinerari ebraici: I luoghi, la storia, l’arte [Liguria. Jewish itineraries: Places, history, and art]. Venice: Marsilio. Vitali-Norsa, Giulana Ascoli. 1970. La cucina nella tradizione ebraica [Cooking in the Jewish tradition]. Padova: Adei-Wizo. Zolli, Eugenio. 1954. Before the dawn: Autobiographical reflections. New York: Sheed and Ward. Zorattini, Pier Cesare Ioly. 2000. Una salvezza che viene da lontano: I Purim della Comunità ebraica di Padova [A salvation that comes from afar: The Purims of the Jewish Community of Padova]. Florence: Olschki. Zuccotti, Susan. 1987. The Italians and the Holocaust: Persecution, rescue, survival. New York: Basic Books.

i n d ex Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Abbondio, Don (priest), 252, 338 Albagli, Michele, 204 Alberto, Carlo, xxi, 5, 64–68, 131, 132 Albina (aunt of Augusto Segre), 45, 47–49, 300, 311, 314, 326–27 Alighieri, Dante, 195 Almansi, Dante, 226–27, 240, 474n4 Angelini, Cinico, 349 anti-Semitism, 6, 75–76, 437–38; Augusto Segre and, 284–86; Dante Lattes on, 157–58; in Italian press, 208, 223; Slansky trial and, 439–41, 484n1; Telesio Interlandi and, 166 Arab states, 395–96 Arch of Titus, 386–89, 387 Ardeatine Cave massacre, 365 Arici, Azelia, 85–86 Aristide (uncle of Augusto Segre), 46 Artom, Elia S., 149–52, 182 Artom, Emanuele, 273 Artom, Isacco, 271, 272 assimilation, 268–70; anti-Zionism and, 87–91, 168; and conflicts with tradition, 35, 60–61; Ezechiele Segre on, 86; Jewish Community Council and, 51–53 Asti: after World War II, 363; Augusto Segre and, 265, 266, 280–91; deportation of Jews from, 297–98; escape of Segre family from, 296–305; fascists and, 282, 283, 287; Jewish community

in, 272–79, 280–81, 296–98; move of Segre family to, 265, 266; Nazi invasion of, 295–308; prominent Jewish families of, 266–72; return of Segre family to, 349–52, 359; synagogue in, 266–70, 267 Augustine, Saint, 84–85 Auschwitz, 431, 433–35 Avraàm (typographer), 17, 27 Babàndu (handyman), 8, 18, 134, 207 Bacchi, Riccardo, 165–66 Bacchi, Roberto, 166 Badoglio, Pietro, xxv, 292, 479n2 (chap. 21) Balbo, Piero, 333–34, 343, 347 Bassani, Giorgio, xxi–xxii, 452n8 Battaglieri, Augusto, 108 Bemporad, Giulio, 273, 274 Ben-Amos, Dan, 466n11 Benamozegh, Elia, 177, 377 Ben Gurion, David, 392 Bergen-Belsen, 435 Berger family, 239 Bernstein, Leonard, xxvii, 419 Blackshirts, 43–44 Bolaffio, G., 41–42, 115 Breger, Marcus, 204 Calò, Gustavo, 204 Campagnano, Saul, 355 Cantoni, Raffaele, 173, 261–63, 376; after World War II, 355–59; government surveillance of, 472n1 (chap. 16);

500 Index Cantoni, Raffaele (cont.) Israel and, 383–86, 389; work of, on behalf of emigrants, 223–33; writing style of, 225–26 Carlin (farmer), 314–16 Casale Monferrato, xvii, xxiii, xxiv, xxv; Augusto Segre and, 206–7, 248–53, 442–43; Carlo Alberto and, 64–68, 131, 132; cultural activities in, 114–17; during World War I, 39–41; ghetto in, 443; grapevines in, 33, 34, 35; Jewish community in, 14–22, 448–50, 456n17; military base in, 118; Nazi invasion of, 298; People’s Trade Union and, 43, 45; philanthropy in, 134–35; police in, 260–61; public gardens in, 73; schools in, 76–78, 80–86; synagogue in, 6–11, 12, 447, 448; violence in, 260; weddings in, 92–93 Cassin, Matilde, 192, 223 Cassuto, Umberto, 151–52, 204, 378 Castagnole delle Lanze, 253–58, 284–87, 291, 294–95, 301 Castelbolognesi, Gustavo, 24, 183, 204, 222 Castelbolognesi, Tullio, 223 Castell’Alfero brick factory, 288–91 Celeste (grandmother of Augusto Segre), 45–48, 119 Chanukkà, xxvii, 112–13, 245–46, 464n13 children, 365–66, 400–401, 409–14 Christians: assistance of, 305–8, 311–18, 323–32; in Jewish ghettos, 4; relations of, with Jews, 5–6, 75–76, 301–2 Clara, Giovanni Battista, 13 colonialism, English, 396, 397–98 Congress of Jewish Studies, 168

Corriere israelitico, 270 Croce, Benedetto, 368–69 Cuba, 396 da Modena, Leone, xviii Davidìn (tailor), 7–8 de Felice, Renzo, xv, 166, 171, 244, 245 Delegation for Assisting Jewish Emigrants (delasem), 240–41, 246, 354 della Pergola, Enrico, 204 de Nicola, Enrico, 386, 389 Disegni, Dario, 204, 259–60, 263; encounter of, with Nazi officer, 337–38; and Nazi invasion of Asti, 303–4, 311–12, 314 Dorésh Zion Institute, 378 Duce. See Mussolini, Benito Eckert, Berti, 144–46, 182, 223, 235–36, 257, 359–62, 421–24 education, 458n26; fascism and, 49–50, 80; religious, 25–26, 34–36, 55–56, 106, 115–17 Egypt, 197 Einaudi, Luigi, 165–66 Einstein, Albert, 215 Elìa, Sur (shopkeeper), 1, 27, 207; education of, 13, 19; Jewish community and, 14–19; and Manduletta, 32; prayer and, 1–3, 6–11; store of, 128–29 Emerling, Major (German officer), 343–47 emigration, Jewish, 94–97, 213–16, 217–19, 222–23, 232–33, 234–39, 421–29 Ercole (cousin of Augusto Segre), 15–16 Ercul. See Ercole (cousin of Augusto Segre)

Index Erez Israèl: Augusto Segre and, xxvi– xxvii, 59, 409–30; cultural activities in, 419–20; emigration of Jews to, 94–97, 213–16, 217–19, 222–23, 232–33, 234–239, 353–55, 365–66, 390–91, 400–401; Ezechiele Segre and, 94; Holocaust survivors and, 353–55, 365–66, 400–401; provisional government of, 392–99; rebirth of, 381–89; recognition of, 390–99, 483n6; war in, 424–30. See also Zionism; and specific cities Ethiopia, 186, 187–90 Fano, Angelo, 222 Fano, Paolo, 167 fascism, xxv; in Asti, 282, 283, 287; Augusto Segre and, 44–45, 48–49, 75–76, 234–35; Dante Lattes on, 210–12; Ezechiele Segre and, 45, 49–51; fall of, 292–93; Italy and, 186–87; police and, 175–76, 193–95; in press, 208, 294; in schools, 49–50; Zionism and, 171–72, 196–98, 214 festivals, Jewish. See specific festivals Foa, Florio, 281–83 Foa, Raffaele, 95–100, 114, 259, 474n4 Foa, Salvatore, 114 food, Jewish Italian, xvi–xvii, 135–36, 451n3 France, 395 French Revolution, 98–99 Friedenthal, Ermanno, 204 Friedmann, Kalman, 204 Genoa, 240–47 Gerbaz, Professor, 84 ghettos, Jewish, xviii–xxi, 134–35, 277–78,

501

443; business in, 4–5; Christians in, 4; houses of, 5 Giacubin (sexton), 1–2 Ginzburg, Natalia, xxii Goldmann, Nahum, 140 Green Cross, 116, 122 Grünwald, Giosuè, 204 Haifa, 407–8, 429–30 Hanukkà. See Chanukkà Hanukkah. See Chanukkà Hasdà, Augusto, 204 Herskovits, Fabian, 148, 181–82 Herzl, Theodore, 384, 389, 418 Hitler, Adolph, 186, 205, 209, 340, 346 holidays, Jewish. See specific holidays Holocaust, xxv, 61, 273; atrocities during, 431, 433–37, 480n1 (chap. 26), 482n4 (chap. 28); children after, 365–66, 400–401; survivors of, 353–55, 365–66, 400–408, 431, 437, 482n4 (chap. 28) Holy Ark, 10–11 Informazione diplomatica, 208–9 Isàia (carpenter), 8 Israel. See Erez Israèl Israel (newspaper), 88, 114, 155, 171, 368, 371–73, 377 Israel l’unico, 377–78 Italian Jews: citizenship of, xxi, 14; cultural activities of, 114–17, 164–66, 419–20; deportation of, 297–98; emigration of, 94–97, 213–16, 217–19, 222–23, 232–33, 234–39, 421–29; fascism and, 44–45, 48–51, 75–76, 171–72, 210–12; graves of, xix, 448–49; Israel and, 381–89; Italian press and,

502

Index

Italian Jews (cont.) 208, 223; languages and dialects of, xvi–xviii; in military, 39–42, 187–90, 233, 248, 285–86; oppression against, 201–6; and philanthropy, 134–35; political activities of, after World War II, 366–80, 381–89; prayer and, 1–4, 6–11; racial laws against, 209–12, 213, 248, 452n9, 453n14; relations of, with Christians, 5–6, 75–75, 301–2, 305–8, 311–18, 323–32; religious practices of, xvii–xviii, 54, 163–64, 268–69, 274–75; religious studies of, 25–26, 34–36, 55–56, 106, 115–17; in Rome, 163–74, 386–89; traditional songs of, 16; youth camps of, 191–93; Zionism and, 87–89, 370–73, 381–89 Italian Zionist Federation, 167, 370–73, 381–99, 440–41, 484n1 (chap. 32) Italy: education in, 458n26; and Egypt, 197; ghettos of, xviii–xxi, 4–5, 277–78; and Israel, 399; Jewish refugees in, xviii–xix, 201; languages of, xvi– xviii; military of, 118, 186–90, 233, 248, 285–86, 309–10; Nazi control of, 209–10; Nazi invasion of, 295–308; partisans of, 317, 318–32; peasants of, 305–8, 311–18, 330; police of, 175–76, 193–95, 260–61; press of, 208, 294; racial laws in, 209–12, 213, 248, 452n9, 453n14; synagogues of, xvi, 6–11, 12, 26–27; war of, against Ethiopia, 186, 187–90; in World War I, 39–43. See also specific cities Jerusalem, 417–23 Jesi, Bruno, 189–90

Jewish Brigade, 353 Jewish Community Council: Carlo Alberto and, 64–65; and conflicts with tradition, 60–61; Ezechiele Segre and, 51–53, 62, 64–65, 119–21, 264; publications of, 87, 90–91 Jona, Lino, 272–73 Joy of the Torà. See Simchàth Torà Judaism: as a culture, 95–99; Dante Lattes on, 156–62; and education, 25–26, 34–36, 55–56, 57–58, 106; hope and, 220–21, 450; and persecution by Pharoah, 173–74; and reform, 35, 60–61, 89; Riccardo Pacifici on, 379–80; and Sefarìm, 235–36, 301. See also Zionism Kahan, Isidoro, 152–53, 204 Kéren Kayémeth le-Israèl, 95 Kippùr, 30, 104, 107–8, 281, 325, 424–25, 448 Laide-Tedesco, Lazzaro, 204 Lampronti, Isaac, xviii La lanterna monferrina, 131 Lattes, Aldo, 91, 197–98, 204 Lattes, Dante, 87–89, 204, 376–77, 467n23; Angiolo Orvieto and, 187; Augusto Segre and, 93–94, 141–43, 151, 156–62, 175–76, 251; on Benedetto Croce, 368–69; Chaim Weizmann and, 170; family of, 176–77; on fascism, 210–12; Gustavo Castelbolognesi and, 183; and Israel, 366; on police power, 196; and Rome, 213–16, 366–70; Zionist organizations and, 168 Lattes, Guglielmo, 91

Index Lattes, Nora, 176 League of Nations, 205 Lely, Massimo, 160 Leoni, Leone, 204 Levi, Augusto, 167 Levi, Carlo, xxii Levi, Enrico, 192, 223, 224, 227, 239 Levi, Primo, xxi, 452n8 Levi, Rodolfo, 204 Levi Gattinara, Giuseppe, 5 Lia (relative of Augusto Segre), 125–27 Libyan Jews, 390–91 Liele (worker), 136–37 Lin (farmer), 305, 311–12, 321, 326, 327–28, 330–32, 338 Lopez, Sabatino, 355 Luzzati, Camillo, 274–79 Lydia (relative of Augusto Segre), 125–27 Machlin, Edda Servi, 452n9 Mandulìn (handyman), 18, 20–22, 27, 207 Marchìn (worker), 136–37 Margulies, Samuel Zevì, 371 Massiach, Ugo, 204 Memorie di vita ebraica, xv–xvi, xxii–xxiv Mendelssohn, Moses, 35 Mengele, Josef, 435 Merzagora, Cesare, 368 Michelini, Arturo, 398–99 Milan, 353–59 Milano, Attilio, 90–91, 164 Moravia, Alberto, xxii Morpurgo, Marco, 233 Morpurgo family, 222 Muggia, Franca, 222, 223, 237, 239, 251–52, 253–54 Mussolini, Benito, xxv, 119, 140, 168, 206,

503

208, 236, 475n6, 476n8, 479n2 (chap. 21); Adolph Hitler and, 186–87; and Casale Monferrato, 80–81; Chaim Weizmann and, 170; fall of, 292–93 Nahon, Umberto, 114, 168, 173, 223, 239 Nazareth, 414–17 Nazi Germany, 186, 205, 207; and Italy, 209–10, 295–308; letters sent to internees in, 245; ransoms on Jews by, 297–98; refugees from, 238–39 Ninth of Av, 110–11 Nissim, Paolo, 222 Olper, Salomone, 61 optimism, Jewish, 220–21 Oren, Mordekhai, 440–41, 484n1 (chap. 32) Orvieto, Alberto, 204 Orvieto, Angiolo, 187 Ottolenghi, Giuseppe, 22–25 Ottolenghi, Jacob Sanson, 267 Ottolenghi, Leonetto, 266, 267, 270 Ottolenghi brothers, 131 Ottolenghi-Ottolenghi, Celestina, 266 Pacifici, Alfonso, 373–80 Pacifici, Riccardo, 204, 242–46, 263 Pagano, Mario, 178 Pagliano, Giuseppe, 83–84, 86 Palli, Natale, 72–73 partisans: after World War II, 353; Allies and, 347–48; attacks on, 334–35, 341–42; capture of Major Emerling by, 343–47; in disguise, 337–38; hiding of Jews by, 317, 318–32, 338; raids by, 335–336

504

Index

Passover. See Pèsach Pavia, Giuseppe, 88 I pavidi, 368 Pavoncello, Ben Zion, 426 Pentecost. See Shavu’òth Pèsach, 102–3 Pines Pensione, 139, 143–44, 146–48, 199 Pinulin (farmer), 305–8, 326 Piperno, Giorgio, 370 Pitigliano, xvi, xvii, 87, 89, 179, 451n4, 462n1 Poli. See Balbo, Piero polio, 44 Porto San Stefano, 180–82 Prato, David, 185, 197–99, 204, 358–59, 367, 376, 386 Prezzolini, Giuseppe, 156 The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, 158, 467n24 Purìm, 11, 13, 112, 182, 451n4, 456n14 Rabbinical College: cultural activities at, 164–66; library at, 149–50; professors at, 150–54, 200, 216–17; students at, 144–49, 217–19 Rabbinical Council, 386 rabbis, 9–10, 27–29; and assimilation, 268–70; and Casale Monferrato, 116–17; education of, 57–58; holiday duties of, 104–5; and racial campaign, 201–6; titles of, 60; Zionism and, 87–89 racial laws, 209–12, 213, 248, 452n9, 453n14 radio, 75, 256–57, 280, 292, 363 Radio London, 256–57, 280, 292, 363 La rassegna mensile di Israel, xxviii, 160, 367, 377

Ravenna, Felice, 114, 183 Il regime fascista, 186 repubblichina, 317, 324–25, 328, 335, 337–38, 340–42, 348–49, 479n3 (chap. 21) Risorgimento, xxi, 395 Rocca, Carlo, 204 Rome: Augusto Segre and, 139–40, 143, 363–64, 365–66; cultural activities in, 164–66; Dante Lattes and, 213–16, 366–70; Jews of, 163–74, 386–89; religious services in, 163–64 Rommel, Erwin, 274 Rosenberg, Hajim, 204 Rosenthal, Signora (manager), 181–83 Rosh ha-Shanà, 30, 104, 111 Rossi, Giorgio, 222, 223 Rusòt (shopkeeper), 133–34 Sabbath traditions, 101–2, 313, 333, 412, 414 Sacerdoti, Angelo, 140–41, 163, 197 San Nicandro Jews, 390–91 Scholem, Gershom, xxviii Schrieber, Abramo, 204 Sedè Eliyahu, 409–14, 426–27 Sefarìm, 235–36, 301 Segre, Alessandro, 28, 49, 257, 266, 272; and Nazi invasion of Asti, 300, 305; preparation of Sabbath meals by, 313; and Rome, 138–40 Segre, Augusto, xxix; and Asti, 265, 266, 280–91, 296–305, 349–52, 359; and Casale Monferrato, 206–7, 248–53, 257–65, 442–43; and Castagnole delle Lanze, 253–58; and Castell’Alfero, 288–91; childhood of, 36–37, 72, 75,

Index 79–80; children of, 59, 437, 449–50; on community and history, 443–44; commute of, 284–87; comparison of, to other authors, xxi–xxii; Dante Lattes and, 93–94, 141–43, 151, 156–62, 175–76, 251; delasem and, 240–41, 246–47; education of, 73–75, 76–78, 80–86, 121–24, 216–17, 359, 362–63; Ezechiele Segre and, 69–71, 219–20, 263–65; false documents used by, 319, 320, 322–23, 326; fascist soldiers and, 234–35, 287; and Genoa, 240–47; Iris Steinmann and, 431–37, 432; and Israel, xxvi–xxvii, 59, 400–30; Italian Zionist Federation and, 370–71; Jewish emigrants and, 234–41; as journalist, 72–74; Major Emerling and, 343–47; marriage of, 431, 432; and Milan, 353–59; on nature, 339–340, 444, 446; non-Jewish friends of, 248–49; on nostalgia, xxiv–xxv, 125; partisans and, 318–32, 334–38, 341–42, 343–52; police and, 175–76, 193–95, 260–61; polio and, 44; and Porto San Stefano, 180–82; professional accomplishments of, xxviii; Raffaele Cantoni and, 204, 223–33, 261–63, 355–59; and Rome, 125, 138–40, 143, 363–64, 365–66; sports and, 72–75; teaching career of, 184–86, 200, 351–52; Union of the Italian Jewish Communities and, 156–57; writing style of, xxvi; at youth camps, 191–93; Zionism and, 94–97, 370–73 Segre, Augusto, family of, 28; death and, 37–38; extended, 45–48; holidays and, 30–31, 101–13; in military, 187–90

505

Segre, Benedetta Sornaga, 28, 32, 219, 352; childhood of, 54; and end of World War II, 349–50; holidays and, 102–3; Jewish Community Council and, 120–21; marriage of, 56–58; and meeting of Ezechiele Segre with Carlo Alberto, 65–68; and Nazi invasion of Asti, 296, 300, 304–5, 311, 314; Sabbath meals prepared by, 313; Spanish flu and, 37–38 Segre, Dani, 59, 138, 437 Segre, Ezechiele, 28, 43, 63, 187–88, 204; Carlo Alberto and, 64–68; childhood of, 54–55; classes conducted by, 106–7, 115–17; Dante Lattes and, 93–94; death of, 58, 258–65; during World War I, 116; during World War II, 250; education of, 34–35, 52–53, 55–56, 57–58; fascism and, 45, 49–51; on French Revolution, 98–99; funeral of, 263–65; holidays and, 102–3; Jewish Community Council and, 51, 52–53, 119–21; and Manduletta, 32; marriage of, 56–58; as new rabbi, 62–64; relationship of, with his children, 69–71, 219–20; schedule of, 31–32; social contacts of, 115–17; virtue of, 52–54, 68–71; Zionism and, 93–98 Segre, Giorgio, 272 Segre, Lelio, 28, 187–88, 272, 299 Segre, Sara, 28, 37–38, 142 Segre, Tamar, 437, 449–50 Sereni, Enzo, 379 Servi, Cavalière F., 60, 89 Servi, Ferruccio, 91 Servi, Flaminio, 87, 91 Sestiere, Lea, 149–50

506

Index

Sforno, Ovadiah, xviii Shavu’òth, 103–4 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, xviii Shoah. See Holocaust Simchàth Torà, 108–11 Sisto, Pietro, 82–83 Slansky, Rudolph, trial of, 439–41, 484n1 (chap. 32) Sonne, Isaia, 204 Soviet Union, 395, 429, 435, 475n6, 483n6 Spagnolo, Francesco, xx Spanish flu, 37–38 Steinmann, Iris, 431–37, 432 Stille, Alexander, 452n9 Sukkòth, 108, 449 Svevo, Italo, xxii Sweden, 436 synagogues, 6–11, 12, 26–27, 266–70, 447, 448; caretakers of, 8; during World War I, 38–39; Holy Ark in, 10–11; newspaper coverage of, 266–68; and rabbis, 9–10, 27–29 Taamrat, Emanuele, 117–18 Temples of Jerusalem, destruction of, 110–11 Ten Commandments, 10, 11 Terracini, Umberto, 396–97 Il Tevere, 166, 167, 171, 186, 204, 223 Toaff, Alfredo Sabato, 183, 196, 204, 222, 223–24 Torino, 41–42, 44, 259, 303, 319, 331, 332 Trieste, 236–37, 430 Turkey, 430 Umberto, Prince, 83, 319

Union of the Jewish Communities, xxix, 156–57, 240, 376, 386 United States, 395 University of Torino, 359, 362–63 Valobra, Lelio Vittorio, 244, 247, 259 Varadi, Matilde, 192, 223 Varadi, Max, 223 Il vessillo israelitico, 87, 90–91 Vicolo Salomone Olper, 249 Viterbo, Carlo Alberto, 117–18, 173, 371–72, 376, 383, 386 Vittorio Emanuele III (king), 207 Weizmann, Chaim, 168–71, 215, 429 Weizmann, Vera, 168–71 World War I, xxiv, 38–43, 122 World War II, xxiv–xxv; children after, 365–66, 400–401; end of, 339–40; films about, 363; Jewish emigration and, 234–41; partisans and, 317, 318–22; Radio London and, 256–57, 280, 292; small towns during, 254–58; survivors of, 353–64, 365–66, 400–408, 431, 437, 482n4 (chap. 28) World Zionist Organization, 168–69, 171, 215 youth, Jewish, 379–80; camps of, 191–93; as emigrants, 230, 232–33, 234–39 Youth Congress of Livorno, 379 Yugoslavian Jews, 273 Zionism: after World War II, 370–80; anti-, 87–90; Augusto Segre and, 94–97, 370–73; Carlo Alberto Viterbo and, 371–73; Chaim Weizmann and,

Index 168–71; conflicts within, 376–77, 390; Ezechiele Segre and, 93–98; fascism and, 171–72, 196–98, 214; and Israel, 390–99; proponents of, 88, 89, 92; Revisionist, 172–73; Riccardo Pacifici

and, 373–80; writings on, 370–73, 467n25. See also Judaism Zolli, Israele, 204 Zuccotti, Susan, 474n4

507