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Home » Published in original language » UNAVOIDABLE HOPE

UNAVOIDABLE HOPE

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Author : Roger Sabbadini

Title : Unavoidable Hope
Year : 2017
Series : Memoirs

Download the first chapter of the manuscript here

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CPL

SUPPORTERS

Viterbi Family
Lily Safra z'l
Jeffrey Keil & Danielle Pinet
Sarah Wolf Hallac
Peter S. and Mary Kalikow
Claude Ghez
Alan and Caryn Viterbi
Andrew and Joan Milano
Lice Ghilardi
Bruce Slovin and Francesca Slovin z'l
Georgette Bennett and Leonard Polonsky

INTERNATIONAL RESOURCES

Centro Documentazione Ebraica Contemporanea
Centro Internazionale di Studi Primo Levi
Italy at the Hebrew University

CONTACT

Centro Primo Levi
15 W 16 Street, New York, NY 10011
917-606-8202
in**@pr*************.org

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JOIN US for our latest *BOOK LAUNCH* ⁠on Septemb

JOIN US for our latest *BOOK LAUNCH* ⁠on September 18th at 6:30 pm⁠
⁠Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò 24 West 12th Street, NY 10011⁠
The Renegade by Arial Toaff, CPL Editions, 2024 translated by Cristina Popple⁠
⁠
Historian Ariel Toaff’s debut novel, first published in Italian by Neri Pozza in 2021, is now available in English. A refreshing, complex take on the historical novel, the narrative tracks the life and death of David Ajash, an Italian rabbi and kabbalist of Algerian origin.⁠
⁠
In 1840, a young boy makes a chilling discovery – Ajash’s lifeless body under an olive tree. The mysterious circumstances of the rabbi’s death raise haunting questions – was it suicide or homicide? Prepare to be enthralled as this gripping literary debut unravels the story in reverse, starting from this gripping scene.⁠
⁠
Historian Ariel Toaff’s debut novel, first published in Italian by Neri Pozza in 2021, is now available in English. A refreshing, complex take on the historical novel, the narrative tracks the life and death of David Ajash, an Italian rabbi and kabbalist of Algerian origin.⁠
⁠
In 1840, a young boy made a chilling discovery – Ajash’s lifeless body under an olive tree. The mysterious circumstances of the rabbi’s death raise haunting questions – was it suicide or homicide? Prepare to be enthralled as this gripping literary debut unravels the story in reverse, starting from this gripping scene.⁠
⁠
More than a fictionalized biography, The Renegade seamlessly merges historical questions and hypotheses into the fabric of a work of literary fiction. It vividly portrays the Jewish Nation of Livorno in vivid brushstrokes, bringing to life the staggering vitality of its heyday: Hebrew printing, philosophical debates, and sea trade, alongside the food, scents, brothels, intrigue, and shifting alliances that accompany a golden age. It is also a meditation on acceptance and rejection and of painfully unsolved conflicts between a father and a son.⁠
⁠
The novel begins with a powerful quote from David Ajash: “My descent into hell was already at a good point. Fate was offering me another chance.”

Rethinking Holocaust Memory 🖋️⁠ ⁠ "ight n

Rethinking Holocaust Memory 🖋️⁠
⁠
"ight now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.” The anguish expressed in this 60-second acceptance speech at the 2024 Academy Awards by Jonathan Glazer, the director of The Zone of Interest, sparked great acclamation from critics of the violence perpetrated by the Israeli state, as well as venomous outrage on the part of Israel’s supporters.⁠
⁠
As a child of Holocaust survivors and a scholar of Holocaust memory and its transgenerational transmission—a process I have discussed as “postmemory”—I am not surprised by how prominently the specter of the Holocaust has loomed in the aftermath of the attacks by Hamas of October 7, 2023. Still, the radical discord about the longstanding effects of the Holocaust and the virulence of the debate over its meaning have given me pause. The outcry against Jewish artists like Glazer has been so extreme and despairing that I feel I must pay attention to it, even if such outrage appears, at times, to be manipulated and disingenuous.⁠
⁠
The concern about the ideological misuse of Holocaust memory that Glazer bemoans is not a new phenomenon. Prominent Jewish survivors and intellectuals like Jean Améry, Primo Levi, Zygmunt Bauman, and, of course, Hannah Arendt condemned the use of the memory of the Holocaust for the state of Israel’s political purposes. Yet the misappropriation they warned against has only been amplified after October 7: Israeli politicians and the media have repeatedly and increasingly equated Hamas with Nazis, as well as called Palestinians “human animals,” recalling Nazi rhetoric against Jews. Absurdly, some have called Jews who support Palestinian liberation “Kapos.”⁠
⁠
This current weaponization of the Holocaust and of antisemitism is something that I have contested, along with colleagues from the field of Holocaust studies. Of particular concern is how such weaponization authorizes retaliatory, eliminationist violence even if under the guise of security and self-defense.⁠
⁠
--- Marianne Hirsch⁠
⁠
Read the full article at our link in bio, on Printed Matters...⁠

* TONIGHT * at The New York Public Library⁠ at 6

* TONIGHT * at The New York Public Library⁠ at 6:30⁠
Ed Simon with Mark Lilla: Devil's Contract⁠
⁠
REGISTER AT THE LINK IN BIO...⁠
⁠
In Devil’s Contract, Ed Simon examines historical events and the present through the lens of the Faustian bargain. We have been, he ponders, and still are all caught in a Faustian pact. Despite the lessons of history, we cannot renounce the comforts provided by technology and science even though we have plenty of evidence that their unchecked exploitation by capitalism is leading to the demise of the planet and humanity itself. ⁠
⁠
Shortly after his return from Auschwitz, Primo Levi wondered how humanity, whose sensibility had been radically re-tallied by the destruction of World War II, could restore the meaning of labor and lift it from its symbolic degradation on the entry plaque of the death camp. As Levi understood it, labor is a quest for knowledge driven by the desire to make something anew, to capture the “infinitely big” and “infinitely small” worlds. Labor is one with the enthusiasm of devising the right tool and engage in conversation with the world and our peers. Throughout his life, Levi pointed to the dangerous signs that the meaning given to labor by the plaque at Auschwitz still loomed large on society. In his view, Hiroshima, Cambodia, and Vietnam were among the indications that what produced Auschwitz was still operating half a century later. ⁠
⁠
While it is of little use to imagine what Levi would have thought of the current state of society (which, since his passing, may have changed more on scale than substance), it is telling that his concerns regarding the unregulated development of science and technocracy were not limited to chemistry and its offsprings but extended to cybernetics, and computer science. ⁠
⁠

Hatching the Cobra 🖊️Let no one praise Perill

Hatching the Cobra 🖊️Let no one praise Perillus, who was cruder than the tyrant Phalaris, for whom he constructed a brazen bull, promising that when a man was enclosed therein and a fire lit underneath, the man would roar like a bull, and who was the first to experience this torture himself as the fruit of a cruelty more just than his own. To such lengths had he distorted a most noble art, intended to represent gods and men, that his numerous workers had toiled only to construct an instrument of torture! Consequently, his works are preserved for one single reason: so that anyone who sees them may despise the hands that made them” (Pliny, Natural History, xxxiv, 19).⁠
⁠
Better translations than mine surely exist, but I have a deep personal bond with Pliny the Elder, and I felt that by translating him I was paying him homage. The episode is semilegendary: Pindar, Ovid, and Orosius refer to it, and, following in their footsteps, Dante, in Canto XXVII of the Inferno. Phalaris was the tyrant of Agrigento toward the mid-sixth century bc. Pliny’s phrase “anyone who sees them” seems to indicate that the bull, carried off by the Carthaginians in 403 bc, had been brought back to Agrigentum after the destruction of Carthage, and must have still been there in his time. Nothing is known about the reasons that led Phalaris to burn Perillus in his own bull.⁠
⁠
Read the full article on our Printed Matters, at the link in bio

JOIN US for our latest *BOOK LAUNCH* ⁠on Septemb

JOIN US for our latest *BOOK LAUNCH* ⁠on September 18th at 6:30 pm⁠
⁠Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò 24 West 12th Street, NY 10011⁠
⁠
The Renegade by Arial Toaff, CPL Editions, 2024 translated by Cristina Popple⁠
⁠
Historian Ariel Toaff’s debut novel, first published in Italian by Neri Pozza in 2021, is now available in English. A refreshing, complex take on the historical novel, the narrative tracks the life and death of David Ajash, an Italian rabbi and kabbalist of Algerian origin.⁠
⁠
In 1840, a young boy makes a chilling discovery – Ajash’s lifeless body under an olive tree. The mysterious circumstances of the rabbi’s death raise haunting questions – was it suicide or homicide? Prepare to be enthralled as this gripping literary debut unravels the story in reverse, starting from this gripping scene.⁠
⁠
Historian Ariel Toaff’s debut novel, first published in Italian by Neri Pozza in 2021, is now available in English. A refreshing, complex take on the historical novel, the narrative tracks the life and death of David Ajash, an Italian rabbi and kabbalist of Algerian origin.⁠
⁠
In 1840, a young boy made a chilling discovery – Ajash’s lifeless body under an olive tree. The mysterious circumstances of the rabbi’s death raise haunting questions – was it suicide or homicide? Prepare to be enthralled as this gripping literary debut unravels the story in reverse, starting from this gripping scene.⁠
⁠
More than a fictionalized biography, The Renegade seamlessly merges historical questions and hypotheses into the fabric of a work of literary fiction. It vividly portrays the Jewish Nation of Livorno in vivid brushstrokes, bringing to life the staggering vitality of its heyday: Hebrew printing, philosophical debates, and sea trade, alongside the food, scents, brothels, intrigue, and shifting alliances that accompany a golden age. It is also a meditation on acceptance and rejection and of painfully unsolved conflicts between a father and a son.⁠
⁠
The novel begins with a powerful quote from David Ajash: “My descent into hell was already at a good point. Fate was offering me another chance.”

LAST CHANCE TO JOIN US at the New York Public Libr

LAST CHANCE TO JOIN US at the New York Public Library⁠
⁠
*BOOK LAUNCH* SEPTEMBER 12th at 6:30 pm at the New York Public Library 455 Fifth Avenue⁠
⁠
Ed Simon, Devil’s Contract. The History of the Faustian Bargain, (Melville House Publishing, 2024). With Ed Simon in conversation with Mark Lilla.⁠
⁠
“Marlowe staged Dr. Faustus at the very beginning of what is increasingly being called the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which humanity was finally able to impose its will upon the earth. There are costs to any such contract, as the wisdom of the legend has it, so that it’s worth considering after five centuries of human domination of the planet that we might now be facing our own collective appointment at Deptford. We seem to finally be facing the final act, the apocalyptic tenor of our times, from climate change to nuclear brinkmanship making the continued survival of humanity an open question, our sad predicament the result of hubris, and greed, and vainglory. It may be appropriate to rechristen this age the Faustocene. Because whether or not the Devil is real, his effects in the world are.”⁠
⁠
A fascinating and accessible narrative of the Faustian bargain throughout the ages, Devil’s Contract juxtaposes humanity’s choices with the history of the Devil and suggests how we arrived where we are today. ⁠
⁠
From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain — the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power — has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.⁠
⁠
Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of the Faustian bargain, from biblical themes to bluesman Robert Johnson, and illustrates how the instinct for sacrificing our principles in exchange for power models all kinds of social ills, from colonialism to nuclear warfare, and even social media, climate change, and AI. In doing so, Simon conveys just how much the Faustian bargain shows us about power and evil … and about ourselves.

JOIN US: How the First Fascist Dictatorship Took S

JOIN US: How the First Fascist Dictatorship Took Shape 📅⁠
⁠Casa Italiana Zerilli Marimò 24 West 12th Street, NY 10011⁠
September 23rd, at 6:00 pm⁠
⁠
On the occasion of the publication of⁠
Mauro Canali, The Matteotti Murder and Mussolini, The Anatomy of a Fascist Crime (2024, Palgrave Macmillan)⁠
⁠
The author in conversation with⁠
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, NYU⁠
Stanislao Pugliese, Hofstra University⁠
In ENGLISH⁠
⁠
This panel will discuss the Fascist murder of Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti, on the occasion of the publication in English of historian Mauro Canali’s award-winning study about the crime, its coverup, and the circumstances that led to the declaration of the first Fascist dictatorship.⁠
⁠
This much-awarded work by one of Italy’s most esteemed historians of fascism, Mauro Canali, is now available in English translation. Based on a wealth of previously unavailable judicial and archival material, it sheds light on how fascism exercised power through violence and corruption from the very beginning. The book reveals the motives that led Mussolini to order the kidnapping and murder of Socialist leader Giacomo Matteotti in 1924, a turning point in Mussolini’s grasp of total power in Italy. Canali further explores the corrupt dealings between the Mussolini family and the American Sinclair Oil Company that Matteotti had intended to denounce in the Italian parliament the day after his death.⁠
⁠
More info at the link in bio

*BOOK LAUNCH* SEPTEMBER 12th at 6:30 pm at the New

*BOOK LAUNCH* SEPTEMBER 12th at 6:30 pm at the New York Public Library 455 Fifth Avenue⁠
⁠
Ed Simon, Devil’s Contract. The History of the Faustian Bargain, (Melville House Publishing, 2024). With Ed Simon in conversation with Mark Lilla.⁠
⁠
“Marlowe staged Dr. Faustus at the very beginning of what is increasingly being called the Anthropocene, the geological epoch in which humanity was finally able to impose its will upon the earth. There are costs to any such contract, as the wisdom of the legend has it, so that it’s worth considering after five centuries of human domination of the planet that we might now be facing our own collective appointment at Deptford. We seem to finally be facing the final act, the apocalyptic tenor of our times, from climate change to nuclear brinkmanship making the continued survival of humanity an open question, our sad predicament the result of hubris, and greed, and vainglory. It may be appropriate to rechristen this age the Faustocene. Because whether or not the Devil is real, his effects in the world are.”⁠
⁠
A fascinating and accessible narrative of the Faustian bargain throughout the ages, Devil’s Contract juxtaposes humanity’s choices with the history of the Devil and suggests how we arrived where we are today. ⁠
⁠
From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain — the exchange of one’s soul in return for untold riches and power — has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.⁠
⁠
Register at the link in bio!

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