Memory, Civil Society and Exile

Reading of the names on January 27

On January 27 from 9 am to 4 pm we will be reading the names of the Jews deported from Italy and the Italian territories on Park Avenue at 68th Street in front of the Consulate General of Italy.

We invite all New Yorkers to participate in the reading. Let us know at what time you would like to join by writing to: memoria@primolevicenter.org. Thank you!

Tuesday, January 27, 6 pm. Centro Primo Levi/Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16 St., NYC

Memory, Civil Society and Exile. Film screening and conversation
Quella Pagina Strappata By Daniel Toaff, RAI, 1988. Produced on the 50th anniversary of the Racial Laws

Followed by a conversation between Andrea Fiano and Rabbi Jack Bemporad on the Italian 1938 refugees in the US.

This program discusses the Fascist Racial Laws and the socio-political conditions, the indifference, and collaborationism that allowed their promulgation in 1938. Both the film – which was produced by Daniel Toaff for the Italian television in 1988, and the post-screening discussion explore the consequences of the racial laws on the Italian society, and the radical awakening they represented in the lives of Italian Jews. In cooperation with RAI Teche, RAI Corporation, Sorgente di Vita, and Istituto Luce. Read more on the Racial Laws. 

SPEAKERS

Andrea Fiano is the US Correspondent of the Italian financial daily paper Milano Finanza and of Class-Cnbc (the Italian affiliate of Cnbc). He has written for American publications such a Barron’s, Global Finance and the Jersey Journal and appeared on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer and on NPR. Born in Florence, Mr. Fiano graduated at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and attended post-graduate classes at Wharton and the New School for Social Research. Mr. Fiano has lived for over 25 years in New York. He is an active member of the Foreign Press Association and of ACINA, the Italian correspondents association in the US, and member of the board of the Primo Levi Center in New York. Last year he contributed an essay in a book on the Italian writer Primo Levi published by the Florence University Press.

Rabbi Jack Bemporad is the director of the Center for Interreligious Understanding aimed at bringing people of all religious faiths together to promote honest dialogue, mutual respect and theological understanding. He is a Holocaust refugee from Italy, which he fled with his family at age six. He has been at the center of many of the negotiations improving the relationship between Christians and Jews.

In February 1990, Bemporad was sent to Rome to help negotiate the relocation of the Carmelite Convent in Auschwitz, Poland. In September 1990, he was the primary writer of the Prague Accord, the first time in history that the Vatican asked forgiveness of the Jewish people for past acts of anti-Semitism. In 1999, he delivered an address at the Vatican’s Conference on Interreligious Relations before 50,000 people at St. Peters, including Pope John Paul II, the Dalai Lama and religious leaders from throughout the world. In January 2003, Bemporad was a principal writer of the statement issued on behalf of the world’s religions at a Vatican symposium on the “Spiritual Resources of the Religions for Peace.”

Rabbi Bemporad received a B.A. degree with honors in philosophy from Tulane University. At Hebrew Union College, he received his M.A. in philosophy, again with honors. Bemporad is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Rome. Bemporad was an Adjunct Professor of Philosophy and Religion at Southern Methodist University and has taught at the University of Rome, the New School for Social Research, and the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Professor of Interreligious Studies at the Vatican’s Angelicum University in Rome and is the author of numerous books and articles, including “Our Age: The Historic New Era of Christian-Jewish Understanding,” which was published by New City Press.