Filo-So-Fare
The resurgence of the Italian silk tallit. Alessandro Cassin in conversation with Rav Umberto Piperno Many of us remember well the years Rav Umberto Piperno spent in New York: his…
Essays
Being a Centaur
What follows is Alessandro Di Rocco’s acceptance speech of the Centaur Award 2018.I want to thank all of you for being here tonight. I am honored and humbled by this tribute.
Nuto Revelli: the History of the Present
It is a rare pleasure to turn the last page of a book, and remain in a state of bewilderment with the feeling of having traveled a road previously unknown….
The Doctored ‘Memoir’ of Edgardo Mortara
The Doctored ‘Memoir’ of a Jewish Boy Kidnapped by the Vatican Edgardo Mortara’s autobiography is roiling Catholic-Jewish relations—based on the false assumption that the text is accurate. After a century…
The “Aryanization” of Italian Musical Life
This article was originally published by the Orel Foundation and is republished with minor edits by permission. In Italy there is absolutely no differentiation between Jews and non–Jews, in all fields,…
Ghetto and Not
The Relationship between Jews and Christians. Toward a Redefinition of the Ghetto In Italy, during the past two decades, Jewish history has pervasively captured the attention of researchers – even…
The Jewish War and Rome’s Urban Renewal
This essay is published in connection with the Rome Lab and the exhibition The Arch of Titus: From Jerusalem to Rome and Back presented at the Center for Jewish History…
Surviving the Ghetto
Serena di Nepi, Sopravvivere al ghetto. Per una storia sociale della comunità ebraica nella Roma del Cinquecento, Viella, Roma, 2013 Serena di Nepi’s new book presents a vast, all…
The Music of the Jews of Rome
The history of Jewish music in Italy is long, fascinating, and filled with contradictions. Its length is due to the very history of Italian Jewry, whose origins go back more…
History and Art as Means of Universal Dialogue
Among the always impressive roster of exhibitions on display in Rome, La Menorà: Culto, Storia e Mito (The Menorah: worship, history, and myth), stands out for its far-reaching symbolic, cultural…