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Ethiopia 1935

Ethiopia is one of only two African countries that managed to escape colonization during Europe’s great scramble for Africa in the 1870s. Italy, a latecomer to the colonial enterprise, was…

A Polishman among Ethiopians

  A century before global Jewry reached out to Ethiopia’s community, a researcher named Jacques Faitlovitch sowed the seeds for a future ingathering. An odd sculpture recently appeared on the…

Jewish Settlement in Ethiopia

Plans for Mass Jewish Settlement in Ethiopia (1936-1943) Source: Tetzeta Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia in the autumn of 1935, and the development of anti-Semitism in both fascist Italy 1 and…

The Mysteries of Italian Jewry

  Many years ago, at a lunch in Princeton, a venerable professor asked me whether Jews still existed in Italy. Was it a justified question? In a sense, yes. Of…

Oratorio di Castro: 100 Years

L’oratorio Di Castro, Cento anni di ebraismo a Roma (1914-2014) Her name was Grazia Pontecorvo, and she was the widow of Salvatore Di Castro. She died in 1909 and left…

Isacco Lampronti

Contemporary Science and Jewish Law in the Eyes of Isaac Lampronti of Ferrara and Some of His Contemporaries The Jewish community of Ferrara in the first half of the eighteen…