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Academia, Books October 16, 2025

La Storia

Elsa Morante. Excerpts from La Storia, remembering October 16, 1943 Not even from her mother had she ever heard this denomination “Aryans”; in fact, the de-nomination of Jews itself, for…

Essays, Interviews June 9, 2025

Thruth and the Holocaust

“If you no longer want to believe the truth, nobody will want to believe you.” Zelman Lewental, prisoner of the Auschwitz Sonderkommando, quoted in Franco Fortini, “I cani del Sinai”. …

Essays September 2, 2024

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…

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Essays March 26, 2009

Acquiescence and Dissent

Acquiescence and Dissent: The Response of Intellectuals to the Fascist Racial Laws in Italy and Abroad When, in 1938, the Fascist government passed the anti-Semitic Racial Laws and the Jews…

Books March 23, 2009

History as Memory

History as Memory: Conversation with Sergio Parussa by Alessandro Cassin Writing as Freedom, Writing as Testimony, Syracuse University Press, 2008, by Sergio Parussa is a highly personal study of four…

Books March 19, 2009

Boualem Sansal Pays Tribute to Primo Levi

In a Complex New Book, Algerian Novelist Boualem Sansal Pays Tribute to Primo Levi.   Alessandro Cassin The German Mujahid, Europa Editions, 2009, by the Algerian writer Boualem Sansal is…

Books March 14, 2009

Benevolence and Betrayal

Alexander Stille, Benevolence and Betrayal: Five Italian Jewish Families Under Fascism, Picador, 2003   Winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award this book is a profoundly moving history of…

News March 14, 2009

Jewish Studies in Venice

  Opens in Venice the International Center for Jewish Studies The shock of the Shoah has caused too many Jewish lives and cultures to be discovered after they had been…

Books March 9, 2009

Piero Sraffa

Alessandro Roncaglia, Piero Sraffa: His life, thought and cultural heritage, Routledge, 2000-2009   This is a lively, intellectual biography of a leading protagonist of 20th century culture and his relations…