The Centaur
A Tranquil Star? Primo Levi, the Man and the Narrator is the first of a series of essays and interviews by Franco Baldasso (NYU) that will be published as part of the monthly online column The Centaurread

October 25, 26, 27
The International Symposium on Primo Levi
offers unprecedented opportunities to hear Primo Levi's longtime editor Ernesto Ferrero, explore the reaches of Agamben's readings of his books, and the complexities of translating his memoir into German, Arabic, and Farsi. read

Books
Blooming Through the Ashes: An International Anthology of Violence and the Human Spirit
Clifford Chanin, Aili McConnon, Rutgers University Press
The twentieth century is frequently characterized in terms of its unprecedented levels of bloodshed. More human beings were killed or allowed to die by human cause than ever before in history. The impact of the century's carnage does not end at the lives that were taken; the atrocities continue to take their toll on those who survived, on those who bore witness, and on succeeding generations. read

Conferences
The Genocide and Human Experience. The Writings of Raphael Lemkin.
November  15 at the Center for Jewish History. Information
Almost 90 years ago, as a young linguistics student in Poland, Raphael Lemkin was troubled by the case of an Armenian youth accused of murdering the Turkish official responsible for the 1915 attempted destruction of the Armenian community in the Ottoman Empire. Perplexed by the question of why it is a crime for one man to murder another, but not a crime for a government to kill more than a million people, Lemkin devoted the rest of his life to studying and actively campaigning to protect the existence of ethnic, racial, religious and national groups under international law.

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Books, Articles, Academia

Italian Jewish Studies News

Studying in Italy and beyond

Live and Learn in Venice
As the Venice Ghetto approaches its 500th Anniversary, the Jewish and intellectual communities of Venice reflect on its tradition of seclusion and cosmopolitanism, as well as on the paradoxes of its present condition: while the Ghetto has become one of the most popular destinations in Europe, visited by hundreds of thousands of tourists, the Jewish community, numbering less than 500, may be on the verge of disappearance. A small group of community leaders and international intellectuals is trying to put a new spin on how "to live and learn in Venice". read more

Apulia, A Land of Jewish Arrivals and Departures
Alessandro Cassin interviews Fabrizio Lelli

The last Jews left Apulia in 1541. In 2001 Fabrizio Lelli arrived at the University of Lecce to teach Hebrew language and literature, in a city with no Jewish population. This year, from Sept. 6th through the 10th, Apulia will mount the NEGBA, a Festival of
Jewish Culture. Professor Lelli is ideally suited to help us navigate these prima facie contradictions. Trained in Florence and Venice ( and later in Jerusalem, University of Pennsylvania, and UCLA) "My field is Tuscan Jewry, particularly  during  the Renaissance, a period when the Jews had all but disappeared from Apulia". This did not discourage him from launching in Lecce one of the few Italian academic Programs of Jewish Studies, where Hebrew language and literature are taught along with History of Judaism. The same department also offers courses in medieval and modern Jewish History as well as contemporary US history with a particular emphasis on the relationship with Israel.
read more

Introducing Students to the History of Italian Jews
A conversation with Federica Francesconi (Visiting Fellow, Center for the Reformation and Renaissance Studies at the University of Toronto)

The 2009 recipient of the Viterbi Visiting Professorship at UCLA, Federica Francesconi developed a comprehensive lecture-course dedicated to the Italian Jewish experience from the Middle Ages to the Present. She talks about the challenges
and inspiring results of introducing undergraduate students to the complex universe of Italian Jewry. read more

Italy at the Conference of the Association of Jewish Studies

Explorations of Jewish Sociability in Italy Before and After Emancipation

Jewish cultural life in Italy went through considerable changes during the eighteenth century. These transformations regarded not only the contents of cultural production, but also the social and material conditions of culture - for instance, its techniques and methods of diffusion. New sites of encounter and cultural production emerged beside traditional ones (the synagogue, the yeshivah, the confraternity), such as Jewish literary academies, theatres, public libraries, or coffeehouses. Some of these new forms of association afforded Jews heightened social contacts with their non-Jewish neighbors, while others were aimed solely at a Jewish public.

Session Organizer: Francesca Bregoli, Queens College, CUNY
Chair: David Malkiel, Bar-Ilan University;
Federica Francesconi, University of Toronto
Francesco Spagnolo, Judah L. Magnes Museum

Judaism in the Mediterranean Context
The 9th Congress of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) will be held in Ravenna, Italy, July 25-29, 2010
Visit the EAJS website for additional information.�Judaism in the Mediterranean Context�

Rome Prize

The American Academy in Rome, one of the leading overseas centers for independent study and advanced research in the arts and the humanities, invites applications for the Rome Prize competition. Deadlines November 1. more opportunities