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DESIGN
FEBRUARY 4 | THE LIBERTY OF KNOWLEDGE: REMEMBERING RITA LEVI MONTALCINI
 
Morning session: Exploring Nerve Growth Factor 
Italian Cultural Institute, 686 Park Avenue, NY, (10 am-1 pm)

10 am to 1 pm
Opening remarks: Riccardo Viale (ICI)
Introduction: Moses Chao (NYU)  
Speakers: Piergiorgio Strata (National Institute of Neuroscience-Italy),  Ralph Bradshaw (UC/Irvine), Ruth Angeletti (Albert Einstein), Lloyd Greene (Columbia University).
Conclusions: Eric Kandel (Nobel Prize, Columbia University).

5 pm to 8 pm
Evening session: A Young Jewish Scientist in Fascist Italy 
Center for Jewish History, 15 West 16th Street, New York (5 pm-8 pm)

Opening remarks: Alessandro Di Rocco (NYU, CPL)
Introduction: Alain Elkann (writer and scholar)
Film screening: In Praise of Imperfection, Centro Nazionale di Cinematografia (Italian w/English subtitles)
Speakers: Piera Levi Montalcini (Levi Montalcini Association), Annalisa Capristo (Center for American Studies, Rome), Antonino Cattaneo (Fondazione Ebri). Reception to follow.  

Free and open to the public.
Read

FINDING THE GOOD IN THE BAD: A PROFILE OF RITA LEVI MONTALCINI

The Italian researcher faced prejudice and adversity as a woman and as a Jew, but went on to elucidate a growth factor essential to the survival of nerve cells.    Marguerite Holloway, Scientific American

As a feminist in a family with Victorian mores and as a Jew and free-thinker in Mussolini's Italy, Rita Levi-Montalcini has encountered various forms of oppression many times in her life. Yet the neurobiologist, whose tenacity and preciseness are immediately apparent in her light, steel-blue eyes and elegant black-and-white attire, embraces the forces that shaped her. "If I had not been discriminated against or had not suffered persecution, I would never have received the Nobel Prize," she declares. Poised on the edge of a couch in her apartment in Rome that she shares with her twin sister, Paola, Levi- Montalcini recalls the long, determined struggle that culminated in joining the small group of women Nobelists in 1986. She won the prize for elucidating a substance essential to the survival of nerve cells. Her discovery of nerve growth factor led to a new understanding of the development and differentiation of the nervous system. Today it and other similar factors are the subject of intense investigation because of their potential to revive damaged neurons, especially those harmed in such diseases as Alzheimer's. Read

EVENTS | GIORNO DELLA MEMORIA
Presented by the Consulate General of Italy, Centro Primo Levi, NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marim�, Italian Cultural Institute, Italian Academy at Columbia University, Calandra Institute of Italian American Studies, CUNY.
   

January 30 | 6:00 pm 

NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marim�, 24 West 12th Street, NY 

The Longest Journey, The Deportation of the Jews of Rhodes 

Post screening discussion.

 

February 13  | 5:00 pm 

Italian Academy at Columbia University, 1161, Amsterdam Avenue 

Gender and Anti-Semitism: Women's Rights Yesterday and Today 

Victoria De Grazia (Columbia University), Yasmine Ergas (Columbia University), Elissa Bemporad (CUNY). Read      

 

PRINTED MATTER | ITALY, KRISTALLNACHT AND AFTER: THE MEMORIES OF A FAMILY

Shaul Bassi, Ca' Foscari University of Venice

 

Exactly a year ago, in the early days of November 2012, I walked my son to his first day of school. As for all parents, it was a very emotional moment. But for me there was something more: in that ample Venetian courtyard, I was not just seeing my little Samuel proudly walking to his new adventure, I was also seeing another child, standing in the very same spot, 74 years earlier. This is how that 7-year-old child, my father Roberto Bassi, narrates that fateful morning. Read

PRINTED MATTER | "I NOSTRI COMPAGNI D'AMERICA". THE JEWISH LABOR COMMITTEE AND ITALIAN ANTIFASCISTS. 1934-1941
 
Catherine Collomp, Universit� Paris VII (courtesy Altre Italie)

It was Luigi Antonini who directed Dubinsky's and other JLC leaders' attention to the plight of Italian antifascists. Head of the ILGWU  Local 89 of New York dressmakers whose membership was exclusively Italian-American, Antonini pointed out at the ILGWU 1934 convention

that although �Italians had been the first to feel the fascist blow� they were omitted in the JLC and ILGWU calls for a fund for labor and socialist German and Austrian refugees or underground movements.  

To correct this oversight, Antonini, in advance of a larger collection, 

sent a first check to Pietro Nenni, secretary general of the Italian Socialist Party (PSI ) in exile in Paris. Read 

 

THANKS
Centro Primo Levi thanks its readers, audience, contributors and main supporters:

Cahnman Foundation, Viterbi Family Foundation, Peter S. Kalikow Dr. Claude Ghez, David Berg Foundation, John Elkann, Exor, Fairholme Foundation, Charles Hallac & Sarah Keil Wolf, Jeffrey Keil & Danielle Pinet, Marian and Jacob K. Javits Foundation, Andrew Sabin, Lily Safra, Joseph S. & Diane H. Steinberg Charitable Trust, Ezra Zilka