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Printed_Matter is a monthly forum of ideas, history, literature and books dedicated to the Italian Jewish experience.

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DESIGN
PROGRAM | THE SARAJEVO HAGGADAH

April 15 at 7:00 pm
Morgan Library, 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street

Merima Ključo, composer and accordionist, Bart Woodstrup, artist, Seth Knopp, pianist

A multimedia work composed by Merima Ključo.
Sarajevo Haggadah: Music of the Book traces the incredible journey of this most treasured 14th-century Hebrew illuminated manuscript. Inspired by the musical traditions of Spain, Italy, Austria, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, Ključo collaborates with artist Bart Woodstrup and pianist Seth Knopp to present a multimedia performance exploring the Sarajevo Haggadah as a symbol of diaspora and return. A discussion with Merima Ključo and Geraldine Brooks, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of People of The Book, the historical novel that inspired this production, will follow the performance. Read

The exhibition Hebrew Illumination For Our Time: The Art of Barbara Wolff will be open at 6 pm for concert attendees.

SEMINAR | OF THE JEWISH RACE 

April 30  |  4:30 pm
- 7:30 pm

NYU Casa Italiana Zerilli Marim�  |  24 West 12 Street

In collaboration with NYU Department of History and Department of Italian. Registration: [email protected] 

 

Ariela Gross (University of Southern California), David Kerzter (Brown University), Michael Livingston (Rutgers University). Moderator: Ruth Ben Ghiat (New York University)

 

A discussion on Race and Law based on Michael Livingston's book The Fascists and the Jews of Italy Mussolini's Race Laws, 1938-1943 (Cambridge University Press, 2014). 

 

A panel of historians and law scholars will discuss the Italian racial laws and the history of the legal definition of race.

 

The legal approach is novel to the historical discourse on this time period, which has previously focused on political and social perspectives. As Livingston writes: "As compared to Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia, Fascist Italy offered at least a limited amount of independence to judges and lawyers, and a courageous few used this independence to ameliorate or limit the damage resulting from the laws. But many others expanded them and, by providing technical assistance in drafting and interpreting the Race Laws, lawyers were indispensable in making the laws effective." According to Livingston, the Race Laws were incredibly pervasive, took too long to be repealed, and produced irreparable damage. The most positive aspect of their existence is to now serve as a haunting lesson for any law student or future attorney. Read

 

PROGRAM | SPAZI METRICI: AN EVENING ON AMELIA ROSSELLI

May 2  |  7:00 pm  

Centro Primo Levi at Vanni's, 30 West 12th Street

 

The daughter of the Italian anti-fascist leader Carlo Rosselli and the English Labour Party activist Marion Cave, Amelia spent her childhood in exile from Fascist Italy, in France, England and the United States. She returned to Italy in 1946. Following her studies in musical composition, she emerged as one of the most important poets of her generation, addressing with a bold new approach to verse, the hopes and open wounds of the post-war period.

 

On the occasion of a new English edition of Amelia Rosselli's Hospital Series (Serie Ospedaliera), New Directions, New York April 2015, translated by Roberta Antognini, Giuseppe Leporace and Deborah Woodard, Centro Primo Levi and New Directions present an evening celebration with books, conversation, and a video homage to Amelia Rosselli. Read

PROGRAM | TOSCANINI - A CONDUCTOR STANDS UP FOR JUSTICE

April 28  |  6:30 pm

United Nations Headquarters, Conference Room 3, Conference Building
Registration

Organized by the United Nations Department of Public Information in cooperation with the Permanent Mission of Italy to the United Nations and B'nai B'rith International.

The celebrated Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini is well known for his music and courageous stand against fascism during the Second World War. Cesare Civetta, author of The Real Toscanini: Musicians Reveal the Maestro will give a multimedia presentation to be followed by Q & A.

Cristina Gallach, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, Sebastiano Cardi, Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations, Cesare Civetta, author of The Real Toscanini: Musicians Reveal the Maestro, Natalia Indrimi, Executive Director, Centro Primo Levi, Allan J. Jacobs, President, B'nai B'rith International, Daniel S. Mariaschin, Executive Vice President, B'nai B'rith International. Moderator Kimberly Mann, Chief, Education Outreach Section, United Nations Department of Public Information. Read

 

PRINTED_MATTER | THE POPE WHO TRIED

Alexander Stille reviews David Kertzer's book, The Pope and Mussolini (Random House, 2013) in The New York Review of Books

During the past fifty years, most of the debate on the Catholic Church's relationship with fascism has focused on the wartime period and the Vatican's response to the Holocaust. Did the virtual silence of Pius XII, who became pope in early 1939, about the mistreatment and extermination of Europe's Jews facilitate Hitler's Final Solution, as his critics insist, or was it, as Pius's defenders maintain, a heroic act of self-discipline that prevented Nazi reprisals against the many thousands of Catholic institutions that were secretly hiding and helping Jews? The debate, as Pius XII inches his way toward sainthood, has become somewhat sterile since it depends partly on difficult-to-prove arguments about what might have happened had he spoken out.

One of the many virtues of David Kertzer's The Pope and Mussolini is that it reframes the discussion by shifting attention away from World War II and looking closely at the papacy of Pius XII's predecessor, Pius XI, who became pope in 1922, the year that Benito Mussolini came to power, and died in early 1939, several months before Hitler invaded Poland. Taking advantage of the gradual opening of Vatican archives, Kertzer offers us a much more detailed portrait of the inner workings of the Vatican in this period. The many revelatory incidents, documents, and scenes he adds to the story are bound to reanimate the older debate on Pius XII. Read

THANKS
Centro Primo Levi is the recipient of the endowment fund established by the Viterbi Family Foundation in Memory of Achille and Maria Viterbi.

CPL's activities are supported by the Cahnman Foundation, Peter S. Kalikow, Dr. Claude Ghez, David Berg Foundation, John Elkann, Charles Hallac & Sarah Keil Wolf, Jeffrey Keil & Danielle Pinet.