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About Jews in Italy:
Credit
for the rescue of Italy's Jews
Aliya
from Trieste to Palestine
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A Congress on Hebrew Tours in Italy to be Held in Trieste
Trieste, the main outlet to the sea for the Austro-Hungarian Empire for two centuries (1719-1918), one of the focal points of Mitteleuropa and a border city where different cultures meet, is to host the congress "Itinerari ebraici in Italia" (Hebrew Tours in Italy) in October 2002 and provides the ideal starting point for a journey of discovery of the Hebrew heritage in Friuli-Venezia Giulia.
City of wind and bright as the plaster of its elegant buildings, gazing
ever outwards towards the distant horizon and always at the centre of
important historical events, Trieste has been reclaiming its role in the
front rank of international politics. Strolling along the seafront or
through the city streets lined with smart Viennese-style buildings and
elegant cafes, one can still hear the echo of its illustrious past. The
memory of legends, exotic spices, multifarious goods and vast freighters
has not been swept away even by the howling bora, which hurtles down to
the coast and whips up the sea.
It is among these very buildings that one of the major Jewish communities
in Italy developed and thrived over the centuries, nourishing its cosmopolitan
nature through the incorporation of various different traditions and cultures
and reaching a total of 6000 in the early 20th century. There were several
waves of migration from Germany, Istria and various towns in Friuli, the
Veneto and the Marches, attracted by Trieste's more tolerant living conditions.
The 18th century saw the arrival of a number of families from the Levant,
while in the following century they were joined by Ashkenazi families
(from Austria, Germany, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland and Rumania) and others
from Greece at the end of the century, all eager to find a role in the
burgeoning port.
Its status as a border city and ancient marine emporium led Trieste
to learn to value exchange and toleration between its inhabitants and
out of this grew a unique union with the cosmopolitan Jewish community.
Hence the extraordinary richness and vitality of the Julian Jews' intellectual
life, which provided a crucial impetus to the city's economic growth.
The local Jews' brave and non-comformist attitude was ahead of its times
and proved a boon to industry. Always maintaining a careful balance between
tradition and assimilation, this community developed along unusual lines
and over the years provided several illustrious financiers, businessmen
and intellectuals. There is space here to mention only the foremost of
these: Edoardo Weiss, psychoanalyst and pupil of Freud, the writer Italo
Svevo and the poet Umberto Saba, who both had an uncomfortable relationship
with their religious identity, and the publishers Treves and Teodoro Mayer.
The latter was the founder of "Il Piccolo"; still the most widely read
local newspaper.
Owing to its powerful bond with the Jewish community, Trieste was struck
particularly hard by Fascism's race laws. At the time the city was also
known as "Sion's Gateway", because from this port thousands of Jews left
Europe between the First and Second World Wars headed for America and
Israel. However, this also made Trieste the ideal site for Italy's only
concentration camp, the Risiera di San Sabba, which has now been converted
into a commemorative museum. These are the reasons lying behind the choice
of venue for a congress, which intends not only to rediscover the geographical
and historical landmarks in the Jewish community's presence in Italy,
starting from Friuli-Venezia Giulia, but also to reinforce Trieste's geopolitical
role as a bridge to Europe. Lying in a region abounding in charming landscapes,
covering mountains, sea, rivers, lakes, marshes, plains and hills and
richly endowed with artistic monuments, Trieste is a symbol of a meeting
of cultures. Not for nothing does Saba write that wandering around the
city one is enveloped by a strange and troubling atmosphere which, one
might add, is the fruit of the union of peoples and civilisations and
of the tragic and fertile encounter with history.
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