Italian Jews worry and wait as Giorgia Meloni, far-right leader, prepares to take power

(JTA) — The success of Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy party in Italy’s national election last week means the country is poised to have its most right-wing government since World War II, when Italy was Hitler’s staunchest ally in Europe.

The prospect has unnerved many Italian Jews, even as several of their leaders appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach to Meloni’s leadership, refraining from making public statements about the results.

“Faced with the prospect of a prime minister that is affiliated with a party that ideologically is the heir of the Italian Social Movement, a good part of Italian Jews are concerned,” David Fiorentini, president of Italy’s Jewish Youth group, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. Click here to read the full article.

Leading mayoral candidate in Rome apologizes for Holocaust comments decried as antisemitic

(JTA) — A leading candidate for mayor in Rome has apologized to the Jewish community over an article he wrote last year in which he suggested that victims of mass murders other than the Holocaust gain less attention because they “didn’t own banks.”

Jewish community leaders and others had decried the comments by Enrico Michetti, a radio host who is the center-right coalition’s candidate in the Oct. 17 and 18 mayoral election. He received more than 30% of votes in the election’s first round earlier this month, more than any other candidate.

“Each year, 40 Holocaust-related movies are shot, trips and cultural initiatives of all sorts are financed to commemorate that horrible persecution, and up to here, I have nothing to say,” Michetti wrote on the website of the radio station where he is a host. “But I wonder, why the same pity and the same consideration are not given to the dead killed in the foibe massacres [of Italians by Yugoslav Partisans], in the refugee camps, and in the mass murders that still take place in the world?”

Among the answers he offered: “Perhaps because they did not own banks, perhaps because they did not belong to lobbies capable of deciding the destinies of the planet.” Continue reading here.

Italy granted her a pension for Holocaust survivors. Then it asked for the money back.

(JTA) — In 2012, Messauda Fadlun received a letter from the Italian government asking her to return all the money she had been receiving as part of a restitution program for those racially persecuted by the fascist regime during World War II.

Fadlun, an Italian-Libyan Jew, and her family were shocked.

“We thought there had been a mistake,” said Ariel Finzi, Fadlun’s son, who is the rabbi of Naples. “Worst case, we presumed the government would stop paying for the pension, but not that we would have to return the money.”

They were wrong: It was just the beginning of a long legal fight with the Italian government, which claimed she had not been eligible to receive the pension, despite granting it earlier. Fadlun died in 2018, and now her 98-year-old husband, Alberto Finzi, is expected to pay the sum of 76,000 euros (about $92,000). Continue reading here.

Tobia Zevi is a rising star in Rome’s Jewish community. Can he become the city’s next mayor?

(JTA) — Tobia Zevi is candid: He wants to become the next mayor of Rome. “I’ve dreamed of becoming mayor of my city my entire life,” he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in an interview. “For years, I’ve been thinking about how to transform it and make it more liveable for its residents and more attractive for its tourists.”

If he succeeds, he is set to make history, becoming the second-ever Jewish mayor of the Italian capital, the first in over a century.

The 36-year-old, who has been involved in both local and national politics for 15 years, announced this summer his run for the capital’s mayoral primary in 2021. Since the announcement, he has gained momentum in the crowded field thanks to a series of high-profile newspaper interviews and social media posts. Over the summer, Zevi took advantage of the city’s relatively low infection rate to start campaigning, after the country was severely hit by the coronavirus pandemic in the spring. Continue reading…