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The author's childhood was spent in Fascist Italy of the 1920s and 1930s. Assimilated Jews, the family's relationship to their country was stronger than to their religion. Their subsequent fortunes and misfortunes were intricately tied to what would prove to be conflicting loyalties. Segre emerged as an adolescent, naive and unprepared for the realities that awaited him. The crash of 1929 and the introduction of Mussolini's anti-Jewish laws saw him on the boat to Mandatory Palestine, a rare immigrant with a first-class ticket, jacket, silk tie and detachable linen collar, thrust into the pioneering culture of Palestine in the 1930s. Segre's humour and irony explore the pathos and contradictions of such situations which have characterised his life. "A haunting tale, beautifully written and with a talent, reminiscent of Proust, to endow the past with a deep psychological meaning ... A stunning exercise in self-awareness." Amos Elon "A fascinating description of childhood in Fascist Italy, a moving account of adolescence in Mandatory Palestine, an extraordinary book, very sad and very funny at the same time." Walter Laqueur "A spellbinding biography of genuine literary value that reads like an adventure story. Those familiar with the bitter and depressing tone of the Jews' misfortunes in the maelstrom of wars and holocausts will derive a unique freshness from the irony, humour and sensuality of Dan Segre, who acknowledges that he is a fortunate Jew." A.B. Yehoshua "Luminous, almost light-hearted, autobiography about a family of Italian Jews under Mussolini." Frederic Raphael, Books of the Year, Sunday Times The tone of Segre's beautifully written autobiography, which reads like a Bildungsroman, is certainly ironic rather than tragic." Adrian Lyttelton, The New York Review of Books "Imagine an Italian Jew from a prominent but impoverished Piedmont family serving in the British Army alongside an Arab and under a Jewish Palestinian sergeant, and you have in a nutshell the cultural confusion Professor Segre so cannily explores in this labyrinthine, spell-binding autobiography, full of passionate tenderness." Encounter "This distinguished book has a structure as rigorously cut and shaped as any novel. Segre's good fortune, which many a novelist would envy, consists in the end in his power to mould his diverse experiences into a deeply satisfying symbol of modern life triumphing over the forces of adversity. Even where so many were hideously defeated, we may rejoice over one who survived and who has celebrated his luck in such captivating fashion." Patrick Parrinder, London Review of Books "A man of scrupulous integrity, great intelligence, wit and humility, Segre describes his childhood in Fascist Italy and youth in wartime Palestine in quite brilliantly captivating and moving prose." The Jewish Chronicle "Taut and illuminating ... memorable ... written with the humility of he who confesses himself and with the honesty of he who bore witness.' Primo Levi "The only thing most of us know clearly about Nazis is that they were the scum of the earth, but this pathetic, marginal, and in the end rejected Italian fascist does not fit into any Europe or any history that most of us know ... He must be a man of extraordinary moral courage and self-knowledge, since nowhere does he deal lightly with himself ... Maybe the final heroism was to write this book ... I think this book is unique and a sort of masterpiece." Peter Levi, The Independent "He is good at reconstructing events and even better at the more difficult art of recapturing moods and atmospheres ... an unusually attractive book - attractive in its irony, its energy and its moral insight. Mr Segre had some rich material to work with, and he has done it justice." John Gross, The New York Times
Migrant by necessity, cosmopolitan by choice, Dan Vittorio Segre has truly had an extraordinary life. Memoirs of a Fortunate Jew told the story of his childhood and adolescence: from his secular, bourgeois Jewish upbringing to his enforced emigration to Palestine, and his sudden awakening to the Zionist movement and his own religious convictions. Primo Levi called it "taut and illuminating... memorable... written with the humility of he who confesses himself and with the honesty of he who bore witness". With his ever present humour, irony and intelligence, Segre now describes returning to liberated Italy in British uniform; his first disastrous diplomatic experiences as Israel's cultural attaché to Paris; his deep involvement with Israel's developing relations with African states on the eve of their independence; accusations against him of being a spy leading to his dismissal from the Foreign Ministry; and his subsequent career as an academic.
In the vein of Prozac Nation and Girl, Interrupted, an electrifying memoir about a young woman's promiscuous and self-destructive spiral after being cast out of her ultra-Orthodox Jewish family Leah Vincent was born into the Yeshivish community, a fundamentalist sect of ultra-Orthodox Judaism. As the daughter of an influential rabbi, Leah and her ten siblings were raised to worship two things: God and the men who ruled their world. But the tradition-bound future Leah envisioned for herself was cut short when, at sixteen, she was caught exchanging letters with a male friend, a violation of religious law that forbids contact between members of the opposite sex. Leah's parents were unforgiving. Afraid, in part, that her behavior would affect the marriage prospects of their other children, they put her on a plane and cut off ties. Cast out in New York City, without a father or husband tethering her to the Orthodox community, Leah was unprepared to navigate the freedoms of secular life. She spent the next few years using her sexuality as a way of attracting the male approval she had been conditioned to seek out as a child, while becoming increasingly unfaithful to the religious dogma of her past. Fast-paced, mesmerizing, and brutally honest, Cut Me Loose tells the story of one woman's harrowing struggle to define herself as an individual. Through Leah's eyes, we confront not only the oppressive world of religious fundamentalism, but also the broader issues that face even the most secular young women as they grapple with sexuality and identity.
"A careful historical account linked to personal narratives."-New York Times Book Review. Eighty-five percent of Italy's Jews survived World War II. Nevertheless, more than six thousand Italian Jews were destroyed in the Holocaust and the lives of countless others were marked by terror. Susan Zuccotti relates hundreds of stories showing the resourcefulness of the Jews, the bravery of those who helped them, and the inhumanity and indifference of others. For Zuccotti, the Holocaust in Italy began when the first "black-shirted thug" poured a bottle of castor oil down the throat of his victim, or when the dignity of a single human being was violated. She writes: "We might examine again how most Italians behaved from the onset of fascism. . . . Did they do as much as they could? Or should they, and the Jews as well, have recognized the danger sooner, with the first denial of liberty and free speech? We might also ask ourselves whether we, as creatures without prejudice, would act as well as most Italians did under similar pressures. Would we risk our lives for persecuted minorities? Would we be more sensitive to the first assaults upon our liberties, when the only ones really hurt in the beginning are Communists, Socialists, democratic anti-Fascists, and trade unionists? And finally, we might be more aware than we are of the horrors that a racist lunatic fringe can commit, even in the best of societies." Susan Zuccotti teaches modern European history at Columbia University. She is also the author of The Holocaust, the French, and the Jews. The introduction by Furio Colombo was translated into English for this Bison Books edition. The author of God in America: Religion and Politics in theUnited States, Colombo is professor of Italian Studies at Columbia.
This is a riveting story of the author's journey for survival as a war refugee and overcoming poverty. The story begins in Jerusalem as the British Empire crumbles and World War II ends. The ensuing turmoil in Palestine lead to Israel's War of Independence and the Arab siege of Jerusalem that shaped Eitan's childhood and the journey he travelled as a construction laborer, shepherd in a kibbutz, "Top Gun" fighter pilot in Israel Air Force, engineer for the Space Shuttle and a businessman in Beverly Hills. On his quest for independence and justice he endured family displacement, hunger, personal loss, and a government corruption scandal that nearly unraveled all he had worked to create. This compelling story, however, is ultimately one of triumph. Jerusalem, at once provincial and cosmopolitan, where lives of Christians, Jews and Arabs intermingle, is the colorful ground for a true story of a boy growing up during the tumultuous waning years of the British rule. The author describes scenes from the Arab-Israeli war, from a rare vantage point of a little boy, turned refugee in the ravaged city. As a teenager, he becomes a member of a socialist youth movement and joins his friends to establish a kibbutz. Toiling as a shepherd in the hills of Judea, and disappointed by the communal system, he leaves to join the Israel Air Force and becomes a fighter pilot. At the age of 22, he takes Dina, his wife, to Africa to create the newly independent Ghana Air Force. Fulfilling his lifelong dream, the author goes to America, but tragedy drives his young family back to Israel for eleven years. Following the Yom Kippur War, his keen sense of justice compels him to expose government corruption that inevitably teaches him that "no good deed goes unpunished," but at the end of the day makes him victorious. A memorable scene aboard an El Al flight provides an emotional end. Visit jerusalemtobeverlyhills.com
A survivor's account of the Holocaust.
How did Italy treat Jews during World War II? Historians have shown beyond doubt that many Italians were complicit in the Holocaust, yet Italy is still known as the Axis state that helped Jews. Shira Klein uncovers how Italian Jews, though victims of Italian persecution, promoted the view that Fascist Italy was categorically good to them. She shows how the Jews' experience in the decades before World War II - during which they became fervent Italian patriots while maintaining their distinctive Jewish culture - led them later to bolster the myth of Italy's wartime innocence in the Fascist racial campaign. Italy's Jews experienced a century of dramatic changes, from emancipation in 1848, to the 1938 Racial Laws, wartime refuge in America and Palestine, and the rehabilitation of Holocaust survivors. This cultural and social history draws on a wealth of unexplored sources, including original interviews and unpublished memoirs.
Three Jews, Alfred Dreyfus, Mendel Beilis, and Leo Frank, were charged with heinous crimes in the generation before World War I, Dreyfus of treason in France, Beilis of ritual murder in Russia, and Frank of the murder of a young girl in the United States. Quite aside from the lurid details and sensational charges, larger issues emerged, among them the power of modern anti-Semitism, the sometimes tragic conflict between the freedom of the press and the protection of individual rights, the unpredictable reactions of individuals when subjected to extreme situations, and the inevitable ambiguities of campaigns for truth and justice when political advantage is to be gained from them. In attempting to untangle myth and reality many surprises emerge; heroes appear less heroic and villains less villainous, while real factors appear more important than most accounts of the affairs have recognised.
On October 16, 1943, the Jews of Rome were targeted for arrest and deportation. The Nazis, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome examines why—and more importantly how—it could have been avoided, featuring new evidence and insight into the Vatican’s involvement. At the time, Rome was within reach of the Allies, but the overwhelming force of the Wehrmacht, Gestapo, and SS in Rome precluded direct confrontation. Moral condemnations would not have worked, nor would direct confrontation by the Italians, Jewish leadership, or even the Vatican. Gallo underscores the necessity of determining what courses of actions most likely would have spared Italian Jews from the gas chambers. Examining the historical context and avoiding normative or counterfactual assertions, this book draws upon archival sources ranging from diaries to intelligence intercepts in English, Italian, and German. With antisemitism on the rise today and the last remaining witnesses passing away, it is essential to understand what happened in 1943. The Nazis, the Vatican, and the Jews of Rome grapples with this particular, awful episode within the larger, horrifying story of the Holocaust. Despite the inadequacy of memory, we must continue to attempt to make sense of the inexplicable.