Italian treasures saved

Over $1.5 million was donated to save the U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art, which now belongs to the Italian Jewish community of Jerusalem.

By GREER FAY CASHMAN
18th Century Italian Esther Scroll 370 (photo credit: Courtesy Sotheby's)
18th Century Italian Esther Scroll 370
(photo credit: Courtesy Sotheby's)
THE U. Nahon Museum of Italian Jewish Art, located on Hillel Street, was in danger of closing down recently. The museum houses the early 18th-century Conegliano Synagogue, and many ritual artifacts, among them an ark curtain dated 1572.
The abandoned Italian synagogue was brought to Israel in 1952, reassembled in the abandoned former German compound – an area that has served as a monastery, a Catholic school for Syrian girls and a pilgrim’s hospice. In the 60s the Italian Jewish Community began to rent the Hillel Street premises, moved the synagogue, got a permit to reinaugurate the house of worship, and the venue became an Italian Jewish heritage site. But the Italian Jewish community in Israel did not own the land, and two years ago the Organization of Italian Jews was given first option to buy – or else to evacuate.
The Jerusalem Foundation as well as Jews in Italy were ready to help, and one of them, Beirut-born Solo Dwek, donated more than $1.5 million and was present last week at the relaunch of the Italian Jewish heritage site, which now belongs to the Italian Jewish community of Jerusalem.
FOR YEARS now, the feminist movement in Israel and the Palestinian Authority has been promoting the idea that women are better negotiators than men and that women would have been more successful than men in negotiating peace in the Middle East.
Local and global perspectives on women and peace negotiations were presented this week at the Van Leer Institute. The invitation was in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and the speakers it listed were Maryse Guimond, program manager at UN Women’s Arab States Office; former MK Naomi Chazan, co-director of Women in the Public Sphere (WIPS) and dean of the School of Government and Society at the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Academic College; Hiba Husseini, former chairwoman of the legal committee on finalstatus negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis; and Natalie Hudson of the University of Dayton’s political science department, who is a policy specialist at the Peace and Security Section of UN Women. The only male listed on the invitation was Gabriel Motzkin, and he was included because he happens to be the director of the Van Leer Institute.
MORE THAN any other institute of higher learning, the Hebrew University can boast the largest number of Israeli presidents among its graduates and associates. Chaim Weizmann, the country’s first president, went on a fundraising campaign with Albert Einstein to get the initial seed money to establish the university. The fourth president, Ephraim Katzir, received a doctorate from the university in 1941. Fifth president Yitzhak Navon graduated in Hebrew literature and Islamic studies. Eighth president Moshe Katsav received a degree in economics, and 10th president-elect Reuven Rivlin graduated in law in 1964.
Rivlin joined fellow alumni last week in a 50th-anniversary celebration. In conjunction with Yad Chaim Herzog, the university awards the Chaim Herzog Prize, in memory of the country’s sixth president, to outstanding individuals for service to the state. This year, President Shimon Peres received the university’s Solomon Bublick Prize in recognition of what he has done for the Jewish people’s well-being and the advancement and development of the State of Israel.
IT’S NOT all that uncommon for families living overseas to celebrate a bar mitzva in Israel. Often, such ceremonies take place at the Western Wall or on top of Masada, but some families prefer a synagogue environment. That was the case with Michelle and Moshe Tawil of Melbourne, Australia, who two years ago brought their older son, Yoni, to Hazvi Yisrael congregation to read his Torah portion, and last Saturday brought their younger son, Eli, to celebrate his bar mitzva.
Eli acquitted himself well, and as they did with Yoni, the Tawils hosted a kiddush for the congregation. The Tawils have a large number of relatives in Israel on both sides of the family, and several of them came to join in the celebration. Moshe, an international coffee dealer who hails from Argentina, happily accepted the compliments directed at his son, saying, “He’s comfortable in the synagogue. At home, he’s in synagogue every day.”