Memories of Jewish Life

From Italy to Jerusalem, 1918-1960

Augusto Segre, Steve Siporin

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Year: 2008
• ISBN:
  9780803218635
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

In this lyrical memoir, translated for the first time into English, noted Jewish historian, author, translator, and activist Augusto Segre not only recounts his rich life experiences but also evokes the changing world of Italian Jewry in the twentieth century. Raised in the traditional Jewish community of Casale Monferrato in the former ghetto, Segre depicts the changes wrought on his people by emancipation, fascism, world wars, and the Holocaust.
Segre was a vocal opponent of Italian fascism and a combatant in Italy's partisan war against the Nazis. With the help of Italian peasants, he and his family spent eighteen months evading German and Italian fascist soldiers during the German occupation of Italy. Segre also was an ardent Zionist who helped refugees escape to Israel and ultimately immigrated himself in 1979. He spent three months in Israel in 1948, chronicling Israel's War of Independence. With an ethnographic eye, Segre interweaves his own memories with those of his rabbi father and uses newspapers, public documents, and letters to reveal the shared emotions and moods of a people and the impact the greatest events in European and Jewish history had on them all. The trend of Italian Jews toward assimilation was evident in Segre's time, and an awareness of it pervades this work. Memories of Jewish Life provides a rare glimpse into a traditional, religious and vibrant working-class Jewish community that no longer exists.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Illustrations
• Maps
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1. Once Upon a Time
• 2. The Rabbi’s Family
• 3. It’s Not Always Easy to Become a Rabbi
• 4. The Community Council
• 5. First Experiences
• 6. Casalese Anti-Zionism
• 7. Jewish Festivals and Solemnities
• 8. Community and Family Life
• 9. Farewell Visit
• 10. Rome, Friends, and Teachers
• 11. Jewish Rome
• 12. Students and Politicians
• 13. From Police Stations to the Secretaryship of the Union
• 14. The Racial Campaign Breaks Out
• 15. Dante Lattes Leaves
• 16. Working with Raffaele Cantoni
• 17. Who Leaves and Who Stays
• 18. I Return Home
• 19. Asti and Moncalvo
• 20. Commuter
• 21. The Nazi Invasion
• 22. Partisan Life
• 23. April 25
• 24. The Prisoner Emerling
• 25. Toward a Normal Life
• 26. Return to Rome
• 27. The State of Israel Is Reborn
• 28. New Activities of the Zionist Federation
• 29. Sailing for Israel
• 30. Israel at War
• 31. A Happy Encounter
• 32. The Slansky Case
• 33. Life Goes On
• Notes
• Glossary
• References
• Index