To be or not to be Jewish. Where Elly (and not only) is wrapped up

In Mosaic/Jewish News Syndicate on March 6, 2023, Ben Cohen comments: Technically, of course (Elly Schlein) is right, in terms of Halakhah, Jewish religious law, it’s not Jewish. But according to the definition of a Jew in the infamous Nazi racial laws, he is, and would also be entitled to Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return; Schlein’s literal objections suggest that anti-Semitic epithets don’t affect her because she’s not Jewish and that she’s the one bothering her. The implication is that this would be more understandable if they were directed at a subject with two Jewish parents. But she is more sinister that she says she has a large nose, but that he is organically Italian. Here, again according to Cohen, it would be implied that she complains of being associated with Jews. Elly Schlein (if I have collected an exact quote, and therefore I gladly welcome a denial) would have also declared that “as regards religion, it is true, my father is Jewish, he is not particularly a believer or practicing and neither am I, because the two things are not automatic”. I add the caveats, because being a Jew does not depend on the degree of observance. Half a century ago I read in Nueva Siòn: no one says “I’m black, but not practicing”and Jews like me feel very close to dark-skinned people.

Now, I understand Ben Cohen’s largely harsh and unfair comments, but I cannot agree with them, because one cannot judge anything based either on the infamous racial laws or on the far-sighted Law of Return, much less inferring a malevolent meaning. If Cohen’s comment is too obnoxious to be legitimate and, in any case, for the writer to accept it, I nonetheless hypothesize that Elly Schlein may have good-naturedly wrapped up (since the term is admitted by Treccani) because, if the psychoanalytic reading of Jew Sigmund Freud is legitimately part of our culture, it would seem inappropriate to clarify in response to anti-Semitism that one is not a Jew and that one’s nose is not Jewish, since it is not possible to scientifically support that nasometry exists and that, within it, there is a Jewish branch, especially since not only is Elly Schlein a very valid scholar, but that her environment is made up of highly esteemed intellectuals, even four: mother , father, brother and sister. The precedents are not to be overlooked: in France occupied by the Nazis, they advised the daughters of Irène Némirovsky who were fleeing from their executioners: “Cachez votre nez”. As a reply to the haters, pulling out the Halakhah and even noses seems interesting even to modest scholars like me, not so much for what it says as for the rich undertones, which are not drawn from the aforementioned Ben Cohen but, more subduedly, from the massive amount of studies on Jewish identity.

We could draw on the opinions of Anna Momigliano (Haaretz Feb. 23, 2023) where she writes about Schlein: “Why does this rising Italian politician downplay her Jewish roots?”, and wonders why, while in the USA two conservative legislators are accused of inventing Jewish ancestors, this (good) Italian liberal politician has chosen, again according to the very personal opinion of Haaretz, to “downplay” (minimize) its as much as possible? So what should be the answer? We could give you some possible answers, drawn from our new book The Jewish question in postmodern society (ESI, 2023): Luigi Luzzatti, Prime Minister, said “I was born an Israelite and I proudly return every time I am reproached for being one and that being one exposes me to danger. There is a dignity in bearing the weight of persecution and it would be cowardice to shun it. But apart from this, my education, my aspirations aim at a broad Christianity, as transpires from my writings”. Santiago Amigorena, author of The inner ghetto (Neri Pozza, 2020) declares to Stefano Montefiori (Reading, CdS, 27/9/2020) “I usually don’t feel particularly Jewish, even if I am, my mother is Jewish. I don’t feel a particular attachment to Israel. But faced with an act of anti-Semitism, I am a Jew.” The more famous Ilya Ehrenburg gave a similar answer: “I am a Russian writer but, as long as there is a single anti-Semite on earth, when asked about my nationality, I will answer ‘Jew'”. The answer is decent, even if it has the contraindication that the decision of when to feel Jewish ends up being entrusted to the anti-Semite. The three mentioned are Jews. But even those who are not Jewish or are only partially Jewish, as Enrico Mentana said in 2014: “As the son of a Jewish mother and despite having been baptized, I consider myself much more Jewish than many Jews I have known. My children know that, between one move and another, one thing I always carry with me is my maternal grandmother’s diary, written when she was forced to sleep in barns to escape the roundups ”.

After writing these lines, I find myself with the news of the lurid writing that appeared on a wall in Viterbo: “Schlein… your face is already a macabre destiny” and I think that until now it has been harmful to allow compassionate philo-Semitism, based on this assumption: yes, Israel and the Jews are what they are, but one must not rage. The writing of Viterbo is only the corollary of wrong approaches, it is the tip of the iceberg of subtle and polite attacks, where the distinction between high and low culture dies. Faced with this infamous writing, it would be time to pull critical theory out of the drawersupported not by chance above all by Jews, whose subtext is “nous sommes tous des assassins”.