Primo Levi, Miscellaneous Notes -- December 11, 2018

Introduction:
Primo Levi: lived in his family's house in Turin, Italy, his entire life, 67 years, except for one year in Milan and one year in Auschwitz.

Born: 1919

Family, like most Italian Jews, non-practicing. High holidays became family gatherings only.

However, age 13, did have his bar mitzvah.

Sister, Anna Maria about 1.5 years younger.

Father, Cesare, and son, Primo, voracious readers.

I. Paradiso

Italy is the oldest home of Jews in Europe, and Jews are among the oldest continuous inhabitants of Italy

Ashkenazim: German and East European Jews
Sephardim: Spanish and Portuguese Jews

He did not know if he was Ashkenazi or Sephardi, his family had lived there so long; long before the division; he was probably Sephardic. He felt Italian Jews were neither.

Piedmont: one of 20 regions in Italy; Turin is the capital of Piedmont.

1555: Pope Paul IV -- the punitive papal bull which confined Jews to walled ghettos and deprived them of the right to practice almost all trades  except the sale and repair of old clothes.

This is very interesting -- Shakespeare wrote about ghettos, Jews, etc.

Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616. Merchant of Venice, written between 1596 and 1599.

Risorgimento, the resurgence / unification / Italy -- 1815 - 1871. All three leaders were philosemites:
Mazzini
Garibaldi
Cavour

First Italian capital: Turin; then Florence, and finally Rome, with full unification in 1870.