Tullia Zevi

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Tullia Zevi and Oscar Luigi Scalfaro in 2007

Tullia Calabi Zevi (born February 2, 1919 in Milan ; died January 22, 2011 in Rome ) was an Italian journalist . From 1983 to 1998 she was President of the Unione delle comunità ebraiche italiane ( UCEI , the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy).

Life

Tullia Zevi came from a middle-class Jewish family of Sephardic origin. Her father, Giuseppe Calabi, was a well-known lawyer , avowed anti-fascist and Freemason . He belonged to Arturo Toscanini's circle of friends . Tullia Zevi had three siblings.

She studied philosophy at the University of Milan and attended the conservatory . When fascist , anti-Jewish legislation was introduced in Italy in 1938 , Zevi was on summer vacation in Switzerland with her family .

As a result of the new political situation, they moved first to Geneva, later to Paris, where Zevi continued her studies at the Sorbonne . In the summer of 1939 , the family emigrated to the United States on board the Île de France from Le Havre . Zevi continued her studies at the Juilliard School and the Radcliffe College and at the same time, as before in Paris, played the harp in various orchestras to earn a living. During this time she met Leonard Bernstein and Frank Sinatra .

In New York she stayed in anti-fascist circles and began her career as a journalist, e.g. B. in the Quaderni di giustizia e libertà and the Italy against Fascism . In the National Broadcasting Company's program , she made radio broadcasts intended for Italian partisans. She also took on political education work as part of the Mazzini Society . She met Bruno Zevi in the USA . They married on December 26, 1940 in New York. After the war ended, in July 1946, she returned to Italy, accompanied by Amelia Pincherle, on one of the first ships that were also approved for civilians. Her husband was already there. Together with Aldo Garosci and Alberto Tarchiani , he returned to Italy in 1943 to join the partisans.

She justified her return with the feeling as a survivor that she owed this and the need to build a democratic Italy. When she arrived in Italy, she began to take care of rebuilding the Jewish communities. She became a member of the Partito d'Azione . After its dissolution in 1946, she became interested in the Partito Repubblicano and wrote for La Voce Repubblicana . She also worked for other Italian newspapers and was sent to the Nuremberg trials as a correspondent .

For more than thirty years - from 1960 to 1993 - she worked as a correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Maariw . As part of this activity, she also reported on the Eichmann trial in Jerusalem . She also worked for the London weekly newspaper The Jewish Chronicle .

From 1978 she was Vice President of the UCEI, the Union of Jewish Communities in Italy. Five years later she became President of the Union, an office that was the first time a woman had held and that she held until 1998. In this capacity she also signed the contract in 1987 that established the relationship between the Italian state and the UCEI.

In 1992, the then Italian President , Oscar Luigi Scalfaro , awarded her the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic .

In 1998 she was elected a member of the Intercultural Commission of the Ministry of Education and a member of the Italian Commission of UNESCO . In the same year she also became a member of the national bioethics commission ( Commissione nazionale per la bioetica ), of which she was a member until 2006.

In 2007 she published under the title “Ti racconto la mia storia. Dialogo tra nonna e nipote sull'ebraismo ”( I'll tell you my story. Dialogue between grandmother and grandchildren about Judaism ) her biography, which she wrote together with her granddaughter Nathania Zevi.

She was buried next to her husband on January 24, 2011 in the Jewish part of Campo di Verano .

Web links

Commons : Tullia Zevi  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Tullia Zevi: L'emigrazione razziale. In: Antonio Varsori (ed.): L'antifascismo italiano negli Stati Uniti durante la Seconda guerra mondiale (= Biblioteca dell'Istituto di studi per la storia del movimento repubblicano. Saggi. Vol. 2). Archivio Trimestrale, Rome 1984, pp. 75–82, here p. 75.
  2. ^ Entry at the Jewish Women's Archive (JWA) .
  3. ^ Tullia Zevi: L'emigrazione razziale. In: Antonio Varsori (ed.): L'antifascismo italiano negli Stati Uniti durante la Seconda guerra mondiale (= Biblioteca dell'Istituto di studi per la storia del movimento repubblicano. Saggi. Vol. 2). Archivio Trimestrale, Rome 1984, pp. 75–82, here p. 76.
  4. ^ A b Tullia Calabi Zevi: La mia autobiografia politica. In: Quaderni del Circolo Rosselli. NS 20, No. 1 = No. 68, 2000, ISSN  1123-9700 , pp. 83-89.
  5. ^ Tullia Zevi: L'emigrazione razziale. In: Antonio Varsori (ed.): L'antifascismo italiano negli Stati Uniti durante la Seconda guerra mondiale (= Biblioteca dell'Istituto di studi per la storia del movimento repubblicano. Saggi. Vol. 2). Archivio Trimestrale, Rome 1984, pp. 75–82, here p. 79.
  6. ^ Tullia Zevi: L'emigrazione razziale. In: Antonio Varsori (ed.): L'antifascismo italiano negli Stati Uniti durante la Seconda guerra mondiale (= Biblioteca dell'Istituto di studi per la storia del movimento repubblicano. Saggi. Vol. 2). Archivio Trimestrale, Rome 1984, pp. 75–82, here p. 81.
personal data
SURNAME Zevi, Tullia
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Zevi, Tullia Calabi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian journalist
DATE OF BIRTH February 2, 1919
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH January 22, 2011
Place of death Rome