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MILAN – When Matteo Salvini became the new Italian Minister of the Interior in June, one of the first public events in which he participated was a party at the Israeli embbady celebrating the 70th anniversary of the Jewish state. In a recent interview with the Washington Post, he said he was in favor of recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Salvini has made it clear throughout his political career that he supports Israel, but in recent months has received a wave of unprecedented criticism from Jewish organizations.
UCEI, the umbrella organization of the Jewish community of Italy, issued two official statements criticizing Salvini and his government. In June, his board of directors compared Salvini's plan to hold a special census of the country's Roma community to the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s. Earlier this month, the president of the UCEI Noemi di Segni warned against a general climate of "growing intolerance, racial hatred and radicalization", adding that it was "unfortunately fomented by some members of the institutions".
The Italian media quickly interpreted this as a critique of the new government's crackdown on asylum seekers and its anti-immigrant rhetoric.
What made the statements more important, is that the Jewish organization is usually extremely cautious about a political position. In fact, he usually turns a blind eye to contentious political issues, such as when Silvio Berlusconi flirted with the neo-fascists while he was prime minister. Indeed, when another Roma census was proposed a decade or so ago (and was even partially achieved before being found unconstitutional), the organization does not have a census of Roma. did not publish a formal statement even though the individual Jewish leaders were against it. (Di Segni refused to speak with Haaretz for this article.)
So, why did the usually cautious Jewish group criticize the new government, and Salvini in particular?
Salvini is the party leader of the far-right League, considered the Italian equivalent of the French National Front. In early June, the League formed a coalition government with the Five Star Movement – an anti-establishment populist party that avoids the left-right distinction and whose political positions are at best incoherent. Technically, the League is a minority partner of the cabinet headed by an independent Prime Minister (Law Professor Giuseppe Conte). However, Salvini managed to impose himself as the public face and the de facto leader of the government.
Since the government took the oath last month, it has been extremely active in the fight against immigration from African countries – in some cases, preventing refugee rescue vessels operated by NGO's. 39, docking in Italian ports.
In addition to the refugee crisis, the government's position on international affairs is not very clear either: while the league is pro-Israel, the Five Star Movement tends to be more pro-Palestinian. The two parties, meanwhile, are close to Russia.
The League is also shamelessly xenophobic, often attacking Muslims, Roma and African immigrants. However, he has never expressed anti-Jewish sentiment and, unlike other far-right parties in Europe, has no historical roots in anti-Semitic fascism (he is hailing from a secessionist party in the North). It cozied up to various neo-fascist groups, though – for example, by organizing a protest with CasaPound, a radical neo-fascist Italian group.
The five-star movement, on the other hand, has traditionally been less aggressive toward immigrants, but has endorsed antisemitic conspiracy theories.
The rise of anti-Semitism
Asked what is different about the current situation, Gadi Luzzatto Voghera, president of the Jewish research center CDEC, says that the main source of concern is that the current political climate could reinforce anti-Semites.
"After the elections, we noticed an upsurge of anti-Semitism, even though it is mostly verbal and takes place online," said Luzzatto Voghera. "Anti-Semitism has remained fairly stable in Italy for 10 years since we began to monitor it." Zevi, the daughter of the famous Jewish writer Tullia Zevi, filed a complaint with the Rome police last week after receiving a threatening letter with a picture of Hitler on it.
Luzzatto Voghera explains that one possible explanation for this new atmosphere is that antisemites "feel emboldened, less inhibited". The climate has become so tense, he said, that being pro-Israel is no longer enough to rebadure the Jewish community.
"The Jewish community was in the habit of being courted by right-wing parties that claimed to support Israel," he said. "But the Italian Jews are suddenly more awake, they made it clear that they did not want to close their eyes just because someone is pro-Israel."
But others say the situation is more complex.
"Italian Jews are surprised and puzzled: it's an unprecedented situation," said Maurizio Molinari, editor of the daily La Stampa and one of the most well-known Jewish intellectuals of the world. ;Italy.
"The League and the Five Star Movement are both extremist forces," he said, "it's not like they had an official position hostile to Jews, but both parties included representatives hostile to the Jews, in Rome recently, when members of the municipal council proposed to have a street bearing the name of [Giorgio] Almirante [who headed the neofascist Italian Social Movement until 1987] or Turin, where members of the municipal council called for a boycott against Israel.
"It is too early to have a clear answer, but there is definitely a question of whether the League and the Five Star Movement are Jewish friendly or hostile to Jews," continued Molinari. "The fact that Salvini has often expressed pro-Israeli views is rebaduring, but what complicates the situation is that the League and the Five Star Movement do not have deep historical roots – they do not have a deep history. Therefore, we do not have the antibodies to contain the extremists in both camps, but we can always be optimistic, maybe they will eventually develop them. "
However, the question remains to know how representative Jewish institutions are. When the UCEI umbrella organization openly criticized the government recently, was this really the case for all Italian Jews?
Unlike the United States, Italy does not have any political polls based on religion or ethnicity, so there is no way to officially know which parties are most popular among Italian Jews. Anecdotal evidence, however, suggests that the League enjoys at least some Jewish support: After the UCEI issued its statements against Salvini, some Jews moved away from it.
Fiamma Nirenstein, an Italian-Israeli conservative expert, writes that "populism is not anti-Semitic", while Hatikwa – the newspaper of young Italian Jews – publishes an editorial by young journalist Nathan Greppi urging Jewish leaders not to attack the League.
"This government has its supporters inside the Jewish community – not so much the Five-Star Movement, but the League does," said political historian David Bidussa: "Some Jews appreciate the League because they perceive it as being pro-Israel and anti-Islamic, a certain skepticism of the European Union because of its criticism of Israel."
The bottom line, said Bidussa, is that "when someone is pro-Israel, it's still a pbadport to forgive other sins."
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