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TUESDAY 22 JUNE – 7 pm (CEST)

Foundation of the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (“MEIS”) announces a call for applications for a two-year research grant on the topic of “Women in the history, culture and education of Italian Jews”. Pubblication date: 20/03/2020 Applications and research projects must be received at the Fondazione MEIS offices no later than 1:00 […]

Join the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah – MEIS  and 135 other museums and cultural institutions around the world for “We Are Here: A Celebration of Resilience, Resistance, and Hope” on Sunday, June 14 at 8:00 PM. Featuring award-winning media personalities Whoopi Goldberg, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Adrien Brody, Mayim Bialik, Jackie Hoffman, and Tiffany Haddish, world-renowned singers […]

They were youths, some studying at university, others still at their school desks. They were interested in love letters, writing short stories, going out with friends. In 1938, with the enactment of the racial laws, they were alienated from society, expelled from the universities and schools, and excluded from public life. These young people had […]

The night between the 14th and 15th of the month of Nissan (this year coinciding with the 8th of April, after sunset) marks the start of Pesach, one of the most important and meaningful festivals of Judaism. Pesach recalls the Jewish people’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, their exodus and dramatic crossing of the Red Sea — to freedom […]

The National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah in Ferrara is temporarily closed because of the Coronavirus emergency. However, we remain committed to spreading the knowledge about Italian Jewish history and culture. Therefore, we are going “virtual.”The latest MEIS’ exhibit devoted to the Ferrara ebraica/Jewish Ferrara, one of the most important Jewish communities of […]

The National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Holocaust-MEIS in partnership with the Jewish community of Ferrara and the National Committee for the Centenary Celebrations of Primo Levi’s birth, will host a concert dedicated to Levi’s poetry. The Concert will be on September 15th (7.30 pm) at the Sala Estense. The theme of this year’s […]

MEIS BOOKSHOP (5.00 pm, free entrance) Four women, all of Sephardic heritage, will be united for the first time. The sole  purpose of this ingathering is to give a new life and a new voice to Jewish women of the Renaissance. Our guests will bring to the MEIS old traditions, new ideas, philosophy, science and […]

On July 11th (18:00 pm at MEIS Bookshop) Andreina Contessa, Director of the Historical Museum and Park of the Castle of Miramare (Trieste), and earlier Chief Curator of the U. Nahon Museum of Hebrew Italian Art in Jerusalem, will shed new light Jewish women who became art patrons, dealers and clients during the Renaissance.  She will focus […]

The 7° edition of the European Jewish Choir Festival, organized by the Ha-Kol Choir of Rome and the European Association of Jewish Choirs (EUAJC), will end on Sunday 30th (8.30 pm, free admission with allocated seat. Tickets can be picked up at the Theatre ticket office starting at 7.00 pm) with an amazing gala concert hosted by the Municipal […]

The seventh edition of the European Jewish Choir Festival will be hosted in Ferrara from Thursday, June 27 – Sunday, June 30, 2019. The Festival is organized by the Ha-Kol Choir of Rome and the European Association of Jewish Choirs (EUAJC), at the invitation of the MEIS and the ‘Claudio Abbado’ Municipal Theater. For days, the Theater and the Museum in Via […]

THE RENAISSANCE SPEAKS HEBREW The exhibit, curated by Giulio Busi e Silvana Greco, addresses one of the key periods in the cultural history of the Italian Peninsula, a time that was decisive in forming the Italian identity. And it reveals a completely original aspect: the presence of the Jews and the fruitful dialog with the Christian majority. Significant […]

Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah – MEISHOP (Via Piangipane, 81 – Ferrara) PROFILES OF ITALIAN JEWS – free admission 9:30 a.m. Gabriella Steindler Moscati, La mia vita incisa nell’arte. Una biografia di Emma Dessau Goitein (Mimesis, Milan, 2018). The author speaks with the art historian Martina Corgnati 10:15 a.m. Marcella Filippa, Rita Levi Montalcini. La signora delle cellule (Pacini Fazzi, Lucca, […]

From 12th April to 15th September MEIS hosts the exhibit The Renaissance Speaks Hebrew, by Giulio Busi and Silvana Greco. The exhibit addresses one of the key periods in the cultural history of the Italian Peninsula, a time that was decisive in forming the Italian identity. It also reveals a completely original aspect: the presence of the Jews and […]

“The most important fight, today, is the one against the distortion of the Holocaust, or the invention of a not true past. Many countries compete to tell us how much they fought against the Nazis, but in those same countries there were many collaborators. The extermination of the Jews, it is true, was conceived by […]

During the year of the Italian presidency, the city of Ferrara is hosting the second annual plenary assembly of the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance), from the 27 to the 29 of November. The intergovernmental organization is formed by the delegation of 31 member countries as well as several observers and international partners. IHRA’s purpose is […]

Sunday, 25 November, MEIS and the Teatro Comunale organize a talk with Roberto Casarotto on “Dance in Jewish Culture“, taking advantage of the presence in Ferrara of the Batsheva Dance Company, and within this year’s dance season.  Casarotto has been project director for the Center for Contemporary Scene in Bassano del Grappa and for Operaestate Festival Veneto. […]

Saturday 3 November, at 9.00 pm, at Cinema Santo Spirito (Via della Resistenza 7, Ferrara), screening of “1938 – When we discovered we were no longer Italian”, the documentary film by Pietro Suber that MEIS presents and sponsors on the occasion of 80th anniversary of the promulgation of the racial laws. The event is organized in […]

“Excuse me, could you tell us where the Finzi-Contini garden is?”. This is perhaps the question most frequently asked by tourists wandering around Ferrara. And it is always regrettable to answer that such a fascinating and enigmatic place, so lively in the novel by Giorgio Bassani and in the Oscar-winning film by Vittorio De Sica does […]

“Ad Alta Voce”,the festival organized by Coop Alleanza 3.0, takes place every year in symbolic places, urban spaces to meet and confront the voices and thoughts of contemporary authors. The theme of the 2018 edition is “Origins”. Friday, October 26, at 10.30, the theologian Vito Mancuso, the physicist Alessandro Treves and the psychologist and scholar of Cabalà Daniela Abravanel will dialogue […]

“Fascism can still return, in disguise. Our duty is to unmask it and to single out every new form. Every day, everywhere in the world” (Umberto Eco) On the 75th anniversary of the raid of Roman Jews and 80 years after the promulgation of the racial laws, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and Shoah – MEIS, in […]

Monday, October 15, at 17.30, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah – MEIS welcomes the thirty-second edition of “Spirit of Assisi”, born in 1986 thanks to the Community of Sant’Egidio. As part of the “Ponti di Pace” international event, the meeting “The new frontiers of Jewish-Christian dialogue” is held at MEISHOP (Via Piangipane 81, […]

On Sunday, October 14, on the occasion of the 19th European Day of Jewish Culture, the Jewish Community of Ferrara, in collaboration with the MEIS, offers a rich program of initiatives inspired by the theme for 2018: “Storytelling“. A reference to the very origins of Judaism, that root into the ‘stories’ narrated in the Torah, the […]

This year the event is devoted to the Twentieth century in Ferrara. For two days – on Saturday 13 from 10:00 am to 6:00 and on Sunday 14 from 2:00 to 6:00 pm – the students from the classes 2D e 2Y of the local “G. Perlasca Comprehensive School” will guide the pubblic to the discovery of the former prison in Via Piangipane. From the […]

“And in the succoth (huts) you will reside for seven days” (Leviticus, 23:42). Succot, Feast of Tabernacles or Huts, marks a week of pure joy in the Jewish calendar. It begins on the 15th of the month of Tishri, 5 days after Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and belongs to the Cycle of Solemn […]

The IHRA Grant Strategy supports projects which aim to safeguard the historical record (including sites, testimony and archival materials) of the Holocaust and the genocide of the Roma and which counter distortion.  The projects IHRA funds are in the field of education, remembrance and research. Do you have a project idea that you think would fit? […]

MEIS exhibition is being re-installed and reopens on October 2nd, but the library in Via Piangipane 81 knows no rest: it is open on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 am to 1 pm and from 2 to 6 pm, and on Saturdays from 10 am to 2 pm. It collects over 3,500 volumes on Judaism, […]

From the 2 of October the exhibit Jews, An Italian Story of the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah is confirmed in its main themes and in the first thousand years. MEIS reopens with a new layout, marked by the presence of many works already on display. In fact, thanks to the generosity of the lenders, more than half […]

Rosh HaShanà, New Year’s Day, literally means “Head of the Year“. The word shanà, which means “year”, comes from a root linked both to repetition and renewal. The year returns, transformed, as human beings change and transform. The Jewish New Year is marked by two days of solemn celebration at the beginning of the Jewish month of Tishri. Central […]

On Tuesday 4 September, at 5 pm, MEIS (Via Piangipane 81, Ferrara) will host the presentation of Quando la patria uccide (When homeland kills). It’s a collection of stories of Jewish families from South Tyrol, found by authors Sabine Mayr and Joachim Innerhofer (Raetia Edition, Bolzano, 2016). Shoah victims from South Tyrol were monitored and expelled by fascist authorities, and most of them […]

In these days, Ferrara holds the record for the hottest city in Italy? Come to MEIS to stay cool! Let’s call it fate – the Museum is located in the former prison of the city –, but in Via Piangipane 81, with the exhibition “Jews, an Italian story. The first thousand years” and the multimedia […]

MEIS organises a meeting to raise awareness of the important cultural contributions that Sinti and Roma, as well as other minorities historically discriminated and persecuted, make to the Italian society. The event is held on Friday, July 27, at 11:00, within the bookshop of the Museum (Via Piangipane 81, Ferrara). Free entrance. Program: Opening addresses Michele Campanaro, Prefect of FerraraChiara Sapigni, Councillor for Health, Personal Care […]

On Thursday, July 5, at 6:00 pm, within the cycle of meetings Gallery Talk. Discovering MEIS exhibition itinerary,the Museum houses Anna Foa (Sapienza University of Rome), who delivers a speech on the topic Jews, Christians and the Church.  The talk starts from the exhibit Jews, an Italian Story. The First Thousand Years (Foa is one of the curators), with the introduction of […]

On Thursday, June 14, at 6:00 pm, within the cycle of meetings Gallery Talk. Discovering MEIS exhibition itinerary, the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah houses the lesson on Talmud Treatise Berachot by Rabbi Gianfranco Di Segni, translation Coordinator for the Talmud Project. An explanation of the technology used for the Italian translation of the Babylonian Talmud, by David Dattilo, Manager of […]

SHALOM ITALIAFilm by Tamar Tal Anati Thursday, May 10th – 11.00 amLiceo Statale Giosuè Carducci (Via della Canapa, 75-77 – Ferrara)Free entry Shalom can be translated as “peace”, but it is a word that Jews use at the same time as a greeting and a as a wish: “May you find peace”. And this is […]