Metadata: General affairs, correspondence with Jewish Institutions
Collection
- Country:
- Italy
- Holding institution:
- Centre of Contemporary Jewish Documentation
- Holding institution (official language):
- Fondazione Centro di documentazione ebraica contemporanea
- Postal address:
- via Eupili 8, 20145 Milano
- Phone number:
- +39 02316338
- Web address:
- http://www.cdec.it/
- Email:
- cdec@cdec.it
- Reference number:
- I° versamento: boxes 2, 43, 15, 39; II° versamento: boxes 24, 25bis, 26, 27, 28, 31, 68
- Title:
- General affairs, correspondence with Jewish Institutions
- Title (official language):
- Affari generali, corrispondenza con istituzioni ebraiche
- Creator/accumulator:
- Milan Jewish Community
- Date(s):
- 1931-1988
- Date note:
- Jewish-related material dates from 1931-1941; 1945-1988
- Extent:
- 1 register; 16 files
- Physical condition:
- good
- Scope and content:
- The sub-series comprises the official correspondence between the Community, represented by its secretaries and presidents, with the leadership of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities (U.C.I.I., now U.C.E.I., Unione delle Comunità Ebraiche Italiane, Union of Italian Jewish Communities). There are also files of letters with the Trieste section of the EDII, a pamphlet of the Unione democratica degli amici di Israele (UDAI, Democratic Union of Friends of Israel), minutes of the meetings of the presidents of the Jewish institutions in Milan held at the initiative of the president of the Milan Community in order to coordinate the activities of the individual institutions, correspondence on the activity of Keren kayemet le Israel with entries in the Golden Book, agendas, minutes, reports with budgets and estimates, inheritances of Alice Kaufmann and Bianca Rimini, campaigns for the collection of funds, correspondence with the Consulate of Israel with requests of temporary visas and emigration permits to Israel, a copy of the appointment of Astorre Mayer as honorary consul of Israel in Milan, correspondence with the Jewish Agency for Palestine and Israel to search for missing persons, a report on the rights of immigrants, general correspondence with Yad Vashem, printed texts in Hebrew, a register of names belonging to the members of the Milan Zionist group, circulars and notices of the Italian Zionist Federation (1957; 1962; 1964-1967), of the World Zionist Organisation (1965-1966), of the B'Nai B'rith (1959-1964) and of the Benè-Akiva movement of Italy (1965, 1967), with a report by the General Secretary Alfredo Rabello at the congress of the Torah we-Israel, papers of the IEDI, of the Italian Maccabi Federation, of the Federazione giovanile ebraica (FGEI, Jewish Youth Federation) and of the Hashomer Ha-zair in Italy (1965, 1973).
- Administrative/biographical history:
- The Community of Milan, with its origins as a section of Mantua’s Community, developed around the middle of the 19th century, following the arrival of numerous Mantuan Jews who fled the violent antisemitic demonstrations of 1842. In Milan, without a real official and organised community, the relations with the mother community were governed by the Austrian civil code, according to which smaller communities must refer to the larger ones. Only in 1855 was the Jewish Consortium established, the first Jewish organisation in Milan, which in 1866 broke away from Mantua. The consortium did not assume the legal characteristics dictated by the Rattazzi law but reaffirmed its nature as a voluntary association with the only commitment for the members being the contributions for its maintenance. Thanks to the sudden economic, industrial and commercial development of Milan, the community grew rapidly: in 1890 it had 2,000 members, in the 1930s 8,000 Jews arrived from Piedmont, Marche, Tuscany and Veneto but also from Germany and from Central and Eastern Europe. In October 1930 the Council of Ministers approved the Royal Decree 1731, the new law on the Jewish communities and on the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities. A few days after the approval of the decree, Federico Jarach was elected the first president of the Jewish Community of Milan. In 1938 on the eve of antisemitic laws, the Community of Milan had just 5,000 members out of a total Jewish population of about 8,000 people. At the end of the Second World War, the Community of Milan became a crossing point for many refugees and survivors of the Nazi concentration camps, collaborating with relief organisations such as the Joint, ADEI-WIZO, the ORT, and UNRRA using the building of via Unione 5 as the main reception, research and sorting centre for Jews returning from concentration camps. In the 1950s the community welcomed groups of Jews from Egypt, Syria, Libya, Lebanon, Iraq and Iran who settled in Milan because they were fleeing the Arab-Israeli wars, giving rise to an integration process that changed the original face of the Milanese community. Today it includes the districts of Como, Pavia, Sondrio and Varese.
- Access points: locations:
- Milan
- Access points: persons/families:
- Mayer, Astorre, 1906-1977
- Rabello, Alfredo Mordechai
- Subject terms:
- Aliyah
- Jewish community
- Zionism
- Yerusha Network member:
- Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center - Milan
- Author of the description:
- Paola Cipolla
