Vittorio Foa, an anti-fascist resistance fighter who became the grand old man of the Italian left, died at the age of 98.
Born into a Jewish family in Turin in 1910, Foa, the grandson of a rabbi, became an anti-fascist activist in his youth and was jailed by the fascist regime in 1936. Freed by the Allies during World War II, he joined the resistance movement. After the war, he became a leftist trade union leader and member of parliament.
Foa was also a journalist and the author of numerous books.
Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano called Foa, who died Monday, "one of the figures of greatest integrity and moral and intellectual stature of Italian politics and trade unionism of the 20th century."
Rome’s Jewish community praised him for "never renouncing his Jewish identity even though he was not a practicing Jew."
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
