The Italian Government has given assurance it intends to prevent any recurrence of such anti-Semitic developments as the invasion of the Jewish quarter of Rome in May by election campaigners of the right-wing Movimento Socialo Italiano.
The issue arose in the Italian Senate during a debate on the clashes between Jews and rightists which followed the entry of the campaigners into the Jewish section. Senator Nencioni, a member of the MSI, said his party abjured anti-Semitism and accused Interior Minister Taviani of showing partiality in his action on the incident. When the campaigners threw stones at a synagogue and shouted anti-Semitic epithets, enraged Jews attacked and injured some of the right-wingers before police halted the fighting.
In reply to the Senator, the Minister declared that the Government firmly intended “to prevent any reappearance of anti-Semitic manifestations.” He said this objective was “in accordance not only with the constitutional guarantees of freedom for every citizen but also with the moral imperative of the civilized conscience which refutes any kind of discrimination.”
The Minister noted he had already given that assurance to the Rome Jewish community. He implied that anti-Semitism was forced on the Italian people during the Hitler-Mussolini partnership “against their will and against their sentiments” and added that Italians had “their own reasons to join the whole civilized world in its condemnation of anti-Semitism.”
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.
