"A thread of grace."
"There's a saying in Hebrew," he says. " 'No matter how dark the tapestry God weaves for us, there's always a thread of grace.'"
"I think that in those days, the decisions to help, or to fight, or to hide, or to give up, or to collaborate -- those decisions were made so quickly, so spontaneously, that we must look to the years before the war to see why people did what they did. Strength and weakness are established long before a crisis."
Dr.Mary Russell
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161BCE — Two envoys of Judah Maccabee are the first Jews to travel to Rome.
100 — Oldest known synagogue in Western Europe is established in Ostia,, the port of Rome.
1593 — Pope Clement VIII expels the Jews living in all the papal states, except Rome.
1757 — Under the rule of the House of Lorraine, Jews obtain the right to the keys to the ghetto of Florence.
1796 — Between 1796-1798 French troops led by Napoleon liberate many Italian ghettos.
1808 — Under Napoleon, Jews are freed from the ghetto of Florence, but are forced to return in 1815, with the restoration of the House of Lorraine.
1861 — With the unification of Italy, with Florence as the first capital, the Jews are emancipated and the ghettos are abolished.
1890 — The ghetto of Florence is demolished, allowing reconstruction of the town center, now the Piazza della Republica.
1904 — The Great Synagogue of Rome is built.
By Elizabeth D. Malissa
"There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them."- Ray Bradbury
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