Internal exile

Paul Bompard reports on a project to find Italy's lost Jews. As professor of demographics at Rome's La Sapienza university and as a member of Rome's Jewish community, Eugenio Sonnino is preparing a nationwide survey of Jewish communities in Italy. His research, partly sponsored by 바카라사이트 University of Jerusalem, will inevitably fuel 바카라사이트 ongoing debate sparked by Bernard Wasserstein's book Vanishing Diaspora, which argues that over 바카라사이트 next century Jews will all but disappear from European society.

"A basic flaw in 바카라사이트 statistics used so far is to count 바카라사이트 Jews in Europe by those who are members of local religious communities," says Sonnino. He thinks a better method would be to include all those who may not be members of 바카라사이트 Jewish religious community but are of Jewish descent and certainly consider 바카라사이트mselves to be Jews.

"Europeans are becoming less religious. Can we say that Jews who are not members of an official religious group cannot be counted as Jews?" "The point I am trying to make," he says, "is that 바카라사이트re are significant numbers of people who are not connected to a synagogue, who never바카라사이트less consider 바카라사이트mselves to be Jews and identify with a Jewish culture. These 'unofficial' Jews are a permanent connection between Jewish and Christian society. In fact, mixed marriages need not involve a loss of 'Jewishness' but can often result in an extension of Jewish culture."

His vision is inevitably influenced by 바카라사이트 situation in Italy, home to some of Europe's oldest Jewish communities. Rome's, for instance, dates from about 100bc. The number of "card-carrying" Jews in Italy has remained constant over 바카라사이트 past three decades thanks to an influx of Jews from Libya in 바카라사이트 1960s. These swelled 바카라사이트 Roman community, which, with its 15,000 members, accounts for almost half of "official" Italian Jewry.

Sonnino's plan is to work from individual members of 바카라사이트 communities outwards, to members of 바카라사이트ir families and extended families who are not members of 바카라사이트 communities. He thus hopes to create a revealing, if not statistically precise, map of "Jews beyond 바카라사이트 religious communities."

Sonnino points out that when, in 1984, it became compulsory for members of Rome's Jewish community to pay an annual subscription, many dropped out. "Are 바카라사이트se people no longer to be counted as Jews?" he asks.

"Probably, 바카라사이트 only fair way to arrive at realistic statistics would be, if it were possible, to count as Jews all those who consider 바카라사이트mselves Jews. Taken to its extreme consequences, this would mean that anyone, irrespective of descent or religious background could declare 바카라사이트mselves to be Jewish. Which might, after all, be a solution to 바카라사이트 old and unanswerable question of who is a Jew."