When Hatred Enters the Lecture Hall, Italy Must Not Stay Silent
“Delete all your Jewish friends from Facebook — even the good ones.”
These were not the words of an anonymous extremist or a graffiti tag on a Roman wall. They were written, deliberately and publicly, by Professor Luca Nivarra, a tenured law professor at the University of Palermo. From the lectern where he should be shaping young minds, he chose instead to recycle one of Europe’s oldest poisons: the call to isolate Jews, to brand us as liars, and even to compare us to Adolf Eichmann.
For me, these are not just words on a screen. They are echoes. I am the great-granddaughter of Angelo Sonnino of Rome, deported and murdered in Auschwitz in 1944. My grandmother Silvana was left to mourn him in a black wedding dress when she married in the Great Synagogue of Rome in January 1945. Months later, she immigrated to Israel with my grandfather, David, who came with the British Brigades from then Palestine, to free Italy from the Nazis, and together they helped build the Jewish state. My family’s history is proof that antisemitism is never only rhetoric. When left unchecked, it becomes exclusion, deportation, destruction.
That is why the Palermo professor’s post should disturb not only Italy’s Jews but all Italians. Even when voiced by a single lecturer, the call to isolate Jews echoes a dangerous pattern. Words like these plant seeds of exclusion; seeds that, 90 years ago, on September 15, 1935, were codified into the Nuremberg Laws, when discrimination against Jews became legal, even respectable, with the backing of society’s elite. Italy cannot ignore the warning signs when echoes of that past reappear in its present.
The political and academic leaders’ condemnation of Professor Nivarra words is valued. The university distanced itself, and the Minister of Education called them dangerous. But condemnation is not enough. History shows us that antisemitism thrives when it is dismissed as just another opinion, or when it is excused as provocation. When hate speech is tolerated, it soon seeks company.
We already see this on Italian campuses today. In Pisa, about fifteen pro-Palestinian students stormed the lecture hall of Professor Rino Casella, climbing on his desk with megaphones, shouting “Free Palestine – Zionists out of the universities,” trying to seize his notes, and physically attacking him. Casella was punched and kicked, requiring hospital care and a week of recovery, while students who defended him were also beaten. In Turin, similar protests escalated into intimidation and threats directed at Jewish and pro-Israel students.
Today, Italy’s Jewish community is small, fewer than 30,000 people, yet it carries a heritage that has shaped Italian history for centuries. From Roman synagogues to Jewish writers, thinkers, and rabbis, our presence is woven into the fabric of this country. To allow antisemitism to grow unchecked is to betray the Jewish community and the democratic values on which Italy rebuilt itself after the Shoah.
As Deputy CEO of the International March of the Living, an organization that brings thousands of young people each year to Auschwitz-Birkenau to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, I marched in 2023 in Rome with my father, my daughters, and my Italian relatives who still live in the Jewish quarter of Rome. Three generations together, carrying forward the memory of Angelo Sonnino, the Italian Jewish community who was perished during the Holocaust, and of the six million who were silenced.
That is why we cannot stay silent now. Antisemitism today may wear new clothes – the language of social media, the anger of political debate, but its purpose is the same: to divide, to isolate, to dehumanize. According to the latest reports, antisemitic incidents in Italy nearly doubled in the past year, with Jewish communities facing daily harassment, vandalism, and online abuse. Let us be clear: this is not a criticism of Israeli government policy, but a direct call against Jews as Jews in Europe. Under the cover of the war in Gaza, dormant antisemitic voices are awakening and exploiting the moment to incite hatred and legitimize prejudice.
Italy must respond with more than statements. We need stronger education on the Holocaust and Jewish life. We need universities that stand against antisemitic words and also for the values of respect, pluralism, and responsibility. And we need a society that understands that an attack on Jews is an attack on Italy itself.
My great-grandfather could not imagine the Italy of today: democratic, open, a country where his descendants still march with pride as Italians. But he would recognize the danger of words that mark Jews as a problem. He lived and died through their consequences.
I march because Angelo cannot. I write because silence is no option. And I hope that Italy, my family’s homeland, will once again choose to stand against hate before words become deeds.
