And I finally understood the Emek :Italian Jews and the national semantics of Palestine (1927-1948)

A brief description of the contents of your lecture (1-3 sentences) The lecture is a reflection on the perception/implication of spatial experience of Palestine – before the foundation of the State of Israel – in shaping the national identity of the Jews who emigrated to it. I will tackle the topic through a diachronic reconstruction of the phenomenon of the settlement of Italian Jews, measuring the epistemological value of this case study and enquiring its degree of representativeness for the dynamics of identity national negotiation of the emigrants between the native homeland and the “old-new” land. c. Background to your lecture and conceptual explanation including reference to prior research where appropriate (consisting of no more than 200 words) As a fundamental trope in the elaboration of the national identity, “space” has to be intended as a relational concept involving territorial location as well as historical and cultural legacy, social activities and an innate semantics that converts into a national narrative . If covered with ideological meaning, “space” turns into “place” and the process of allocation demarcates, and awards with political agency, such categories as inside/outside and present/past For those who emigrated, Eretz Israel shifted from topos of Zionist discourse to category of practice , to an ever-changing present: to settle, to root in the Jewish place, represented for the Italian Jews the unique path for rejuvenating their identity after and before Diaspora, intended as a political and socio-cultural experience of the past. However, since the nature of the process of national definition of Italian Jews was historically dichotomous and since the settlement didn’t corresponded with a complete denial of the past heritage , I found appropriate to perceive amid the categories inside/outside and present/past not impregnable rather blurring boundaries, and, as such, to shed light not exclusively on the manifest ruptures, but also on the social and ideological nexuses between the Diasporic and the Palestinian experience (e. g preference for the urban settlement and polycentric distribution that remind the socio-geographical experience of the Jews of Italy during XIX and XX century). d. 1-3 research question(s) which you intend to address - How spatial practices are implicated in national identity formation? [general epistemological question] - How does the spatial practice of Palestine become a focus of the dynamics of negotiation of the emigrants’ national identity? [research question calibrated on the case study] e. Details of the innovative contribution of your research As first contribution, the lecture focuses on the branch of Italian Jewry who emigrated to Palestine, that, in spite of its numerical tininess offers a fruitful horizon for a reflection on the topic of national identity-shaping dynamics in the particular Jewish context and in a broader one. Moreover, with this presentation, I investigate this issue not from the perspective of the “history of ideas”, but through the less usual lens of spatial practices. The choice of this synthetic approach that conjugates and bends the geographical sight with the aim of an historical analysis, is suggested and made possible by the rich and varied sources crossed for the purpose. From one side there are official documents that, through percentages, reports and statistics, permit a precise reconstruction of the phenomenon, focusing, among the others, on the preferred zones of concentration or on the most adopted settlement solutions. From the other side stands the great variety of personal sources elaborated by emigrants, that bestow an inner perspective. Letters, chronicles and memories disclose the signification attributed by the emigrants to their experience in, and of, Palestine and consequently allow a reflection on its value in the process of national self-definition. Reading the history of the Italian Yishuv in political and ideological terms as I aim to do will contribute also to broaden the restricted scholarship produced on the subject until now, that has essentially concentrated on demographical or historical analysis. With this lecture, finally, my goal is to suggest a set of considerations that partially recalibrate that sort of pan-kibbutzism that seems to dominate Italian prior studies on the subject. It’s undoubted that the collectivistic solution was the option chosen by an important part of Italian emigrants and it’s equally true that its revolutionary charge solicited a broad analysis of that historical experience. Nevertheless, I claim that the scholarship’s attention has been somehow over-magnetized by the exceptionality, by the character of unicum exemplified by the kibbutz, and elevated it to the paradigm of the Italian experience in Palestine. On the contrary, a more rigorous adherence to the sources bares the different perspective of the majority of italkim dwelling in cities and this acquisition claims for an historical interpretation. As much as sources reveal, I’ll attempt to articulate a reflection on the preference for urban settlement in “national terms”, showing from one hand the ideological dimension concealed by that choice, that was more than a neutral solution or the abjuration from the political commitment typically associated to the kibbutz’s option. From the other hand I’ll try to explain that tendency in the light of the dialectic present/past that, as I mentioned, characterizes the acquaintance with space. Since in the late XIX and XX century the majority of the Jews of Italy resided in the major cities of the country and mostly belonged to the middle class, the preference for the urban model in Palestine can be read as a feature of continuity with the Diasporical experience, a trait of permanence with the historical heritage of the past in the negotiation of the national identity. f. An outline of your lecture plus conclusions (no more than 250 words) I will open with a slight profile of the first generation of emigrants, in order to elucidate the socio-political preconditions of the phenomenon of Italian ‘alyià. The heart of the lecture will be constituted by a detailed analysis of the acquaintance with the space of Palestine, structured into three consequential and intertwined perspectives: the dichotomy cooperative/urban choice; territorial distribution policies and everyday experience. I’ll provide a diachronic reconstruction and support the discourse with exemplifications taken primarily from emigrants’ personal sources that are methodologically necessary for the comprehension of the role played, as well as of the value attributed, to the “practice of Palestine” in the shaping of the national identity. I’ll propose two sets of considerations: the first is the suggestion of the “scale national identity” as a possible reading key for the phenomenon, a concept that links the locus, that is the choice and the practice of a precise space within the Palestinian territory, with the ethos, that is the assumption and the modelling of a defined understanding of nation. The second evaluation deals with the balance between the (past) Italian and the (contemporary) Palestinian heritage; I’ll shed light not only on the evident aspects of ruptures and change, but also on those of continuity between the Diasporic and emigrational experience, that, in my opinion, recall the bifocal character of the national definition process embraced by Italian Jews.