When hate is met with silence, it grows in the shadows. Italy must choose: confront the darkness, or become complicit in its spread.
“It happened; therefore, it can happen again.”
In 2025, Italy stands at a dangerous crossroads. On one side stands the legacy of Renaissance humanism which taught people to value human life and individual achievement, encouraging the belief that humans are capable, rational, and worthy; the postwar vow of “Never Again,” and the proud restoration of Jewish synagogues and cemeteries. On the other is a resurgent, state-enabled, and publicly tolerated wave of antisemitism that has made daily life for Italy’s Jews, citizens, visitors, and children, an experience marked by fear, silence, and shame.
Ariella Walks to School Under Armed Guard
In Milan, ten-year-old Ariella walks to school each morning flanked by two Carabinieri officers. Her only crime? A Star of David keychain on her backpack. Her parents, third-generation Milanese Jews, are quietly debating emigration, not because of war, but because they no longer feel safe in Italy.
They are not alone.
In 2024, Italy recorded 877 antisemitic incidents, nearly double the 454 reported the previous year. Watchdogs describe a new brazenness: slurs shouted in open cafes, teachers justifying terrorism in classrooms, posters reading “Israeli not welcome” taped outside Jewish schools and kosher bakeries. According to Osservatorio Antisemitismo, 75 percent of Italian Jews now hide their identity in public, and 98 percent report encountering antisemitism in daily life.
This is not coexistence. It is quiet persecution.
Culture of Preservation, Culture of Fear
Italy continues to restore synagogues, and host exhibitions like “Houses of Life” in Ferrara. The Yiddishland Pavilion at the 2024 Venice Biennale was a conceptual triumph, a space where no nation claimed ownership, where identity itself was defiant. But what’s the value of restoring a synagogue if its congregants are afraid to enter it?
“The level of pro-Hamas propaganda in Italy is insane,” said Davide Romano, Director of the Jewish Brigade Museum in Milan. “It’s no longer underground. It’s public, organized, emboldened.”
When Governments Signal and Localities Sabotage
Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has spoken forcefully, calling Jewish communities, “essential to Italian and European identity” and denouncing antisemitism. But her government’s pro-Israel stance is being undermined from within.
Since October 7, 2023, Italy has frozen arms exports to Israel, and Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani now calls Israel’s actions in Gaza, “dramatic and unacceptable” (June 2025). Meanwhile, municipalities and regional governments have become active participants in marginalization:
- Sesto Fiorentino banned Israeli-made cosmetics and medications from public pharmacies.
- Tuscany, Emilia-Romagna, and Puglia severed ties with Israeli authorities.
- The Council of Milan’s 6th District passed a resolution condemning Israel, without a single mention of Hamas’s butchery on October 7.
“In Milan, antisemitic stickers are appearing again. But instead of addressing that, our local officials debate foreign policy,” said Walker Meghnagi, President of Milan’s Jewish Community, in Il Giorno (July 2025). “This is not just negligence. It’s sabotage.”
Antisemitism Is Not an Opinion: It’s a Violation
Let’s stop pretending this is “just criticism of Israel.” That lie has worn thin. When Jewish students are pressured to hide their identity, when far-left groups circulate a blacklist of Jews and “Zionist sympathizers,” when supermarket chains promote “Cola Gaza” while banning Israeli imports, this is not diplomacy. It is economic warfare against a people.
“Either all the Jews show themselves to be 100 percent solid for Fascism, or the whole Jewish community in Italy will be persecuted.” — Gaetano Salvemini, March 1934
The quote is not from today. But it could be.
The Enablers and the Apologists
Some of this hate is shouted. Most of it is whispered. All of it is dangerous.
- Mayor Beppe Sala (Milan): Refused to commemorate Israeli children killed on Oct. 7, but lit City Hall in solidarity with Gaza.
- Gabriele Rubini: At a March 2025 Pisa rally, warned that pro-Israel journalists should “fear for their children.”
- Maisa (UDAP activist): Celebrated Hamas’s massacre as “a day we claim with heads held high.”
- Coop Italia: Briefly boycotted Israeli products and promoted pro-Gaza alternatives, reversing only after intense pressure.
And Then… Silence
The most insidious weapon of all is not rhetoric. It is silence. From mayors. Professors. Priests. Celebrities. Unions.
The Vatican, which frequently speaks about the dignity of humanity, has offered general prayers for peace but has stopped short of explicitly denouncing Hamas’s atrocities or directly addressing the daily challenges faced by Italy’s Jewish citizens. The European Union, while consistently condemning antisemitism in official statements, has been criticized for its slow and uneven response, often failing to censure member states accused of enabling antisemitism through boycotts or double standards.
The Danger of Acceptable Hate
“Antisemitism in Italy,” says sociologist Betti Guetta, “is becoming socially accepted—especially when framed as anti-Zionism. But the hate is unchanged.”
The consequences are clear: Auschwitz survivor and Senator-for-life Liliana Segre, one of Italy’s few living moral compasses, is again the target of online abuse so vile that prosecutors have opened a new investigation into 86 accounts. Eighty-six. In 2025. In Italy.
There Is Resistance
On June 2, 2025, over 1,150 Italian intellectuals and journalists signed a petition titled “In Support of Israel and Against the Hunt for Jews.” It warned:
“The extermination of the Jews is once again a realizable possibility. Smartphones and cameras brought us images of beheadings and children burned alive. And yet, some call it resistance.”
This was not a headline. It was a reckoning.
Italy Must Choose
You cannot quote Primo Levi at a book festival and walk past a Jewish school guarded by police without comment. You cannot mourn Anne Frank while ignoring Ariella. You cannot claim “Never Again” and then do nothing at all.
This is not about foreign policy. It’s about who we are.
My Call to You
If you are Jewish and Italian, speak louder. If you are Italian and not Jewish, speak first. Write to your mayor. Challenge your professors. Defend the Jewish kid on your street. Show up. Push back. Because history does not begin with violence. It begins with indifference.
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Elinor Garely is an international editor, journalist, and wine/travel analyst. She writes about the intersection of culture, politics, and memory. This is personal.
InMyPersonalOpinion.Life – Because silence is not an option.
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