7 October 2026
Jewish Community of Bologna
President Daniele De Paz
Dear friends,
Shalom.
ב"ה
Three years have passed since 7 October 2023. Three years since that Simchat Torah morning when armed men forced their way into homes, kibbutzim, streets, and a music festival to kill, rape, and kidnap. Three years during which we have mourned the victims, awaited the return of the hostages, and suffered because of a terrible war and all the innocent lives it has torn apart.
Yet today, alongside the grief for what happened that day, we must also speak about what has happened since.
Because 7 October was not just a massacre.
It has also become the battleground for a war over truth, memory, and the very meaning of words.
Last year, right from this very place, we warned of the risk that the last bulwarks of decency had broken.
Today we must observe, with bitterness, that those bulwarks have not been rebuilt.
We have progressively witnessed the overturning of reality: the massacre has been relativised, contextualised almost to the point of justification; the victims have been made responsible for what they suffered; and those who carried out that slaughter are sometimes described as combatants, partisans, or even as protagonists of a new "Resistance".
No.
On this we must be very clear.
People can demonstrate for the Palestinian people.
People can harshly criticise the Israeli Government.
People can contest its political and military decisions.
People can debate the future of Israel and Palestine, and we ourselves may hold profoundly differing opinions.
But a democracy must still be capable of drawing a line.
Terrorism is not Resistance.
The massacre of civilians is not a liberation struggle.
The abduction of children and the elderly is not a political act.
And above all, what happened after 7 October cannot retroactively change what happened on 7 October.
That morning, men, women, children, and the elderly were murdered and kidnapped. They were victims then. They remain victims today.
Yet what should concern us most is that this reversal is no longer confined to extremist fringes. We find it within parts of the political spectrum, trade unions, local administrations, and associations. We encounter it in the worlds of culture and information. And, even more seriously, we encounter it in schools and universities—precisely in the places where method, complexity, and respect for facts ought to be taught.
Bologna has experienced the consequences of this climate at first hand. We have seen demonstrations degenerate into intimidation and violence, with the city held hostage by groups who believe their cause authorises behaviours that no cause can ever authorise.
And all too often, politics has chosen to simply watch. The Police have been left with the task of managing on the streets the consequences of what others have lacked the courage to condemn politically.
This must make us reflect. Because when a society can no longer distinguish between dissent and intimidation, between solidarity and the justification of terrorism, between freedom of expression and the celebration of violence, the problem no longer concerns Jews alone.
It concerns the quality of our democracy.
It is in this context that we must also view the parliamentary debate on the bill to combat antisemitism.
We consider it important that the Italian Parliament feels the need to address a phenomenon that in recent years has assumed dimensions and forms that can no longer be underestimated.
And it is important that legislators seek to provide institutions with the tools to recognise, prevent, and combat it. Yet precisely for this reason, we wish to express a concern.
We would not want even the fight against antisemitism to be swallowed up by the same ideological polarisation that is poisoning public debate.
Antisemitism cannot be treated as a right-wing issue when denounced by the left, and a left-wing issue when denounced by the right. It cannot be recognised only when it comes from a political opponent and relativised when it occurs within one's own camp.
As Emanuele Fiano recently reminded us, combating antisemitism cannot be a partisan banner. It should be one of those common grounds where a democracy recovers a shared language, beyond all political affiliations.
Above all, it must not be turned into yet another battleground on which to fight the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by proxy.
Antisemitism concerns Italian Jews.
It concerns their safety.
It concerns their freedom to live their identity openly.
And it concerns Italian democracy.
For this reason, we hope that Parliament will approach this law by shielding it from propaganda and the political expediency of the moment.
A good law against antisemitism must not prevent the criticism of Israel. Instead, it must enable us to recognise when criticism of Israel ceases to be political critique and becomes the demonisation of Jews, the denial of their right to self-determination, the application of double standards, and the intimidation of Italian Jewish Communities.
Because we are Italian citizens. And we cannot accept that a young Italian Jewish student should have to answer for the decisions of the Israeli Government in order to enter a university with peace of mind. We cannot accept that a Jewish Community should be called upon to take a stand on an international conflict in order to deserve solidarity when it is threatened. And we cannot accept that Jews are implicitly asked to dissociate themselves from Israel in order to be considered acceptable Jews.
This is not political criticism. It is an ancient mechanism, using new words today.
Three years after 7 October, we must therefore ask ourselves what we wish to remember.
Certainly the victims. Certainly the horror of that day. But we must also remember what that day taught us.
It taught us how rapidly a society can lose its ability to distinguish facts from narratives. How rapidly hatred can become ordinary language.
And how dangerous it is when violence—provided it is directed against someone we have decided is the enemy—starts to appear understandable, justifiable, and even heroic.
This is why today we do not ask for uncritical solidarity towards Israel.
We ask for something much simpler and, perhaps, much harder: we ask for honesty.
Honesty in distinguishing criticism from hatred.
Honesty in acknowledging Palestinian pain without erasing Israeli pain.
Honesty in defending the Palestinians' right to a future without denying that of the Israelis.
Honesty in recognising that no peace can be built on the negation of the other.
Above all, we ask that 7 October remains 7 October.
That it is not rewritten. That it is not refashioned. That it is not used to build a new political mythology in which murderers become heroes and victims vanish from history.
We continue to believe in the possibility of coexistence. We continue to believe that Israelis and Palestinians have the right to live, each in their own land, in security and dignity. We continue to believe in dialogue precisely because we know the price of hatred. But dialogue does not stem from the erasure of truth.
It stems from its recognition.
Because without truth, there is no memory.
Without memory, there is no responsibility.
And without responsibility, no peace can exist.
May the memory of the victims of 7 October be for a blessing.
And may their memory give us the strength not to fuel further hatred, but to defend truth, human dignity, and the possibility—still—of building a future of coexistence.
Shalom.