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New rabbi hopes to revive Turin’s shrinking Jewish population
This article was produced as part of JTA’s Teen Journalism Fellowship, a program that works with teens across the world to report on issues that impact their lives.
TURIN (JTA) — The ancient Jewish community of Turin, in northern Italy, located in the multi-ethnic neighborhood San Salvario, isn’t hard to find. Visitors just need to point their nose upward and look for the domes of the 140-year-old synagogue.
What is hard to find is young people to fill the pews.
Most of Italy’s 30,000 Jews live in Rome and Milan. Smaller communities, like the one in Turin, struggle to survive. Since 1989, new enrollments in Turin’s Jewish community have steadily dropped. In 2001 there were fewer than 1,000, according to the institution’s archives. Today, membership stands at 748, of whom only 19% are under 30 years of age.
Those over 65 represent 55% of Turin’s Jewish residents, according to the community secretariat. There are only 21 Jewish people under 18 in Turin. Worldwide the Jewish population is growing, with a total of almost 15 million Jews.
Former community leader Giuseppe Segre is putting his hope in the next chief rabbi of Turin, Ariel Finzi. Since Finzi took office in September, he has set educating young Jews in Turin as a top goal.
Rabbi Ariel Finzi and his wife Tiziana. (Courtesy of Ariel Finzi)
Born and raised in Turin, he moved to Israel where he studied advanced programming. He earned a degree in engineering from the Technion in Haifa and eventually found his way to IBM. He completed his rabbinical studies in Turin and then moved to Naples, where he became the chief rabbi seven years ago. As the son of a former Hebrew school teacher, Finzi, 62, said he wants to teach young people about Torah.
At his inauguration, Finzi called the situation in Turin a “demographic crisis,” He said the current situation “derives in turn from a crisis of our personal and collective Jewish identity, which we will have to try to face with courage and sincerity together with our young and very young,” he said to a group of 300 attendees.
In an interview with JTA he reiterated that young people have always been a priority for him. “I have only recently arrived, but I have always had a great passion for teaching Judaism to the youngest,” he said. “We need to look for a common language.”
Finzi wants to organize private lessons with young people, to talk to them personally and understand their problems with Judaism. He plans to arrange for young people to lead prayers in the synagogue in order to stimulate their active participation.
Turin is the birthplace of one of the world’s most famous Jews: Primo Levi, Holocaust survivor and author of “If This is a Man” (titled “Survival in Auschwitz” in the United States). The city also played a key role in the struggle against Nazism in World War II through the Partisan Resistance, for which the city as a whole was awarded a gold medal for military valor in 1959.
Young Jewish Turinese are worried they are involved in a problem that is too serious for them to solve.“I have few Jewish friends with whom I can go to synagogue and celebrate Jewish holidays, and this certainly saddens and bores me,” said David Foa, 12.
Rabbi Ariel Finzi, center, in the synagogue of Turin, Italy. (https://moked.it/)
However, for Filippo Tedeschi, 27, who now lives in Florence, his time in Turin strengthened his connection to Judaism because he was one of the few Jewish teens. “I knew I had many friends with whom I shared differences,” he said. “I was in a certain respect different from them, but I always believed that belonging to a minority was a value that should be defended.”
The disappearance of young people is due to two main factors: a very low birth rate in most of Europe and the recent emigration to Israel by young people looking for more promising job prospects.
Young people in Turin rarely engage in Jewish activities, beyond attending services on special occasions like Pesach, Kippur or Purim with their relatives. Turin Jewish leaders are trying to figure out what the life of this community may be in the coming years.
“To counteract the absence of young people, it is essential to try to establish a safer channel of communication with them,” said Segre, the former president of the community. He also suggested stimulating teen’s membership in Jewish youth movements such as Hashomer Hatzair or the Union of Young Italian Jews.
The problem is that there are still very few young people, and even if they attended assiduously the situation would hardly change. But Finzi has already seen some improvements. “At Simchat Torah there were a lot of young people in the synagogue, and a Shabbaton has already been organized here in Turin,” he said.
To bring young people back together, the community is also trying to organize fun activities. Rabbi Finzi is helping to organize a soccer game in a few weeks to be played in the Valentino Park near the community.
“The absence of young people greatly penalizes our community, which is struggling to adapt with the times,” said Turin’s new rabbi. “This problem is certainly due to an important biological factor, but all of this makes the situation very complex and delicate. The community needs new blood to continue living.”
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‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards
At last year’s Academy Awards, Anora — a frenetic, somewhat ambiguously Jewish look at a Jewish enclave of New York, took home best picture, original screenplay, director and actress for its Jewish lead Mikey Madison. This year, we have a film that feels, in some ways, quite parallel, while cranking the Yiddishkeit to 11: Josh Safdie’s breathless picaresque Marty Supreme, set on the Lower East Side, is up for best picture and its star, Timothée Chalamet is a favorite for best actor.
There’s also Blue Moon, Richard Linklater’s portrait of Jewish lyricist Lorenz Hart’s breakup with composer Richard Rodgers (Ethan Hawke is up for best actor). And One Battle After Another, a campy and absurdist satire about the infiltration of white supremacists in the U.S. government, is poised to have a massive night, with the blockbuster Sinners serving as its main competition.
That all goes to say that it’s another great year for Jewish stories at the Oscars, with some really compelling fodder for discussion about the place that Jews occupy today in arts and media. What stories are we telling and how are they received?
Here, as ever, the Forward culture team is here to break it all down for you, live as it unfolds. Of course, we cover Jewish movies all year. But at the Academy Awards, we get to see how the rest of the world feels about these movies. We will be updating this story with our thoughts throughout the ceremony.
Traditionally, as we begin these Oscars roundtables, we discuss what we’re all wearing and eating. What’ve we got?
Olivia: brown sweater and jeans; no food but aggressively chewing mint gum. I will later be drinking some of the seltzer I got from Brooklyn’s Seltzer Fest today.
Mira: I did a bunch of cooking for the week so I have vegetarian avgolemono soup and Alison Roman’s fennel salad. (I’m obsessed with this salad.) I am proudly wearing hard pants.
PJ: I am reheating some chicken from last night. Wearing a blue sweater with a little toggle and jeans. How many of Stellan Skarsgård’s large adult sons are here? In other l’dor v’dor news, Bill Pullman just mentioned how they filmed the Spaceballs sequel with his son Lewis.
Talya: I believe I’m wearing the exact same sweater I donned for this event last year — where’s my award for consistency? And, as always, sweatpants; I cannot comprehend suffering through this event in jeans.
Discussion of Israeli-Palestinian protests on the red carpet
Mira: Love a toggle. Speaking of outfits, anyone have thoughts on Odessa A’zion’s spangled red carpet set? She is one of the only people who styles herself on the red carpet, which I do respect.
Olivia: A’Zion’s outfit kind of looks like she forgot to tie whatever was supposed to be holding it up. I don’t think it looks bad, just like it’s falling down.
PJ: It wouldn’t look out of place hanging from the window of a VW van with shag carpet and some Tibetan prayer flags.
Mira: Of note, the past several years have seen protesters approaching people on their way into the ceremony, and a lot of pins on the red carpet taking a stance on the Israel-Hamas war, largely pro-Palestinian ones. We’re seeing less of that this year — though not none. Javier Bardem posted a photo of him wearing a pin reading “no to the war” in Spanish, along with another pin featuring Handala, a cartoon boy considered a symbol of Palestinians. The team of The Voice of Hind Rajab, nominated for best foreign film, are also wearing red pins with a white dove.
PJ: Those have replaced the red hand ArtistsforCeasefire pins, which some said recalled the bloody palms of Palestinians who killed IDF soldiers in 2000.
Olivia: A reporter for ABC in a pre-recorded segment asked executive producers and showrunners for the ceremony Raj Kapoor and Katy Mullan if anything would get bleeped, such as mentions of Trump, Israel and Palestine. Recently, the BBC removed director Akinola Davies Jr’s call for a “Free Palestine” from their BAFTA stream. Kapoor asserted that the night’s production team supports free speech, but we’ll see what transpires over the course of the night.
The post ‘Marty Supreme’ and everything else Jewish at this year’s Academy Awards appeared first on The Forward.
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US Sends Additional Arms to Israel to Sustain Iran Operations
The first of two Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) interceptors is launched during a successful intercept test. Photo: US Army.
i24 News – The United States has recently increased shipments of munitions to Israel to support ongoing Israeli air operations against Iran.
According to reports broadcast by the public radio network Kan Reshet Bet, several weapons deliveries have arrived in Israel in recent days as part of what officials describe as an ongoing airlift aimed at sustaining the pace of military strikes.
Since the start of the campaign, Israeli forces are believed to have dropped more than 11,000 bombs on targets across Iran.
The shipments come as reports emerge about a potential shortage of ballistic missile interceptors in Israel. US officials told the news outlet Semafor that Israel’s interceptor stockpiles have been heavily used during the conflict.
According to those sources, Washington had already been aware for months that supplies could become strained, though it remains unclear whether the United States would be willing to share its own interceptor reserves. Israeli officials have since rejected claims that such a shortage exists.
Unlike the Iron Dome, which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and projectiles, ballistic missile interceptors serve as Israel’s primary defense against long-range missile threats. Fighter jets can also be used to attempt interceptions, though this method is considered a supplementary measure to missile defense systems.
Meanwhile, the Israeli government has taken additional budgetary steps to support the war effort. During an overnight vote between Saturday and Sunday, ministers approved a roughly 1 billion shekel reduction across various ministry budgets to help finance classified military purchases linked to Operation “Roar of the Lion.”
The government had already approved a 3 percent cut in ministry budgets, a move expected to increase the defense budget by approximately 30 billion shekels as the conflict continues.
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Pope Leo Decries ‘Atrocious Violence’ in Iran War, Urges Ceasefire
Pope Leo XIV leads the Angelus prayer from a window of the Apostolic Palace, at the Vatican, March 15, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Matteo Minnella
Pope Leo made an impassioned plea on Sunday for an immediate ceasefire in the expanding Iran war, lamenting “atrocious violence” that he said had killed thousands of non-combatants and caused suffering across the region.
As the US-Israeli war on Iran enters its third week, the first US pope warned that violence would not bring the justice, stability and peace that the peoples of the region long for.
“For two weeks, the peoples of the Middle East have been suffering the atrocious violence of war,” the pope said at his weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter’s Square.
“In the name of Christians in the Middle East and of all women and men of good will, I appeal to those responsible for this conflict: Cease fire!” Pope Leo said.
IDEA THAT WAR SOLVES PROBLEMS IS ‘ABSURD’
Leo added that the situation in Lebanon – ravaged by a war between Israel and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah – was also a cause of “great concern.”
“I hope for paths of dialogue that can support the country’s authorities in implementing lasting solutions to the serious crisis currently underway, for the common good of all the Lebanese people,” the pope said.
During a visit to a Rome parish later, the pope said war could never resolve problems and hit out at people who invoke God to justify killings.
“Today many of our brothers and sisters in the world are suffering because of violent conflicts, caused by the absurd claim that problems and disagreements can be resolved through war, when instead we must engage in unceasing dialogue for peace,” he said during his homily.
“Some even go so far as to invoke the name of God to justify these choices of death, but God cannot be enlisted by darkness. Rather, He always comes to bring light, hope and peace to humanity.”