Event details

Piazzetta Primo Levi 12

Sunday 11.10.2026 10:30

Organizers

  • Associazione Medica Ebraica,
  • Comunità ebraica Torino,

The contribution of Italian Jews to the construction of the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem

In 1939, Hadassah Hospital was established on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem—built, in part, thanks to Italian minds. Minds that Italy, during those very years, had decided to no longer regard as Italian.
This conference, *Exile and Rebirth*, begins with a paradox: those driven from a place still find a way, elsewhere, to leave an enduring mark.
We will recount the stories of Enzo Bonaventura, Enrico Emilio Franco, Anna Di Gioacchino Cassuto, and Roberto Bachi—lives shaped by diverse backgrounds, spanning medicine, psychoanalysis, statistics, and laboratory research—
lives scattered by exile, yet brought together again through this event.

10:30 AM – Official Welcomes
Dr. Dario Disegni – President, Jewish Community of Turin
Dr. Rosanna Supino – President, Jewish Medical Association

11:00 AM – The 1938 Anti-Jewish Laws in Fascist Italy
Prof. Michele Sarfatti – Historian of anti-Jewish persecution; former Director of the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation (CDEC) Foundation, Milan

11.30 am – Hadassah yesterday and today: medicine, utopia and nation building
Prof. Marco Elli – University of Milan – Italian Association of Friends of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (AAUEJ)

12:00 PM – Enzo Bonaventura: Psychology, Jewish Identity, and Knowledge in Exile
Prof. David Meghnagi – Roma Tre University

12:30 PM – A Woman’s Light: Anna Di Gioacchino Cassuto
Dr. Rosanna Supino – President of the Jewish Medical Association

AFTERNOON

2:00 PM – The Courage to Start Over: Enrico Emilio Franco from Venice to Jerusalem
Dr. Daniele Radzik – Pediatrician, President of AME Northern Italy

2:30 PM – Roberto Bachi: the lost professorship and a nation’s statistics
Dr. Andrea Finzi – Cardiologist, former President of AME North Italy

3:00 PM – Roundtable – Why Remember: Medical Memory, Italian Jewish Identity, and Contemporary Responsibility
With all speakers – Moderated by an AME board member

Poster available
Program available