Date: Feb 17, 2012

Hofstra Welcomes Italy’s First Female Rabbi

Rabbi Barbara Aiello Presents "The Jews of Southern Italy: A Lost History Rediscovered"

Tuesday, March 13, 2012, 8 p.m.

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY … In celebration of Women’s History Month, the Hofstra Cultural Center presents Rabbi Barbara Aiello, founder and director of the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria and Italy’s first female rabbi. The title of her lecture is “The Jews of Southern Italy: A Lost History Rediscovered.” This will take place Tuesday, March 13, 2012, at 8 p.m. at Hofstra’s Student Center Theater, Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center, North Campus.

Tickets are $5. Proceeds benefit  the Hofstra Scholarship Fund. For more information call Hofstra’s John Cranford Adams Playhouse Box Office at 516-463-6644 or visit www.hofstra.edu/culture.

Rabbi Aiello’s mission started in southern Italy, nearly 10 years ago, where she helps “anousim” (Italians whose ancestors were forced into conversion from Judaism) discover and connect with their Jewish roots.  At Sinagoga Ner Tamid del Sud (“Eternal Light of the South”), Italian “anousim” find warmth and acceptance as they learn about their Jewish heritage and experience Jewish ritual and observance at the first active synagogue in Calabria and Sicily in 500 years, since Inquisition times. In addition, families around the world participate in a unique Bar and Bat Mitzvah preparation program that provides them with the Jewish experience of a lifetime – a glimpse back in time to an era when Jews practiced in secret and, in the face of persecution, held on to their Jewish roots.

Rabbi Aiello was born in Pittsburgh, PA, and is the daughter of a liberator of the Buchenwald concentration camp. She received rabbinic ordination from The Rabbinical Seminary International and the Rabbinical Academy in New York City.

This event is co-sponsored by the Italian American Experience Lecture Series, the Queensboro UNICO Distinguished Professor of Italian and Italian American Studies, Issues in Judaism Lecture Series, Hofstra University’s Women’s Studies Program, Hofstra Hillel: The Center for Jewish Life on Campus, and the Dorothy and Elmer Kirsch Endowment for the Hofstra Cultural Center.

Related Link: Hofstra Cultural Center