HOFSTRA CULTURAL CENTER

in celebration of

WOMEN'S HISTORY MONTH

presents

RABBI BARBARA AIELLO
ITALY'S FIRST FEMALE RABBI 

"The Jews of Southern Italy:

A Lost History Rediscovered"

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

Rabbi Barbara Aiello was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 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. 

As founder and director of the Italian Jewish Cultural Center of Calabria, Italy, Rabbi Aiello's mission started in southern Italy, nearly 10 years ago, where she works to help "anousim" (Italians whose ancestors were forced into conversion from Judaism) discover and connect with their Jewish roots. Rabbi Aiello extends the hand of Jewish welcome to Italians and Italian Americans who want to know more about their Jewish heritage.

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.

Location: Student Center Theater, Sondra and David S. Mack Student Center, North Campus

Tickets: $5

Proceeds benefit the Hofstra University Scholarship Fund.

To order tickets by mail, please send a stamped, self-addressed, business-sized envelope to:
John Cranford Adams Playhouse Box Office 
118 Hofstra University
Hempstead, NY 11549-1180

Co-sponsored by the Italian-American Experience Lecture Series, Issues in Judaism Lecture Series, Hofstra University 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.