‘I am prepared to lose everything for my convictions,” said acclaimed Italian author Erri De Luca at an event at the International Writers Festival in Mishkenot Sha’ananim in Jerusalem, speaking about his support for Israel and his connection to the Hebrew language.
Sadly, due to the uncertain situation with Iran, De Luca was not able to attend in person but spoke with Prof. Uri S. Cohen via video chat, which was projected on a screen.
It was clear that De Luca, known for his deep engagement with biblical Hebrew and Jewish texts and for having visited Israel in the past, would have preferred to be in Jerusalem on Monday rather than speaking via video.
The festival program described De Luca as a writer who is “not only a formative novelist and poet, but also a social activist, a speaker of Yiddish and ancient Hebrew, who translated the Bible in a way unlike anyone else.”
Although he is not Jewish, he has translated a number of biblical books into Italian, including Jonah, Ruth, and Ecclesiastes, as well as Yiddish literature.
His best-known work is God’s Mountain, a coming-of-age story about a Neapolitan teen who befriends a Jewish refugee. He has also written extensively about the Alps and is a dedicated alpinist.
In the wide-ranging conversation on Monday, De Luca discussed his work and repeatedly returned to Israel, Hebrew, and the moral responsibilities of politics. However, he said his work is not polemical.
“I am old, and I have written a lot of books, but I have remained a writer and a reader. My political convictions concern my conscience as a citizen, but they never enter into my writing,” De Luca said.
Middle Eastern politics shaken by the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre
While he was involved in left-wing politics as a young man, including with far-left group Lotta Continua, he said that his views about Middle Eastern politics were shaken by the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.
“My adhesion to the Palestinian cause was interrupted suddenly in 1972, at the Munich Olympics and the Munich massacre. The fact that Jews were murdered in Germany completely dissociated me from the Palestinian cause from that moment on,” De Luca noted.
He said he hoped there was a chance for a more peaceful future in the Middle East: “What seems to me now is that this war has the possibility of being the last, because there is the possibility for both countries, Israel and Palestine, to change profoundly.
“For Palestine, it could mean freeing itself from Hamas and finally choosing its own political representatives in Gaza,” he continued.
“For Israel, it could mean changing the government and making this change the possibility of the arrival of peace – not a provisional ceasefire, but directly that magnificent word: peace, shalom,” De Luca said.
Changes in Italian attitudes toward Israel
Speaking about the change in Italian attitudes toward Israel, he said, “There has been a radicalization of sympathies and antipathies toward the Israeli government and Israeli policy, but also of sympathies directly toward Hamas.
“When people shout the slogan ‘Free Palestine from the Jordan River to the sea,’ that is, a Palestine without the presence of Israel, this is precisely the slogan of Hamas, the program of Hamas,” De Luca continued.
According to the author, “People do not dare to say they are ‘for Hamas,’ and say only ‘for the Palestinian people.’ But Hamas is the greatest oppressor of the Palestinian people.”
He spoke about the connection he said he feels to the Hebrew language, saying that he reads ancient Hebrew every morning.
De Luca described his morning routine: “I sleep like a stone, and so in the morning, when I wake up, I have to pass through the vegetable kingdom – I do that with coffee – and then, to pass into the human and animal kingdom, I need to put myself into ancient Hebrew.”
He said that reading Hebrew energizes him: “That form of reading, which goes in the opposite direction from the one in which I read books, creates a friction in my head that lights the spark of the morning.”
While he said he tended to avoid Italian literary circles, “In Israel, I was pleased to know Amos Oz, David Grossman, A.B. Yehoshua, and Meir Shalev… I was pleased to have dealings with these people. It is the Italian literary environment that does not interest me.”
Asked if he had paid a price in Italy for supporting Israel and calling himself a Zionist, he responded, “I have never been attacked so much in Italy [as he is now], and I will be attacked for a long time for these convictions.
“But my convictions come before my interests. I am prepared to lose everything for my convictions,” De Luca said.
The event was held in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute in Tel Aviv.
