Meet the new director of the Italian Jewish Museum

Published: 9 June 2020

Last updated: 5 March 2024

Born and raised in Rome, Rabbi Amdeo Spagnoletto received his ordination from the Italian capital’s Rabbinical School and studied to become a scribe

AMEDEO SPAGNOLETTO, a rabbi and a sofer – a Jewish ritual scribe – has been appointed as the new director of the National Museum of Italian Judaism and the Shoah (MEIS), the museum announced on Thursday.

Located in the city of Ferrara in Northern Italy, celebrated in the renowned novel The Garden of the Finzi-Continis by local Jewish writer Giorgio Bassani, the museum has been partially operating for a few years, but several of its buildings are still under construction.

Spagnoletto was selected by MEIS’ board from a pool of 17 applicants from Italy and abroad, becoming one of the handful rabbis to lead a museum in the world.

“When I was told I had been selected I was very surprised. I was not sure how my background would play,” he told The Jerusalem Post. “However, Italy boasts a long and great tradition of rabbis active in other fields as well. In past as well as present times, we have had rabbis who were also physicians, teachers, academics, engineers and so on…”

A rabbi and scribe: Meet the new director of the Italian Jewish Museum (Jerusalem Post)

Photo: Rabbi Amedeo Spagnoletto with 13th century Torah scroll (Marco Caselli/Museum of Italian Judaism and the Holocaust)