Jews won't be stifled, writer says

ROME — At a time when Europe again faces the specter of anti-Semitism, an adviser to the Italian government who travels in this nation's most sophisticated circles has written a very personal testament about being Jewish.

Alain Elkann's simple message: The Jews will not fade away.

"If many don't like us, it's not our problem, we don't have time to lose, we have to move ahead with our history," Elkann writes in his new book "Mitzva."

"The obstacles don't scare us, rather they strengthen us and make us more obstinate. We have the right and the duty to be ourselves given that we are born this way."

Elkann is a privileged observer. He is a writer, an adviser to the government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi and was married into Italy's most powerful family — the Agnellis of the Fiat auto empire.

He is now divorced from Margherita Agnelli, daughter of the late charismatic Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli, but their eldest son, John Elkann, 28, is vice chairman of Fiat and the heir to the dynasty.

Elkann's book launch last month drew a mixture of celebrity and power that few can match, bringing together Gianni Agnelli's sister, Susanna; Gianni Letta, Berlusconi's right-hand man; a distinguished Rome rabbi and a leading Italian Roman Catholic bishop.

Even those credentials, however, weren't an insurance policy. A few days later, Elkann found the tires of his car punctured. Jewish cemeteries and synagogues also have been attacked, and human-rights groups have warned of a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe.

"It happened; I can't say for sure there was a connection to the book, but it happened," Elkann said in an interview in his office in the Italian Cultural Ministry, indicating he would not be intimidated.

The 54-year-old Elkann describes himself as a "wandering Jew."

His French father and Italian mother fled Nazi and Fascist persecution in Europe and met in New York, where he was born. But he went to school in Turin, Italy, and his religious memories center on Yom Kippur services at a synagogue in Paris, where his father headed the Jewish community.

"One fasts in a sign of repentance, and it is significant that it is actually a sad day that unites all the Jews of the world, even those who are neither religious nor believers," he writes. "What does Yom Kippur mean to me? It means feeling Jewish. And what does it mean feeling Jewish? It means feeling myself."

"Mitzva," a title referring to the commandments Jews should follow, contains some highly personal touches.