A Brightly Burning Flame

by Bruce Bawer:

“Her name is Fiamma,” the young man said to me over dinner, “and that is what she is to us – our fiamma! What is that in English?”

It took me a second. “Flame,” I said.

“Yes, that is what she is. Our flame! Our heroine!”

The year was 2007. I was in Rome for a conference called “Fighting for Democracy in the Islamic World” and the man speaking to me was a conference participant and a member of Italy’s Jewish community. The woman he was speaking of with such enthusiasm, who was sitting at a nearby table (a bunch of us from the conference had pretty much taken over the restaurant), was Fiamma Nirenstein​.

If you don’t know her name, you should. A prolific newspaper columnist, author of widely read books on Israel, Islam, democracy, and anti-Semitism, and winner of a long list of awards (most recently from the Israeli Knesset and the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), she is one of the most prominent members of Italy’s Jewish community and has held a seat in the Italian Parliament since 2008. She has used her government position as a bully pulpit, speaking out in support of freedom and human rights, against terror and anti-Semitism, and for a clear-eyed view of Israel and Islam. On a continent where most politicians hesitate to say certain things for fear of offending certain groups, Nirenstein is a straight shooter of the first order, standing up foursquare for Western values and against the “leftist ideologies” which, she proclaims, have been used to “justify…violent crimes” and “disgusting verbal attacks” against Jews and Israel.

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