Rutgers (Camden) law professor Michael Livingston will examine the legal framework, case-level operation, and ominous consequences of Fascist Italy’s racial laws from their introduction in 1938 to the regime’s destruction in 1943. The program is being held at Ramapo College of New Jersey on March 26 at 4:45 p.m. in the Robert A. Scott Student Center, Friends Hall (SC219).  The Gross Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and the Italian Club of Ramapo College are co-sponsoring the event. It is being supported by the Morton and Clara Richmond Endowment.. Professor Livingston’s talk will be based on his recent book, The Fascists and the Jews of Italy: Mussolini’s Race Laws, 1938–1943, published last year by Cambridge University Press.

From 1938 until 1943 – before the German occupation and accompanying Holocaust – Fascist Italy drafted and enforced a comprehensive set of anti-Semitic laws. Notwithstanding later rationalizations, the laws were enforced and administered with a high degree of severity and resulted in serious, and in some cases permanent, damage to the Italian Jewish community. Professor Livingston’s research constitutes the first truly comprehensive survey of the Race Laws in the English language. Based on an exhaustive review of Italian legal, administrative, and judicial sources, together with archives of the Italian Jewish community, he shows how zeal but also the occasional ambivalence and contradictions combined in their imposition.