Primo Levi, the Scientist

The simple mention of the name Primo Levi immediately evokes an array of images and ideas: the concentration camps, the role of a survivor, Italian Jews, a tragic death and a never-ending legacy, founded on the principles of Memory, Remembrance and truthful re-telling of a story, the passion for scientific facts.

NI: Levi often repeated that as a young man, being Jewish coexisted with other aspects of his identity. Auschwitz inexorably forced him to confront and identify as a Jew in the most dramatic way. He expressed with the metaphor of the Centaur, the complexity of his identity, as a chemist and writer, and most fundamentally as a man. The Centaur represents the coexistence of opposites, the union of man and beast, of impulse and ratiocination. The tale of the Centaur explores a particular meaning of freedom that we also find in Levi’s version of the legend of the Golem. If it makes any sense at all to try to attribute a cultural origin to an idea, in conceiving the Centaur, I suspect that Levi follows a very important line of Jewish thought. In the Centaur, he is able to embrace and perhaps even put to work that “vizio di forma” he found in humanity.

Sunday, November 13^th, at 9:30 am, Rabbi Philip Graubart (Congregation Beth El, La Jolla) and Natalia Indrimi (Centro Primo Levi, New York) will discuss Primo Levi’s science fiction stories and Levi’s place among 20^th century Italian Jewish writers. The event will take place at the San Diego Jewish Book Fair.