Abstract

This long letter of the great Italian linguist Benvenuto Terracini, which was published in 1923 in the Jewish journal "Israel" founded in 1916 by Dante Lattes, tackled in a critical way the introduction of catholic education in primary schools as imposed by the «Riforma Gentile». In fact, the reform of the primary school, proposed by the philosopher and brought about with the legislative decree n. 2185, obliged the teachers to educate Italian pupils according to the catholic religion. This decree was a problem for religious minorities like Jews that could not accept christian education in public schools. Terracini’s letter discusses the question from the Jewish point of view and constitutes a neglected yet interesting document of his Judaism.