New mayor of Florence is the first woman and first Jew to lead the historic city

Today, Florence has around 1,000 Jews among a total population of more than 350,000 and a grand synagogue famous for its late 19th-century Moorish Revival architecture.

By Rossella Tercatin, JTA

In April, when a group of pro-Palestinian activists pressured Florence’s city hall to have the local honorary Israeli consul resign, they also took aim at a politician, Sara Funaro, who was running for mayor.

“We’re sorry that we haven’t heard one word of condemnation of the Israeli government’s behavior from Marco Carrai,” the honorary consul, the activists said. “Just as striking is the silence of Councilor Funaro, who has actually wished this person well in his work.”

Funaro didn’t respond — and doesn’t appear to have publicly addressed the statement at all. Two months later, she won the mayoral election, becoming the first woman and first Jew to lead the city known as the birthplace of the Italian Renaissance.

The April petition incident reflects how Funaro, 48, has navigated being a Jewish politician in Italy.

She has expressed support for Israel, talked about what led her to embrace Judaism as an adult and, after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, received police protection due to antisemitic attacks.

But she also has not placed Judaism or Israel at the center of her career, instead trying to respond to hate against her with a poker face and framing her public persona around her family’s deep roots in the Tuscan city.

“When you put yourself out there in the context of an electoral campaign as mayor, you know that someone will try to exploit certain things against you,” Funaro told Corriere della Sera, a leading Italian newspaper, after facing antisemitic invective last year on social media.

“It happened also in the past. I have always responded with great peace of mind.”

Funaro, who declined the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s request for an interview, comes from a family that has taken leading roles in Florence’s politics as well as its Jewish community.

The Jewish community was mentioned in writing as far back as the 14th century, according to its website.

Today the city has around 1,000 Jews among a total population of more than 350,000, and a grand synagogue famous for its late 19th-century Moorish Revival architecture.

Funaro’s father, an architect by profession, serves as president of the Opera del Tempio Ebraico di Firenze, a not-for-profit organization established to maintain the synagogue.

Funaro’s mother, a Catholic, is the daughter of Piero Bargellini, a centrist who served as the mayor of Florence in the 1960s.

His term is best known for the catastrophic 1966 flood of the Arno River, which killed dozens and devastated the city and many of its artworks. He later served as an Italian senator.

Funaro was born and raised in Florence, where she studied psychology at the local Università di Firenze. When she was 20, she started working with children with disabilities, and shortly afterward, she became an educator in a care home for psychiatric patients.

Funaro says she and her brother were raised without any formal religion. But two decades ago, during a stint working with underprivileged children in Brazil, she decided to formally convert to Judaism.

Italy’s official Jewish communities, like traditional Jewish movements globally, adhere to the standard that only those born to a Jewish mother are Jewish, but Funaro told the Corriere della Sera, “In reality I didn’t have a conversion: I embraced Judaism.”

“Both my dad and mom had a very strong religiosity, but they understood it was a very important individual choice,” she recalled in an interview with the paper.

“Growing up, I began studying Torah and Talmud. I held long conversations with the rabbi. At 26, during my experience in Brazil among needy children, I made my decision.”

Funaro has remained involved in the city’s Jewish community, attending synagogue on holidays, said Ugo Caffaz, a friend of her father. “She studied for many years to get converted; she really wanted it,” he said.

She first ran for City Council under the leadership of the center-left mayoral candidate, and future Italian prime minister, Matteo Renzi. She lost, but won a seat five years later with the center-left Democratic Party, and was reelected in 2019.

In the council, Mayor Dario Nardella tapped her to lead efforts concerning welfare, housing,integration and the advancement of women.

She’s focused her political career on making Florence more inclusive, supporting the underprivileged, and fostering diversity. She has made a point of attending the city’s Pride parade and helped establish Florence’s first mosque.

She has also spoken up against antisemitism, denouncing the use of yellow stars, a symbol of the Holocaust, by anti-vaccine protesters during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2022, she criticized an event organized by two far-left Florence municipal council members whose posters described Israel as an apartheid state.

“Florence has always been a city of peace and dialogue and does not tolerate divisive messages that incite hatred,” she said at the time. “Putting up posters in the city stating that Israel is an apartheid state is not acceptable.”

In the summer of 2023, she was the subject of an antisemitic attack on social media. An Instagram user called her a “Zionist to the bone” and a lobbyist for Israel.

Later, Funaro received death threats, and according to Corriere della Sera, the Italian authorities assigned her police protection beginning in October 2023, the month of the Hamas attack on Israel.

The 2023 Instagram post drew condemnation from Nardella, who called it “mean and revolting,” and added, “Sara is a strong and intelligent woman, and I am sure she isn’t intimidated by these insulting attacks.”

Like the leader of the Italian Democratic Party, Elly Schlein, who also has a Jewish father, Funaro has said she “absolutely” supports the two-state solution, which would see a Palestinian state established alongside Israel.

“Anyone who has been to Israel and Palestine realizes that the only possibility of resolving this conflict is a recognition of the peoples, identities and cultures of belonging,” she told Corriere della Sera in July.

In the days following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel, she said, “We need to keep living in the day-to-day, as we have always done,” a message she said she heard from local and national Jewish leaders as well.

She added, “I think that’s the right spirit, of course with a view to the concern and the pain from what has happened.”

As in the rest of Italy and globally, antisemitism spiked in Florence following the Oct. 7 attack.

“Some Jewish kids were bullied at school, there have been antisemitic insults against people as they were leaving the synagogue, graffiti, and some unpleasant situations in the university,” said Enrico Fink, president of the Jewish Community of Florence.

“At the same time, we have always felt supported by the authorities who increased security at Jewish sites.”

Funaro’s Jewish identity, or her position on Israel, was not a focus of this year’s campaign and did not stir controversy, despite the April petition criticizing her.

She has continued to shy away from weighing in on the issue while in office, including declining to comment after the Florence City Council’s vote, just days before the first anniversary of Oct. 7, to urge Italy to recognize the state of Palestine.

Agnese Pini, the editor-in-chief of Florence’s newspaper La Nazione, said Florentine voters do not see their new mayor in terms of her religion.

“I think that if anything, for the people of Florence, Funaro is the heir of [her grandfather] Bargellini, I do not think that her religion played a role in her election, neither positively nor negatively,” Pini said. “Like many others, she received attention from internet trolls, but more for being a woman than for being Jewish.”

But Fink said that in the post-Oct. 7 world, Funaro’s election is a positive sign for the local Jewish community.

“I know Sara very well, and I believe she is a good person and capable politician,” he said. “She has always taken pride in her identity and history, the Jewish and the non-Jewish parts, and in Florence, everyone knows it, so there was no reason for further discussing the topic during her campaign.”

Funaro campaigned under the slogan “Florence in the plural – Many ideas, one city.”

Her 89-page platform focused on fostering equality, security, sustainability and welfare, including proposals such as a minimum wage for city employees, keeping public daycares and elementary schools open until 6:30 p.m. to help parents, stationing police in a public park with high crime rates and increasing the number of affordable apartments in the city.

Pini said she would not be surprised to see Funaro entering the national political arena someday.

“Serving as the mayor of Florence opens up many opportunities,” said Pini. “All Florence mayors went on doing something at the national or international level. If Funaro decides to pursue this path, she will definitely have a good chance of succeeding.”

In the meantime, the mayor told the Corriere della Sera that she is not scared, despite the attacks against her. “I have always felt safe in my city,” she said.

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