Biography

Biografia in italiano

Fiamma Nirenstein is a journalist and author. She lives in Jerusalem and is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. Her name appear in evidence at the Museum ANU in Tel Aviv among “Women that opened the way”. She studied modern history at the University of Florence, where she was born, and taught the History of Israel and the Middle East at Luiss University in Rome for several years. She has been the Director of the Italian Institute of Culture from 1992 to 1994 and MP since 2008 for five years.. Her career in journalism spans print, radio and TV. Her essays, interviews and op-eds on the Middle East have been instrumental in revealing and raising movements against prejudices about Israel and antisemitism.

Never leaving her work as a journalist and author, in April 2008's national elections she was elected to the Italian Parliament as a member of the People of Freedom Party (Berlusconi) and served as Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Chamber of Deputies for the entire XVI legislature (ending in March 2013). She was also a member of the Italian delegation to the Council of Europe, where she represented Italy in the organization’s fight on violence against children, presiding over its international summit in Florence.

Her activity has mostly dealt with human rights, antisemitism, and the fight of the Jewish People. Nirenstein established and chaired the Committee for the Inquiry into Antisemitism of the Italian Parliament and established the Inter-Parliamentary Commission Italy-Israel. During her parliamentary activity, she worked on numerous laws, resolutions, and issues, including human rights, international controversies and the democratization in the Middle East. She tirelessly raised awareness vis-à-vis Iran’s nuclear ambitions and Israel’s right to self-defence. She is a sought-after speaker and member of all the most relevant forums on anti Semitism and Israel-EU relations. She is one of the founders of the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Global Forum for Combating Antisemitism. She has participated as a speaker at the conferences organized by Robert S. Wistrich at the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and at symposiums of the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. Her books and articles have helped identifying modern antisemitism with the hate for Israel.

Nirenstein is a leading columnist for the Italian daily Il Giornale. Until her election in 2008, she was the Israeli correspondent for Il Giornale and the weekly magazine Panorama, and from 1991 to 2006, for Italian daily La Stampa. She is the author of more than 15 books in Italian (and seven in English), the latest in Italian was Jewish Lives Matter, and “7 ottobre Israele brucia” plus “Dieci bugie su Israele”, the very last being “La Guerra antisemita contro l’Occidente”; before that IL Califfo e l’Ayatollah, Assedio al nostro mondo (Mondadori, 2015), the four of them translated into English, and two pamphlets on Israel and Antisemitism widely distributed by the newspaper Il Giornale and by her thinktank, the “Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs”.

Nirenstein is Senior Research Fellow at The Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy (ISGAP).

She introduced and prefaced works of Bernard Lewis, Nathan Sharansky and Ruthie Blum in Italy and invited them and many other representative of the Jewish Culture, like Dore Gold and Douglas Murray, to the Italian Parliament.

She has been granted over twenty awards for her books and journalism.

On December 16, 2009, Nirenstein, along with the Canadian politician Prof. Irwin Cotler, was awarded by the Israeli Knesset for her commitment in the fight against Antisemitism.

On April 2011, she was awarded by CAMERA in New York, together with José Maria Aznar and John Bolton

In June 2011, Nirenstein was included in the Jerusalem Post’s list of the 50 most influential Jews in the world, headed by Marc Zuckerberg.

On June 29, 2011, Nirenstein was unanimously elected new chairperson of the International Council of Jewish Parliamentarians (ICJP), an organization that brings together Jewish legislators, parliamentarians and government ministers from around the world.

In 2011, as an MP, she established the Foreign Policy center SUMMIT - for the dialogue between Europe and Middle East, human rights and democracy, where she organized dozens of events and conferences.

She is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (now Jerusalem Center for Foreign Affairs), responsible for Antisemitism researches; a Selection Committee Member of the Genesis Prize; a member of the Advisory Board of Ngo-Monitor and a member of the Israeli Council of Foreign Relations of the World Jewish Congress.

She was also one of the six members of the Inter-parliamentary Coalition on Combating Antisemitism (ICCA), and is among the founder members of the Friends of Israel Initiative, established in 2010 by Spanish President José Maria Aznar. She is also a Board member of the Talmud Project, a major initiative, sponsored by the Italian government, to translate the Babylonian Talmud.

She regretted very much to have to refuse for serious family reasons the offer to become the ambassador to Italy of Israel after having passed with success all the necessary selection steps.
Today she is also the special advisor of the Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz for combating antisemitism.

Nirenstein is an expert on Antisemitism, the Middle East conflict, Islam, terrorism, human rights and Europe’s attitude toward Jews and minorities. Bernard Lewis and Robert Wistrich have been her mentors and very dear friends. She became a specialist in these fields after having traveling across the globe as a special correspondent. She has started her carrier in 1977, after having founded the foirst feminist magazine in Italy “Rosa”, and has been a columnist and a correspondent for all of Italy’s foremost magazines (Panorama, L'Espresso & Epoca).

Nirenstein has contributed articles and essays to The New York Sun, Commentary Magazine and Moment Magazine, The Times of Israel, and today she contributes articles in English to the Jewish News Syndicate. Her writings have also appeared in four American anthologies and her work as a journalistic work was cited at length in Bias by Bernard Goldberg (Regency Publishing, 2002, pp. 200-206) as an example of good journalism in explaining the phenomenon of terrorism. The day after 9-11, the Wall Street Journal cited at length her article in Commentary to explain it.

She has also tirelessly tried to create a platform for Islamic dissidents. In December 2007, she promoted and organized in Rome, Italy, the international conference “Fighting for Democracy in the Islamic World,” which was the continuation of the great Prague conference on dissidents, promoted by Natan Sharansky, Vaclav Havel and José Maria Aznar in June of the same year, which she took part of. She has carried out numerous activities throughout Europe as a member of the Council of Europe: she promoted political and cultural actions such as the great world assembly in Rome for the truth about Israel.

Fiamma Nirenstein has produced many documentary films, including a famous one about the Shoah on the Rai 2 program Mixer and another entitled “Settlers” about the Israeli disengagement from Gaza. She is frequently interviewed by Italian TV and radio. She appears almost daily in panels discussing the Israeli choice and antisemitism.

In 2006, she conceived and conducted a program on foreign affairs, Ore diciotto/Mondo on channel RAI 2 and subsequently Orient Express on Channel 5.

On Radio Radicale every week she performs in a program of half an hour called Il Medio Oriente visto da Gerusalemme, which was formerly hosted by Massimo Bordin and today by Giovanna Reanda. Since the start of the 7^th of October 2023 war, the program has become daily and has a huge number of followers. She has interviewed numerous world leaders, from the protagonists of the anti-communist revolution of the 1980s to all the leading figures of both the Israeli and Palestinian world.

Her books and articles have opened the discussion in Italy on anti-Semitism, anti-Zionism and the Left. She has been the official speaker at numerous conferences on anti-Semitism, including the first OECD world forum in Berlin on anti-Semitism and “Multiculturalism, the Left & Antisemitism” during the 2006 international symposium of the Vidal Sassoon Center at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. All along the years she has featured in all the major events about antisemitism. She was sent as special Israeli correspondent of La Stampa (the Italian newspaper) to the infamous Durban conference in 2001 where she revealed its clear anti-Semitic animus.

The pivotal focus and underlying idea that runs through all Fiamma Nirenstein's work is the struggle against totalitarianism and terrorism as linked to anti-Semitism and direct hatred vis-à-vis Israel. She coined the term "Israelophobia". On May 26, 2013 she made Aliyah and now lives in Jerusalem, with pauses in Rome for family reasons, conferences, debates. Her father, born in Poland, was a member of the Jewish Brigade and historian of the Holocaust; a park in Florence is intitled to his name Alberto (Aron) Nirenstein and to his wife, Wanda Lattes, a famous journalist and partisan.

Since 2007 she has a popular website/blog and a newsletter in English and Italian: www.fiammanirenstein.com. In 2013 she had for some years a blog on the Israeli newspaper The Times of Israel; now she writes for the american Jewish News Syndacate

Books

"La guerra antisemita contro l'Occidente, Giubilei Regnani, 2024
“Le 10 bugie su Israele”,Federazione Associazioni Italia-Israele, 2024
"7 ottobre 2023. Israele brucia", Historica Edizioni, 2024
“75 volti dello Stato Ebraico”, The Jewish People Policy (Yedioth Books), 2023
"Jewish Lives Matter", Giuntina, 2021
"In Israele" Il Giornale, 2018
"Le 12 bugie su Israele" Il Giornale, 2016
"Il Califfo e l'Ayatollah", Mondadori, 2015
“A Gerusalemme”, Rizzoli, 2012
"Israele siamo noi", Rizzoli, 2007
"La sabbia di Gaza", Rubettino editore, 2006
"Gli antisemiti progressisti", Rizzoli, 2004
"Islam, la guerra e la speranza (Intervista a Bernard Lewis)", Rizzoli, 2003
"L'abbandono, come l'Occidente ha tradito gli ebrei", Rizzoli, 2002
"Un solo Dio, tre verità", (scritto con Giorgio Montefoschi), Mondadori, 2001
"Come le cinque dita di una mano – una famiglia di ebrei da Firenze a Gerusalemme", (written with her family), Rizzoli, 1998
"Israele: una pace in guerra", Il Mulino, 1996
"Il razzista democratico", Mondadori , 1990

Books in English:

October 7th: antisemitism and the war on the West (JCFA), 2024
The barbarians at the gates of Israel, (JCFA), 2024
The 10 Lies about Israel, Jerusalem Center for Security and Foreign Affairs (JCFA), 2024
75 Faces of the Jewish State project-The Jewish People Policy (Yedioth Books), 2023
Jewish Lives Matter: Human Rights and Anti-Semitism, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2022
Double Message, Double Standard: Institutions Abandoning the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism Court Danger, Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2021
A Never-ending Struggle: Challenging Anti-Semitism and Anti-Zionism. Chapter of the Book of Israelophobia and the West: The Hijacking of Civil Discourse on Israel and How to Rescue It in Dan Diker (ed.). Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2020
The Migration Wave into Europe: An Existential Dilemma. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2019
Mission Impossible Repairing the Ties between Europe and Israel. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2018
The Caliph and the Ayatollah: Our world under siege. ISGAP, 2018
Lessons from Israel's Response to Terrorism. Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, 2017
"Israel is us - a personal odyssey to a journalist's understanding of the Middle East", JCPA ed., 2009
"Terror, the new anti-Semitism and the war against the West", Smith and Kraus, Hannover, USA 2005

Among her Awards:

Award "Pinocchio", November 2021
Award "Istituto Armando Curcio" for theher commitment in the fight for the Human Rights, May 2017
Silver Medal grated byBnei Berith, May 2013
Award on International Politics granted by Magna Carta Foundation, May 2013
Gold Menorah, granted by Bnei Berith France, Opera Theatre, Nice, December 2012
Città di Sarzana XV journalistic Award "Eugenio Motale fuori di casa", 28 July 2012
"Emet Award", by CAMERA - the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, April 2011, New York
Award by the Israeli Knesset for the her commitment in the fight against antisemitism, December 2009, Jerusalem
Premio Ernest Hemingway per il giornalismo, 2008
XIII Premio Internazionale di saggistica “Salvatore Valituti”, 2006
Premio Ischia Internazionale di Giornalismo – Premio Giornalista dell’Anno per la Carta Stampata, 2006
Premio Firenze Donna, 2006
Spilla d’Oro Wizo – “Socia a Vita”, 2003
Diplome de Livre d’Or, Keren Kayemet le-Israel, 2003
Premio Informazione Corretta, 2004
Premio Irina Alberti – per il libro “L’Abbandono”, 2002
Premio Fregene 24° ed. – Riconoscimento per il Giornalismo con il libro “L’Abbandono”, 2002
Premio Ornella Geraldini, “Donne per il Giornalismo” – Premio alla Carriera, 2002
Premio Letterario Casentino – Premio d’Onore al Giornalismo, 2002
XXXVI Premio Iglesias – Saggistica, 2002
Premio Capalbio – Politica Internazionale, 2002
Premio giornalistico Ilaria Alpi, prima edizione, 1997
Premio Giornalistico Europa – Giornalista del Mese, La Stampa, November 1995