Yoram Ortona was born in Tripoli on September 4, 1953. His mother, Doris Journò, of Franco-Tunisian origin, moved to the Libyan capital with her family in 1943. His father, Marcello, was born in Tripoli to a family of Italian origin from Casale Monferrato. Yoram is the eldest of three siblings; with him were Giorgio and Marina, who were also born in Tripoli. The Ortona family lived on the first floor of a building overlooking the seafront, in a city that Yoram remembers as an intertwining of diverse communities, including the Jewish one, that was characterized by significant internal diversity.
Tripoli was a cosmopolitan city
Transcript
Yoram Ortona
First of all, Tripoli was a cosmopolitan city, because besides the Arabs, there were Italians, Maltese, Turks, English, French, and Jews. So, there were different communities, and the Jewish community, for the most part, engaged in commercial activities; they were dedicated to commerce, and there were also some artisans. Let’s say that there were few professionals, I don’t want to say they could be counted on one hand, but the majority…then there were entrepreneurs. It was a fairly varied community from a social point of view. There were richer families, more affluent ones, modest families, and even poor families.
The Ortona family’s life was peaceful. At just twenty-three years old, Marcello became the director of the Corriere di Tripoli, while Doris took care of the house and the children, who attended Italian schools in the city. Yoram recalls his parents’ intense social life and a relaxed atmosphere within their family and circle of friends.
there was a human dimension
Transcript
Yoram Ortona
All the couples, in love or not—they [my parents] were a very much in-love couple—danced the tango, the waltz, the twist, so they often went to the Wadan, which was the most famous place for New Year’s Eve parties. There was a, let’s say, comfortable life…. It’s fair to say “carefree,” because there are always problems in life, regardless of social status, everyone has their problems. But there was a human dimension that clearly gradually disappeared in Italy because there weren’t…it was a somewhat sheltered reality.
However, the apparent tranquility of the small Jewish community that remained in Tripoli after the mass exodus to Israel at the end of the 1940s was brutally interrupted. In June 1967, with the outbreak of the Six-Day War, pogroms erupted that disrupted the lives of the city’s Jews. On June 5, Yoram rode his Graziella bicycle to school to take his middle school graduation exam, in the same school from which his father had been expelled in 1938 due to racial laws.
like my other classmates, I began to hear terrible scream
Transcript
Yoram Ortona
I started my essay, and after barely half an hour, forty minutes, like my other classmates, I began to hear terrible screams coming from outside, from the streets. The teacher [looked] out of the window for a moment because she wanted to check what was happening, and we were informed that there were violent demonstrations throughout the center of Tripoli. And then the principal came into the classroom and said, “Kids, call your parents, have them come pick you up, because we have to stop the exam; you need to go back home.” I called my father.
Interviewer
Everyone, or just the Jews?
Yoram Ortona
Everyone, everyone. I called my father, who had his office in the Galleria De Bono, near the Piazza Italia, close to the citadel, and he said, “What happened?” [I replied:] “Dad, I have to go home, we’ve stopped….” [He said:] “Don’t leave the school! I can’t come to get you.” If he had left the office, they would have killed him. My mom was alone at home, and my little brother and sister were at the Franciscan nuns’ nursery school. So, our family was divided among four different parts of the city.
Forced to evacuate the school building and unable to return home, Yoram found refuge with his uncles, Lillo and Liliana. The situation there was also tense: protesters were trying to break down the door of the house, forcing Yoram, his young cousins, and his uncles to take refuge on the terrace, hoping that the fury of the crowd would subside. Only in the evening, when the situation seemed to stabilize, did Yoram’s father, with the help of a Berber collaborator, manage to reach him and then also retrieve the other children from the nursery. Finally reunited, the four joined Doris, while on television, the journalist Arrigo Levi announced the advance of Israeli troops in the Sinai. Twelve long days of curfew followed, during which the Ortona family received help from Marcello’s collaborator, who managed to bring them food. Only on June 17 did they obtain exit visas from the Italian embassy.
my father said, “Doris, this is the last time you’ll see Tripoli”
Transcript
Yoram Ortona
I started my essay, and after barely half an hour, forty minutes, like my other classmates, I began to hear terrible screams coming from outside, from the streets. The teacher [looked] out of the window for a moment because she wanted to check what was happening, and we were informed that there were violent demonstrations throughout the center of Tripoli. And then the principal came into the classroom and said, “Kids, call your parents, have them come pick you up, because we have to stop the exam; you need to go back home.” I called my father.
Interviewer
Everyone, or just the Jews?
Yoram Ortona
Everyone, everyone. I called my father, who had his office in the Galleria De Bono, near the Piazza Italia, close to the citadel, and he said, “What happened?” [I replied:] “Dad, I have to go home, we’ve stopped….” [He said:] “Don’t leave the school! I can’t come to get you.” If he had left the office, they would have killed him. My mom was alone at home, and my little brother and sister were at the Franciscan nuns’ nursery school. So, our family was divided among four different parts of the city.
After landing at Fiumicino, they found shelter with their maternal aunt, Yvette, who also offered hospitality to Doris’s other siblings. After a few months, the Ortona family moved to Milan. Their integration into Italian society was complicated, especially for Yoram’s parents, who had to start from scratch and take care of their children in a completely new reality. Yoram also recalls that Italy was going through a very delicate moment, marked by the turbulence of the student movements of 1968.
In Italy, Yoram met Dalia Habib, also of Tripolitan origin, and from their marriage, two children were born. From a young age, Yoram held significant roles in the institutions of the Jewish community, both locally and nationally.
