Alain Elkann

Alain Elkann (born 23 March 1950) is an Italian novelist and journalist. Elkann is the conductor of cultural programs on Italian television. He is president of the Scientific Committee of the Italy–USA Foundation. A recurring theme in his books is the history of the Jews in Italy, their centrality to Italian history, and the relation between the Jewish faith and other religions. He is a writer for La Règle du Jeu, Nuovi Argomenti, A, and Shalom magazines. Early life and family A member of the wealthy and influential Elkann family, he was born in New York City; the family returned to Italy soon after his birth. His Italian Jewish mother, Carla Ovazza, is from the influential Turinese Ovazza banking family; on 26 November 1975, she was a victim of kidnapping in Turin. His uncle, Ettore Ovazza, had been an early financer of Benito Mussolini, of whom he was a personal friend, and Italian fascism, which he supported until the Italian racial laws of 1938; the founder of an anti-Zionist journal, La nostra bandiera, he was murdered in 1943 by Nazis, along with the rest of his family, whose bodies were burned in boiler of the schools of Intra, Italy. His father, Jean-Paul Elkann, was a French Jewish industrialist, the chairman of Dior and the president of the Israelite Central Consistory of France, responsible for appointing the Chief Rabbis of France, from 1982 to 1992. Career Elkann was a collaborator of important Italian writers, such as Alberto Moravia and Indro Montanelli. He wrote novels, essays, and articles, among which are a book he co-wrote with Italian Chief Rabbi Elio Toaff, a former religious leader in Rome, called How to Be a Jew and Other Works and a book of conversation with him called The Messiah and the Jews (Il Messia e gli ebrei). He also published a book with Milan archbishop Carlo Maria Martini, as well as a book about Islam with Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan.