Alain Elkann

Alain Elkann (born 23 March 1950) is an Italian novelist and journalist. Elkann is the host 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 great-uncle, Ettore Ovazza, had been an early financial supporter of Benito Mussolini, whom he was a personal friend of, and Italian fascism, which he supported until the Italian racial laws of 1938. Ettore Ovazza was also the founder of an anti-Zionist journal, La nostra bandiera. He was murdered in 1943 by the Nazis, along with the rest of his family, whose bodies were burned in a school boiler in 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.