Obituary Maura De Bernart

Dear colleagues, friends, and students

On Friday afternoon, December 6, 2024, our colleague, Maura De Bernart, passed away. For over a decade before retiring, she taught at MIREES, accompanying several generations of students up to their degree thesis.

Born in Rome in 1953, she was one of Italy's first Ph. D.s in Sociology.

As a sociologist, she taught a subject on Jewish Studies and Socio-Religious Transitions. She was offering students a sound overview of the social, cultural, and political role played by Jews in the Slavonic environment, particularly in Russia/Soviet Union, as well as of the long history of multireligious coexistence in Central Eastern Europe and the Balkans, providing instruments for the analysis of the "civilization fracture" due to Shoah, favoring critical abilities oriented towards the prevention of anti-Semitism, racism, xenophobia, and other genocides. She was engaging the students in reflecting on appreciation for religious traditions different from their own and how to challenge their presuppositions regarding the intersection of religion, culture, and politics in an East European environment.

In the context of the multiculturalism of MIREES and its international students, Maura has reaped some of the most beautiful satisfactions of her professional life (MIREES, the days dedicated to graduations ... she was very proud to be part of them).

We are left with the commitment to remember her passion and dedication, always sincere and aimed above all at the students to whom she trained for a better future.