Fiamma Nirenstein is a journalist and author. She lives in Jerusalem and is a Senior Fellow at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs. 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 many years. She was the Director of the Italian Institute of Culture from 1992 to 1994. Her career in journalism spans print, radio and TV. Her essays, interviews and op-eds on the Middle East have been instrumental in revealing prejudices against Israel.
Never leaving her work as a journalist and author, in Italy’s April 2008’s national elections, she was elected to the Italian Parliament as a member of the People of Freedom Party 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.
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.
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 13 books in Italian (and five in English), the latest in Italian was Il Califfo e l’Ayatollah: Assedio al nostro mondo (Mondadori, 2015), and two pamphlets widely distributed by the newspaper Il Giornale. She has just finished a new book about Trump’s Middle East peace plan.
She introduced and prefaced the works of Bernard Lewis, Nathan Sharansky and Ruthie Blum in Italy.
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, 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, 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 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.
Nirenstein is an expert on Antisemitism, the Middle East conflict, Islam, terrorism and Europe’s attitude toward Jews and minorities. She became a specialist in these fields after having traveling across the globe as a special correspondent. She has started her carrier in 1977, 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.
For the full biography please check out her website here.