Massachusetts Chapter of Fulbright newsletter features Days

Highlight on a Fulbright

This issue’s highlighted Fulbrighter is Judith Monachina, Director of the Housatonic Heritage Oral History Center at Berkshire Community College

Judith’s passion and dedication first brought her to Italy in 2000, where she traveled regularly to conduct interviews while working full-time in the US. Judith applied for and completed a Fulbright grant as a Fulbright Scholar in Italy from 2006-7, which allowed her to fully immerse herself in the culture and deepen connections with the community she had been visiting intermittently for years. While completing her grant, she worked at the Contemporary Jewish Documentation Center in Milan, which Is the primary archive for the holocaust in Italy and a center for contemporary Jewish history. She thrived while working there as a community journalist, learning more about memory, archiving, and the importance of preserving history not only for research but also for maintaining knowledge for future generations. This work fostered her admiration for the passionate dedication of archivists and historians who worked on these projects and pushed her toward her current focus in oral history. Her work on Jewish oral histories, entitled “Days of Memory: Listening to Jewish Italians who Lived through Fascism and the Holocaust”, was recently published by White River Press.

What does Fulbright mean to me?

Fulbright is a way of being, it seems to me. My one wish, my one regret really, is that I felt that I had to only work while there and did not use enough time to be a cultural ambassador. I was a cultural ambassador, but a purposeful approach to cultural ambassadorship is so important. I would do that the next time!

Do you have any advice for future Fulbrighters?

My advice is to enjoy the cultural ambassador role. To get completely steeped in the language. Do not be shy about speaking the language. I think this advice is most important for older Fulbrighters.  We tend to want to be perfect when we speak other languages. Speak! I felt that because I was suddenly a Fulbrighter, my language had to be perfect. That was a mistake.