After the Attack in Brussels — Jewish Museum in Rome Invites the Public in

The Rome Jewish Museum is responding to the deadly attack on the Jewish Museum of Belgium   by opening its doors for free, late into the night, as a sign of solidarity and to honor the victims of the shooting.

Tonight — Monday — the Museum will open to the public at 8:30 p.m. and stay open til midnight or beyond in what an announcement by the Rome Jewish community called “a concrete gesture to demonstrate how Judaism wants to remember and at the same time launch a message of courage.”

“This is our response to the attack, a ‘white night’ against fear,” Rome Jewish community president Riccardo Pacifici told the Italian media. Pacifici is leading a 30-member delegation to Brussels on Tuesday to show solidarity to the museum and to the Jewish community.

Community spokesman Fabio Perugia said opening the museum was “a sign of remembrance of the victims and against anyone who attempts to propagate hatred. We also want send the message that we are not surrendering.”

The Shoah Monument at Milan’s main train station will also have a special opening Monday evening.

Dario Disegni, the president of the Italian Jewish Cultural Heritage Foundation, issued a statement Monday urging the more than dozen other Jewish museums in Italy to also open to the public for free one day this week. “We feel confident that civil society in our country will want to feel the moral imperative to bear witness, through solidarity with the victims of the crime, to a firm commitment to safeguarding democracy and to the construction of a future of peace, justice and liberty,” he said.

In a statement on its web site, the Jewish Museum in Brussels announced that it would remain closed on Monday, but planned to re-open on Tuesday. “We trust the justice system and the police to find the culprit and shed light on this terrible tragedy,” it said.

Police have launched a massive manhunt to find the man who walked into the museum Saturday afternoon, pulled out an automatic rifle and methodically started shooting, killing four people, including two Israeli tourists.