The Jews of Italy

A sweeping history of the Italian Jewish experience from antiquity to today

Jews arrived in ancient Rome before Christianity existed, and they have maintained a continuous and influential presence in Italy for more than twenty centuries—the longest in Western Europe. The Jews of Italy is an engaging history of Jewish life in Italy, from ancient times to the present. Anna Foa’s vivid and authoritative chronological narrative traces this remarkable history through key periods and events.

In the early Middle Ages, Italy became the first cradle of diasporic Judaism and a crossroads of Sephardic and Ashkenazi traditions. Despite periodic persecution, discrimination, and expulsion, as well as the restrictions of ghetto life, Italy’s Jews were resilient and inventive in preserving their identity as they forged strong ties with Christian society. Jews played a vital role in the Risorgimento and the unification of Italy in the nineteenth century, while the twentieth century brought both tragedy—under Fascist and Nazi persecution—and renewal, as Jews in the postwar era contributed decisively to the founding of the Republic and played major roles in the arts and sciences. Along the way, the book highlights the lives of notable Italian Jews, from the ancient historian Flavius Josephus and the Renaissance opera singer “Madama Europa” to the twentieth-century mayor of Rome Ernesto Nathan and the Fascist propagandist Margherita Sarfatti.

From ancient Rome to the twenty-first century, The Jews of Italy is a lively and essential account of a community whose story is inseparable from the story of Italy itself.