Description
Book SynopsisSince arriving in Rome more than 2,000 years ago, the Jewish communities of Italy have retained their identity over millennia. This book traces the foundations of their community, focusing on their economic, intellectual, and social lives as they moved between northern and southern Italy. Over the centuries these localized Italian groups were reinforced with the arrival of German, Provencal, Sephardic, and—most recently—Ashkenazi and Middle Eastern Jews. Surviving religious persecution, ghetto-ization, and the Holocaust, the Jews contributed to Italian society when they could. Supplemented by maps, illustrations, sidebars, and primary sources, this book is a scholarly yet popular overview of a minority group that is proud to be Italian and equally proud to be Jewish.
Trade Review“Reguer tells her 2,000-year-old story with clarity and ease. Her organization is excellent. She is modest. She does not get bogged down in minutia to display her erudition, or suggest she has discovered information that is new to Italian Jewish scholarship. We are fortunate to have this readable book.”
—Andrée Aelion Brooks, Yale University, Sephardic Horizons
"This well written, clear, insightful... book is highly recommended as an introduction and general overview to courses on the history of Jews in Italy."
— Dr. David B Levy, Touro College, Jewish Journal of Sociology
