THE GOLDEN AGE OF ITALIAN JEWS

Acceptance, then persecution.

Most Americans think of Jewish culture as Northern and Eastern European: Yiddish language and heavy soups. This book reminds us that Italy had sustained a rich and vibrant Jewish community since ancient Roman times. It writes a history of Jewish life when ghettos arose and when the pope had power over lands and peoples beyond the Vatican. The real heart of the book, though, is the “golden age,” from the reforms of the revolution of 1848 until the Fascist crackdowns of 1938. During these 90 years, Jews moved relatively freely along city streets and through the country’s governments and universities. Fascinating is the story of Ernesto Nathan, Rome’s mayor from 1907 to 1913. “Nathan was a Jewish, London-born, German-fathered, Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Italy’s Masonic Lodge,” writes Segrè, the author of five books on the history of science. “Serving for six years, longer than any mayor before or since, many also think he was the best mayor Rome has ever had.” Fascinating, too, are the lives of the merchants and their daughters who became the currency of social advancement through assimilation and marriage. Most riveting is the story of the author’s immediate family, among them one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century, the Nobel Prize–winning Emilio Segrè. It is a family, too, of artists and teachers, small-town merchants and big-time machers. History is written here by men and women who take advantage of new freedoms and, by the 1930s, find their ways among old prejudices. Jewish Italians served their nation in many ways, “eager to prove that the faith the country had shown in their Italianitá (Italianess) was fully warranted.” Their courage stands in sharp contrast to “the cowardice shown” by the world’s initial reluctance “to take action against the rise of Fascism.” Italian Jewry offers a lesson in ambition and resilience, patriotism and bravery.

A fluent, personal account of the role of Italian Jews in the making of modern Europe.