Anna Foa's richly innovative history of Jewish life in Europe from the fourteenth through the nineteenth century breaks through the boundaries of traditional narratives. Instead of featuring a long series of catastrophes and cataclysms and the Jews' responses to them, Foa concentrates on the creative aspects of Jewish life, and on continuities and correspondences among very different local Jewish communities. Foa's illuminating overview of the issues and debates that have dominated the study of Western European Jewish society more than justifies her blending of narrative history with thematic investigations. This is, perhaps surprisingly, the story of a stability that underlies and survives change. In a new afterword, prepared expressly for the English edition, Foa talks about the twentieth century's two transforming phenomena, Zionism and the Holocaust, and the ways they have changed Jewish identity and historiography.

A sweeping history of the Italian Jewish experience from antiquity to todayJews arrived in ancient Rome before Christianity existed, and they have maintained a continuous and influential presence in Italy for more than twenty centuriesthe 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 tragedyunder Fascist and Nazi persecutionand 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.

Anna Foa's richly innovative history of Jewish life in Europe from the fourteenth through the nineteenth century breaks through the boundaries of traditional narratives. Instead of featuring a long series of catastrophes and cataclysms and the Jews' responses to them, Foa concentrates on the creative aspects of Jewish life, and on continuities and correspondences among very different local Jewish communities. Foa's illuminating overview of the issues and debates that have dominated the study of Western European Jewish society more than justifies her blending of narrative history with thematic investigations. This is, perhaps surprisingly, the story of a stability that underlies and survives change. In a new afterword, prepared expressly for the English edition, Foa talks about the twentieth century's two transforming phenomena, Zionism and the Holocaust, and the ways they have changed Jewish identity and historiography.

A sweeping history of the Italian Jewish experience from antiquity to todayJews arrived in ancient Rome before Christianity existed, and they have maintained a continuous and influential presence in Italy for more than twenty centuriesthe 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 tragedyunder Fascist and Nazi persecutionand 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.