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LOST JEWISH ITALY

Akarnott

wenty years ago, an
Italian television
channel hired Annie
Sacerdoti, a Jewish
writer and editor in Milan, to pro-
duce a documentary about Jewish
history in Italy's northern Lombardy
region.
But what she found while
researching the program changed her
sense of identity as an Italian Jew
and, in many ways, changed her life.
In small provincial towns around

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22 •

OCTOBER 20(14 •

PLATINUM

the region, she found Jewish ceme-
teries abandoned to the elements
and deserted synagogues standing
empty or used as carpenter shops or
other places of business.
"It was then that I realized that
the story of Italian Jewry was not just
written in the big ghettos, such as
Rome or Venice," she recalled. "It
was also written, just as richly, in
numerous hidden places, little cen-

ters and hamlets almost totally for-
gotten by Italian Jews themselves."
Sacerdoti wrote a Jewish guide-
book to Italy in 1986 and, throughout
the 1990s, edited a series of separate
guidebooks dedicated to Jewish her-
itage in individual Italian regions.
Now Sacerdoti — editor of Milan's
monthly Jewish magazine, I/
Bollettino — has penned a new
revised and updated The Guide to
Jewish Italy.
Published recently in English by
Rizzoli International and richly
illustrated with 200 color photo-
graphs by Alberto Jona Falco,
the $24.95 paperback explores
Jewish landmarks in 45 Italian
cities and towns in regions
including Piedmont, Lombardy,
the Veneto, Tuscany and Emilia
Romagna. The aim, Sacerdoti
said, was to present a real
tourist guide, including only
sites that could easily be visit-
ed.
"I hope my work will spark inter-
est in other Jewish sites in Italy and
enable them to open to the public,"
Sacerdoti said. "Tourism can bring
new life to these places — even in
places where there is no longer a
Jewish community. ❑

— Ruth E. Gruber
Jewish Telegraphic Agency