A stray reference in the introduction suggests that this book was almost titled Clinging to Italy (14), and that is, in fact, its thesis. For although Shira Klein does, as the final title suggests, offer a succinct review of a century of Italian Jewish history, her goal is to explain a paradox. Why was Italian Jews’ allegiance to their home country so strong that it outlived Mussolini's racial laws of 1938, laws that eventually removed almost every possibility of a social life and legitimate employment in their home country? Why did it outlive even the participation of fascist officials and Italian civilians in the Holocaust? Why did Italy's Jews play such an important role after 1945 in creating and sustaining the myth of Italians as brava gente, “good people”? The answer offered here is straightforward: since the mid-ninetheenth century, Italy's Jews had developed a close relationship to the Italian state, one bolstered by gratitude, pride, and a strong sense of belonging.

Of course, nineteenth-century Italian Jews were not exceptional among European Jews in showing loyalty to their state and its royal house. There were, however, certainly good reasons for cherishing the House of Savoy ever since the constitution of 1848 and the unification of Italy brought emancipation and an end to official discrimination. Political unification was followed by an economic boom that benefited the middle classes, in particular, and many Jews among them. Although antisemitism was not eradicated, Jews believed they were faring better than many of their counterparts elsewhere. Italy's unification also meant the coming together of the Jewish communities into a nation-wide association and a greater sense of cohesion. The Italian Jewish community was small (one-tenth of 1 percent of the population) and did not experience the influx of eastern European immigrants that internally divided many other European Jewish communities and stoked antisemitism.

In line with much recent scholarship, Klein argues that emancipation did not mean assimilation. Italian Jews appreciated the fact that they could “live as Jews” (8) and maintain their traditions. Following unification, they forged a new sense of unity and a distinct “Italian style of Jewishness” (11). Jewish culture, be it in the form of books and newspapers, charity and schooling, or food and matchmaking, flourished into the 1930s. Even under fascism, in other words, and indeed right up to the issuing of the antisemitic laws of 1938, Italian Jews found no difficulty in combining their Italian patriotism with their sense of Jewishness. Many were early Fascist Party members. They found the nationalism of the fascists appealing, as well as their antagonism to the left, which threatened the idea of private property and social order espoused by the sizable Jewish middle class. And Italian Jews were huge supporters of empire. Few were anti-fascists.

Against this backdrop, the antisemitic laws of 1938 “came as a complete shock” (84). The decrees made life for the 57,425 Jews in Italy (according to the fascist census) impossible, barring them from all public education and public employment, from the military, and increasingly also from the private sector, and targeting them in myriad humiliating ways. The general attitude among Italy's Jews was one of disbelief. The laws were seen as a German imposition that would quickly pass. Few emigrated because the vast majority “had faith that the racist campaign would blow over” (95). At most, Jews were willing to blame Benito Mussolini, but they did not condemn fascism, recognize the immorality of the regime they had been supporting, or blame the Italian people for continuing to support it. The German invasion then brought deportation, hiding, exile, and murder, aided by police and civilians in Mussolini's Republic of Salò. And yet the image of Italy and Italians stayed for the most part positive. This was not because there were no Italians who turned against their Jewish neighbors. Denunciations were not uncommon, though there were also non-Jews who helped. Rescue networks, many linked to the Catholic clergy, saved Jewish lives. Jews went into hiding, escaped the country, or joined the resistance. The relatively high survival rate of 78 percent, however, reflected also the fact that the Germans arrived relatively late, Switzerland was within reach, and the turmoil of Italian civil war provided cover.

The most original chapters of the book are those on the few hundred Italian Jewish émigrés who made it to the United States or Palestine, though in other ways these chapters do not fit easily into the book—not only because of the émigrés’ different trajectory but also because their experience and memory is presented in a more differentiated way, less easily supporting the “good Italians” myth. While in public, Italian Jewish émigrés in the United States tended to go along with their non-Jewish compatriots’ positive account of Italy and Italians, their private memories were more complex, including negative memories of persecution. In Palestine, the Italian Jews were even less complicit in myth-making—even though they remained attached to Italian Jewish culture and ways, finding it hard to fit easily into a kibbutz lifestyle and remaining ideological outsiders. Some even returned to Italy after the war.

After the war, the thirty thousand or so Jews who remained in Italy resumed an active communal life, returning to their former lifestyle, to the dismay of the Jews from the Joint Distribution Committee, who deemed them weak and assimilated. Italian Jews generally portrayed their homeland in a positive light and focused their blame on Germans. This is how the deportation and murder of Jews in 1943–1945, and the broader European context of the Holocaust, were solemnly remembered, and not the Italian racial laws. This conscious choice to forget the bad and remember the good of recent Italian history dovetailed with the story non-Jewish Italians, including the government, as well as foreign observers, were telling.

The real strength of this account lies in the many vignettes and quotes from testimonies, diaries, memoirs, and oral history interviews that bring the history to life. A possible weakness of the book is that it is based heavily on memoirs and other retrospective sources, which raises the danger that these sources are colored by the same myths they are being used here to explain.