When I was an undergraduate at U.C. Berkeley, Vittorio DeSica directed “The Garden of the Finzi- Continis.” It was showing somewhere in Berkeley, and a group of friends invited me to go with them.
While walking to the theater, they announced that they had arranged for me to give an opening talk on the life of an Italian-American Jewish woman. I blanched, but much to my relief it turned out to be a joke. Twenty-five years later, with the re-release of the film, one of the writers at the Bulletin asked me to reflect on the same topic. She wasn’t joking.
Since the film, I have been frequently asked about my connection to the aristocratic Finzi-Contini family.
In truth, my father, Edgardo Contini, was born in Ferrara, the town in which the film takes place. He left Italy in 1938, after being discharged from the Italian army because he was a Jew. Growing up, I heard numerous family stories that were laced with pride and sorrow.
When the DeSica film was released, my father was an architectural engineer of some repute based in Los Angeles. He bemoaned the fact that he had acquired more general name recognition from the Academy Award-winning film than he had from his entire professional career.
His father, Ciro Contini, also an engineer and urban planner, designed the master plan for Ferrara and many structures in the region. The granite gate (seen in the film) over the Jewish cemetery in Ferrara was designed by my grandfather.
Contini is an old Italian Jewish name. The book on which the film was based was written by Giorgio Bassani, a contemporary of my father’s. The book, however, is a novel, and like most novels it is a mosaic of fact and fiction. My father used to take great pleasure in trying to figure out which fictional personalities fit which actual characters. The name is ours, but the story is a blend of many families and many fantasies.
Despite the film and other books on Italian Jews, most Americans assume that everyone with an Italian surname is Catholic. In fact, at least a dozen times a month, I am still asked, “Are you Jewish?”
As a child, when I stayed out of school for Rosh Hashanah, the teacher looked at me in disbelief. She raised an eyebrow and asked for a note from my mother. Soon the school got used to having an Italian Jewish student. But the name continued to cause confusion.
Years later, when I was living on my own, the junk mail started to arrive. A surname list search must have turned up Contini as a Catholic name. I got monthly invitations to Catholic singles dances and invitations to other Catholic-sponsored events.
About a dozen years ago, I applied for a position at the Jewish Bulletin. I had passed the first interview and was meeting with some members of the board of directors. One board member asked me several times how I felt about working with a “particular ethnic group.” I finally reassured her that I was a proud member of this “particular ethnic group” and felt quite at home.
Because my mother’s family came from Russia and Poland, my upbringing was not so different from that of most American Jews of my generation — although I called my paternal grandparents Nonno and Nonna, and Nonna made wonderful polenta. Yet I always felt a strong link to my Italian ancestry, which led me to spend my junior year in Florence.
During that year, I spent Friday nights enjoying Shabbat dinner with my Italian cousins, the Cividallis, sharing their traditions. At Erev Rosh Hashanah dinner, a glass bowl filled with grains of wheat sat on the table; when the time came to break the fast, they had sprouted, serving as a symbol of new growth and the beginning of a new year.
While the stories of Italian Jews and their culture may not be as well-known to Americans as those of the more numerous Eastern European Jewish immigrants, we nonetheless have an intriguing history that goes back more than 2,000 years. Long before the expulsion from Spain brought an influx of Jews, Italian Jews were active in the intellectual and commercial life of their country and had established noteworthy talmudic academies.
Upon marriage, I chose to keep my name. I was proud of Contini as a surname and both my children bear it as a middle name.
Now, when I meet someone new in the Jewish community, my reaction is almost automatic. My name is Nora Contini, it’s Italian, it’s my maiden name, my father was an Italian Jew.
At least once a year someone asks if I am related to Bruno from Turin, Ellen from Charlottesville, Leo from Tel Aviv or one of several other far-flung family members.
Our family is a small, close-knit one, and Italian Jews have a warmth and a passion that span time and space. I had no first cousins growing up, yet I am still in regular contact with the children of my father’s cousins. While we have never lived in the same cities for long — if at all — that Contini link has proved to have survived the horrors of the Second World War. And while only a few family members are left, scattered throughout the world, that link is a defining part of my identity. The film, by contrast, is somewhat tangential.