Tuscan tales Inspired my first novel
SO MANY people have had that lightbulb moment when they think, there’s a book in this. But very few actually go on to deliver. For languages teacher Amanda Weinberg, however, that moment struck in 1998 — and this month she published her first novel, The Tears of Monterini.
It is truly a labour of love: she and her family were travelling in southern Tuscany when they came across the village of Pitigliano. “The village is absolutely stunning, but we had no idea of its Jewish history.”
To their astonishment, as they were driving through the winding roads by Pitigliano, there was a sign pointing to a synagogue. “And then we noticed in the shops, there was kosher wine, matzos, all kinds of Jewish delicacies… and we thought, where have we turned up?”
The following year the family bought a house in Pitigliano and became close friends with Elena Servi, the nonagenarian Jewish woman who has kept the Jewish tradition going in the village. It, and the museum complex surrounding the synagogue, is known as Little Jerusalem, and thousands of tourists visit every year.
Pitigliano became a safe space for Jews after they were expelled from the Papal States in the 16th century. “The people in the town are very proud of their history — and particularly what happened during the war.” The Jews who originally came to the town were artisans and bookbinders and lived side-by-side with the existing farming community.
They lived like that for centuries until Mussolini’s Fascist takeover of Italy and the enactment of racial laws against the Jews. Pitigliano’s Christians did whatever they could to protect their Jewish neighbours.
From that sprang Amanda’s novel, in which the fictional Monterini stands in for Pitigliano. Her headstrong Jewish heroine, Bella Levi, falls in love with her Catholic nextdoor neighbour, Rico Ghione, and their adventures permeate the book as the Second World War rages.
Into the stories of wartime Monics, terini, Amanda has woven a famous true story of the rescue of the children of Villa Emma. These were Jewish children from Austria, Germany and Yugoslavia, hidden by local resistance groups in northern Italy, and betrayed to the Germans when one child mistakenly spoke in her own language. Nevertheless, the resistance organisation, Delasem, successfully smuggled almost all the children to Switzerland, from where many made their way to pre-state Israel. Bella is one of those helping to teach the fictional “children of Villa Sophia” the local dialect, based on the real Pitigliano dialect, incomprehensible even to Italian speakers. Meanwhile Jews hidden by the resistance worry about the ethics of eating nonkosher rabbit.
Weinberg was inspired to write this novel, Amanda says, “by the acts of kindness” which typify the village. She and her family, who have even successfully staged a seder in the synagogue complex, have been warmly embraced by Pitigliano’s residents. The novel can be taken as an expression of a mutual love affair.