Your guide, Steven, grew up in Southern California and inherited a profound appreciation of Italian art and history from his father who served in Italy during World War II. As nomadic as his biblical forefathers, he has resided in Europe at various intervals before definitively returning to Italy in 1989 to create a home and study art history at the Università degli Studi in Florence. He speaks, reads and writes in Italian and French and is passionate about his English Setter, wine, woodworking, and gardening. Increasingly, he finds himself amidst an alien culture and, like the Italian Jews themselves, often in a world very foreign. JEWISH ITALY is more than his repudiation of national confines, insatiable appetite to travel, a means to a livelihood, research or an education. They are his tours of the Jewish soul.