FREE EVENT
Qesher Book Club - "Anything But Yes":
A Novel of Anna del Monte, Jewish Citizen of Rome, 1749
![](https://2e8c4d4442.clvaw-cdnwnd.com/91bf07f0bd5fb2dc7bd75f2cfb2bc166/200001622-db219db21c/JoieDavidowAuthorPhotoSmall.jpeg?ph=2e8c4d4442)
Tuesday, October 17
USA 12:00 pm PT / 3:00 pm ET
UK 8:00 pm / France 09:00 pm / Israel 10:00 pm
The talk will last approximately 60 minutes
About this talk
Anything But Yes is the true story of a young woman's struggle to defend her identity in the face of relentless attempts to destroy it. In 1749, eighteen-year-old Anna del Monte was seized at gunpoint from her home in the Jewish ghetto of Rome and thrown into a convent cell at the "House of Converts".
Very few people know the story of the Ghetto, or the abduction of Jews to convert them to Catholicism. Young girls and small children were the primary targets. But Anna del Monte was strong, brilliant, educated, and wrote a diary of her experiences. The document was lost for more than 200 hundred years, then rediscovered in 1989.
Anything but Yes is also based on Davidow's extensive research on life in the eighteenth-century Roman ghetto, its traditions, food, personalities, and dialect.
About the Author
Joie Davidow is the author of several books, including a memoir, Marked for Life; the nonfiction Infusions of Healing; a novel, An Unofficial Marriage: A Novel about Pauline Viardot and Ivan Turgenev; and, with Esmeralda Santiago, the editor of short-story anthologies Las Mamis and Last Christmas. In her career as a journalist, Davidow was the founder and editor of two award-winning magazines—L.A. Style and Sí—and a co-founder and editor of L.A. Weekly newspaper. She lives in Umbria, Italy
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