Nearly everything in Sara Pavoncello’s life is connected to Rome’s old Jewish ghetto; it feels like an inseparable part of her. She spends her days leading tours around the compact and vibrant neighborhood that housed the city’s Jewish ghetto from 1555 until 1870, and her roots here run deeper. 

“The same sidewalks where I spend most of my time is where I learned to ride my bicycle thanks to my grandma, where I used to play with my girlfriends, and where I waited for my grandpa — he was a carpenter and had his own studio right behind the Portico of Octavia,” Sara explains.  

She grew up a 10 minute drive away and often spent the hours after school in the ghetto with her grandparents Speranza and Attilio. They would serve her a bowl of homemade broccoli soup with pasta and anchovies at their apartment or Sara and her grandfather would go out for local specialties like salty lemonade or pizza bianca. He would tell her about the legend of the menorah from the Second Temple in Jerusalem, which according to the ancient scholar Josephus was brought to Rome after the destruction of the second temple. While one legend holds that it is hidden in the Vatican, Attilio would tell Sara that it was at the bottom of the Tiber River, which runs alongside the ghetto.  

All four of her grandparents once called the neighborhood home. It’s where her mother’s father, Angelo, returned after he survived Auschwitz. And during World War II, her father’s mother Speranza survived by hiding in a convent across the Tiber, going back to her home in the heart of the ghetto when she could.   

Speaking about her work sharing her family stories and heritage, Sara says: “I feel the honor and a due to keep these traditions alive — now, more than ever. I want my kids to grow up the same way with the same love, these family traditions are part of who we are.”

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“The family moments that I love the most are the Shabbat meals with the entire family together,” Sara says as she launches into an impression of her mother and aunts enthusiastically asking if she wanted this pasta or that one, comparing the scene to the movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” “I always thought the director was Jewish — that’s the idea,” she adds. 

Every Shabbat when she was little was spent with her grandparents, one week with one set and the next with the other. With Angelo and Elisabetta, Shabbat dinner was often 35 or 40 people including many cousins with everyone laughing and joking. Her grandmother made salted cod or baccala with onions and tomatoes and the meal always ended with cake. Afterwards, the cousins would play while the adults would gossip or look at old wedding photos. 

Shabbats with the other side of the family were calmer and smaller gatherings, but still special. Sara’s uncle would teach everyone about the weekly Torah portion or another Jewish text and her grandparents would sometimes make vitello al forno or veal roasted in white wine — a recipe that has become something of a legend in the family. When Sara’s mother Marie first tried to make the recipe, Speranza wasn’t keen to give it in its entirety. She told her daughter in law to use just a cup of wine. The result was quite dry and when Marie recounted the recipe she was given for Attilio he exclaimed “Just one cup of wine? But it’s one liter,” Sara shares. 

Marina has since mastered the veal recipe and these days has taken over the Shabbat hosting responsibilities, making roasted tomatoes called pomodori a mezzo, Elisabetta’s bacala, Speranza’s braised artichokes with anchovies, and a kosher riff on carbonara, one of the city’s signature pasta dishes. 

When asked about Shabbat at her own home Sara says, almost surprised, “Wait, I never host Shabbat. I’m still a guest!” Her children spend one Shabbat with her side of the family and one with her husband’s side like Sara did when she was growing up. “I told you, I want to keep the family tradition,” she says.