we just had a lecturer at my college speaking on the topic of 'italian jews and the holocaust'. he (btw the professors name is Stanislao G. Pugliese and he teaches at Hofstra) remarked that the first time he began speaking on this topic he was met with remarks such as 'there is no such thing as italian jews!' but now there more awareness on the topic.
There is even an italian-jewish dialect called Giudecco-Romanesco, a mixture of roman dialect and hebrew. They still write books and talk in that language.