MY parents have an unofficial ritual: wherever they travel, whether it’s Paris, San Francisco or Havana, they visit the Jewish part of town. They go to temple, they seek out local Jews, they make a donation. It’s their way of feeling connected to their heritage, and also of showing solidarity.

Over the years, I have gently teased them about their custom. Who appointed them Chroniclers of the Jews Worldwide? And yet, the older I become, the more I find myself following in their path.

And so, when I was in Rome recently and heard about a tiny medieval village in Tuscany called Pitigliano (known as La Piccola Gerusalemme or Little Jerusalem) I wanted to see it. My plan was to spend a day in this walled town in the Maremma region in the province of Grosseto, about 105 miles northwest of Rome. Pitigliano is blessedly untouristy, with only about 25,000 visitors a year. Most want to explore the Jewish culture, although some are simply besotted with the idea of yet another impossibly magnificent Italian village.

And that it is. As I drove up the winding road to the hill town, 1,026 feet above sea level, I was reminded of the first time I saw Jerusalem. With its parapets, ceramic tile roofs and multitiered buildings perched on layers of red volcanic tufa stone, Pitigliano resembles a sparkling, pint-size Holy City. The village, which was originally settled by the Etruscans, was once home to a thriving Jewish population that had settled there in the early part of the 16th century. They came mainly from the nearby Lazio region, which bordered the anti-Semitic Roman Papal States that periodically drove out Jews.