Jewish Rome: a place worth seeing during your sightseeing

JEWISH ROME: A PLACE WORTH SEEING DURING YOUR SIGHTSEEING

Although most of us think of Italy as the cradle of Catholicism, in fact, the oldest Jewish community in Europe is the one in Rome. Jews have been in Italy since the second century BC arriving from settlements in Palestine when Judas Maccabeus formed an alliance with Rome. After the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in AD 70, more Jews came to the city, many as prisoners of war. A relief of the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum depicts the carrying away of the menorah from the Temple. In 1947 when the United Nations announced the formation of the Jewish state of Israel, Roman Jews met at the Forum to celebrate and dance under the arch.

At the end of the first century, some thirty thousand Jews lived in Rome, settled around Trastevere and the Tiberina Island. The early Romans were relatively tolerant of the Jews. With the edict of Milan in 313 AD, which recognized Catholicism as the official religion, the climate changed. As the roman empire came to an end, the papacy became stronger and from the eighth to the thirteen century the mood swings and attitudes of the Pope controlled the fate of the Jews, for better or for worse.

In 1555, under the reign of Pope Paul IV, ghettos were stablished throughout Italy and the lives of the Jews were drastically restricted. They lived in poverty and in terribly overcrowded conditions, and the limitations of space resulted in buildings growing taller and taller, up to nine floors, to accommodate the growing population.
By 1938, there were twelve thousand Jews in and around the Roman Ghetto. With the Risorgimento in 1848, Italy was finally unified and the ghettos were closed and the Jews were finally emanicpated and became Italian citizens.

If you want to visit the lovely area of the jewish district of Rome you can start walking from the bottom of the Capitol Hill, taking via del teatro Marcello, that is part of an archaeological complex called Porticus of Octavia. This interesting section of ancient Rome was rebuilt by Augustus and dedicated to his sister in 23 BC. If you take the roman road restored few years ago, you can reach the big arcades of this theatre and after few minutes that same road will lead you to the church of sant' Angelo in Pescheria built inside the Portico d' Ottavia.

This is where the Jewish district of Rome begins and where you can reach the Synagogue of Rome that is famous in the Italian architecture,as it was the first construction built using aluminium in its dome for the first time in Italy ( 1904 ).

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