Rome's Jewish ghetto

The old Jewish neighborhood of Rome

With all the focus on Rome's role as the capital of Christendom, many folks forget that Rome is also home to one of the oldest Jewish populations in the world outside of Israel or Egypt.

The Jewish Ghetto of Rome

The kernal of the Jewish community in Rome dates back to the age of the Roman Empire, when Jews emigrated to Rome to settle. To this day, Rome has a thriving Jewish population, with the focus still centered on the medieval Jewish Ghetto neighborhood, a tangle of quiet streets directly north of Tiber Island, east of Campo de' Fiori, west of the Forum, and across the Tiber River from Trastevere. (Bounded by the Tevere to the south, Via Florida to the north, Via Arenula to the west, and Via del Teatro di Marcello to the east.)

The neighborhood retains Rome's main synagogue (an early 20th century Art Nouveau building on Lungotevere Cenci, with services daily; tel. +39-06-6840-0651; no cameras or cellphones with cameras allowed) and a Jewish cultural center (www.romaebraica.it), along with some excellent restaurants (Da Giggetto, Sora Margherita) specializing in Roman Jewish dishes (like carficofi alla giudia) plus several bakeries (bagels, anyone?). Anotehr useful link: www.jewishrome.com.

(For the record, "ghetto" derives from Venetian dialect—Venice was the first city to make the chilling decision to force all Jews to live in one part of town, creating the world's first ghetto. At any rate, Italy's Jewish neighborhoods are still referred to as "ghetto," a word that—despite the dispicable heritage of segegration, which started in Rome in 1555 under Pope Paolo IV and lasted until Italian Unification in 1870—doesn't carry quite the same negative connotation as it does in American English.)

Exploring Jewish Rome

If you are osbervant, I have separate pages on kosher dining in Rome and kosher lodgings in Rome.

For the observant and mildly curious alike interested in getting a better sense of Rome's venerable Jewish history, try one of these tours:

Tours of Jewish Rome

Jewish Catacomb

The Jewish Catacombs of Vigna Randanini were discovered in the 19th century on the Appian way. They are one of seven known complexes utilized for Jewish burials. Today they are closed to the public and may only be visited with special permission.

These catacombs, like their more famous Christian and pagan counterparts, are a series of underground burial galleries with tombs carved into the soft volcanic stone of the area.

The deceased were interred in painted loculi, cubicula, and kokhim. The presence of the kokhim set these catacombs apart from Rome's pagan and Christian catacombs. They were deep chambers in which the deceased would be buried perpendicular to the wall. The openings were sealed with marble epitaphs.

The Vigna Randanini complex is also novel for wide corridors, its predominance of Latin and Greek inscriptions and absence of Hebrew and Aramaic...

Duration: 3 hours; Cost: $440 per group

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Trastevere and Rome's Jewish Ghetto Half Day Walking Tour

Escape Rome's crowds to explore parts of the historic center that most tourists don't get to visit. You'll enjoy a leisurely stroll through the fascinating Jewish Ghetto and Trastevere area, Rome's more traditional districts, accompanied by your knowledgeable guide.

Your guided tour of Rome's little-known jewels Trastevere and the Jewish Ghetto starts at Largo Argentina and the Senate House, where Julius Caesar was murdered. Your tour concludes three hours later at lovely Campo de'Fiori, the site of executions during the Inquisition and today one of Rome's liveliest piazzas.

On this entertaining and enlightening walking tour you will get a chance to see parts of the ancient city hidden below the modern street level. Rome certainly wasn't built in a day, so you'll see other periods in between, from Medieval to Renaissance and Baroque.

Your Rome-ophile guide will share their enthusiasm for these hidden parts of the city, entertaining you with the legends and secrets of Rome's most authentic neighborhoods and their cafés, synagogues and churches. You'll broaden your experience of Rome with a visit to areas most tourists don't visit, and be able to ask questions right on the spot about their history and significance.

All tour guides are native English-speakers or Roman archaeologists, hold university degrees in teaching and the humanities, and adhere to the highest standards of education...

Duration: 3 hours; Cost: $34 per person

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Rome Custom Walk

Enlist the services of a specific docent in the Context Travel network for a customized, full day, private tour of whatever it is in Rome you would like to explore—Jewish or otherwise. Context docents in Rome include archaeologists and philosophers, Byzantine scholars and art historians...

Duration: 8 hours; Cost: $801 per group

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