Great Synagogue of Rome

In September of 1969 my husband and I stopped in Rome on our way back to the U.S. from our honeymoon in Israel.  Not yet keeping kosher and never having been in Europe before, we didn’t have a clue what to do.

Of the three nights we were there, we ate dinner twice at Wendy’s on the Via Veneto and once in an Italian restaurant where we had no idea that the spaghetti we ordered was not intended as the main course.

We also didn’t have the courage to enter the Great Synagogue of Rome.  We simply walked by the outside.

Then in August of 2005 my husband and I had the opportunity to redeem our Rome visit.  This time we were prepared to visit Jewish Rome and to eat in the kosher restaurants.

We had arranged for a private tour of the Ghetto, and while being shown around we were surprised to learn how close to the ruins of Imperial Rome this is.

We also hadn’t realized before that the Rome Jewish community is the oldest continual Jewish Diaspora community in the world.  The first Jews came between the First Temple and Second Temple as ambassadors to ask the Romans for help against the Syrian Greeks (the story of Hanukkah).  These Jews stayed, and they redeemed Jews brought to Rome as slaves when the Second Temple fell.

Then our private guide offered us a rare experience.  She had been doing research in the Vatican Library and could get us into a private part of the Vatican where Jewish tombstones with the names inscribed in Greek were displayed on a wall.

True to her word, she got us a pass, albeit one that had to be examined by a series of Vatican guards.

During our visit to the Great Synagogue, the tour guide – an elderly member of the Rome Jewish community – recounted how she and her family survived the Nazi roundup of Jews after the Italians capitulated.

They were individually hidden/saved by members of the Roman Catholic clergy against the express orders of the Pope not to aid the Jews.  And until the end of the war no one in her family knew what had happened to the other members of the family.

At the synagogue gift shop my husband bought the Shabbat prayerbook used by this Roman congregation.  Now he uses it on Shabbat services in Los Angeles, and it’s a lovely reminder of an incredible Jewish community that stretches back to the Roman Republic (pre-Imperial Rome).

If you have the opportunity to visit Jewish Rome, especially with an experienced tour guide, do so.  You’ll be glad you did.

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