On my way back from Israel this summer, I spent three days in Rome. Little did I know how profoundly this part of my trip, designed for pleasure and diversion from the intensity of Israel these days, would affect me.

That’s because, when in Rome, you confronted with some basic facts of history. Rome was the center of the ancient world. At its height, Rome’s empire spanned three continents, from North Africa, the entire Mediterranean and Europe all the way to the Rhine river. That empire, of course, included Judea, homeland of the Jewish people for a millennium (with a 70 year interruption after Babylon destroyed the First Temple). Rome’s empire ended Jewish sovereignty in Judea, destroying the Temple and exiling hundreds of thousands of Jews, essentially beginning the period of the Jewish diaspora. Then, after the so-called “fall” of the empire, Rome became, and remains to this day, the center of the Roman Catholic Church, an institution that, to put it mildly, had issues with Jews and their religion.

In other words, when you come to Rome, as a Jew, you are entering the belly of the beast.

It’s impossible not to notice this. The ruins of the empire are everywhere, from the Pantheon, the Forum, and, of course, the Colosseum. In addition, there are churches everywhere, including the largest one in the world, the basilica of St. Peters at the Vatican. At least six of them are visible in this picture I took from Castel Sant’Angelo, one of the best vantage points in the city:

Truly a magnificent city. But before visiting any of the famous sites, I wanted to begin my visit by grounding myself in its Jewish past. And so I spent my first morning touring the old Jewish quarter, better known as the ghetto. I was fortunate to have booked a tour with a man whose roots in Rome stretch back over 500 years, Marco Misano (though his wife thinks his family are newcomers; she can trace back her connection to Rome over 1000 years). Through his company, Jewish Roman tours, Marco has dedicated his life to researching the Jewish experience in Rome and sharing his passion and knowledge to enable visitors to view Rome through the lens of its rich Jewish history.

Jews have been living in Rome for a very long time. The community dates back to 151 B.C., nearly 200 years before the Second Temple was destroyed. The ghetto was established in 1555 by Pope Paul IV. It aimed to separate Christians and Jews, keep the latter impoverished and encourage them to convert. Here’s a map of the the ghetto from 1777:

As you can see, the ghetto was a tiny area located next to the Tiber River. The result was overcrowding, disease and constant flooding. (The Tiber used to flood regularly before it was embanked from 1874-1900.) As Marco’s website explains, “Rome’s Jewish Ghetto was once one of the most fetid, squalid areas of the city.” This painting on his website gives a sense of the miserable conditions faced by Rome’s Jews, especially when the river flooded:

Being forced to live in the ghetto was only one of many restrictions placed on the Jewish community. Jews were not allowed to own property, even in the ghetto. They could hold only unskilled jobs, such as selling second hand clothes (shmattes (rags), as Marco put it). When leaving the ghetto, the men had to wear a yellow cloth (the “sciamanno”) and the women a yellow veil (the same color worn by prostitutes). They were humiliated by being forced to compete in games in which they had to run around naked with a rope around their neck, or with their legs closed into sacks. For the right to live in Rome at all, they had to petition the Church annually, pay a yearly tax and swear loyalty to the Pope at the Arch of Titus. And, in an annual ceremony, the Rabbi of the community had to pay homage to city leaders who would kick the Rabbi in the behind, an act signifying that the Jewish community had been allowed to reside another year in Rome.

The ghetto was ringed with churches. This was no accident. The presence of the churches was a (not so subtle) hint about who was in charge as well what Jews could do to improve their lot, i.e., convert to Christianity. To encourage their conversion, Rome’s Jews had to attend Church and listen to a sermon, not on any day, but, of course, on the Jews’ holy day, the Sabbath. This painting at the Jewish museum in Rome depicts the scene:

The priest orates in an accusatory manner. Jewish men and women, young and old, are crammed together, listening dutifully. A man tuning out or falling asleep is about to get smacked by a church official for not paying attention. I’m sure they all wanted to go home and enjoy their Sabbath meals; instead they were forced to listen to how their faith and very way of life had been superseded by a new and better truth. Christianity, they were instructed, was the natural and logical replacement for Judaism, and they, the Jews, were blind and stubborn for failing to recognize this.

The ghetto no longer exists. The notion of a ghetto was inconsistent with the conception of the modern state of Italy, which came into being in 1861. The area now is home to a string of kosher restaurants as well as the Great Synagogue of Rome, built in 1904.

The synagogue houses the Jewish Museum, one of the best Jewish museums in the world. It contains artifacts of life in the ghetto, many of exquisite artistry, such as the Holy Ark (Aron Kodesh) of one of the ghetto’s synagogues (there were six), still in use to this day:

Rome also features more ancient reminders of former Jewish degradation. Right next to its most famous antiquity, the Colosseum, stands the Arch of Titus.

The Arch commemorates the sack of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus during the war against the Jews. On the tour I took, the arch was presented as a symbol of Rome’s former glory. It was erected to celebrate its great military triumph. The arch was located on the ancient Summa Sacra Via (the “sacred way”), Rome’s main processional street. It commanded a key point along the triumphal route (via Triumphalis) linking the colosseum with the Roman Forum. For centuries, triumphal parades passed along this route.

As much as the arch stood as a reminder of Roman power, it symbolized the end of Jewish sovereignty in their homeland. Carved into one of its pillars is an iconic image of the ancient world: Jewish captives with objects of the destroyed Temple being carried away, the menorah, the golden trumpets, the pan used for removing ashes from the alter and the table on which the showbread was placed. 

It’s no wonder that the Church chose this location where Rome’s Jews had to swear loyalty to the Pope for the privilege of remaining in the city.

There’s a connection between the Arch of Titus and the Colosseum that goes beyond physical proximity. They were constructed around the same time. (The Arch was completed in 81 C.E., the Colosseum built between 82-90 C.E.) The dates are not coincidental. The Colosseum was a massive project, requiring a lot of money and labor. It turns out that some, if not much, of the funds and workers came precisely from the sack of Jerusalem and exile of its citizens. The massive amount of gold plundered from the Temple helped finance its cost. And many of the workers who labored to build the Colosseum were surely enslaved persons, at least some of whom were captive Jews. Even the Colosseum is not a neutral site as far as Jewish history is concerned.

The Arch of Titus bears this ancient inscription: The Senate and the Roman people (dedicate this) to the deified Titus Vespasian Augustus, son of the deified Vespasian.

On the other side, however, is a less famous but just as important inscription:

It reads: “(This) monument, remarkable in terms of both religion and art, had weakened from age: Pius the Seventh, Supreme Pontiff, by new works on the model of the ancient exemplar ordered it reinforced and preserved. In the 24th year of his sacred rulership. (1821)”

This inscription sums up the duality of Rome’s antiquities. On the one hand, the Catholic Church played an important role in preserving them. On the other hand, the price of that preservation was to superimpose the Church’s own authority, to sanctify the paganism of the ancients with the imprimatur of the Catholic Church.

Even the Colosseum, surely as secular a place as any modern sports arena, has been sacralized by the placing of a cross inside it.

In the same way that the Church transformed pagan icons into Christian symbols, it appropriated Judaism to fit its idea of supersessionism (the idea that Christianity incorporates but also supersedes Judaism). This manifestation of this notion was brought home to me when I chanced upon the Column of the Immaculate Conception, around the corner from the Spanish Steps.

At the base of the column are four statues depicting King David, and the prophets Ezekiel, Isaiah and (a horned) Moses. Below each is a verse from the Bible that the Church considers a proof text from the Hebrew Bible for the idea of the immaculate conception. Below David is a verse from Psalms 45:5, “the Holy Place where the Most High Dwells”; Ezekiel 44:2, “This gate is to remain closed”; Isaiah 7:14, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you this sign: the virgin (per the Vulgate, the Hebrew reads ‘young woman’) shall be with child, and bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel”; and Moses, Genesis 3:15, “I will put enmity between you (man) and the woman.”

Towering high above them all is the Virgin Mary.

Rome is full of monumental objects, but it was the smallest of them that had the biggest impact on me. Italian Jews fared better than their co-religionists in other European countries during the Second World War, but anyone who has read Primo Levi knows they were not completely spared. (“Only” about 18% of Italian Jews were murdered during the Holocaust.) On the fateful day of October 16, 1943, the Nazis raided the area of the Jewish ghetto, still heavily populated by Jews. Fortunately, there was some advanced warning, so many of the men fled before hand, thinking that Jews were to be rounded up for forced labor, and so women and children would be spared. Neither, of course, was the case. The Germans rounded up 1,259 people, 1035 of whom were deported to Auschwitz, only 16 of whom survived. The names, birth years and fate of the some of these persons, including one Virginia Terracina, not even one years old, are marked in front of their former residences.

Is there any connection between the wonders of Rome and these markers? True, some of Rome’s Jews survived the Nazis through the protection of the Catholic Church. Yet the question remains: how much did the Church fertilize the ground to pave the way for the Holocaust? That question was hard to set aside as I walked the wondrous streets of Rome.

Rome. City of awe and wonders. But also, for me, as a Jew, city of loss and sorrow.

Postscript:

At the end of the tour of the museum and ghetto, Marco gave us a replica of a medallion from Israel minted after the state was founded. On one side is a copy of a coin from the Roman Empire, from the year 71 C.E., that commemorates its capture of Judea. It shows, his website explains, “a mourning woman (possibly representing Jerusalem) sitting underneath a palm tree (often taken to symbolize the victorious Roman Empire).” The words on the coin are “Judea capta (Judah is captive).”

The other side of the coin also depicts a palm tree, but underneath it a man plants a tree and a woman lifts up a baby. It reads: “Israel liberated, 1948.”