Jews in Rome

 We are now off the ship and in Rome until Tuesday when we fly home We spent today in Rome’s Jewish quarter. Our guide claims the Jewish community is the oldest continuous Roman citizens. Just to let you know, he said a lot of things about the Jewish population that I’m not 100% sure I agree with but what do I know? Wikipedia does say the history of the Jews in Italy spans more than two thousand years to the present.

We all (most) know the story of The Jewish holiday of Hanukkah which commemorates the restoration of Jewish worship at the Second Temple in Jerusalem in 164 BC after Judah Maccabee removed all of the statues depicting Greek gods and goddesses and purified it.

After the war and the miracle of Hanukkah  139 BCE, Simon Maccabeus sent people to Rome in order to strengthen his alliance with the Roman Republic against the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. The ambassadors received a cordial welcome from their coreligionists already established in Rome. Large numbers of Jews even lived in Rome during the late Roman Republican period (from around 150 BC). They were largely Greek-speaking and poor. As Rome had increasing contact with and military/trade dealings with the Greek-speaking Levant, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, many Greeks, as well as Jews, came to Rome as merchants. 

The Romans appear to have viewed the Jews as followers of peculiar, backward religious customs, but antisemitism as it would come to be in the Christian and Islamic worlds did not exist (see Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire).[6] Despite their disdain, the Romans did recognize and respect the antiquity of the Jews' religion and the fame of their Temple in Jerusalem.   Julius Caesar was known as a great friend to the Jews, and they were among the first to mourn his assassination. 

So the Jews moved to Rome right after the Maccabees fight.  Actually, they moved to the suburbs of Rome, but shortly after moved into Central Rome. They were able to live in Rome with no restrictions other than the usual pay taxes, vote etc. Then came. Emperor Constantine (boo),  (reigned 306-337 CE) who became Christian after seeing a vision while on the crusades.  He came back from the crusades and banned the persecution of Christians. But he didn’t stop there.

He also legalized a growing division between Jews and Christians that laid the foundation for nearly two millennia of anti-Semitism

Jews living in the Roman Empire were legally obliged to pay the Fiscus Judaicus tax since the destruction of the Jewish Temple in 70 CE. This tax continued during his reign. Constantine established oppressive laws for the Jews According to our guide, Jews could then only be money lenders, tailors, or find broken objects and fix them and resell them. They could not own land and could only rent. At that point many of the Jews were wealthy and had to sell their house at a great loss. The position of Jews in Italy worsened considerably under Pope Innocent III (1198–1216). The Fourth Council of the Lateran, which restricted Jewish life even more. As an aside it also restricted Muslims. In 1235 Pope Gregory IX published the first bull against the ritual murder accusation (an antisemitic trope which falsely accuses Jews of murdering Christians in order to use their blood in the performance of religious rituals. Other popes followed his example. 

Isn’t it interesting that when a group is able to stop persecution of themselves, they turn around and start to persecute other groups. 

The entire point of prosecuting Jews was to get them to convert. It became clear that the Jews were not willing to convert. Then the pope, who was really in charge of the persecution at this point, went after the young Jewish children. The Jews had been rounded up and put in the Jewish quarter. Surrounding the Jewish quarter were five churches. There was no way to leave the Jewish quarter without seeing a church where inscriptions written in Hebrew (yes Hebrew) said how wonderful it was to be Christian. The second way the Pope got Jews to convert was through the Jewish kids nannies. Because Jews were so poor both the mother and father had to work and they hired Nanny’s. The nannies would take the kids to a church and have them baptized without the parents not knowing. Shortly thereafter, the police would come to the Jewish house and take the child away from the parents and bring them up Christian. This is something our guy told us, but to be honest I haven’t found anything on the web that says that’s true. I’m not saying he made it up. I clearly didn’t research this a great deal. Anyway 75% of the Jews still refused to convert. By the way, the Jews were only allowed one synagogue under the when they were being oppressed. So the Jews build a built a big building and within the building were five synagogues. Then there could be a Roman synagogue and Sephardic synagogue and Ashkenazi synagogue and orthodox synagogue, etc.. 

This went on for hundreds of years. At this point during this time, Italy was city states and not united.  Then came Victor Emmanuel II (Vittorio Emanuele II), who was already King of Sardinia and united Italy in 1861 with the help of Giuseppe Garibaldi. Who else helped the king? The Jews, of course. Aren’t you following along this blog? Italian Jews were active participants, disproportionately represented in military, journalism, and secret societies, advocating for unity and emancipation. Jewish soldiers served in the army, with many rising to high ranks, demonstrating commitment to the new nation. They strongly supported unification and Jewish emancipation. Jewish communities saw unification as a path to citizenship, equality, and an end to discrimination, aligning with the liberal goals of the king.

Below is an explanation and also a video of the active Orthodox synagogue within this building. This building is now a museum except for the Orthodox and Roman synagogues. By the way, our guide who is a Roman Jew is very clear that way before there were Ashkenazi or Sephardic there were Roman Jews. He can trace his family back to one AD in Rome. 

Then see a panoramic video of the Roman synagogue

Here are pictures of the Roman synagogue. Quite spectacular and ornate in a church like way 

We had an incredible lunch at a Kosher Italian restaurant. I had homemade pasta with tomatoes and anchovies. Elliot, missed you and wished I could share the anchovy sauce with you.

And finally, Happy Birthday David 

I think I’m done with posting. All we have left is the Colosseum today and let’s hope David posts about it or you’ll have to look it up yourself.