Jewish Museum of Rome and the Great Synagogue

Synagogue · Sant'Angelo (Lungotevere de' Cenci, entrance on Via Catalana)Rome,Italy

What Rome's Jews built once the ghetto walls came down, standing free above the cleared lanes, over a museum of what they carried out.

This is what Rome's Jews built as soon as they were allowed to build in the open. From 1555 the community was shut into a few lanes beside the river, and it stayed there for three centuries. When the enclosure was abolished the lanes were pulled down, and the synagogue went up on the cleared ground between 1901 and 1904, free-standing and clear above the low roofs behind it. That siting was the point. Coming to it now, you do not enter by the grand front facing the water. The visitor door is round the side on Via Catalana, and the hall itself is seen on a guided visit rather than walked into. The ornament is drawn from Assyrian and Babylonian sources rather than from anything Roman. The museum beneath holds what the community carried out of the ghetto: silver, embroidered textiles and marble fragments, and the fittings of the five small synagogues that had shared one building there. Jews have lived in Rome without a break for more than two thousand years, longer than in any other city in Europe. A plaque outside records a two-year-old boy killed in an attack on the building in 1982, which is why security at the door is thorough.

Worth knowing

Good to know

Not Saturdays, and not on Jewish holidays — the museum and synagogue are closed then, hours are shorter on Fridays and in winter, and the guided visit runs to a fixed timetable.
The synagogue itself is only seen with a guide — entry to the hall is on a timed tour included in the ticket, so allow for the wait rather than expecting to walk in.
The way in is round the side on Via Catalana — the grand front facing the river is not the visitor entrance, and people lose ten minutes at the wrong door.
The mantles were cut from women's dresses — Look for the family name and date embroidered into each one; the community made these itself, out of whatever it had.

Things to do

1
Stand under the painted dome
On the guided visit you enter the main hall and can look straight up into the square dome. The colour is unlike anything else in Rome: deep blues, reds and gold in bands of ornament, with no figures anywhere. The hall is bright rather than dim, so colour and pattern are what hold your eye, since there are no paintings or statues to look at.
2
Read the textiles case by case
The museum's strongest room holds embroidered curtains and Torah mantles. Some were made from cut-up wedding dresses, and many are dated and signed with the name of the woman or family who gave them. Work along the wall and read the labels, because they tell you who made each piece and when.
3
Go outside and look up from the corner
Come out and walk to the corner where the riverside meets the old enclosure. From there you can see the square dome against the sky, above the low roofs of the lanes behind it. The contrast is deliberate: the community spent three centuries shut inside those lanes, and the synagogue was built to be seen from a distance.