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The Ostia Antica Synagogue

The Synagogue, the oldest in Europe, at Ostia Antica was initially built in the first or second century (CE), when Ostia became the port on the Mediterranean for Rome, at the mouth of the Tiber River. In a short period of time, this was the seat of commercial activities, notable by the presence of people of diverse religious beliefs and attracted numerous Jews. Grain was one of its most important imports. The city grew and changed, as did the synagogue. Its final reconstruction dates to the fifth century (CE), during a period when the port of Ostia was still busy.

The Synagogue covers a large area, including an entrance, its façade, and many other rooms. In its earliest form, the synagogue featured a main hall with benches along three walls; a monumental gateway featuring tall Corinthian columns; a dining room with couches along three walls, and a basin near the entryway for ritual washings. Importantly, as it should be, benches around the apse faced Jerusalem, not Rome.

The most notable Jewish feature among the ruins are columns—technically—and architrave, with an incised menorah, a shofar, and the lulav and etrog (used for the holiday of Sukkot).

The Virtual Walking Tour of Ostia Antica

The Virtual Walking Tour of Ostia Antica with Andrea Stoler will highlight the synagogue, but there are also amazing ruins of Ostia Antica to be seen (as good as Pompeii some people have commented). One can view the remains of a flour mill: places to store the wheat, the millstones for grinding it, and a large oven for baking bread. Related and fascinating, at the synagogue bread or matzoh were made, as ruins of an oven and marble table are present.

She will point out how the architectural elegance of this particular sacred structure, a little synagogue, seems out-of-place within the empty landscape and overgrown weeds. But the history is very provocative, originally being near water and on the outside of the city walls. Looks and location can be deceiving, as recently it has been postulated to be a relatively populated area with villas during the final reconstruction phase.

Take a journey through time, visit ruins of a relatively intact ancient Roman city and hear stories about the oldest synagogue in Europe which has features similar to synagogues today. Her virtual tour will include images of important aspects of the Ostia Antica Port and an explanation of the entire complex, including fascinating lesser-known archaeological finds that will soon be published.

About the Writer, Brenda Lee Bohen

Brenda is a Latina and a proud Veteran of the United States Army Reserves. She holds dual citizenship in both the United States and Italy. She is a trained historic preservationist who tirelessly advocates the scholarship and history of the Jews of Rome. She has her certification in Jewish leadership and continues advanced studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. Brenda is also a licensed and accredited tour guide at the Jewish Museum of Rome and the Vatican Museums.

Read more blogs from Brenda: Tour of Jewish Catacombs in Rome, 3 Literary Treasures of The Jewish Museum of Rome

Sources:

https://museoebraico.roma.it/en/

Treasures Of The Jewish Museum Of Rome: Guide To The Museum And Its Collections, by Daniela Di Castro. Araldo De Luca Editore, Rome 2010; reprinted 2016

Tour of Jewish Catacombs in Rome with Micaela Pavoncello

Pavoncello is a member of the Jewish Community of Rome and she shares specific insights, with majestic detail, about her ancestors – the Roman Jews.

Pavoncello and her team of educators from the community, all Roman Jews, are on an educational mission to ensure that tourists from all backgrounds be exposed to Rome’s Jewish history by teaching and sharing their authentic Roman Jewish religion, culture, and traditions.

The Catacombs of Rome

The importance of the ancient Jewish community of Imperial Rome is attested by numerous symbols, such as the menorah, the shofar, oil lamps, amphorae, and the Four Species, most of which come from the Jewish catacombs.

The Catacombs are deep, subterranean tunnels (underground cemeteries) with long corridors, burial niches, and cubicles. The Jewish catacombs were never venues of liturgical celebration– according to Jewish belief, contact with the dead renders one impure.

Jewish law and tradition command that Jews be buried in the ground. Burial niches were also dug in the catacombs. The name catacomb originates from the late Latin catacumba (etymology is uncertain), indicated, at first. a particular cave, hence, for instance, there were the Catacumbas, on the Appian Way outside the city center of Rome. In Rome, there is evidence of six catacombs, but only two, the Villa Torlonia on Via Nomentana and Vigna Randanini near the Via Antica, are accessible today.

The Stone Epitaphs

Pavoncello provides full-day excursions involving accurate explanations of how the Jews of Rome bury their dead, from antiquity to present times. Her explanations include an overview of the valuable documentation of stone epitaphs. These include cast copies and some originals found today in the Jewish Museum of Rome, the Vatican Museums, the Capitoline Museums, the Roman National Museum, and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples.

The funerary stone epigraphical inscriptions identify those buried. They enable us to know the different names of the Roman Jews from the time of the Roman Empire, as well as the names of the various congregations to which they belonged. The inscriptions likewise include the administrative positions and the organizational structure of the Roman Jewish community.

Some of the oldest epigraphical documentation which Pavoncello explains date back to the 2^nd and 3^rd centuries of the Common Era and are inscribed in ancient Greek. There is one particular inscription within the Jewish Museum’s collection which is in Aramaic and Greek,  It belongs to a Jewess named Isadora and entails important information about the Jewish women in ancient Rome. In fact, there are several epitaphs dedicated to women in ancient Rome, proving how women held leadership roles and were cherished and respected by their husbands, sons, and the community.

Pavoncello’s tours provide a direct relationship to the Roman Jewish past and still thriving community, and more interestingly, the symbolism used by ancient Roman Jews are symbols Jews will recognize and consider important even today.

“The Jewish catacombs are a source of pride for our Jewish community, which is often referred to as one of the most ancient of the Diaspora since they attest to our presence in Rome since far-off times,” says the Chief Rabbi of Rome Riccardo Di Segni.

“The catacombs belong to a very specific period in the history of Judaism, when the verse ‘For dust you are, and to dust, you shall return (Bereshit 3, 19) was fulfilled not by burying the dead in the ground, but in the loculi excavated in the stone,” Di Segni added, explaining what it is possible to learn about the Jewish life of that times.

About the Writer, Brenda Lee Bohen

Brenda is a Latina and a proud Veteran of the United States Army Reserves. She holds dual citizenship in both the United States and Italy. She is a trained historic preservationist who tirelessly advocates the scholarship and history of the Jews of Rome. She has her certification in Jewish leadership and continues advanced studies at the Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership. Brenda is also a licensed and accredited tour guide at the Jewish Museum of Rome and the Vatican Museums.

Read more blogs from Brenda: Jewish Rome, 3 Literary Treasures of The Jewish Museum of Rome

Sources:

Treasures of The Jewish Museum of Rome: Guide to The Museum and Its Collections by Daniela Di Castro. Arnaldo De Luca Editore, Rome 2010; reprinted 2016. Ancient Symbols for A New History, 38-40

Jewish Museum of Rome

https://museoebraico.roma.it/en/

Jewish Roma

http://www.jewishroma.com 

https://www.timesofisrael.com/in-rome-spectacular-ancient-jewish-catacombs-opening-haunted-by-delays/

https://www.timesofisrael.com/inside-the-catacombs-buried-history-ties-jews-to-ancient-rome/