I had hoped to return to the Etruscan Museum today, and indeed I did, only to find it closed. Apparently, many things close on Mondays in Rome. Perhaps I should have checked before making that trek. Oh well. I, along with the three classmates I made the trip with, decided to go to the Museo Ebraico (Jewish Museum) instead.
Today, we learned quite a bit about getting around by bus in Rome. I learned how to interpret the bus stop schedules with fair accuracy, and we discovered a bus that goes to Trastevere, one of the preferred neighborhoods in our group (it’s got all kinds of good restaurants and a great atmosphere overall). A far more practical lesson than most I’ve had on the trip so far, so I guess our failed visit to the Etruscan Museum had a silver lining.
The Jewish Museum houses some pretty incredible things. The first room of the collection houses beautiful, ornate tapestries. Some of these were Torah covers, while others were just wall-hangings. Some of the ones on display had actual gold and silver woven into them, and I think I overheard a couple’s private guide say that one of them took someone an entire lifetime to create. I kinda believed it; this thing was gorgeous. The museum houses almost 900 of these tapestries!
While waiting for the English tour to start, I had a look around at the other pieces of the collection. I saw at least one decorative (incredibly beautiful) version of just about every Jewish accessory/instrument/religious article that I could imagine. There was even a bris set. The items that really caught my eye, however, were the Hebrew engravings and calligraphy. I managed to surreptitiously snap a few photos of one or two of these, which I am including here. My Hebrew was limited to pronunciation (but not without vowels!), not meaning, and even my memory of that is shaky, at best. So, I settled for just enjoying the beauty of the elaborate calligraphy from an aesthetic standpoint.
Our tour began after a little while, and though our guide had a thick Italian accent, I made out most of the spiel. She took us first to a small synagogue within the museum itself, providing the men with kippot (yarmulkes) and the women with shawls (where necessary). She then told us the abbreviated history of the Jewish Romans. The Roman Jewish ghetto was established in 1555 by Pope Paul IV, in his bull, Cum nimis absurdum.
The Roman Jews actually had a bit of a better deal than in some other places. For instance, Rome never expelled the Jews, as so many other countries had. In fact, many of the displaced Jews from Spain, Portugal, and other countries ended up coming to Rome en masse. However, the sudden influx of inhabitants led to very cramped, disease-ridden living conditions. To make matters worse, the ghetto was located right on the banks of the Tiber River, the river that flows through Rome, which overflows every so often (and this was before walls were built to contain the flooding). Various other indignities plagued the Jews, such as not being allowed to have any possessions, a yearly tax and humiliating oath of loyalty (to the Pope), compulsory Christian sermons on the Sabbath, and their being forbidden to mark the graves of their dead. Their lot fluctuated somewhat based on whoever was in power at the time, but many of the Popes were pretty consistently dicks to the Jews. The ghetto was disbanded briefly in 1798 when the Republic took over the papal states (this lasted no more than a year), and then again in 1848, which lasted less than two years. The ghetto was formally disbanded in 1882, and the ghetto itself was demolished six years later. Then in the 1930s, a fella by the name of Adolph came along… you know the rest.
Our guide also brought us into the main synagogue in Rome, though she said it is only used for weddings and other special occasions these days. She also told us that Pope John Paul II visited the synagogue, the first Pope in history to do so. Apparently the new guy also visited them; though she seemed less enthusiastic about that (I wonder if his days in Hitler Youth had anything to do with that).
All in all, the visit was very informative. I’m glad I chose to visit the Jewish Museum; it was certainly a much-needed break from the tour of Roman churches. I don’t actually consider myself Jewish anymore, but the time I spent in my youth as a part of the Jewish faith certainly made the visit much more meaningful for me.
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