Former ghetto, the Main Synagogue and the Jewish Museum

This Jewish Ghetto tour in Rome covers the three places that hold the story of the oldest Jewish community in Europe: the streets of the former ghetto, the Jewish Museum of Rome, and the two synagogues that share the same building on Lungotevere de’ Cenci.

The guides I work with are all approved and certified by the Jewish Community of Rome. That matters for a practical reason, not a ceremonial one: the Great Synagogue cannot be visited on your own, and the Museum’s collection only opens up if someone can read a ketubah out loud and explain why a piece of seventeenth-century silver ended up in that case.

Why the Rome ghetto needs a guide more than Venice or Florence

Rome’s ghetto was instituted in 1555 by the papal bull Cum nimis absurdum and was not abolished until 1870. Three hundred and fifteen years, the longest-standing ghetto in Western Europe.

Almost none of it survives. The quarter was demolished at the end of the nineteenth century when the Tiber embankments were built, and the Great Synagogue rose on the cleared ground in 1904. What you walk through today is the street plan and a handful of fragments, not the walls. That is precisely why a guided walking tour of the Jewish quarter of Rome is worth more here than in cities where the ghetto is still physically standing: without someone pointing at it, there is very little left to read.

Before you book

• The Synagogue and the Jewish Museum are closed on Shabbat and on Jewish holidays. The calendar changes every year, so the date needs checking before anything is fixed.
• There is a security check at the entrance. Bring ID and allow extra time.
• Access to the synagogues is only granted with a guide and a museum ticket. There is no independent entry.
• Photography is not permitted inside the prayer halls.

What people usually add to it

The ghetto tour is the natural first morning in Rome. From there the two most common continuations are the Colosseum and the Arch of Titus, which is where the story of this community begins in 70 CE, and the Jewish catacombs of Vigna Randanini, which cannot be visited without prior arrangement.

For the history behind the sites, before you arrive, read the full guides to the Jewish Ghetto of Rome and to Jewish Rome.