Create Your Italy Experience
Explore the oldest Jewish community in Europe on our Jewish Rome Tour of the Jewish Ghetto and the Great Synagogue along with one of Rome’s most famous neighborhoods, Trastevere. Jewish residents were forced to live within the confines of the Jewish Ghetto for over 300 years. Today it is still referred to as “The Ghetto” and is a thriving Jewish neighborhood full of Jewish-Roman eateries.
The Papacy required Rome’s 2000 Jewish residents to live in the ghetto from 1555 until 1870. The ghetto was a walled quarter with its gates locked at night. The cost of the wall’s construction, 300 Roman scudi, had to be paid by the Jewish community. Portico d’ Ottavia, once the center of the ghetto, is now surrounded by quiet backstreets and lively piazzas in this close-knit neighborhood. The ghetto walls were torn down in 1888.
Oftentimes, we hop into one of the delicious bakeries for sweets on this tour and then make our way to the Great Synagogue.