on a roman street


ELI ABT on life in Ostia Antica


reclining at dinner comes from), and a well with a basin for washing hands. Successive generations of donors enlarged and improved, making certain you would know who gave what. Thus a plaque tells us that “for the Emperor’s healthMindus Faustus constructed and placed at his own expense theArk for the Sacred Law”. Eventually this shrine was to be replaced by themore elaborate


semi-circular brick niche or aedicula seen today, complete with columns and corbels lovingly reproducing theMenorah with a bimah platformat the other end for leading the services. That simple plan was to culminate a thousand years later in themagnificent Baroque synagogues ofVenice, Padua and Pesaro. In the year 95 the community could not havemissed


welcoming, with the customary gift of wine and bread, the eminent sage Gamaliel and his fellow delegates on their way to intercede with the Emperor on behalf of the hard-pressed Judean community. Gamaliel’s caustic view of hismission is recorded as “this kingdom feeds on four things alone: tolls, baths, theatres and taxes”. Forty years on Ostia’s Jews would have been the first to hear


The ark at the synagogue in Ostia Antica


site ever since and giving us a great deal of background. Ostia was for centuries the port of Rome, its Jews settling as


I


traders, bargees, stevedores and craftsmen even before the destruction of the JerusalemTemple in the year 70. It is not difficult to picture themstanding on the harbour walls near themouth of the Tiber, witnessingVespasian and Titus and their victorious legions disembark the fleet with thousands of their Jewish captives, their leaders being led with ropes around their necks towards the brutal execution that awaited themwhen the triumphal procession reached the Roman Forum. That was the way of the Empire. Like all migrants and former slaves seeking a living in what was then the centre of the world, the Jews had tomake the best of it. They were plebs in the original sense of the words. They


spoke Greek, avoiding Latin, the language of the Roman military and the aristocracy who, to quote an acerbic midrash commentary, do “nothing but engage in war all their days”. They wore no togas. To add insult to injury, they had to pay their erstwhile annual


Temple dues to the Imperial Treasury in the form of the Fiscus Judaicus. Popular writers such as Juvenal andMartial mocked them both for their simple ways and their eccentric beliefs, often in openly antisemitic terms. The community, the Universitas Judaeorumof Ostia, built their


synagoga, or house of assembly, near where the Tiber originallymet the seashore, now far removed by centuries of silt. Except for a grand propylaeum, or gateway ofmarble columns, it was at first a relatively simple brick affair by Roman standards: amain hall with stone benches on three sides; a small triclineumor dining roomwith couches (reminding us where the Passover Seder customof


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t was only in 1961, when they built the original link road to the new Fiumicino airport, that the oldest synagogue in Europe was discovered. Fascinated archaeologists – currently a teamfrom the University of Texas – have been excavating and studying the


fromSimeon barYochai andMatthia ben Heresh (the latter the eventual founder of Imperial Rome’s only known talmudic academy), as well as other Judean refugees, of the catastrophic collapse of the second revolt under Bar Kokhba. Nevertheless it was through such tragic events that local needs and numbers grew. That was reflected in the eventual addition of a larger reception and dining hall and the installation in the old triclineum of a brand new kitchen complete with oven. In general Roman Jewry’s Judaism, derived as it was from


Temple times, lagged behind the practice being developed by the rabbinic leadership, first in Judea, then in Babylon, in its struggle to ensure the survival of the Diaspora’s far-flung communities after the calamities of the years 70 and 132-5. In one example, recorded in the Talmud, it was discovered that the head of Roman Jewrymarked Passover eve by feasting on roast lamb as had been the Temple practice, by now forbidden. He was diplomatically rebuked with the message “if you were anyone other than the eminent Thaddeus you would be in danger of having a ban pronounced upon you”. Unsurprisingly, bans (and occasional relaxations) camemore


readily fromsuccessive emperors like Domitian, who forbade circumcision, and Septimus Severus, who prohibited conversion to Judaism. Notwithstanding Caracalla’s grant of full citizenship to all Jews, the hostility of the growing Christian population, culminating in Constantine’s conversion in the fourth century,marked the first of manymeasures against Jewish political, social and economic rights. They did enjoy an all-too-brief eight-year respite with the interregnumof Julian ‘theApostate’ (the subject of Ibsen’s Emperor and Galilean), who went so far as to promise a Jewish return to Jerusalemfor the rebuilding of the Temple. Alas, it was not to be. By the end of that century themobs were


burning Roman synagogues, though sparing that at Ostia. Fifty years on theVandals put an end to ‘the Glory that was Rome’by, among other depredations,making off toAfrica with the golden Menorah, never to be seen again. Historic justice?Maybe.


eli Abt is a London architect, planner and musician who writes, broadcasts and lectures on all aspects of the Jewish arts.


vIsITING ThE syNAGOGUE During JR’s visit to ostiaAntica thismay, the path to the synagogue was closed off and there was no signposting.we did reach it, using themap provided, by traipsing across fields, over some very rough ground. It was well worth the effort. but not to be recommended for the infirm. we were told that one of the archaeologists working on the site asked


JewIsh ReNAIssANCe oCtoBeR 2011


for permission to have her wedding there. It was given with the proviso that there should be only 30 guests. four hundred came and that was the last wedding to be held there.


JL


t h e J e w s o f R o m e


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