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CommunityJewish Eligibility — Verified by JWR

Jewish Community of Rome

The Jewish Community of Rome is Europe's oldest continuously existing Jewish community under JWR's verified city-level continuity standard.

Rome, ItalyFounded 2nd century BCE

Interior of the Jewish Museum of Rome

Cats' photos / Wikimedia CommonsSourceCC0 1.0

About

Jewish communal life in Rome is attested from the 2nd century BCE and has continued to the present. The community developed a distinctive Roman Jewish tradition and survived successive political regimes, the ghetto era, emancipation, Fascist persecution and the Holocaust. Its modern communal institutions include the Great Synagogue complex and the Jewish Museum of Rome. The Jewish Community of Rome is Europe's oldest continuously existing Jewish community under JWR's verified city-level continuity standard. In Jewish World Records, Jewish Community of Rome is connected to the record “Oldest Continuously Existing Jewish Community in Europe,” based on the stored achievement of Jewish life in Rome since at least the 2nd century BCE. Jewish life in Rome reaches back to the final centuries of the Roman Republic.

Public links

Records held by Jewish Community of Rome

Great Synagogue of Rome, present-day visual context for the Jewish Community of Rome
JWR VerifiedFounding Record
Jewish Heritage · Jewish CommunitiesOldest

Oldest Continuously Existing Jewish Community in Europe

Record holder

Jewish Community of Rome

Record value

Jewish life in Rome since at least the 2nd century BCE

Jewish life in Rome reaches back to the final centuries of the Roman Republic. Authoritative historical sources attest a Jewish presence in the city from the second century BCE and describe continuous local communal existence through imperial Rome, the medieval city, the centuries of the ghetto, emancipation, Fascism and the Holocaust, and into the present. The Jewish Community of Rome is recognized as Europe’s earliest continuously existing local Jewish community. The Great Synagogue, completed in 1904, is used here only as a present-day visual symbol of the community; it is not the origin of the ancient community recognized by this record.

Country
Italy
Achievement location
Rome, Italy
Achievement date
2nd century BCE
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