Day 21: A trip to remember

looking towards St Peter's Square

On our last day before leaving for Australia we returned to St Peter's for midday 'Messe' at the left transept (Chapel of Saint Joseph).  A good experience but with tourists taking shots of you during Mass - must be a curiosity for people unfamiliar with religion.  


We then found the tomb of John Paul II and spent time there in prayer and reflection.  As I met and shook hands with him in 1995 it was very moving to be at his tomb and think about his wonderful life and what he achieved through difficult times from 1978-2005.  He is definitely one of my heroes. 


We walked back along the Tiber and diverted to Campo di'Fiore (I talked about yesterday) which was full of stalls selling food, fruit and veges, flowers, spices etc - a special place.  We had coffee and great homemade cheeseake on the square looking out on all the activity.

Rome- Jewish Ghetto 1879

Our final excursion before we departed was a hard choice but we decided to go to the Jewish Roman Museum just across the river from Trastevere.  We were frisked on entry as there was an awful terrorist attack here in 1982 that killed an innocent child and I suppose it could still be a target.  The synagogue and museum were powerful and confronting, chronicling the history of this small, resilient community. The first documented Jews in Rome were in 161 BCE and we know that many were brought as slaves by Emperor Titus after the sack and ruin of Jerusalem in 70 AD.  The Roman Jewish community march through the Arch of Titus in the Roman Forum each year on the anniversary of the establishment of State of Israel in response to the frieze on the arch which shows the Jewish treasures and slaves being brought to Rome as captives in 71 AD.  


We had been to the Jewish quarter previously but learned of the frequent discrimination and disadvantage that they faced here over the last 2.2 centuries including the genocide by the Nazis in 1943-1944. In the synagogue the places at the front are reserved for the families of the 16 Holocaust survivors from the 'round up' of October 1943 and the other survivors from the deportations to the camps over the following months prior to liberation of Rome in June 1944. 


Here is a website if you are interested but  I will give one example: The Jewish ghetto in Rome was created in 1555 and was walled in  at the same level as the Tiber, subject to frequent flooding, close to the Porta Octavia and the Theatre of Marcellis.  The ghetto was very impoverished and Jews were persecuted and restricted in many of their professions and practices which were not really removed until 1870 when the Papal States became part of an united Italy.  However in 1938 Mussolini and the Fascists went back to the 'bad old days' with severe restrictions and Jews made to abandon religious practices and do forced labour.  


What is good to know is that the community is thriving and integrated, very conscious of its history, whilst not being sentimental.  In fact there was a split in the community in the 1990s about Israels treatment of the Palestinians.


Another special day for us and a trip to remember- and I need to pack!