Unearthing Hidden Histories: The Jewish Catacombs Beneath Rome

Villa Torlonia is a visually stunning tourist destination, boasting a wealth of palaces, gardens, mazes, and fountains. Thousands of tourists visit it throughout the year, originally built by Italian banker Giovanni Torlonia. Later, it became the residence of dictator Benito Mussolini, who led Italy during World War II. Beneath the villa are enormous cellars where Mussolini hid during bombings.

However, below these cellars lies a vast, forgotten city that's remained out of sight for approximately 1,500 years: the Roman catacombs. These catacombs are underground burial caves. Hundreds of these caves are located under ancient Rome, including sixty Jewish burial caves that contain 534 Jewish gravestones. Jews lived there from the first century BCE to the fourth century CE (although only five hundred tombstones with inscriptions have survived to modern times). For five centuries, Roman Jews buried their dead here, with the inscriptions telling their stories, or at least part of them.

The tombstones are adorned with Jewish symbols like menorahs and Ark of the Covenant decorations. Often, the deceased's synagogue affiliation is noted. Thirteen different Roman synagogues are mentioned: the Synagogue of the Elders, the Synagogue of the Campanians, the Synagogue of the Tripolitans, the Hebrew Synagogue, the Synagogue of the Augustans in memory of Augustus, the Synagogue in honor of Agrippa, among others.

The tombstones usually include the deceased's profession: merchants, dyers, butchers, and even fortune-tellers were interred there.

In the catacombs beneath Villa Apia in Rome, there are special Jewish graves, perhaps of the wealthy, adorned with murals depicting the Jewish community's life in Rome. Historians have learned from these murals about the daily routines of Roman Jews in synagogues, at celebrations, and in commerce. Post the destruction of the Second Temple, the Jewish community in Rome numbered tens of thousands.

These catacombs were closed for years and were only rediscovered in the 20th century. However, other Jewish graves were discovered earlier. In 1741, near Naples in Italy, an engraved stone set on the grave of Esther—a Jewish war captive from the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE—was found.

The gravestone was placed in her memory by Tiberius, a Roman citizen who purchased her in the Roman slave market (probably when she was around 17) and freed her to marry her. Tiberius himself was a freed slave and carried the name of the patron who freed him (Claudius). This is also why Esther was given the additional name Claudia, after Claudius her benefactor. Esther died at the age of 25, young and scarred by suffering, wandering, and longing for her family, city, and people.

The gravestone reads: "(Here lies) Claudia Esther, captive from Jerusalem. I, Tiberius Claudius, a freedman according to law, placed (this stone). I appeal to you, ensure that no one damages my inscription. She lived for 25 years".

Yet Jews had arrived in Rome even before the fall of the Second Temple. When Pompey conquered Jerusalem 140 years before, he brought Jewish captives with him, forming the foundation of the Roman Jewish community.

In Jerusalem's City of David, a new project allows people to virtually explore Rome's catacombs in 3D, sitting in Jerusalem and mentally touring the final resting place of those ancient captives taken by the Romans—reading the last words penned by their loved ones about them and viewing the Jewish symbols striving to remain around their burial sites in perpetual memory.