The Jews of Rome: A 2,000-Year Witness in the Heart of an Empire

December 5 – December 11, 2025

This week I am writing to you from Rome—yes, that Rome—where every corner feels like a conversation between past and present. Being here has changed today’s dispatch. Instead of the usual rapid-fire news, I want to bring you something older, quieter, and profoundly more enduring. As I’ve walked these ancient streets, stood along the Tiber, and listened to the unmistakable cadence of Hebrew prayers rising from Rome’s oldest neighborhoods, I’ve realized that the most important stories are often the ones that have been unfolding for centuries. The Jewish community of Rome is one of them.

How They Arrived: A People Who Planted Themselves in the World’s Capital

Jews began arriving in Rome long before the destruction of the Second Temple. By the second century BC, Jewish traders and diplomats were already moving through the heart of the Republic. But after AD 70, when Roman legions crushed Jerusalem and paraded the spoils through the Arch of Titus, the Jewish population here swelled dramatically. Many came in chains. Others slowly built new lives.

It would have been natural for these exiles to dissolve into the empire that conquered them. But that is not what happened. Instead, they planted themselves. They built homes. They raised families. They prayed the same prayers their ancestors prayed under Judean skies. In the middle of an empire that demanded allegiance to its gods, they held fast to the God who had made covenant with them.

They lived the way Jeremiah once instructed the exiles in Babylon: build, plant, seek the welfare of the city—but do not forget who you are (Jeremiah 29:5–8).