History of the Jews in Italy

The history of the Jews in Italy spans more than two thousand years to the present. The Jewish presence in Italy dates to the pre-Christian Roman period and has continued, despite periods of extreme persecution and expulsions, until the present. As of 2019, the estimated core Jewish population in Italy numbers around 45,000. History of the Jews in the Roman Empire The Jewish community in Rome is likely one of the oldest continuous Jewish communities in the world, existing from classical times until today. Most certainly, it is known that in 139 BCE, Simon Maccabeus sent a Hasmonean embassy to Rome in order to strengthen his alliance with the Roman Republic against the Hellenistic Seleucid kingdom. The ambassadors received a cordial welcome from their coreligionists already established in Rome. Large numbers of Jews even lived in Rome during the late Roman Republican period (from around 150 BC). They were largely Greek-speaking and poor. As Rome had increasing contact with and military/trade dealings with the Greek-speaking Levant, during the 2nd and 1st centuries BCE, many Greeks, as well as Jews, came to Rome as merchants or were brought there as slaves. The Romans appear to have viewed the Jews as followers of peculiar, backward religious customs, but antisemitism as it would come to be in the Christian and Islamic worlds did not exist (see Anti-Judaism in the pre-Christian Roman Empire). Despite their disdain, the Romans did recognize and respect the antiquity of the Jews' religion and the fame of their Temple in Jerusalem (Herod's Temple). Many Romans did not know much about Judaism, including the emperor Augustus who, according to his biographer Suetonius, thought that Jews fasted on the sabbath. Julius Caesar was known as a great friend to the Jews, and they were among the first to mourn his assassination. In Rome, the community was highly organized, and presided over by heads called άρχοντες (archontes) or γερουσιάρχοι (gerousiarchoi). The Jews maintained in Rome several synagogues, whose spiritual leader was called αρχισυνάγωγος (archisynagogos).

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (2)

History of the Jews in Europe

The history of the Jews in Europe spans a period of over two thousand years. Some Jews, a Judaean tribe from the Levant, migrated to Europe just before the rise of the Roman Empire (27 BCE). Although Alexandrian Jews had already migrated to Rome, a notable early event in the history of the Jews in the Roman Empire was the 63 BCE siege of Jerusalem. The pre-World War II Jewish population of Europe is estimated to have been close to 9 million, or 57% of the world's Jewish population.

Jews

Jews (יְהוּדִים, Yehudim, jehuˈdim) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group, nation or ethnos native to the Levant, originating from the ancient Israelites and Hebrews of historical Israel and Judah. Jewish ethnicity, nationhood, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the ethnic religion of the Jewish people, although its observance varies from strict to none. Jews take their origins from a Southern Levantine national and religious group that arose towards the end of the second millennium BCE.