Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

You Will Soon Be Able To Visit Rome’s Jewish Catacombs

Cemeteries are naturally spooky places – fields littered with old gray stones marking dead bodies. But you know what’s spookier than cemeteries? Catacombs, those underground passages filled with human remains. For those of us that find such places more interesting than scary or disgusting, there was recently some good news out of Rome.

As the Wall Street Journal reported earlier in the month, the Italian Government finally allotted money towards the restoration of the Jewish catacombs underneath Villa Torlonia in Rome. Back in the time of Ancient Rome, catacombs became a popular way for the empire’s Jewish and Christian populations to bury their dead. While the Ancient Romans cremated their dead, cremation is forbidden in Jewish law. Because land was scarce and expensive, instead of creating cemeteries, the Roman Jews and Christians opted to bury their dead in closely packed catacombs.

According to the Wall Street Journal article, the catacombs are adorned with “paintings of stars, planets, peacocks and pomegranates” as well as “sacred Jewish symbols, including an ark with the scrolls of the Torah, and several inscriptions referring to synagogues in the city.” Rome had a large, thriving Jewish community – it is hypothesized that they at one point comprised up to 3-6% of the city’s population. Of course, Roman-Jewish history is not entirely a success story — one of the events that led to the city’s large Jewish population was the destruction of the Second Temple. In that same vein, Villa Torlonia, under which the catacombs were discovered, used to house Italy’s fascist dictator, Benito Mussolini who, as we know, was allied with Hitler during World War II.

So when will the catacombs be open to the public? Monica Zelinotti, who is in charge of the restoration efforts, said that the catacombs require a lot of work – among other things, “In parts, the walls between niches have given way. In one place, the ground above is sagging.” That being said, the Wall Street Journal seems optimistic about the catacomb’s restoration time, putting the opening date as “within a few years—maybe even next year.”

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.