[314] Rome and Jerusalem, 16 September 2010

What is the impact of the ghetto (in both the old sense and a contemporary sense) on the people inside and the people outside?

Jewish ghettos were inhumane. People were confined behind walls and gates, forced into a space that did not allow enough room to live. There was no room to move out, so the Jews built up – literally living on top of each other. For three-hundred years, this imprisonment went on in Rome. The impact of this inhumanity is still being understood today. I feel that the best way to shed light on the ghettos is to look at the most personal, and arguably the most human impact: emotional. This journal will look into the emotional impact of separation, both inside and outside the ghetto.

Standing outside the Roman ghetto, I didn’t notice anything different than the rest of the city. There are walls, but Italians love walls (just another expression power). I could see a large synagogue, but it was constructed by Italian architects, thus, its design mirrored other buildings throughout the city. Once inside, we were told that the synagogue was actually designed like a church, the proportions were not authentic. Its high, square dome is unique, but still fits this Jewish landmark snuggly into the skyline of Rome.

The “normalcy” quickly disappeared when I walked inside the gates. An unassuming wall contained a plaque, commemorating the date October 16, 1943. On this date, Nazis stormed the ghetto and took nearly two-hundred people to Auschwitz. Only sixteen returned. These rip-out-your-heart-and-watch-it-bleed stories are the old ghetto, not the ghetto we see today. The new buildings that stand within the walls work to cover up the perpetual tragedy that was the Roman ghetto. Without attention to detail, this area would have had no emotional implications to me; it would have been like any other. But, just like every piece of land in Rome, history lives around every corner and in every step.

The residents of the historical ghetto must have felt the pangs of separation. These walls and gates locked them away from the rest of the world, perpetuating confusion and paranoia. Then, there was also separation felt when the ghettos were emptied. The wails of emotional pain sounded off the walls, replaced only by the absence of feeling – actually, of pain to deep to express. I doubt that the people felt weak, the one emotion that the key-holders wanted.

But what did these oppressors feel? How about the men who locked the gates at night, or the people who moved freely through the ghetto during the day, then got to spend their nights in their homes outside the walls? The popes, especially Pope Paul IV who created the ghetto, must have felt a sense of power and accomplishment. Believers may have seen these ghettos and been afraid of turning their backs on Catholicism, or at least that was the hope of the ghettos – to serve as an example. The only example I see is that of community, of people who came together under the worst of situations and found a way to not be discouraged.

I think that the Jewish community, both old and new, was able to thrive because of the sense of family the ghetto provided. As Elsa Morante explains in The Smiles of Rome, “It was a place […] of a single, endless family.” (289) The emotional implications of family are a lot to unpack. But, the sense of being a part of something bigger, and having a community to rely on, is what I can boiled it down to. With these factors, one can feel comfort, a feeling that saturates the Roman ghetto today.

Now, the gates are gone. There is no terror palpable inside the ghetto’s walls. It is a pleasant place, filled with pleasant people. The streets are filled with more people than cars, and it feels as if the ghetto could be somewhat of a suburb to this Eternal City. There are children on break from Hebrew School, old men sipping caffé, legs crossed, talking of some unknown topic in exaggerated Italian, and plenty of women, young and old, chatting in and out of store fronts. The only separation I sense is that of a traveler viewing a local. As the group happens upon a kosher restaurant, even that feeling subsides as the owner pats Rabbi Spitzer on the back and encourages us all to take a seat.

Though the walls are gone, separation still permeates the ghetto. But now, it isn’t imposed by authority, it is the product of comprehension. What can we, the Gentiles, fathom? I can hear stories, see museums, walk the ghetto's streets … but I can never get past the wall of empathy. I can’t imagine. I don’t know what it’s like. So, I enter where the gate once stood, and physically enter the walls of this separation, hoping to open the doors of the gate in my mind.