Roaming Through Rome, Day 5 - 27/12/18 - Jewish Museum of Rome and the Cat Sanctuary of Rome

Today, we went around Rome's Jewish Museum. This was something I wanted to see, as I feel that it is vital to learn about Jewish historical events to stop them from being repeated. The Jewish Quarter is also one of the most architecturally interesting of Rome. I also stumbled on a cat sanctuary of Rome, and found myself looking for books.

So, two of the first things we saw were monuments of ancient Rome. We went via taxi, which gave us another good drive-by of the historical sites. He dropped us off a short walk away from the museum.

This is the Theatro di Marcello, and not, as I realised on a second glance, the Colosseum.

This is the Portico D'Ottavio, which has had everything from a
library nearby to a fish market.

The Jewish Museum, or Museo Ebraico di Roma (Hebrew Museum of Rome) also includes the Great Synagogue of Rome, the largest Synagogue in Italy. It is rare to find a Synagogue in Europe that is so well-preserved, since the Nazis destroyed many of them. The Jewish community of Rome lost an estimated 7,700 to the Holocaust.

This was taken from inside the synagogue.

I always think that one of the most important points to remember is that anti-semitism in Europe did not start or end with the Nazis, nor was it unique to Germany. The Roman Ghetto dates back to 1555, set up by the Pope of the time. It was walled and the gates were locked at night. The Jewish community had to pay for the construction of the walls. The area often flooded from the river Tiber. They couldn't own property and had a limited number of jobs available to them. They had to wear a yellow badge when they left the ghetto. Now remember, this was 400 years before the Nazis came to power. Hatred builds on what was there before.

Another thing I think is important is to remember the actual people behind the six million who died in The Holocaust. The museum had an exhibition about Ludwig Pollak. He was a museum curator and antiques expert. His discoveries can still be seen in The Vatican, the Lieblingshaus in Frankfurt and the Metropolitan Museum in New York. He also supplied private collectors, too. There can be no doubt that his interest was genuine, scholarly as well as professional. He was an optimist - in a diary, he wrote in 1932 that the previous year hadn't been a good one, but he hopes the next year would be better. But January of the next year saw Adolf Hitler elected chancellor of Germany. In 1943, a raid was carried out on the Jews of Rome. Pollak did have offers to help, but he rejected them, supposedly because he felt himself safe because of his advanced years. He was most likely killed immediately in the gas chambers.

Rome Between Middle Ages and Renaissance: Piazza Guidea was crossed by a street which links the
Campidoglio, Ara Coeli and Giano's Arch with Campo de' Fiori and Castel Sant'Angelo. In the Middle Ages
and near the renaissance, the Jews lived on both banks of the Tiber near the Isola Tiberina. The Quattro Capi
bridge, which connected the island, became known as the Pons Judeorum.

Menorah made for the exhibition "The Menorah: Cult, History and Myth" 2017
Donated by the artist to the Jewish Museum of Rome.

Looking over a couple of maps after coming out of the museum, we determined that the hotel and a few other sites would actually be within walking distance. On the way back, we stumbled across something we didn't know about - the Cat Sanctuary of Rome. Of course, I had to walk in and give all the cats a hello.

Cats! I just want to take them all home.

This one became my new friend.

I did buy a sleeping blindfold from here, mostly just as a way of making a donation, since they didn't charge me for going in. Let's keep cats safe, yeah?

Also on our way back through, we went past the Pantheon. We wanted to get a look at it, inside. It was, of course, packed, and I would have liked there to be more information inside, as a way of contextualising it?

Note the careful angle to avoid the tops of peoples heads.

At this point, we split. Dad wanted to head back to the hotel, but I wanted to have a look at some of the shops. There comes a time during every holiday where I run out of reading material, and have to frantically start looking for a nearby English Language bookstore. I found a branch of la Fetrinelli in a nearby shopping mall. I didn't buy anything, but I find books themselves have a calming effect on me.

I did like their Christmas display!

Luckily, there was also a bookshop nearby called the Anglo-American bookstore, so I took an interesting wander through backstreets to get to it. It wasn't as big as I was expecting, but well-stocked, and I managed to find a copy of Wildcard, which was on my to-read list since I enjoyed Warcross.

I popped into the 'Diamond Building' and learnt what it actually is. It's name is Rinascente and it's an Italian department store, reminding me in layout of Selfridges in London. I had a fun look-around and test of the make-up on my hand. I didn't buy anything, but it was fun. I also went all the way up to their food hall, where they had displays of chocolates and macarons. There was also a quick-service café up there, and a good few restaurants which I made a note to tell Dad about. Since I was hungry for lunch at this point, I stopped at the café.

I had what was called a fluffy coffee and a ham and cheese focaccia. The fluffy coffee, while I liked the texture, was pistachio flavoured only by use of an overly-thick syrup around the glass. I would try a different flavour next time. The foccacia however was amazing, with a hearty warmth.

They also had cool window displays, which I appreciated.

So I passed on the news about the restaurants to Dad when we discussed where to go that night. I managed to sell him on the idea of a sushi restaurant called Temakinho. Dad had been wanting to look for alternatives to Italian for a few days, and sushi is one of my favourite meals, so I didn't argue.

I had this, which was called the Christmas tree roll, and yes, that is strawberry on
top of sushi, which actually worked to provide a nice balance of flavours.

We also passed this, a tiny nativity display, which featured people cooking pizza in the background!

Purchases of the day! Wildcard, blindfold and free leaflets from the cat sanctuary and the Jewish Museum
I like to keep leaflets like these from places I've been and stick them into my diary on the corresponding page.