The heart of our collection consist of about nine hundred fabrics and four hundred silvers for liturgical use. This is what is left of the ancient decorations for Sefer Torà.
These complex ceremonial machines came as privileged gifts made by Jewish families to their local synagogues, in a period of time between the seventeenth and twentieth century.
They were families that were resident in Rome for a long time, or coming from the countryside in Lazio, especially refugees from Spain and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies after 1492.
These families were linked, depending on the rite celebrated in each of them, to one of the five synagogues.
From 1555, the year in which the ghetto was established, the five places of worship had been merged into a single building, therefore called Cinque Scole, which became the beating heart of religious and social life in the ancient Jewish area.
Since the time of renovation to the present day, the museum collection has been enriched thanks to generous donations, some of which have allowed us to deepen the tragic chapters of the Community history in the twentieth century: from the diaspora of the Libyan Jews, to which an entire hall has been dedicated, to racial persecution before and during the Second World War.
The educational path of the twentieth century room ends with an overview of some Jewish artists, who were operating in the 20th century: Eva Fischer, Corrado Cagli, Antonietta Raphaël Mafai, Carlo Levi.