OCTOBER 22 & 29
2-PART ZOOM TALK at 3:00 PM EDT

JEWISH SECRETS OF THE VATICAN MUSEUM

Where Michelangelo Meets the Menorah

The Vatican may seem like the last place to look for Jewish stories — yet they’re there, quietly waiting to be found. In this two-part journey, we’ll walk through galleries and chapels you may have already visited and even not once, but with a new kind of curiosity: what happens when we look at them through Jewish eyes?
We’ll follow traces of ancient communities, artists, and thinkers; we’ll notice what’s hidden in plain sight - inscriptions, gestures, symbols - and the complicated dance between Judaism and the Catholic world that has unfolded for two thousand years.

October 22, Wednesday Part I: Rome’s Jewish Voices, Roman Popes and Art

Our path begins underground, among ancient catacombs where the earliest Jewish inscriptions in Rome were found. We will discuss what these stones can tell us about the lives of Jews 2000 years ago.
From there, we’ll rise into history: to the halls of the Vatican, where popes took turns defending and condemning the same people. We’ll trace the image of the Temple Menorah as it travels through centuries of Christian art and memory, and find the Jewish meaning in the art masterpieces of Vatican.
We’ll look at a recent exhibition dedicated to the Temple Menorah, organized together by the Vatican and the Jewish Museum of Rome - a gesture of dialogue and recognition.

October 22, Wednesday Part II: Michelangelo’s Codes and Chagall’s Colors

In the second session, we’ll stand beneath the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel and read it differently - not just as the glory of the Renaissance, but as a text filled with hints, questions, and Jewish messages that Michelangelo wove into his masterpiece.
Then we’ll move forward in time, to the Vatican’s modern art collection, to meet Marc Chagall and other Jewish artists who found a place here, sometimes unexpectedly.

This program is about seeing the familiar anew — discovering how Jewish history, faith, and imagination still live within the walls of the Vatican.