The Jewish community in Rome can be traced at least to 161 B.C.E. when Jason ben Eleazar and Eupolemus ben Yochanan came as emissaries of the Maccabees to join an alliance against the Seleucid Greeks. This was only four years after the Hanukkah story took place. The Romans eagerly agreed to the alliance because of their ambition to overpower the Greek empire and capture its lands for Rome. Some Jewish community leaders moved to Rome to continue this alliance and founded the Jewish community th
