In a recent review of the significance of the Ostia synagogue, The Dutch archaeologist Leonard V. Rutgers, author of The Jews of Late Ancient Rome (1995) says:

[I]t is no exaggeration to say that from an urban and socio-religious perspective, the synagogue was among the most noticeable institutions in the late ancient city.  Even though some scholars continue to maintain that synagogues typically "developed on the undesirable periphery" of ancient towns, nothing could be farther from the truth.  It is undeniable, for example, that the synagogue of Ostia is located in what now appears to be a deserted spot.  Yet even a most superficial look at the general architectural history of Ostia reveals that it was exactly in the area surrounded by the Ostia synagogue, near the Mediterranean coast, that the most intensive building activities took place over the course of the third and fourth centuries C.E.