Pope Francis Meets Turkey Chief Rabbi
Turkish Chief Rabbi Isak Haleva met with Pope Francis on the Catholic spiritual leader’s first official visit to Turkey.
Francis, who was born in Argentina, and Haleva met privately for about 15 minutes on Sunday, Vatican Radio reported. The two conversed in Spanish, which is Haleva’s maternal language as a Sephardic Jew of Spanish descent.
The Pope met Haleva in the final hours of his two-day trip to Turkey. Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesperson, told reporters that the two men would have met Saturday if not for the Jewish Sabbath. He added the conversation was “very friendly and cordial.”
“Pope Francis came here on a bridge-building mission within the Christian world,” said Cefi Kamhi, a prominent member of Turkey’s Jewish community of 25,000, a member of the European Jewish Parliament and a former lawmaker. “It’s natural that he should also reach out to strengthen ties to other faith groups, and I think he succeeded in doing this.”
Haleva met the previous pope, Benedict XVI, on his visit to Turkey in 2006.
One of the key elements of the Pope’s visit was his meeting with the spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I. The two met on Sunday and demanded an end to the persecution of religious minorities in Syria and Iraq and called for a “constructive dialogue” with Muslims.
Francis’ visit was also seen as outreach to Muslims in the Muslim nation. He visited Istanbul’s Sultan Ahmet mosque, where he paused for a moment of reflection. The grand mufti of Istanbul, Rahmi Yaran, who received Francis at the mosque, said he hoped that Francis’ visit would “contribute to the world getting along well and living in peace.”
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
News Student protesters being deported are not ‘martyrs and heroes,’ says former antisemitism envoy
- 2
News Who is Alan Garber, the Jewish Harvard president who stood up to Trump over antisemitism?
- 3
Opinion What Jewish university presidents say: Trump is exploiting campus antisemitism, not fighting it
- 4
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
In Case You Missed It
-
News Trump would eliminate antisemitism envoy in proposed State Department overhaul
-
Yiddish World Philanthropist Elie Hirschfeld gifts domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org to the Forward
-
Culture Hidden in a famous WWII photo, two heroic Jewish stories
-
Yiddish פֿילאַנטראָפּ אלי הירשפֿעלד שענקט פֿאָרווערטס די אינטערנעץ־אַדרעסן Yiddish.com און Yiddish.orgPhilanthropist Eli Hirschfeld donates domains Yiddish.com and Yiddish.org to the Forward
די מתּנה וועט דערמעגלעכן מער אָנהענגערס פֿון ייִדיש צו געפֿינען די ייִדישע ווידעאָס, אַרטיקלען און שפּילן פֿונעם פֿאָרווערטס.
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.