Chief Rabbis Meet Pope on Anti-Semitism — 50 Years After Vatican II
Image by Getty Images
A delegation of chief rabbis from Europe travelled to the Vatican for a meeting with Pope Francis about anti-Semitism.
After meeting Monday with the delegation of 10 rabbis representing the Conference of European Rabbis, Pope Francis is scheduled to meet privately with the chief rabbi of France, Haim Korsia, who is a prominent promoter of interfaith ties.
The meeting will be the first time that a CER delegation is received at the Vatican, Korsia’s office wrote in a statement which was sent on Friday but authorized for publication only Monday for security reasons.
Noting the meeting came 50 years after the Nostra Aetate — the declaration on the relation of the Catholic Church with non-Christian religions – CER President Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt told JTA that the event is “vitally important and gives us a chance to further strengthen the relationship between the two communities.”
The rise in recent years in anti-Semitic violence and hate speech will feature prominently in the talk, Goldschmidt, who is the chief rabbi of Moscow, added.
Interfaith work, Goldschmidt said, “is particularly relevant in the wake of recent attacks on the Jewish communities of Europe and the Catholic communities in Africa and the Middle East.”
Korsia, who is the spiritual leader of one the communities most affected by violent anti-Semitism, last year compared the persecution of Christians in the Middle East to the Holocaust-era persecution of Jews.
“The situation of religious minorities all over the world and especially in the Middle East resonates, unfortunately, with our commemoration today,” Korsia said in September during a commemoration ceremony in Paris for Holocaust victims. “As our parents wore the yellow star, Christians are made to wear the scarlet letter,” he said.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
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 the protests on college campuses.
Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
