Divided Legacy: Pope John Paul II at the Western Wall. Image by Getty Images

The Vatican Museum opened an exhibit in Rome dedicated to the strong relationship between Pope John Paul II and the Jewish community.

The exhibit, “A Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People,” opened Tuesday and features photos, video footage, documents and artifacts.

Rome’s Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, who attended the opening, recalled one of the pope’s most powerful gestures — the historical visit to the Great Synagogue of the city on April 13, 1986.

Forwarding the News

Thoughtful, balanced reporting from the Forward and around the web, bringing you updated news and analysis each day.

Terms(Required)

I agree to the Forward's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy

Email(Required)

“It’s quite curious seeing the picture of a pope together with a rabbi, my predecessor Elio Toaff, all around in the Vatican,” Di Segni said.

Pope John Paul II, who died in February 2005, visited Israel in 2000, leaving a prayer in the Western Wall asking for divine forgiveness for the treatment that Jews had received from the church in the past and reaffirming his commitment to good relations. Visitors to the exhibit can write a prayer to be placed in a reproduction of the wall, which later will be taken to the Western Wall in Israel.

The exhibit was presented originally in 2005 as a gift to John Paul II for his 85th birthday and dedicated to his contribution to interreligious dialogue. It opened at Xavier University — its co-creators were educators at the Cincinnati, Ohio, school — and since then has been visited by over 1 million people at 18 U.S. locations.

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.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

$90 → $180 $180 → $360

$360 → $720

Other amount