Vatican Exhibit Examines John Paul II’s Ties to Jews
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.
“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.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
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 so that we can be prepared for whatever news 2025 brings.
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. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
