Pope’s White House Visit Will Coincide with Yom Kippur
Image by getty images
Pope Francis’ visit to the White House will coincide with Yom Kippur, meaning that no rabbis likely will be in attendance at the arrival ceremony.
More than 10,000 guests are expected at the ceremony, the Washington Post reported, adding that D.C.-area Jews on their way to synagogue will face traffic jams.
“The Holy Father has a very complicated schedule for this trip, so we worked with that schedule as best we could,” Melissa Rogers, executive director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, told reporters last week in a preview of the visit. “Other parts of the Washington, D.C., visit won’t overlap with Yom Kippur. And there are also going to be opportunities for people of different faiths to participate in events in the New York and Philadelphia legs of the pope’s visit.”
The pope’s schedule was driven in part by the Conference on the Family in Philadelphia and the U.N. session on the Sustainable Development Goals, which both fall around Yom Kippur, Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser for Strategic Communications, said during the briefing.
“But I think the Vatican was very accommodating, and we were very focused on ensuring that the American Jewish community would be able to participate in important interfaith efforts to be a part of this visit of the pope,” Rhodes said.
Francis and President Barack Obama are scheduled to have a one-on-one meeting at the White House on Wednesday, and the pope will address a joint session of Congress the following day.
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.
