(Reuters) — Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi of Rome for half a century and a pivotal player in Christian-Jewish reconciliation, has died at the age of 99. Toaff, who a spokesman said died on Sunday night, was Rome’s chief rabbi in 1986 when then-Pope John Paul II made the first visit by a Roman Catholic…
The head of Rome’s Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici, was arrested in Poland and held overnight on Tuesday, after finding himself locked inside the Auschwitz death camp, where his grandparents were murdered. In a tweet he sent out in Italian, Pacifici called the arrest, which took place on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, “a disgrace.” After attending…
The president of the Jewish community of Rome and a well-known Italian journalist were detained overnight by Polish police after recording an interview at the Auschwitz concentration camp. Roman Jewish Communal President Riccardo Pacifici and Italian journalist David Parenzo conducted the interview for an Italian television station Tuesday, following a ceremony commemorating the 70th anniversary…
Mayor Ignazio Marino of Rome is in Poland leading city high school students on the annual “Memory Journey” Holocaust education trip to Auschwitz and Krakow. Some 144 pupils from 24 high schools in Rome were flown to Poland over the weekend on an Italian Air Force jet. In addition to Marino they were joined by…
The mayor of Rome condemned a public commemoration in the city for the late Nazi war criminal Erich Priebke. Ignazio Marino called Saturday’s event downtown a “vulgar provocation” that “wounds the entire civic community and represents a real slap in the face to the city of Rome, which played a fundamental role in the Italian…
After years of delays city authorities may drop the idea of establishing a modern, $30 million Holocaust Museum in central Rome and instead install a smaller exhibit in a former shopping center in a Rome suburb. Plans were announced a decade ago to build a state-of-the-art Shoah Museum on the grounds of Villa Torlonia, wartime…
A ceramic money box holding a rare hoard of coins from the Great Revolt against the Romans was discovered outside Jerusalem. The 114 bronze coins date back to the fourth year of the Great Revolt against the Romans, which led to the destruction of the Second Temple, 2,000 years ago this week. The discovery was…
(Religion News Service) — Italy has moved to expel a Moroccan imam who was caught on video inciting violence against Jews during Israel’s military offensive in Gaza. Interior Minister Angelino Alfano said he had ordered the imam, Raoudi Aldelbar, to be expelled “for seriously disturbing the peace, endangering national security and religious discrimination.” The imam…
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