13 April 1986, History was made in Rome
when the first pope visited a synagogue

On the 13th April 1986, on the threshold of the Grand Synagogue in Rome, History was written. For the first time since Peter, a pope walked in a synagogue. Current Chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, wrote a speech in honour of the anniversary of the historical meeting between Pope Wojtyla and Rabbi Toaff, published on the occasion of the anniversary, on the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.
The rabbi lingered on the context in which the visit came about: “There had been terrorism, the pope himself had survived an assassination attempt, the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Jewish world were difficult. From a doctrinal point of view, the openings brought by the council statement ‘Nostra Aetate’ in 1965, ‘absolving’ Jews from the deicide charge, had been followed by experts’ committees put to work, changes in preaching and in priest’s education”. From a political point of view instead, “the coldness towards the Israeli state” went on. “It would be acknowledged by the Vatican only in 1993”.
The proposal for a meeting came by the Catholics. According to his successor, it was both a surprise and a challenge to Rav Toaff. “Completely ignoring his Italian and Israeli colleagues, who would probably have created problems, Toaff looked for and then found influential support among the European rabbinate. At that point, Di Segni wrote, “the issues were organizational, diplomatic, and mediatic”. The media were “the true interlocutors of the operation and the broadcaster of the message, which was very simply a message of embrace and reconciliation”. About the sensational image of the two religious representatives dressed in white, smiling and hugging, the Chief Rabbi added: “doctrinal subtleties, committees’ documents, the almost daily controversies disappeared”. In that day though, words did matter. In that occasion the pope delivered his famous phrase designating Jews as “older brothers”. A phrase that, Rav Di Segni points out, “at first glance instils love and respect”, yet also some “ambiguous theological subtlety, because in the Bible, starting from Cain, older brothers are the evil ones and those who lose their birth right”. In any case, the rabbi concludes, “time has passed with many innovations, but surely since that 13th April the relationship between the two worlds has radically changed”.

Translated by Silvia Bozzo and revised by Antonella Losavio, students at the Advanced School for Interpreters and Translators of Trieste University, interns at the newspaper office of the Union of the Italian Jewish Communities.