Milan, Italy – At the interfaith prayer meeting held Sunday at the Vatican with Pope Francis, Shimon Peres and Mahmoud Abbas, one Italian religious figure was noticeably absent – Riccardo Di Segni, Rome’s chief rabbi.
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Di Segni had been invited to the prayer meeting but did not attend, stating he had “other commitments” to attend to reports Haaretz (http://bit.ly/1s2PZCy).
Di Segni has never been a strong proponent of Catholic/Jewish dialogue. In an interview with Haaretz last month, he said, “from the theological point of view,” Catholics and Jews “have nothing to discuss,” but does support what he calls “good neighborly relations.”
The June edition of Pagine Ebraiche – a Jewish monthly magazine – published another interview given by Di Segni where he criticized the interfaith prayer and described it as, “puzzling and even dangerous.”
Il Foglio, a right-wing daily paper with a conservative Catholic perspective, published another interview with Di Segni in which he stated that if he hadn’t already had other plans to attend to, he would have attended “as a mere observer” and made it clear that Pope Francis did not invite him to the session, but Shimon Peres did.
Not all Italian rabbis agree with De Segni. Florence’s chief rabbi, Dr. Joseph Levi, supports the pope’s efforts to build interfaith dialogue, and attended Sunday’s prayer meeting. The president of Italy’s Rabbinic Assembly, Giuseppe Momigliano, also supported the event.
Renzo Gattegna, president of the Comunità Ebraiche Italiane, the national umbrella organization of Italian Jewry, and leader of Rome’s Jewish Community, Riccardo Pacifici, also attended.
No Jews should have gone to that Vatican prayer meeting where they invoke the names of false prophets and false gods.
And why should an Italian Jew go anyway? He has no shaychus with the zionist state hes an Italian.
Good for him! He looks like he is careful about who is in his Minyon
The current pope is hugely supportive of Jews and retracted 1900 years of theology that said that Christianity superceded Judaism. We should treat this pope with more respect.
It’s nonsensical for Yidden to have an “interfaith dialogue” with the goyim. It’s one thing to work together with other religious groups and prepare and coordinate disaster relief plans or political and civic actions that affect the common good; it’s quite another to seemingly work towards the creation of one overarching world religion.
It’s usser to walk into a reform temple, kalvechomer a church! Not a single yid should have gone. Coodos to #2 , 4, 5 & the first part of #1 .
He should have gone s the “Chief Rabbi” The Pope is due his respect.
He didn’t have to pray, just sit there like the others.
#6
ask a talmid chochmoh and find out if it is a kal vchomer to a church or if a reform is worse given they falsify Judaism