Word: toaff
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...with some hesitation at first. "There were very mixed feelings, excitement but also skepticism. But we also understood it was a very big event," Zevi recalled. One of the other Jewish leaders who attended that 1986 service will also likely be revisiting his memories this weekend. Toaff was five years older than John Paul when he greeted him on the steps of the synagogue on that spring day. When John Paul died in 2005, the rabbi was one of just two living people mentioned in his last will and testament. At 94, still with a wry smile, Toaff will...
...thunderclap of applause. After centuries of Jews suffering through pogroms, ghettos, Nazi death camps and arm's-length-at-best cohabitation with Christians, the first-ever papal visit to a Jewish house of worship - entering the synagogue side by side with Rome's avuncular chief Rabbi Elio Toaff - was much more than a photo op. It was a shared embrace to begin to heal the wounds of history...
...church "deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti- Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and by anyone." Then the Pope added, to ringing applause, "I repeat: by anyone." John Paul also expressed "abhorrence" at the "genocide" of millions by the Nazis and, as did Rabbi Toaff, paid tribute to the Catholics who at great risk helped Rome's Jews, among whom 11,000 of 13,000 survived the German occupation...
...their speeches to the Pope, both Giacomo Saban, lay president of Rome's Jewish community, and Rabbi Toaff called for the Vatican to extend diplomatic recognition to Israel, a divisive issue between the two faiths. "Spiritually and emotionally," said Saban, "Israel is central to the heart of every Jew." The Chief Rabbi took the issue a theological step further by stating that the return of the Jews to the homeland was part of "God's final plan of redemption." But John Paul in his 3,000-word address made no mention of Israel, and a Vatican spokesman later said that...
While Jewish leaders were upset at the omission, Israel's President Chaim Herzog termed the Pope's visit an important step toward "the correcting of the injustice which the church perpetrated on the Jewish people during 1,500 years." To Rabbi Toaff, the occasion was "a turning point in the history of the church," one that finally "puts the two religions on a level of equality...