VATICAN CITY — Pope John Paul II has marked the 100th anniversary of Rome’s great synagogue by deploring the Holocaust and appealing to Jews, Christians and Muslims to work together in brotherhood for peace in the Middle East.
“We share the values for the defense of life and of the dignity of every human person,” the pope said in a message May 23 to Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni. “Our fraternal cooperation can grow in concrete ways.”
John Paul, who paid a historic visit to the synagogue on April 13, 1986, declined an invitation to attend Sunday’s anniversary ceremony. The Vatican told Di Segni that the pope wanted his 1986 visit — the first ever made by a Roman Catholic pontiff to a synagogue — to remain unique.
Some 12,500 of Italy’s 26,000 Jews live in Rome where Jews first settled some 2,100 years ago following the revolt of the Maccabees in Palestine. It is the oldest permanent Jewish community in the West.
The synagogue, built in imposing Assyrian-Babylonian style with a large gray dome, stands on land facing the Tiber River, which was part of the ghetto in which Jews were enclosed until the mid-19th century. In October 1982, it was the scene of an attack by Palestinian gunmen, who killed a young boy in a crowd of worshipers leaving a service.
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