Rabbi Shmuel Ricardo de Signi, Chief Rabbi of Rome

By Yosef Rapaport

Rabbi Shmuel Ricardo de Signi, a physician and a scholar with close ties to Rabbanim, and a descendant of a long line of Jewish leaders in Italy, recently hosted Pope Benedict in Rome’s Great Synagogue.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome then traveled to the United States to attend a Holocaust commemorative event held at the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan, which is under the leadership of Rabbi Arthur Schneier.

Rabbi de Signi agreed to be interviewed by Hamodia about his impressions of the Pope’s visit and its implications.

What is the Rav’s background, if I may ask?

Rabbi de Signi: I studied in the rabbinical school of Rome, the oldest institution in Italy for training rabbis.

The Rav is also a physician, I understand, which is an old tradition in Italian rabbinical families.

Not exclusively an Italian tradition, but perhaps more [common] in Italy than in other places.

What was the Rav’s impression of the visit of Pope Benedict to the synagogue in Rome?

Strictly from a religious viewpoint, we have a lot of issues with this kind of meeting. But you have to see it from another perspective as well. The Pope is the leader of a religion that has hundreds of millions of believers throughout the world. You want to show [the importance that] this visit [can have on] his followers to have good relations with the Jewish people. It is a difficult kind of gift that he has given us, but we must see the good in it.

It was reported in the press that the Vatican requested a joint prayer and Kvod Harav refused this request. Can you explain why?

First of all, they didn’t ask for a joint prayer. Their object was to make a visit, not to have a prayer. They understand that we have problems with [a joint prayer]. When preparations for all this started I asked a she’eilah of the Rabbinical Council of Europe as to how to conduct ourselves, and they in turn were in consultation with Gedolei Torah in Bnei Brak.

Because you are in close proximity to the Vatican, you need to have a good relationship with your neighbors and you need to balance that with sensitivity for our religious tradition. How do you deal with the pressure for dialogue in the wider Jewish community and in the Catholic community?
In general, do you see yourself as representing just the Jewish community of Rome, the Jewish people in Europe, or the Jewish people worldwide?  

There are many different perspectives on this. First, as Roman Jews we have 2,000 years of history with the Church, a sad history. They were the rulers and they put us into a ghetto; they forbade us to study the Torah; and so on. Changing this kind of relationship to [one of] respect and friendship is important. This is the local perspective.

But we understand that, obviously, what happens in Rome does not happen only to the Roman Jews, but is important for all the Jews of the world and for the State of Israel. So each step of this kind of communication has to be discussed with the important leaders of the Jewish people. That’s what we did. This is the point.

What we want to accomplish in each step of the process is to strongly reaffirm our principles without [losing] our dignity in any way. Just to say that there must be respect between one [and] the other; that’s it.

This is an important goal - to replace the hatred [with respect].

 The Rav mentioned that there has been a very sad relationship, and that is true; but there were also at times certain close relationships. I’m thinking of Rav Eliyahu Bachur, who lived with a cardinal of the church and wrote the famous Sefer HaTishbi. It was accepted by all the Gedolei Yisrael of the time; the Pri Megadim even wrote haga’os on it.

Yes, on many occasions there were contacts, and when the contacts between Christians and Jews were on an intellectual [basis], they were fruitful.

You are talking about Rabbi Bachur, who lived in the sixteenth century. In the previous century there was a Christian movement - it started in Florence - of interest in Kabbalah. Jewish scholars were asked to translate the Kabbalah into Latin, and many Christian scholars studied it. There were exchanges but the framework on these exchanges was with varying degrees of tolerance. So sometimes the Christians were tolerant, but much more often there was subjugation.

Rabbi Eliyahu Bachur lived at the start of the Counter-Reformation, when the Jews were [first] enclosed in the ghetto in Italy. His niece converted to Christianity – that’s a good lesson to be careful with relationships!  [chuckle]

Getting back to difficult relationships, the current Pope’s elevation of Pius XII, the wartime Pope, has caused quite a stir within the larger Jewish community. But most Gedolim do not care whom the Pope declares a saint. Should the matter of whom the Pope beatifies be a concern for Jews?

The problem is very complex, because beatification of this man means the church is trying to cancel all the bad things that he did. If a man has moral stains in his behavior, they are trying to [deny it]. They want to make them kulam kedoshim. We have to understand that it’s part of their theology.

I myself am upset with this kind of treatment of memory. But I think it’s not going to be the most important thing for the future - for our future [relationship]. What is important in our relationship with them is that they leave us in peace and not persecute us. That’s the point.

FOR MORE OF THESE ARTICLES, BUY OR SUBSCRIBE TODAY!