Few are aware, even among those interested in traditions and religious studies, that the chief rabbi of Rome in the tragic years of war, Israel Zolli, a leading European scholars of Scripture and the Talmud, was baptized in 1945 in Santa Maria degli Angeli, took the name Eugenio, and became a Catholic. He died in Rome in 1956 ignored by Catholic and literally "erased" from the Jewish side.
Only those who have had the good fortune and honor to know personally or read the writings of Silvano Panunzio could find out more, as the great author he knows and Ferrara as a teacher in biblical studies Eugenio Zolli own. Just a few years ago, in 2002, a book of Judith Cabaud , Jewish-American became Catholic, translated into Italian from French and, oddly, published by St. Paul under the title "Rabbi which surrendered to Christ" prefaced by Vittorio Messori , allowed many to discover this incredible story and this great figure of a scholar and spiritual master.
Not surprisingly, more than sixty years of strict silence on the Jewish side, while no small wonder that the Catholic and even more than the so-called secular historians: in fact it the " history of Italian Jews under Fascism " by Renzo De Felice there is a resounding confirmation of this, Zolli, pur essendo stato un protagonista del periodo in esame, non viene mai citato, se non in una incidentale nota bibliografica.
Ma, pur tuttavia, quella di Eugenio Zolli resta tra le più singolari, affascinanti e misteriose vicende che si sia mai potuta immaginare. Il rabbino capo di Roma rifiutò sempre con fermezza di essere considerato un apostata o un “rinnegato”: «La mia», ripeteva, «non è stata una conversione, è stato un arrivo là dove mi portava irresistibilmente lo studio delle profezie messianiche nella Scrittura» . Nel 1938, quando era rabbino capo a Trieste, pubblicò un libro, “Il Nazareno "at a publishing house in Udine.
That book was never reprinted, on a par with his other studies. Prayer and meditation of Scripture Zolli took reading the figure of Jesus in the very prospect of his people, showing its novelty, uniqueness and continuity with respect to Israel.
And, while continuing its commitment as a religious leader of his community, already felt "Christian because jew consistent, because Israel to the end." However, he did not want to ask for baptism does not abandon his people in years so dramatic.
But here we enter the mystery, according to his own testimony and those of his wife and youngest daughter was Christ himself who revealed to him (and he was always sure that Zolli). The mysterious incident took place in September 1944 after the Nazi occupation and persecution on the Day of 'Atonement, in half the long liturgy of Yom Kippur , just in the great synagogue of Rome, the Grand Rabbi, covered the solemn vestments , Jesus appeared clad in a long white robe:
"The evening was the last liturgical function , And I was there with two assistants, one to my right and one on my left. [...] I did not feel any joy or pain: I had to be emptied of thoughts feelings. My heart lay as if dead in my chest. And then I saw, with the eye of the mind lie in a meadow high, with bright grass but without flowers. In this garden I saw Jesus dressed in white coat, and over its head, the blue sky. I felt the greatest peace of mind. If I were to give a picture of the state of my soul at that moment I would say a crystal clear lake between the mountains. Inside my heart I found the words: "You're here for the last time" . The considered with the greatest peace of mind and without any particular emotion. The replica of my heart was, so be it, so it will be, so it should be. "
A Israel had only to obey, although aware of the serious consequences. "It was a few days after these events that I gave up my position within the Jewish community [...] He spent a period of several weeks, until February 13 (1945 ed) , when I received the baptism and was incorporated into the Catholic Church, the mystical body of Jesus Christ " (Eugenio Zolli," Before dawn-authorized Autobiography "ed. San Paolo, Rome, pagg.274-275)
When the war is over, you will know of his baptism, he will rage against a campaign of slander and character assassination about its management of the Community in tragic month occupation of Rome. After several attempts to libel, and pressure to fall (American Jews were placed in Rome offering anything as long as there withdrawal), followed by a real damnatio memoriae so strict that the story of his conversion , "Before Sunrise" , which was then published in the United States, is appeared in Italy only in 2004.
Claudio C. Belinfanti ( www.simmetria.org )
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