Russian rabbis calls on pope to be a bridge builder between East and West
Moscow (AsiaNews) – Moscow’s Chief Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt called on Pope Francis to be a “messenger of God, who helps build new bridges” between East and West. The rabbi, who is also president of the Conference of European Rabbis (CER), spoke during the meeting between the pontiff and a CER delegation in the Vatican.
Goldschmidt heads one of Moscow’s two main Jewish communities, and tends to be more closely aligned with the Kremlin. According to sources in Moscow, the meeting was long in the planning and was supposed to take place during Benedict XVI’s pontificate.
In the end, the audience was held on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration Nostra Aetate with which Pope John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council explicitly condemned anti-Semitism and excluded collective responsibility on the part of the Jews for the death of Jesus.
Coming at a time of strong tensions between Russia and the West, the meeting was "politically" relevant. Indeed, European rabbis used the occasion to call on the pope to mediate between Europe and Russia.
"In this situation, in which the politicians of the West and the East find it difficult to reach an agreement, your role is very important. The people of eastern Europe expect you to participate,” said Yury Kanner, president of the Russian Jewish Congress. According the Kommersant correspondent, the pope smiled at those words but did not reply.
In addition to the issues of anti-Semitism in Europe and Christian persecution in the Middle East, the rabbi’s address also touched relations between Russia and the West, now at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War because of the Ukrainian crisis.
As expected from before their arrival in Rome, Jewish leaders had decided in Moscow to talk to the pope about "joint efforts to normalise relations between Russia and Western countries."
More specifically, "We see the threat of a new wall between East and West that threatens humanity and our world," Goldsmith said.
In his view, the pope can be a "messenger of God, who helps build new bridges and pull East and West back from the brink of war towards a Europe of peace and unity."
The pope did not directly respond to the rabbis’ "foreign policy" proposal, Kommersant said.
However, the latter did not come away disappointed. “For us Russian Jews, this meeting is only the beginning of further cooperation,” the CER president said. (N.A.)
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