Israel Zolli

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Israel Anton Zoller (September 27, 1881, Brody, Galicia, Ukraine - March 2, 1956) was an Italian Jewish Rabbi who later converted to Roman Catholicism.

Zoller was born to a family of dynastic rabbis. In 1920 he was appointed as rabbi of the city of Trieste, which had just been transferred from Austria-Hungary to Italy. The family Italianized their surname (to "Zolli").

In 1940, Zolli became the Chief Rabbi of Rome. According to biographer Judith Cabaud (also a Catholic convert), in 1944, while conducting a Yom Kippur service, Zolli experienced a mystical encounter with Jesus Christ. Shortly after the end of World War II, partly rejected by the Roman Jewish community, he converted to Roman Catholicism, taking as his baptismal name Eugenio, the Christian birth-name of Pope Pius XII, whom he intensely admired. Employed afterwards at the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Zolli died in Rome. His 1954 memoir Before the Dawn gives details of his conversion, which although it was affected by the Vatican defense of the Jews during Nazi persecution, was especially due to his long theological spiritual quest, which began during his childhood.

[edit] External links

• My Father Never Stopped Being a Jew A conversation with Israel Zolli's daughter, Miriam
• Before the Dawn: the Mysterious Conversion of Rome's Chief Rabbi
• The Chief Rabbi, the Pope, and the Holocaust: An Era in Vatican-Jewish Relations by Robert G Weisbord, available online from Google Print
• Eugenio Zolli's conversion story, from a Catholic point of view.
• Why Did the Chief Rabbi of Rome Convert to Catholicism?, from a Jewish point of view.