The Chief Rabbi of Rome became a Roman Catholic last week.
He was happy about his conversion, miserable about his apostasy. Asked pale, hollow-cheeked Israele Zolli: "Do you think I love the Jews less because I have become a Catholic?" He covered his face with his hands, then looked up with tear-filled eyes to answer his own question: "No, I shall never stop loving the Jews. I did not compare the Jewish religion to Catholicism and abandon one for the other. This is the greatest tragedy of my life. I slowly, almost imperceptibly, became a Christian and could no longer be a Jew."
Zolli's baptism into the Roman Catholic Church last week brought a shocked groan from Jewry, then a cry of indignation. Said Israel, Rome's Jewish weekly: "Zolli's conversion [comes] as . . . a bombshell. . . . In these days when Israel lives through one of its most tragic and epic periods, it is an insult to the innumerable martyrs whom suffering and bloodshed could not deflect from their faith." At the biggest service in The Great Synagogue's history, Roman Jews were told to consider the apostate dead and to observe six days of mourning.
Born 64 years ago in Poland (his name was originally Zoller), the Rabbi has spent most of his life in Italy—as Chief Rabbi of Trieste for 20 years and as a professor at the University of Padua. One of the few non-Catholic scholars ever appointed to work at the Vatican, he soon became attracted to Catholicism. After the German occupation, he repeatedly praised Pope Pius XII for his work in behalf of the Nazi-persecuted Jews (TIME, July 10).
High-ranking Jews bitterly pointed out that Zolli had remained Chief Rabbi just long enough (four years) to assure himself of a sizable pension. He had resigned only two weeks before his baptism, which must have meant that he was taking Catholic instructions while in office. There were also charges that Zolli was pro-Fascist: he had thought kindly of Mussolini; several weeks ago he openly defended a local racist; and —above all—when the Germans were approaching Rome, he had failed to destroy the lists of Jews residing in the ghetto.
The Church's newest convert is slated for a new job in the Vatican, will soon add his latest book to its library. The title: Antisemitismo.