Eugenio Zolli’s Path to Rome (Chief Rabbi converted after mystical vision of Jesus Christ)

It’s little wonder that biographer Judith Cabaud considers Eugenio Zolli one of the most remarkable men of the
twentieth century.

Born in 1881 in Ukraine, then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Zolli's baby boy was given the first
name Israel. Sixty years later he was chief Rabbi of Rome. In 1944, while in the synagogue celebrating Yom
Kippur, Zolli experienced a mystical vision of Jesus Christ. Within a year he was baptized a Catholic at which
time he changed his first name from Israel to Eugenio, the same Christian name as Pope Pius XII. He did this to
honor the Pope for the help he gave Jews trying to escape the Nazi's extermination program during World War
II.

The First Act

Let’s backtrack and look at the life of this Central European Jew whose restless and courageous mind enabled
him to step beyond the Old Testament and become a follower of Jesus Christ. That long path from Judaism to
Catholicism was also taken by Madame Cabaud, who likened it to "wanting to see the second act of a play of
which we have attended only the first act."

The late nineteenth century provided the backdrop for Israel Zolli’s formative years. It was a particularly
turbulent period in Europe. France was reeling from a prolonged bout of political instability exacerbated by
military defeat at the hands of Prussia. The philosophical and scientific theories of Darwin, Marx, Nietzsche,
and Schopenhauer were starting to blur Europe’s Christian perspective, while inside the Russian Empire anti-
Semitism was on the march. The Zolli family had substantial business interests in what had become Russian
controlled territory. The Russian Government classified the Zollis as foreigners and being Jewish made them
even more vulnerable, so it was not unexpected they lost virtually everything to a confiscation order issued by
Tsar Alexander III. Like many Russian Jews, the suddenly poverty stricken family moved to Poland where the
older children had to leave home to find work. However, young Israel was sent to a strict Jewish school where
the students spent much of their time studying the books of the Pentateuch.

That young restless Jewish mind had been agitating about God’s inner life since the age of eight. "What did God
do before He created the world? And why did He create it?" Questions, questions: the answer must lie
somewhere. One of Israel’s classmates at the school was Christian and when visiting this boy’s home, Israel had
been deeply affected by the sight of a crucifix hanging on the wall. Who was that man? What had he done to
deserve such a punishment? Surely he couldn’t have been bad? But then maybe he had been and so deserved
crucifixion! But why was that image treated so reverently? Perhaps the man represented truth? Israel eventually
concluded that the man on the cross was good and had been wrongly punished.

During his teenage years, the image of that crucifix sparked Israel’s curiosity so much that he began secretly
studying the New Testament, often taking a copy into the fields where he would read quietly and contemplate.
He found delight in Christ’s sayings, especially those from the Sermon on the Mount: "But I say to you: love
your enemies," and "blessed are the pure in heart." And from the cross: "Father, forgive them." The New
Testament really was a new covenant crammed with messages of extraordinary beauty and importance.

For Israel Zolli the teachings of Christ truly marked out the Kingdom of Heaven, as a place reserved for those
persecuted, who in eschewing vengeance had loved instead. From then on the Gospel would prove an
irresistible attraction and when studying the Old Testament for the Rabbinate he read further on into the New,
regarding it as the natural continuation of the Old. Many years later, Zolli’s daughter Miriam would tell Judith
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Cabaud that her father had once taken her to the Sistine Chapel in Rome and used the prophets, apostles, and
saints painted on the ceiling to explain the bond uniting the Old and New Testament. But in Israel’s youth the
clue connecting the two was how closely the man on the cross matched the identity of the suffering servant from
Isaiah. That Zolli would hit on the idea that the Gospels were inside the Old Testament from the beginning was
seemingly inevitable.

Naturally enough Judaism exerted a powerful pull on Israel Zolli. For his family, it was a way of life tied up
with community, a cultural identity that tended to steer religion away from any personal relationship with God.
His mother had always wanted him to be a Rabbi and she scrimped and saved to pay for his studies. And still
the young man fretted about the years of hard study ahead and the purpose of the 613 commandments of the
Torah. "Surely," he thought, "it would be better for the Torah to be lived?" He felt isolated from the talk and
ideas of other young Jews and his thoughts returned many times to the crucifix in the home of his friend
Stanislas. The person of Isaiah’s suffering servant of God continued to provoke questions about God, suffering,
and, of course, the identity of the servant referred to by Isaiah.

Rabbi in Rome

Israel fell in with his mother’s plans and began studying, first in Poland, then Vienna and ending in Florence
where he completed his rabbinical studies. Next he gained a professorship at the University of Padua. In 1918
he was appointed chief Rabbi of Trieste in Italy. It was the period between the wars and the political scene in
Europe was rapidly assuming a sinister look. Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini took charge in Italy in 1922 and
Hitler came into power in Germany eleven years later.

Just as World War II broke out, Zolli moved from Trieste to Rome to take up the post of the city’s chief Rabbi.
The Jews of Rome were confident they could survive any fallout from Fascism and Nazism and observed no
safety precautions. But Zolli, knowing what was happening in Germany, predicted Hitler would soon occupy
Italy. His warnings to Jews to destroy their records and go underground went unheeded. While the Italian army
fought alongside the Germans things went reasonably well, but then the Allies invaded Italy and it wasn’t long
before the Italian military called it a day.

With the collapse of Mussolini’s regime in 1943 and Italy’s defection from the Axis, the Nazis immediately
seized control of all Italian territory not in Allied hands and occupied Rome. The Nazis quickly established their
usual routine: find the Jews, squeeze them for their wealth, and then deport them to death camps. Enter Colonel
Kappler, a senior German officer who saw a chance to line his pockets. Kappler issued the Jewish community
an ultimatum: either hand over 50 Kg of gold or, failing that, deliver 300 named hostages – a list headed by
none other than Zolli himself. Within a short time the Jews managed to scrape together 35 Kg of gold but it was
insufficient to satisfy Kappler’s monstrous appetite and so, on behalf of the Jewish community, Israel Zolli was
deputed to approach the Vatican for the shortfall. This was his first contact with the institutional Church and it
took place in secret since the Gestapo watched all Vatican City’s exits.

Zolli met with the Vatican’s Secretary of State Cardinal Maglione and appealed to him saying, "The New
Testament cannot abandon the Old." Maglione immediately approached Pius XII to help with the needed gold.
The Pope agreed to the request and Zolli was told to return later for the "package." Not only did the Pope act
with alacrity, the Catholic parishes of Rome hurriedly gathered together a further 15 Kg of gold, something
Zolli found out about from his daughter when he returned home. For the time being, the hostage crisis was
averted.

That Pius XII played an enormous role in saving Jews from the Nazis was well known to Zolli. He was aware
that monasteries and convents in Rome and all over Italy had opened their doors to Jews at the urging of the
Pope. In addition, thousands more were being sheltered by ordinary Italian Catholic families, and both the
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Vatican and the Pope’s summer residence in Castel Gandolfo were filled with Jews who had nowhere else to
hide.

Zolli, who met Pius XII, was impressed with the Pope’s open attitude and willingness to help. The Zolli family
lived underground during the Nazi occupation of Rome and saw first hand the charity of the Church in action,
inspired as it was by the personal courage of the pope, who did more than anyone else at that time to frustrate
the arrest and execution of European Jews. Official Jewish sources cite a figure of 850,000 Jews saved as a
result of the direct intervention of Pius XII, a fact that flies in the face of the current media smear campaign
directed at Pius over his alleged failure to speak out publicly against Nazi Germany’s race policy.

The Second Act

In June 1944, an agreement was reached between the German and Allied High Commands; the German Army
withdrew from Rome and the Allies occupied the city without a shot being fired. At the time the Jewish
Community Council in Rome was full of collaborators and the American military wanted them out and Zolli
back in control. But the very day he was asked to resume leadership of the Jewish Council, he confided to his
Jesuit priest friend Father Dezza that he had other plans. "How can I continue living in this way when I think
very often of Christ and how I love Him?" Zolli was then sixty-five years old, weary and wanting to retire.

Four months later, while in the synagogue for the feast of Yom Kippur, Zolli received a vision in which Christ
spoke to him saying, "You are here for the last time: from now on you will follow Me." For Israel Zolli there
would be no going back. Relaxing at home that evening he was at first reluctant to mention what had happened
but when he did his wife admitted that she to had seen the same vision of Christ standing next to him. Miriam,
their eighteen-year-old daughter then told her parents that she had recently seen Jesus in a dream. Zolli saw it all
as confirmation of what he should do and immediately resigned from the synagogue. He and his wife took
instruction from a priest and were baptized within a year: Israel taking the additional step of changing his first
name to Eugenio, the same Christian name as Pope Pius XII. Miriam converted a year after her parents.

The Chief Rabbi of Rome converting to Catholicism was a big story in Italy, but the secular media tried to
rationalize the matter. In his autobiography, Before The Dawn, Eugenio Zolli refuted all assertions that his
conversion was out of gratitude to Pope Pius XII. Certainly he was extremely grateful for what the Pope had
done to protect Jews, but the singular reason behind his conversion was his attraction to the person of Christ the
Messiah – an attraction that had been growing steadily since Zolli’s childhood.

Fifty years have elapsed since Zolli’s autobiography was first published in English and only within the last four
years has Judith Cabaud’s well-researched book, Eugenio Zolli, Prophet of a New World (de Guibert, Paris
2000), been available, but not yet in English. However, in a recently published interview, Cabaud provided this
perceptive insight into current relations between Jews and Christians.

"Zolli's experience certainly has a great significance for Jews today, but also for Christians. In
the first place, through his exegetical findings, we are led to understand that we do indeed have
only one religion – the Judeo-Christian faith. It began with Judaism, in the Law and the Prophets:
it continues today with the Catholic Church. The pivot is Jesus Christ, the Messiah for whom all
religious Jews at that time were waiting and whom all Christians recognize as the Son of God…
it is indispensable for the Church and her members to be more fully aware of their Jewish
inheritance. It is in this way that Christianity assumes its permanence in the world. If not, we are
only poor orphans who strive for good and truth without knowing who our parents were."…

"If we listen to the message of Rabbi Zolli, I am sure that in searching for Truth on both sides,
we could mend many of the wounds which have created this cruel separation between brothers.
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 The quest for Truth will and can enfold us together with all our diversity in the loving arms of
our One and Eternal God."

After his conversion, Eugenio Zolli was given a post at the Pontifical Biblical Institute. Early in 1956 he
contracted bronchopneumonia and was admitted to hospital. The week before his death, Zolli told a nun looking
after him that like Our Lord he would die on the first Friday of the month at three o'clock in the afternoon. On
Friday, March 2, 1956, after receiving Holy Communion in the morning, he drifted into a coma and died as he
predicted, at 3.00 p.m.

Eugenio Zolli

Below is an extract from Rabbi Zolli’s article in the 1962

edition of the DICTONARY OF MORAL THEOLOGY by Cardinal
Roberti Burnes & Oates

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Christian Rabbi, The

t |t|t|t

by Wlodzimierz Redzioch

Rabbi Zolli (1881-1956) was one of the most remarkable men of the 20th century. A leading European Jewish
intellectual, chief rabbi of Rome, he underwent a mystical conversion to Christianity — and was promptly
forgotten.

Reading through the recent history books of Italian Jews, one notes an extraordinary fact: these books speak
little or not at all about a Jew, Israel Zolli, who throughout the crucial period of World War II was chief rabbi of
Rome. Why has Rabbi Zolli's story been condemned to oblivion? The answer is quite simple: in 1945, Zolli
asked to be baptized and, out of his profound respect for Pope Pius XII, decided to take as his new Christian
name the first name of the Pope — Eugenio.

The decision troubled many Jews and outraged some, not only those of the Roman Jewish community (for
whom he was an "apostate") but also around the world. But Zolli's choice was also an embarrassment for some
Catholic circles.

In a word, the story of Eugenio Zolli, since it was both politically and theologically incorrect," has been
expunged from the history books.

Even in recent years, during the great debate over the alleged "silence" of Pope Pius XII during the persecution
of the Jews, Zolli's case has remained hidden. Now this silence has been broken by Judith Cabaud, an American
Jew who converted to Catholicism and now lives in France with her French husband. Her biography of Zolli
first appeared in France and has just been published in Italy. Finally, someone has filled the missing gap in
modern historiography. — Wlodzimierz Redzioch

Would you tell us something about your life?

JUDITH CABAUD: I was born in the United States into a Jewish family. My grandparents had emigrated from
Poland and Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Everyone practiced traditional Judaism without ever
questioning its meaning. At the time of Passover, the youngest of the family would ask four ritual questions.
This was a pretext for the oldest member of the family to explain the Books of Genesis and Exodus.

However, I had other questions about what it meant to be a Jew. If we were the "chosen people" as I was told,
what did God choose us for? Was it to accomplish something? How did the Law of the Torah fulfill this
requirement? Why were Jews hostile to Gentiles? There were no satisfying answers to these questions and you
were not even supposed to ask them.

Then, I felt that my father's premature death was too heavy a price to pay for his success in business. I wanted to
find a less materialistic purpose in life than to become a work addict, even for the best of reasons. My discovery
of music showed me that another world did exist and my studies led me to take up literature, science and
French. In 1960, in France, I read a lot of French writers, thinkers and philosophers. Blaise Pascal particularly
fascinated me because he made it clear to me that there was a link between science and faith. He gave me
answers to the questions I had had in my mind for such a very long time.

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While trying to improve my French, I would go to Catholic churches to listen to sermons, as I would go to the
theater to hear good texts. One day, something very strange struck me: I had the feeling that there was a link
between the Passover meal and the Catholic Mass. Something warm and familiar came flowing out of that
beautiful liturgy, especially from all those marks of adoration shown by the priest and the assembly — kneeling,
praying with the same fear of offending God as the Jewish people who hardly dare to utter His Name.

I learned that the Catholic Church had been saying this for the past 2,000 years.

Then, by the grace of God, I realized that Jesus Christ is God, that the Old and the New Testaments were one
and the same religion, Christianity being the continuation of ancient Judaism, and Christ being the Messiah
announced by the prophets of old.

Later on, I married a Frenchman and we raised nine children. I read an article about Eugenio Zolli by an
American priest. Father Arthur Klyber, and I also read Zolli's autobiography Before the Dawn. But it was only
when our son went to Rome to study at the French seminary that I had the occasion to find documents about
Zolli and meet his daughter Miriam. I thought it would be necessary to write a book about him, but I hesitated
for about 10 years because of all the polemical aspects of the story: the problem of World War II and Fascism.

Who was Israel Zolli?

CABAUD: He was born in 1881 in Brody, in Galicia (now Ukraine), a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at
the time. His father had a textile factory in Lodz. At the end of the 19th century, this zone of Poland was
occupied by the Russian Empire and measures were taken to confiscate all the factories belonging to foreigners,
especially if they were Jews. Zolli's family was reduced to poverty. They moved to Stanislawow and there he
began his studies. In order to earn the necessary money to do his university studies, Zolli had to give private
lessons. He worked first in Vienna and then in Florence where he also did his rabbinical studies. He became
professor at the University of Padua and was named vice-rabbi of Trieste. In 1918, he became chief rabbi of this
city, which had just turned Italian, and Zolli opted for Italian nationality.

After 1922, the Jewish community of Trieste was divided between Zionists who thought that the only solution
for Jews was the state of Israel, and in those who wanted to collaborate with the Fascists because, they argued,
the Fascists had no intention of harming the Jews. (It is true that Mussolini did nothing against the Jews until
1938. But even with the racial laws at that time by which they had to Italianize their names and many did lose
their jobs, it was obviously nothing in comparison with Hitler's Nazi Germany.) Zolli tried to help both sides: he
obtained passports and money for the Zionists who wished to go to Israel, and he helped those who collaborated
with the Fascists in order to find them jobs.

During this period, Zolli led a double life: the life of a rabbi who had to celebrate a certain number of rituals and
exercises with his people, and the life of a writer and thinker. This latter work eventually brought him onto the
road leading to Christ.

He had always been attracted to the Gospel. As a young rabbi studying the Old Testament, he could not just stop
at the end of it: so he continued, and read the New Testament. For him, it was the natural continuation of the
Old. He had always been attracted to the figure of Christ on the cross in which he saw the evidence of His being
the "Suffering Servant of God" spoken of by Isaiah.

In 1938, he wrote The Nazarene in which he explored the exegetical problems concerning the relations between
the Old and the New Testaments. I think, but I have no real proof of this, that this work was not appreciated by
his people. In any case, it is probably one of the reasons why he was transferred to Rome and named chief rabbi

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of this city. The former chief rabbi of Rome had left for the United States and the rabbinical college had been
closed.

In Rome, the majority of Jews thought that both Fascism and Nazism would blow over. After all, the Roman
Jews had been in Rome for more than 2,000 years and the present problems seemed nothing in comparison with
those that had occurred during the Roman Empire. When Zolli arrived in Rome, it was wartime. The Italians
were Hitler's allies, but there was still no real discrimination against Jews in Italy. However, Zolli knew what
was going on in Nazi Germany: he also was certain that Hitler would ultimately occupy Italy and that there
would be trouble for Jews.

In 1941, he tried to warn the Jewish community of Rome. He asked them to destroy the archives of the
community members. But no one believed what he said and they did not trust him. Was he not a foreigner?
What did he know about the Jews of Rome? They repeated that they had been there for more than 2,000 years.

In September 1943, the Nazis invaded Rome, and Zolli wanted to immediately destroy all the files and send
Jewish people into hiding. The head of the community still refused to do anything, saying it would only alarm
the Jewish population. The first thing that happened is that Colonel Kappler wanted to take advantage of the
situation for himself and he ordered the community to hand over 50 kg of gold. The ultimatum was: 50 kg or
300 hostages. The Jews managed to assemble 35 kg and a friend of Zolli's asked Zolli to go to the Vatican to ask
for the missing quantity. This was his first contact with the institutional Church.

In the Vatican, he was received by the administrator of the Holy See, Nogara. Zolli declared: "The New
Testament cannot abandon the Old." Nogara was moved and went immediately to ask Pius XII for the missing
gold. The Pope agreed on the spot and Zolli was asked to return in the afternoon to fetch the "package." In the
meantime, Zolli's daughter informed him that 15 kg of gold had been assembled by the Catholic parishes of
Rome.

What was Zolli's attitude toward Pius XII?

CABAUD: Zolli was a witness to the generosity of Pius XII. He knew that the Pope had ordered the
monasteries and convents of Rome to open their doors to Jews. He knew that there were thousands of Jews
being protected by Catholic families, also in the Vatican itself as well as in the Pope's residence in Castel
Gandolfo. He was very struck by the openness of the Pope. Zolli lived during the whole war in Rome, not in the
U.S. or in Switzerland, and he was an eyewitness to the action of the Church. Now we know, in fact, that during
the war, Pius XII saved more Jews than any other person at that time.

What happened to Rabbi Zolli after the liberation of Rome?

CABAUD: In June 1944, the Americans arrived in Rome. Colonel Poletti. an Italo-American commander of the
American army, asked to dissolve the Jewish community council by saying: "Get all these collaborators out and
give me Zolli back." But Zolli was now 65 years old, quite tired and on the point of retiring. In fact, Father
Dezza, the Jesuit General, said that on August 15, 1944, Zolli had come to him and said: "How can I continue
living in this way when I think very often of Christ and I love Him?"

In October 1944, he had an extraordinary experience, which was to be decisive: on the holy day of Yom Kippur,
he was in the synagogue in contemplation and suddenly, in a vision, Christ said to him: "You are here for the
last time: from now on you will follow Me." That was it. Zolli was profoundly moved.

At home that evening, he did not want to say anything to his family, but his wife told him that while he was
celebrating in the synagogue, she too had seen a figure of Christ next to him. His daughter Miriam, who was
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then 18, added that she had seen Jesus in a dream. For Rabbi Zolli it was the last sign he needed. He resigned
from the synagogue and asked a priest to give him instruction in view of entering the Church. He was baptized
in 1945 and took the Christian name of Eugenio in honor of Pius XII.

What can be the significance of Zolli's experience for Christians and for Jews?

CABAUD: Zolli's experience certainly has a great significance for Jews today, but also for Christians. In the
first place, through his exegetical findings, we are led to understand that we do indeed have only one religion —
the Judeo-Christian faith. It began with Judaism, in the Law and the Prophets: it continues today with the
Catholic Church. The pivot is Jesus Christ, the Messiah for whom all religious Jews at that time were waiting
and whom all Christians recognize as the Son of God. Present-day Judaism does not take into account the
duality of the old Judaic faith: it was composed of the Law written in the Torah which ensured all the necessary
prescriptions of daily life, therefore the letter: and then it contained the Messianic Promise which was
announced by the prophets. This was the spirit. These two components were fused together in the person and
the teachings of Jesus Christ.

From the Christian point of view, there is no turning back to ancient customs and laws which had been made for
God's children before Christ. However, it is indispensable for the Church and her members to be more fully
aware of their Jewish inheritance. It is in this way that Christianity assumes its permanence in the world. If not,
we are only poor orphans who strive for good and truth without knowing who our parents were. If we
contemplate Zolli's experience, we can see that the interreligious dialogue occurring today between Catholics
and Jews is not satisfactory because, in reality, we are already one in the same Judeo-Christian religion. Zolli
tells us to seek truth, on both sides, and to fight against ignorance.

This obviously means that we should take ancient Judaism as it was and continue it. This is only possible in
spirit. This spiritual logic brings us forward. And all men of good will naturally desire this continuity, for it's
like wanting to see the second act of a play of which we have attended only the first act. The road to
reconciliation between the older and younger brothers can come about by seeing the relationship, which exists
between the Old and the New Testaments.

Jews who become Christians are often seen in Jewish circles as traitors. Why?

CABAUD: Today, Jews have a tendency to consider Judaism a way of life. And this way of life is a part of
social community life. The result is that the importance of the community overrides that of the individual.
Religion becomes more of a tribal concern than a personal relationship with God. In this way, the community
determines one's behavior, and cultural identity is mistaken for religious identity. So, if one begins to act
according to one's individual conscience, one is actually committing an act of treachery against the community
norm. A Jew who chooses to become an agnostic, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim or a Communist (all options of
social-religious identity) is truly betraying Jewish customs and rituals, while not engaging his inner spiritual
self: whereas, on the other hand, a Jew who becomes a Catholic is guilty of rejecting social exterior behavior,
but also adopts a spiritual allegiance to Christ, the Son of God, who represents the epitome of Jewish
conscience.

In the United States, many Jews who have witnessed the decline of their religious faith due in part to
assimilation, have resorted to claiming the Holocaust perpetrated during World War Two as a source of religious
identity. In this, no reference to God can be stronger for them than the attraction of human bonds. The circle of
general confusion is then widened to the false responsibility of the Catholic Church, which has been greatly

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exploited by the media on ignorant public opinion. I think this recent development is a very important part of
the long misunderstanding that has existed between Jews and Christians for the past 2,000 years.

If we listen to the message of Rabbi Zolli, I am sure that in searching for Truth on both sides, we could mend
many of the wounds which have created this cruel separation between brothers. The quest for Truth will and can
enfold us together with all our diversity in the loving arms of our One and Eternal God.

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