Commenting today on the announcement by Chief Rabbi Israel Zolli of Rome that he has become converted to Catholicism, Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Rabbi of the Free Synagogue here and President of the American and World Jewish Congresses, said: “Naturally, I am amazed, as every Jew will be amazed, to learn of the so-called conversion to Roman Catholicism of the Chief Rabbi of Rome and the members of his family. What lay behind this, I do not know, excepting that I have heard of certain things which surely have nothing to do with the change of a man’s innermost faith. The Chief Rabbi has met with kindness at the hands of the Vatican and has had differences with his own flock.
“If it be the duty of a Private to stand at his post, what shall we say of a General, the man in highest command. It will only be fair to wait and see what Dr. Zolli has to say about his advent into the Roman Catholic Church. It will take a great deal of explaining on his part to make intelligible the substitution by a Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Community of his own simple, reasonable, ethical faith for a faith which departs from the monotheism which Dr. Zolli’s and my people have upheld for nearly 4,000 years.”
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