A special thanksgiving service from the Temple Israelitico, Rome’s famed synagogue, will be beamed to the United States on Sunday, July 23, 1:15 to 1:30 p.m., E.W.T., in a program presented over the National Broadcasting System by the American Jewish Committee in collaboration with the National Broadcasting Company. The program will be the first Jewish broadcast from an Allied-liberated territory.
The Chief Rabbi of Italy, Anton Zolli, will conduct the services. A cantor and a girls’ choir will participate. The arrangements for the program were made by Ralph Howard, NBC correspondent attached to the American Fifth Army. Rabbi Zolli, who is 73, had been in hiding, at one time with a Catholic family, during the nine months that the Nazis directly controlled Rome.
The synagogue from which the broadcast will emanate is in the center of the old Roman ghetto, on the banks of the Tiber. A modern structure, it was built at the turn of this century. It stands on the site of an ancient synagogue, for the Jewish community of the Italian capital is one of the oldest in the world. The building of the synagogue came at a time when Jews were enjoying equal rights with all other Italian citizens. One of their co-religionists, Ernesto Nathan, served as Mayor of Rome from 1907 to 1913.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
