From Rabbis meet Jesus the Messiah – a collection of 24 biographies and testimonies of Rabbis encounters with Jesus the Messiah
© Messianic Good News.
“Zolli Israele, rabbi and philologist, born in Brody, Poland, 1881. He studied philology and rabbinics in Vienna, and in 1910 was elected rabbi in Trieste. At the end of World War 1 he was appointed chief rabbi of Trieste, which in that year was annexed to Italy. He taught Hebrew and Semitic languages at the University of Padua, Italy, and published numerous studies on Jewish history and philology in learned periodicals. From 1939 on he was chief rabbi of Rome” The Universal Jewish Encyclopaedia.
Dear Reader, here are some telling remarks, which Rabbi Zolli made in the magazine “Mediator” in 1959. This was originally published in an article “Before the Dawn.” “Is conversion an infidelity, an infidelity towards the faith previously professed? To answer hurriedly yes or no would not be just: too much zeal would be displayed one way or the other, and too much zeal is notoriously harmful. Before answering, one should stop and ask himself what is faith? Faith is an adherence, not to a tradition or family or tribe, or even nation, it is an adherence of our life and works to the Will of God as revealed to each in the intimacy of conscience. Was Saul of Tarsus unfaithful? How many Jews he cast into prison! How merciless he was against his brothers, who were guilty only of having accepted the message of Christ! Jews who are becoming converts today, as in the days of Saul-Paul, have much, or even all, to lose in regard to earthly life, and have Much, if not all, to gain in the life of grace.”