Israeli rabbis lash out at pope over anti-war remarks

Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu. Photo: Association of Community Rabbis

Israeli rabbis have sharply criticized Pope Leo XIV over his recent statements against war and violence. The immediate trigger for the public reaction was Holocaust Remembrance Day.

In his letter, Eliezer Simcha Weiss, a member of the Council of the Chief Rabbinate and the Committee for Interreligious Dialogue, said that the moral comparisons between parties to conflicts that appeared in the pope’s remarks supposedly blur the distinction between the aggressor and those acting in self-defense. According to him, the lessons of the Holocaust require a clear stand against ideologies of destruction, rather than generalized calls for peace.

Weiss referred to the pontiff’s homilies in which he said that “God does not hear the prayers of those who wage war.” In his view, such wording may cast Israel’s defensive actions in a negative light. He argued that in a situation where, as he put it, a “religious war” is being waged against the country, calls to renounce the use of force amount in practice to a demand for capitulation.

The criticism was joined by Safed Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu, who also spoke harshly about the head of the Roman Catholic Church. He said that Israel has no need of moral instruction from outside and recalled tragic chapters in the history of relations between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church, including the era of the Crusades and the Inquisition.

According to Eliyahu, the Jewish people will not wait for Vatican approval in order to defend their existence. “Do not preach morality to us – try instead to atone for the guilt of your predecessors,” the rabbi demanded.

He also addressed Catholics around the world, expressing doubt that the current pope is capable of representing their position.

This was followed by an official Vatican response sent by Archbishop Flavio Pace. The brief reply did not directly address the accusations raised by Rabbi Weiss.

Instead, Pace noted that today marks the 40th anniversary of the historic visit of John Paul II to the Great Synagogue of Rome – a visit regarded as a major milestone in relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people. He added that he was confident those relations “will continue to develop, while confronting many problems and questions for discussion.”

As the UOJ previously reported, Iranian officials had earlier praised the pope for criticizing “the war crimes of the United States and Israel.”

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