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Vatican manuscripts at Israel Museum

Updated: 12/Oct/2005 15:54

Yona Metzger, Israel Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi

Photo: EJP

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High ranking Vatican officials were amongst the special guests at the official opening of an exhibition of paintings from the Vatican library at the Israel Museum last week.

The exhibition, titled ’Rome to Jerusalem’, has been seen as an important cultural and diplomatic step between the Vatican and Israel.

It includes such rare manuscripts such as a 15th century version of the Rambam’s ’Mishne Torah’. This is the first time that manuscripts from the Vatican’s extensive library have been shown in Israel.

Cultural collaboration

The beauty and rarity of the manuscripts did not overshadow the importance of the event.

Speaking at the official opening of the exhibition, museum director James Snyder described the display as an important "diplomatic enterprise" taking place "at the highest level of cultural diplomacy."

The flags of Israel and the Vatican were placed side by side in the background and the Papal Nuncio (Vatican ambassador), Archbishop Pietro Sambi, called the presentation just one example of "cultural collaboration between Israel and the Vatican that is going on in many fields."

Sambi was joined by the two Israeli chief rabbis who both praised this extraordinary exhibition and its cooperation as well as recounting moments from their recent meeting with Pope Benedict XVI.

Describing Sambi as "a good friend of Israel’s", Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger said that historically there had been great hostility between Rome and Jerusalem, cities whose ideas and cultures were in opposition to each other.

"After 2000 years, we have closed an historic and exciting circle. There is no more animosity, no more hatred."

Cataloguing all Jewish items

In his remarks, Archbishop Sambi also noted that the Vatican is currently working on another project conceived in Israel – a catalogue documenting the 803 other items in the Vatican’s Judaica collection. The idea for the scheme was suggested by Israeli President Moshe Katsav at a meeting with Pope John Paul II in December 2002.

This is seen as a project of monumental importance for Jews around the world as it has long been believed that the Vatican holds some of Jewish history’s greatest treasures.

What the Vatican will never be able to do, Sambi said, is to produce the sacred menorah looted by Titus when he destroyed the Temple.

Although the artifacts in the Israel Museum exhibition are the first manuscripts lent to Israel by the Vatican, they are not the first loan of any kind.

The Vatican made its first loan to the Israel Museum two years ago when, for the holiday of Succot (harvest holiday in Autumn) it temporarily gave the institution a 1,800-year-old Roman relic depicting a Succah (outdoor booth lived in during the Jewish festival of Tabernacles) in the courtyard of the Temple.

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