Ahead of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, which will begin next week, Pope Francis has received a delegation of 40 international Jewish leaders at his residence in Rome.
The presidents of the World Jewish Congress (WJC), Ronald S. Lauder, and of the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC), Jack Terpins, presented the head of the Catholic Church with a number of gifts, including a traditional honey cake.
In their conversation, Lauder raised the subject of the mass slaughter and persecution of Christians in the Middle East, to which the Pope replied: “Christians are being expelled from the region. They are persecuted, not liked, discriminated against. You [the Jews] suffered from that in the past, and we [the Christians] are suffering from it today in parts of the world.”
Ronald Lauder said fanatical Islamists such as ISIS were tagging Christian houses with the letter N for ‘Nassarah’, a term used for Christians in the Koran, which was "no different from the yellow star of David which the Nazis obliged Jews to wear to separate them from the others."
The meeting with Francis took place in the Santa Marta guesthouse in an informal setting and lasted 40 minutes. Among the participants were many Jewish community heads from Latin America and other parts of the world.
The Pope also expressed his desire for peace in the Middle East and said the “window of prayer” to find a peaceful solution was still open