Yisrael Meir Lau - Interfaith Work

Interfaith Work

In 1993, Lau had an hour-long meeting with John Paul II at the Pope's summer residence of Castel Gandolfo near Rome sought to offer the Vatican's moral support to the latest peace moves in the Middle East. The visit was the first between a Pope and one of Israel's chief rabbis since the founding of the Jewish state in 1948. In 2009, he was critical of a speech given by Pope Benedict XVI during a visit to Israel. He later applauded a new papal statement which gave more emphasis to the suffering of Jews during the Holocaust.