Hasids Object To Video Of ‘Idol-Worshipping’ Pope Dancing
Image by youtube
A feel-good video of Pope Francis dancing with a group of rabbis at the Vatican didn’t feel so good to some haredi Orthodox Jews, whose criticisms drew an apology from one of the rabbis who took part.
Rabbi Dovber Pinson, a Chabad rabbi and the dean of the Iyyun Yeshiva in Brooklyn, N.Y., wrote a letter of apology to students and friends.
Following the wide dissemination of the video from Monday’s meeting, contributors to the haredi Orthodox Yeshiva World News website debated whether the group of rabbis should have met with Pope Francis at all. One concern was the large cross worn by the pope during the audience, which suggested the rabbis were in the presence of “idol worship.”
Critics also questioned whether rabbis should have engaged in music and singing during the days of semi-mourning leading up to Lag b’Omer, a minor festival to be marked on Sunday. Pinson wrote that the singing and dancing began “spontaneously without my foreknowledge or consent.”
Others questioned the appropriateness of the psalm that was sung. Psalm 91, whose verse “With long life I will satisfy him and I will show him my salvation” is directed at God, could be interpreted as extolling the virtues of the pope, a critic wrote.
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
