Rabbi Elio (Eliyahu) Toaff, Chief Rabbi of Rome for Half a Century, Passes at 99

Rabbi Elio (Eliyahu) Toaff, chief rabbi of Rome and a leader of Italian Jewry for more than 50 years, passed away on Sunday at the age of 99.

He was born on April 30, 1915, in Livorno, a center of Italian Jewish scholarship and culture in the 16th century, and where his father, Rabbi Alfredo Sabato Toaff, served as chief rabbi.

Following his father’s footsteps, Elio earned the title of maskil (“scholar”) at the Rabbinical College of Livorno in 1938 and was subsequently ordained as a chacham (the equivalent of “rabbi”) in 1940. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed chief rabbi of Ancona, where he served from 1941 to 1947.

During those years, he opposed the fascist regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who ruled the country from 1922 until his ousting in 1943.

After the Germans occupied northern and central Italy during World War II, Toaff became active in the underground resistance and helped hide Jews from Nazi deportation. Captured himself by the Nazis, he was sentenced to death by firing squad but managed to escape.

After serving as chief rabbi in Venice since 1947, the young scholar was appointed chief rabbi of Rome in 1951.

“Following the Holocaust, the Roman Jewish community was traditional, but very poor in the knowledge of Judaism,” recalls Rabbi Yitzchok Hazan, co-director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Rome since 1976. “With patience, charisma and inspiring rhetoric, Toaff nurtured his community to spiritual health, reintroducing aspects of Jewish observance that had fallen by the wayside and establishing schools to educate generations of Roman Jews. A polished diplomat, he established and maintained excellent connections with every segment of Roman society.”

When the community needed a shochet(ritual slaughterer) in 1962, Toaff wrote to the Lubavitcher Rebbe—Rabbi Menachem M. Schneerson, of righteous memory. Through Rabbi Binyamin Gorodetsky of Paris, a young Moroccan-born shochet, Eliyahu Oazana was dispatched to the city, where he remains to this day, having retired after decades of serving as the city’s sole shochet.

The rabbi’s connection to the Rebbe was much deeper and older, notes Hazan. “When my wife and I first arrived in Rome,” he says, “one of my first stops was to visit the chief rabbi. He told me that all doors were open for us, and that he would do everything he could to help us in our work. He then shared that when he was first appointed to his position in Rome, his father told him that if he ever needed any assistance, the person to turn to is the new Lubavitcher Rebbe in New York.”

For City and Country

While the two communicated via post and messenger, they met for the first time in 1988, when Toaff came to comfort the Rebbe, who was mourning the passing of his wife, Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka Schneerson.

“When we entered,” recalls Hazan, who accompanied the chief rabbi, “the Rebbe lifted himself up from the stool he was sitting on—a highly unusual mark of respect. The Rebbe then thanked Rabbi Toaff for his work on behalf of Judaism, specifically mentioning his participation in the siyum celebrating the completion of the annual Rambam learning cycle in Milan a few months earlier.

“When we left, Rabbi Toaff was in shock,” continues Hazan. “He could not believe that the Rebbe had the presence of mind to recall his participation and thank him amidst the thousands of visitors who were streaming by.”

The rabbi was a regular participant in the city’s annual public menorah-lighting at Chanukah time, which became a highlight of the year for many Roman Jews.

Even after his retirement in 2002, Toaff was regarded as a towering figure both inside and outside the Jewish community. In 2012, he was awarded the Prize Culturae at the Italian National Festival of Cultures in Pisa.

Rabbi Toaff passed away on April 19, 2015, a little more than a week shy of his 100th birthday.

Nationally on the radio, Italy’s Prime Minister Matteo Renzi called the late rabbi “a great Italian and a symbol of the Jewish community.”

Indeed, elected officials from all parties, spiritual leaders and thousands of ordinary citizens of Rome came to pay their last respects to a man who did so much for their city and their country.

The funeral began in Rome and ended in Livorno, where he was buried in accordance with the Kabbalah-inspired instructions he had left in his will.

The rabbi is survived by three sons, Ariel Toaff, Daniel Toaff and Gadiel Toaff; and a daughter, Miriam Toaff. He was predeceased by his wife, Lia.