ZOLLER (Zolli), ISRAEL

ZOLLER (Zolli), ISRAEL (1881–1956), rabbi and apostate. Born in Brody, Galicia, Zoller spent a great part of his life in Italy. He was chief rabbi of Trieste after World War I, professor of Hebrew at the University of Padua from 1927 to 1938, and, from 1939, chief rabbi of Rome. At the beginning of September 1943, when the Germans entered Rome, he abandoned the community and took refuge in the Vatican. At the end of the hostilities he reappeared to assume his position as rabbi, but was rejected by the community because of his unworthy behavior at the time of the greatest danger. On Feb. 14, 1945, he converted to Catholicism, taking the name of Eugenio Maria (in homage to Pope Pius XII), and returned to the Vatican. In 1949 he was professor of Semitic epigraphy and Hebrew at the University of Rome. He was the author of a large number of works, especially of biblical interpretation, Jewish history, liturgy, and talmudic literature. Among his works are Israele ("Israel," 1935), L'ebraismo ("Judaism," 1953), and autobiographical reflections entitled Before the Dawn (1954). His translation of the tractate Berakhot was published by a Catholic publishing house (1968). -BIBLIOGRAPHY: L.I. Newman, A "Chief Rabbi" of Rome Becomes a Catholic (1945). (Sergio DellaPergola)