Jerusalem – Following a week’s worth of social media gossip and news outlet speculation about what took place in photo of a Haredi woman standing tall in front a bowing Pope Francis, it turns out that the official explanation of the event is a little less juicy and that nothing out of the ordinary took place after all.
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ISRAELNATIONALNEWS.com (http://bit.ly/1IWYu4j) reports that the photo, which shows personal secretary for Israeli President Reuven Rivlin, Rivka Ravitz, standing before a clearly bowing Pope Francis was picked up by various news and social media outlets and was accompanied by the story that the meeting between the two was happenstance and that Ravitz informed the Pope that she could not shake his hand or bow to him because he was wearing a cross.
According to lore, the Pope then instantly covered the cross and bowed to Ravitz.
But according to a source inside the President’s Residence, Ravitz did indeed bow to the Pope a moment before the photo was taken and that the Pope and his staff were informed of Ravitz’s religious protocols beforehand.
“It is not true that the pope covered the cross with his hand or apologized, nor is any of the other things having to do with relations between Judaism and Christianity, which have been attributed to the meeting,” the source said.
“All diplomatic personages are made aware of this,” the source added. “Instead of this there is a small bow. The pope received the same message through his aides.”
Nice
The Ramo says a cross isn’t avoda zara.
it is important to be courteous and nice in dealing with others…
They both were….
The Pope is probably wondering how such a frum woman is working for such an irreligious Jew. She dresses as she should, he is bare headed (big surprise.)
nice that someone decided to clarify.
If so, who gave her the permission to bow? Can we see names of any gdolim?
Or this is just another & continuing downfall from this so-called jewish state.
Considering this was posted all over the chabad websites, i fault them for staying this rumor (if this was 100% emes, which I’m not sure about).
Still she looks very unhappy at having to even be within daled amos of the representative of the church that stood aside during the war when millions of Yidden were slaughtered.
I am sure everything was handled in a diplomatically correct manner. So those with the lashon hora should (but of course will not be) ashamed of themselves.
Kudos to the lady for not looking for an easy way & staying firm.
We can use this distinguished photo as a vision of the time to come when the umos haolom will come before Mother Israel to ask forgiveness and to bow before what she endured at their hands – and thereby to bow before her G-d, the G-d of Israel.