Is the Temple menorah from 70 A.D. there in Rome?

Holiness, mystery and ancient secrets: Inside the Vatican

Israel Hayom diplomatic correspondent Shlomo Cesana on his meeting with Pope Francis • "Jerusalem is important to both of us," I say. He smiles and recites a blessing in Latin: "Next year in Jerusalem."

Shlomo Cesana

Israel Hayom political correspondent Shlomo Cesana with the pope. "Jerusalem is important to both of us"  |  Photo credit: Amos Ben Gershom

When you enter the catacombs of the Vatican, it is impossible not to remember the best movies made about the Holy See, whether it be "Angels & Demons" starring Ayelet Zurer and Tom Hanks, which is based on the book by Dan Brown, or "The Da Vinci Code" by the same author.

Holiness, mystery and ancient secrets go hand in hand in the imagination as well as reality. In the end, it is all based on the tradition of the Hanukkah holiday, which commemorates the miracles of the Maccabees who purified the Temple in Jerusalem and lit the menorah there. 

Two hundred and five years later, the menorah was pillaged and taken into exile in a march of triumph to Rome, where the event was commemorated in relief on the Arch of Titus. More than 2,000 years later, the prime minister of Israel gave a silver menorah to the pope at the Vatican. Reality trumps any fiction.

Now the prime minister of the Jews is asking the pope -- the leader of 1.2 billion faithful -- to save the world from the forces of evil emanating from Tehran, and not to rely on the good graces of heaven.

The connection between Jerusalem and Rome goes back to ancient times. The foundations of Western culture were laid in Jerusalem and Rome. 

In Jerusalem, the ethical prophets gave added value to the Torah set down by our forefather Moses, whether in relations between one person and another or between a person and their God. The vision of peace on earth and the hopes for salvation of our nation and of the entire world. These values reached Rome and the seat of Christianity and were distributed from there to the entire world.

Pope Francis has brought a new spirit to the Vatican. The symbol of the Vatican, the key that Jesus gave Paul in Banias at the foot of Mount Hermon, hangs at the entrance to his office and reminds us again, like all the beautiful wall frescoes, of the connection to the Torah of Israel, to the land of Israel and to Jerusalem. With a wide smile he extends a hand to me. "Jerusalem is important to both of us," I say, as someone who wrote the book "A Guide to the City of Jerusalem." He smiles and recites a blessing in Latin: "Next year in Jerusalem."

Prime Minister Netanyahu also met on Monday with the pope, accompanied by his wife, Sara Netanyahu. The two told the pope about their son who won the National Bible Contest, and the connection between Jewish sources and the foundations of Christianity. In the meeting with Pope Francis, who is expected to visit Israel in May 2014, the prime minister asked him to stay in Israel for five days and not three as planned, in order to have time to visit additional sites that are holy to Christianity. "Come to the synagogue in Chorazin, Jesus visited there," the prime minister said.

Netanyahu also gave the pope a copy, in English, of a book that his father Professor Benzion Netanyahu wrote about the Spanish Inquisition, as well as a large silver menorah. The pope gave Netanyahu a medallion bearing the figure of Paul -- Jesus' most important disciple. Later, when the prime minister was meeting with his Italian counterpart Enrico Letta, his wife Sara had lunch with the Italian prime minister's wife, Gianna Letta. 

The two of them spoke of the Hanukkah holiday, about strengthening women and about the fact that the two of them continue to work despite their husbands' job as prime minister: Letta as a journalist and Netanyahu as a child psychologist in Jerusalem.