Metro

NY Jews in Rome to pay tribute

ROME — Catholics aren’t the only ones at the Vatican to see Archbishop Timothy Dolan become a cardinal.

A small group of Jews traveled to Rome this week — part of a larger pilgrimage tour that included 800 New Yorkers — in a sign of love toward the city’s newest cardinal.

“I’m here to show my respect and admiration for Cardinal Dolan,” said Rabbi Noam Marans, who heads the American Jewish Committee’s interreligious-relations group. “It’s really a delight to be here for such a momentous occasion.”

Marans, of Ridgewood, NJ, said he and a handful of Jews made the trip across the Atlantic because Dolan has been so welcoming to the Jewish community in New York since being named archbishop in 2009.

“He has always extended a hand of warmth to us,” Marans said. “We are doing the same in return by being here.”

He said Dolan follows in the footsteps of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI “as men who have reached out to the Jewish community and have tried to bond these two communities together.”

Marans said he hoped his presence in Rome would help Catholics and Jews enjoy even better cooperation back in New York.