(AGI) Rome, April 20 - The coffin of Rome's Emeritus ChiefRabbi, Elio Toaff, who died at 99 on Sunday, reached Rome'smain synagogue, which will commemorate him before his funeralin Livorno. The rabbi's light-coloured coffin was taken in aprocession from his home to the synagogue, only a shortdistance away, amidst the applause of hundreds of people whocrowded the streets of Rome's Jewish quarter to bid the rabbitheir last farewell. The procession was headed by his familymembers, many of whom flew to Rome from Israel, and therepresentatives of the capital's institutions and the Jewishcommunity, including Chief Rabbi Riccardo Di Segni, thepresident of the Jewish Community Riccardo Pacifici, thepresident of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities RenzoGattegna, Rome Mayor Ignazio Marino, Rome Prefect FrancoGabrielli, City Councillors Francesca Danese and Paolo Masini,and Radical Party leader Marco Pannella. The memory of ElioToaff, by "testifying to peace and dialogue", incites againstany type of discrimination, in line with the ItalianConstitution, said Italian President of the Republic, SergioMattarella, in a message read out during the commemoration atthe synagogue. The statement read: "I was overwhelmed by thenews of the death of Professor Elio Toaff, the long-standingChief Rabbi of Rome. He would have turned 100 at the end of themonth and I was planning to visit him to wish him a happybirthday. It is not easy to trace Toaff's human and civil lifeexperience in only a few lines as it unfolded along a longpath, crossing the milestones of our recent past. He was avictim of indecent racial laws - one of the ugliest chapters ofItaly's history - he joined the Resistance among the ranks ofthe Justice and Liberty movement. He was captured by Germantroops and miraculously escaped being executed. After the warhe moved to Rome and was appointed as the moral and spiritualhead of one Europe's oldest Jewish communities, which had beendevastated by deportation from the ghetto and otherpersecutions, giving it courage and love of life. Enforcing thepowers of the Municipal Council of Rome and in compliance withexisting legislation, I would be extremely happy to name astreet in the capital after Elio Toaff, a great Italian." Onhis part, Pope Francis told European Rabbis in a meeting in theVatican on Monday: "I would like to express my heartfeltsympathy for the death last night of Rabbi Elio Toaff, formerChief Rabbi of Rome. I am close in my prayers to Chief RabbiRiccardo di Segni - who should have been here with us - and tothe whole Jewish community of Rome, in the grateful memory ofthis man of peace and dialogue, who received Pope John Paul IIin an epoch-marking visit to the Tempio Maggiore." (AGI). .