Rome honours former chief rabbi with street in Jewish Ghetto.

Rome is to dedicate a street to Elio Toaff, the chief rabbi of Rome from 1951 until 2001, in the Jewish Ghetto district of the capital on 31 October.

The street dedication ceremony will be attended by Rome mayor Virginia Raggi, the president of the Jewish Community of Rome, Ruth Dureghello, and the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo di Segni.

The ceremony will take place at 09.00 at Via del Tempio, between Via Catalana and Via del Portico di Ottavia, in the heart of the Ghetto quarter.

Raggi said the gesture was a sign of "our gratitude and admiration" for Toaff, "a great man who helped make our city and our country better."

Describing him as "an extraordinary figure", Dureghello said Toaff "helped to revive our devastated community after the persecutions and the tragedy of deportations."

Toaff died in 2015, two weeks before his 100th birthday, and is best remembered for his historic meeting with Pope John Paul II at the capital's synagogue in 1986.