The Pope's Legacy
Special Report
Israel's Friend
Israelis remember Pope John Paul Ifs warmth
toward their embattled country.
DINA KRAFT AND DAN BARON
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Nazareth, Israel
rom the Galilee, where church bells tolled, to Tel Aviv, where peo-
I ple sat in cafes as they read about his death on the front pages of
newspapers, Pope John Paul II was remembered in Israel as some-
one who cared about the country.
Many Israeli citizens — Christians, Muslims and Jews alike — felt
that the pope spoke to them. He died at 84 on Saturday, April 2, after
a long illness.
In Israel, memories of the pope's 2000 pilgrimage still resonate.
People remember the frail, stooped pontiff, dressed all in white, slowly
walking to Jerusalem's Western Wall to tuck a note of apology in a
crack between the stones of Judaism's holiest site.
That followed his 1993 decision to establish diplomatic ties with
Israel, reversing his church's chilly attitude toward a Jewish state seen
by many Christians as anathema.
"We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course
of history have caused these children of yours to suffer, and asking
your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood
with the people of the Covenant," read the letter the pope placed
between the ancient stones.
Israelis also remember the pope lighting the flame of remembrance at Yad
Vashem and later greeting Palestinians at a refugee camp in the West Bank.
"He was a symbol of tolerance, and I hope everyone will follow his
path," said Victor Zeitoun, 54, a hospital administrator in Haifa. "He
taught people how to talk to each other."
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was among the Israelis who praised the
pope as a friend to the Jews. Calling the pope one of the "most impor-
tant leaders of our generation" Sharon said the world had lost some-
one "whose great contribution to rapprochement and unity between
peoples, understanding and tolerance will be with us for many years."
But John Paul was far from an unconditional friend of Israel. He
outraged many Israelis with his hearty embrace of Yasser Arafat, years
before the Palestinian leader had passed from terrorist to statesman in
the eyes of many in the West.
During his millennium visit to Israel, the pope visited sites in
Jerusalem but conspicuously failed to endorse Israel's claim on the
holy city as its eternal capital.
Still, no one was ever in doubt about his dedication to Jewish survival.
That dedication came earlier, at a time when the pope was a Polish
schoolboy named Karol Wojtyla, famed for his generosity with study notes.
"We sat together in class, on the same bench, throughout the years," Josef
Bielenstock, an 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who lives in Israel, told Army
Top: Pope John Paul II laid a
wreath at the Yad Vashem
Holocaust Memorial in Jerusalem
in 2000.
Left: Pope John Paul II, greets
Rabbi Elio Toaff Rome's then-
chief rabbi, during his visit to
the Synagogue of Rome in 1986,
becoming the first pope to visit a
synagogue.
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"He was a symbol of tolerance, and I hope everyone will follow his path,
"He taught people how to talk to each other"
— Victor Zeitoun, 54, a hospital administrator in Haifa
Radio on Sunday "I didn't have to do homework or check if I made mistakes. I
just copied from him."
John Paul never forgot the Nazi annihilation of Jews, who had made up a
-quarter of the population of his hometown of Wadowice. "I can vividly remem-
ber the Jews who gathered every Saturday at the synagogue behind the school,"
he wrote. "Then came the Second World War, with its concentration camps and
systematic extermination."
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Serving as a priest at the end of the war, the young Wojtyla scoured the streets
of Poland, finding food and shelter for those who had been spared death in the
Holocaust.
"He was a kindred spirit in the greatest sense — a man who could save a girl
in such a state, freezing, starving and full of lice, and carry her to safety" one
such survivor, Edith Zierer, told Reuters. "I would not have survived had it not
been for him."
Standing outside the basilica in Nazareth as hundreds of Christian Arab
Israelis streamed out of mass on Sunday, the Vatican's envoy to Israel remem-
bered the special affinity the pope seemed to feel with the Jewish people.
"He said the Jewish people are our brothers. When he came here he had a
good opportunity not only to say, but to express the special link between the
Christian community and the Jewish people," said Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the
Vatican's ambassador to Israel.
Citing the pope's efforts to reconcile Jews and Christians, the Israeli government
decided Sunday to establish a special committee to commemorate John Paul.
Meanwhile, the daily newspaper Ma'ariv reported, the tourism ministry will
distribute a DVD and booklet commemorating his visit to Israel to churches
around the world.
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