Special Report
JEWS REMEMBER from page
18
bishop of Krakow, was elected to the papacy in
October 1978. The first pope from Poland and the
first non-Italian to sit on the papal throne in more
than 450 years, he took the name John Paul II to
honor his immediate predecessor, who died after
only three weeks in office.
Wojtyla assumed the papacy just 13 years after the
Vatican's historic Nostra Aetate declaration opened
the way toward Jewish-Catholic dialogue. The decla-
ration, issued in 1965 by the Second Vatican Council
convened by Pope John XXIII, condemned anti-
Semitism and for the first time officially repudiated
the age-old assertion that the "perfidious Jews" were
collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus.
John Paul's papacy built on this, and in Jewish
terms it was marked by dramatic "firsts," starting
with the pontiff's own personal history.
Born in 1920 in the town of Wadowice, near
Krakow, he was, in short, an eyewitness both to the
Holocaust and to the oppressive and often anti-
Semitic policies of communism.
Wojtyla grew up at a time when Poland was the
heartland of European Jewry. The country's 3.5 mil-
lion Jews represented 10 percent of Poland's overall
population. Wadowice itself was more than 25 per-
cent Jewish, and the future pope had Jewish friends,
neighbors and classmates.
Half of the 6 million Jews murdered in the Shoah
were Polish. Wojtyla was forced to work in a Nazi
slave labor camp and studied for the priesthood in
secret. After World War II, the discovery of what
had happened at Auschwitz, only a few miles from
his hometown, marked Wojtyla for life.
'As pope, John Paul referred to the 20th century as
"the century of the Shoah," and it was highly sym-
bolic that in 1979, on his first visit back to Poland
after his election, he knelt in prayer at Auschwitz-
Birkenau to commemorate the Jews killed there.
Throughout his reign, John Paul repeatedly
recalled the Holocaust and condemned anti-
Semitism as a sin against God and humanity.
On his more than 100 trips around the globe, he
sought to meet with Jewish leaders. He also issued
unprecedented expressions of contrition for past
Christian hostility and violence toward Jews. The
On The Cover
Israel's then-chief rabbis, Yisrael Meir
Lau, left, the Ashkenazi rabbi,
and Sephardi Rabbi Eliyahu Bakshi-
Doron, right, listen to Pope John
Paul II at their offices in Jerusalem,
Thursday, March 23, 2000. It was
the first visit by a Roman Catholic
pontiff in 36 years.
4/ 7
2005
24
most dramatic of the pope's many meetings with
Jews took place in April 1986, when he crossed the
Tiber River to visit the Great Synagogue in Rome,
becoming the first pope to visit a Jewish house of
worship since Peter.
After warmly embracing Rome's chief rabbi, the
pope spoke of the "irrevocable covenant" between God
and the Jews. With Judaism, he said, "we have a rela-
tionship that we do not have with any other religion.
You are our dearly beloved brothers and in a certain
way it may be said that you are our elder brothers."
At the end of 1993, the pope took another
unprecedented step, overseeing the formal establish-
ment of full diplomatic relations between Israel and
the Holy See, 45 years after the founding of the
Jewish state. "The pope has both understood what
Israel means to the Jewish people and thus the
importance of the establishment of full relations
between the Holy See and the State of Israel to
which he lent his personal weight," Rabbi David
Rosen, the American Jewish Committee's interna-
tional director for interreligious affairs, has said.
"It is no exaggeration to say that the successful
conclusion of those negotiations were thanks to his
personal involvement and even intervention."
The pope's historic visit to Israel in March 2000
marked a culmination of these policies. His visit was
formulated as a pilgrimage to the Holy Land to
mark the beginning of Christianity's third millenni-
um, but it brimmed with significance for Jews as
well. He visited Yad Vashem, and at Jerusalem's
Western Wall he bowed his head in prayer and
slipped a typed, signed note into one of the cracks
between the stones.
"We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those
who in the course of history have caused these chil-
dren of yours to suffer, and asking your forgiveness,
we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood
with the People of the Covenant," the note said.
Since that historic visit, the world has been rocked
by terrorism and war, and the eruption of the
Palestinian intifada plunged the Middle East into
violence. Also, what some observers call a "new anti-
Semitism" linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
has erupted in what the pope liked to call
"Christian" Europe.
Several issues still dog Catholic-Jewish relations
and continue to provoke clashes from time to time.
These include differences over what can be called
"historical memory" — for example, over the
wartime role of Pope Pius XII, whom the Vatican
wants to beatify but whom critics accuse of failing
to speak out to save Jews during the Shoah.
There also is a continuing internal debate within
the Catholic hierarchy about whether the church as
an institution is responsible for anti-Judaism and
anti-Semitism, or whether responsibility rests with
individuals.
Outstanding differences on bilateral issues, as well
as broader differences over Middle East politics, also
have clouded relations with Israel and are the focus
of protracted negotiations. These matters include
taxes and the legal status of church institutions as
well as questions of visas and residency permits for
Christian clergy in Israel.
Looming above all is the question of whether John
Paul's proactive teachings about Jews will endure,
and whether they will trickle down to the world's 1
billion Catholics.
During his audience with the rabbis and cantors
in January, John Paul noted that 2005 marks the
40th anniversary of the Nostra Aetate declaration
and urged "renewed commitment to increased
understanding and cooperation." But Jewish
observers have expressed concern that John Paul's
successor may not have the same commitment.
"You're not going to get anybody with his sensitivi-
ty," Rabbi Joseph Ehrenkranz, director of the Center
for Christian-Jewish Understanding at Sacred Heart
University in Fairfield, Conn., said in January. "The
fear is, whatever you've got done can be undone."
Rabbi A. James Rudin, the AJCommittee's senior
adviser on interreligious affairs and a visiting profes-
sor at St. Leo University, also considers the perpetu-
ation of John Paul's policies on Jews as "a major
challenge for the post-John Paul II church."
"To have his church retreat from the gains John
Paul II has achieved in building mutual respect and
understanding between Catholics and Jews would
represent a huge setback and an insult to this
remarkable pope, who will be remembered in Jewish
history as the 'greatest' pontiff in the 2,000-year his-
tory of Christianity," said Rabbi Rudin, who met
with John Paul 10 times.
For their part, Vatican officials say the pope's legacy
should be safe, noting that the sea changes wrought
by Nostra Aetate in 1965 and by Vatican documents
and pronouncements issued throughout John Paul's
papacy are enshrined as official church teaching.
"The whole Catholic church stands for these
changes, not only Pope John Paul II," the Rev.
Norbert Hofmann, secretary for the Holy See's
Commission for Religions Relations with the Jews,
said in 2003. But, he added, "It remains the task of
the whole church to continue these efforts, and we
must do everything so that the course will trickle
down to all levels." ❑