A Positive Sigma
Pope's visit to German synagogue a win-win.
TOBY AXELROD
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Berlin
1p
aN
8/25
2005
28
ope Benedict XVI's visit to a
German synagogue was replete
with symbolism: most notably,
the potential for positive relations
between the country's Jewish communi-
ty and a pope who served in the
German army during World War II.
"It's a step in the right direction,
much more substantial that any of the
previous popes have done," said Walter
Stark of Bloomfield Hills.
Stark and his wife, Margaret, were in
Germany for a week just before the
pope's visit. They and 14 family mem-
bers were touring the country, tracing
the family's German roots.
For Germany's Jewish community,
which has tripled to more than 100,000
since 1989 with the arrival of former
Soviet Jews, the live broadcast of
Benedict's visit during World Youth Day
in Germany served another purpose. .
Millions of Germans tuning in to
ARD-TV last Friday had a chance to
look inside a German synagogue and
hear an introduction to Judaism from a
Cologne Jewish community board
member, Michael Rado, as they waited
for the pope to arrive.
They learned that Cologne is home to
Germany's oldest Jewish community,
with documents dating back to the
fourth century. They heard that this
synagogue was rebuilt in 1959, on the
site where a synagogue erected in 1899
was destroyed during Kristallnacht on
Nov. 9, 1938.
Then they witnessed the rabbi's warm
welcome of Benedict, the moment of
silence in which they remembered the
victims of the Holocaust and the proces-
sion to the bimah as a choir sang
"Heveinu Shalom Aleichem."
For the Catholic Church, the public-
relations value against the backdrop of
simmering anti-Semitism and
Islamophobia in Europe could not be
underestimated.
But it could have been much differ-
ent. While many Germans were proud
when their cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger,
was elected pope in April — the popu-
lar Bild Zeitung tabloid bore the head-
line, "We Are Pope!" — for many Jews,
Ratzinger embodied a Catholic conser-
vatism that sees other faiths as second-
Add to that the new pope's boyhood
membership in the Hitler Youth and his
recent failure to condemn terrorism
against Israel, and the possibility for ten-
sion was there.
For now, however, skepticism seems
to have waned as the pope's visit marks
more evidence of his commitment to
interfaith relations.
The event was a historic first: Never
before had a pope officially visited a
German synagogue. In fact, this was
only the second time a pope has formal-
ly entered a Jewish house of worship;
the late Pope John Paul II visited the
Great Synagogue of Rome in April
1986.
"It's a definite good step," Walter
Stark said, "but there is always a caveat
with those things. Just because the pope
does it and it's significant, the question
is how does it trickle down to the gener-
al public? It has an impact that only the
future will tell."
Stark, who, along with his wife, is "a
lucky Holocaust survivor who got out
early," said the "attitude in Germany
toward Jews is unchanged. There's gen-
eral anti-Semitism, with more in the
former Eastern zone because the social
structure is different. It's as bad or as
good as it is in our country."
Some speculators at the Cologne syn-
agogue said the presence of Israeli
Ambassador Shimon Stein might bode
well for relations between the Vatican
and Israel, strained over Benedict's
recent failure to condemn terrorism
against the Jewish state.
Others demanded that the pope fol-
low words with deeds by opening the
doors to the Vatican's World War II-era
archive, shedding light on the. Church's
wartime stance toward the Holocaust.
In his remarks to some 500 people
gathered in the Cologne Synagogue, the
pope stressed the future, not the past.
Worried about growing anti-Semitism
and xenophobia in Europe, determined
to teach tolerance to Catholic youth and
noting the negative role played by the
Church in the past, Benedict declared
his commitment to cooperation with
Jews.
He added that interfaith dialogue
must be carried out in recognition of
"existing differences. ),
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Pope Benedict XVI speaks Aug. 19 at the Cologne Synagogue in Germany as
Cologne Rabbi Natanael Teitelbaum looks on.
"In those areas in which, due to our
profound convictions in faith, we
diverge, and indeed precisely in those
areas, we need to show respect and love
for one another," the pope said to a
standing ovation.
Some said afterward that the pope
should have mentioned Israel as well as
the specific crimes of the church, such
as the massacres carried out during the
papally approved Crusades of the 11th-
13th centuries and the brutalities of the
Spanish Inquisition.
Toward Mutual Respect
But Cologne Rabbi Natanael
Teitelbaum told JTA he is "happy with
the pope's remarks. He looked back on
Jewish history and said he is against ter-
rorism and for mutual respect, and
those are the most important things."
Teitelbaum's address also drew a
standing ovation:
Paul Spiegel, head of the Central
Council of Jews in Germany, said it did
not matter that the pope did not direct-
ly address the subject of terrorism
against Israel.
"That will be between the Vatican
and the Israeli government," said
•
Spiegel, who survived the Holocaust in
hiding and came back to Germany as a
boy with his parents.
"My heart is full of the impressions of
today," Spiegel added at a news confer-
ence. "We are well on the way to mutu-
al respect and, as the pope said, to
mutual love."
"I don't think it is very often that one
has the chance to have your organiza-
tion known by the No. 1 person in the
Christian world," said Geroge Ban,
executive director of the Ronald S.
Lauder Foundation, which suports
Jewish education in Central and Eastern
Europe.
Some guests came away with a sou-
venir: royal-blue yarmulkes printed for
the occasion with the date and the
words "Besuch-Papst Benedikt XVI" —
"Visit of Pope Benedict XVI." ❑
IN Story Development Editor Keri Guten
Cohen contributed to this report.
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