I Obits Sister Rose Thering: Woman Of Valor Rebecca Boronson Jewish Standard Teaneck, N.J. From hard facts comes good news. S Most prearrangements are transferrable. You did the right thing by making advance funeral arrangements. Now there have been changes at the funeral home you selected. The good news is you're not "stuck" with your original choice. We accept pre- arrangements made at other funeral homes. Call us today for more information. THE DORFMANCHAPEL www. thedorfmanchapel. com 30440 Twelve Mile Road Farmington Hills • MI 48334 248.406.6000 TOLL FREE 1-866-406-6003 Licensed Funeral Directors: Alan Dorfman, Jonathan Dorfman ©2002 Adfin ity TM SERVING WITH DIGNITY, SANCTITY AND COMPASSION 1096550 102 may 11 . 2006 ister Rose Thering died Saturday, May 6, 2006, at age 85. A Dominican nun, she was a life- long crusader against anti-Semitism and stood, literally, in solidarity with oppressed Jews in the Soviet Union. Everything about her was unex- pected. "Shalom, shalom," her answering machine message began. She was a small woman, wearing sandals and jeans at a time when many nuns had gratefully abandoned their heavy black habits but still favored conservative dress. And her red hair was obviously dyed. She was - wholly surprising and delightful. Everywhere in her Essex County apartment were artifacts from Israel and scenes of Israel, which she vis- ited, over her lifetime, more than 90 times, sometimes leading Jewish or joint Christian-Jewish missions. These were gifts from celebrated admirers and just plain folks. A tapestry of Jerusalem was on her living room wall. Golda Meier Awards for Sister Rose's activism in Christian-Jewish relations were everywhere. Her work — trying to reverse cen- turies of the Catholic Church's "con- tempt teaching" (in French historian Jules Isaac's phrase) against the Jews — continued, even from her latter- day sickbed. Her contempt for contempt teach- ing began early, she told me, "when I found within my [religion] books derogatory things about Jews and Judaism." She grew up in a part of Wisconsin where there were no Jews, so she asked her teachers, "Who are the Jews?" They gave her the same answer as the books: "The Jews killed Christ:' She joined the Dominicans because theirs was a teaching order. She ultimately earned a doctorate in education and history. Contempt teaching, she told me, contributed to such horrors as the Holocaust. Thus the Holocaust, a focus of her doctoral research, became a focus of her life. A summary of her dissertation was presented at the Second Vatican Council. 171