Premier: Ethiopia World News: Israel & Ethiopian Migration to Israel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2p3fqRjz1YA&feature=related

recall from Part 7, "Falasha," that Israel's goal in allying with Ethiopia was to ensure security of Red Sea, pathway to Persian Gulf.

see also, Arthur Ruppin:

Mark Regev: "Collective mass immigration is behind us."

"Falasha" Torah Believing Ethiopians

Falasha - A certain religious group that were denied the ownership of land.









Graenum Berger(1908-1999) was an American Communal administrator, institutional and communal planner, educator, world traveler, and the founding President of the American Association for Ethiopian Jews.

Born in Gloversville, New York of Jewish immigrant parents, in 1955, Graenum Berger met a group of Ethiopian Jewish students in Israel. He had known there was a Jewish tribe in Ethiopia, but knew little about them. He began reading, and writing letters, and in ten years accumulated a vast file of information. In Ethiopia in 1965, he found penniless Jews (known as Falasha) trying to eke out a primitive living in a country that discriminated against them in every aspect of their lives. As a Jewish communal executive who knew all the professional and volunteer leaders in the American Jewish community, he assumed all he had to do was bring the problems of the Ethiopian Jews to their attention and they would be solved. He also presumed Israel would rise to the occasion and undertake a resettlement effort. He was wrong on both counts. So began his 35 year effort to bring the 50,000 member Ethiopian Jewish community to Israel, which eventually led to Operation Moses in 1984-85, and Operation Solomon in 1991. Shortly before his death, Dr. Berger was asked to comment on the "Felash Mura", descendants if ancient Falasha whose families had long abandoned Judaism. He felt they were not Jews and should not be granted the right to go to Israel under the Law of Return. Regardless, the aliyah of the Felash Mura eventually began and continues to this day at the rate of 300 per month.

Berger was given an old prayer book written in Ge'ez and a circumcision knife by the community that he originally contacted as a thanks. After his death, they were given by his family to the rabbi of a synagogue in New York he was a founding member of, the Pelham Jewish Center.

After 43 years of professional leadership, Berger retired in 1973. He authored a number of books including The Jewish Community as a Fourth Force in American Jewish Life (1966); Black Jews in America (1978); The Turbulent Decades, vol. I and II (1981); an autobiography, Graenum (1987); a biography about his brother, Ambassador Samuel D. Berger, A Not So Silent Envoy in 1992, and a memoir, Rescue the Ethiopian Jews! (1996), the story of his quest. Yeshiva University awarded Graenum the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters in 1973. In 1989, the Graenum Berger Bronx Jewish Federation Service Center, a social welfare agency, was named in his honor. Dr. Berger died in 1999.







Part 7 (1983)

Talking Back to Mondoweiss: 92nd Street Y, J Street, and Perfidy Mar 7 2011

the event at 92nd St Y was scheduled to be video-linked to at least one other location. Temple Sinai in Pittsburgh placed radio ads on the local NPR affiliate -- a week before, then again for two days before the event. It was advertised as "open to the entire community," to hold a "civil discussion" of Israel-Palestine conflict.

I attend most of the J Street events at Temple Sinai or the nearby Jewish Community Center, and have come to know and respect the founder of the local group, Nancy Bernstein, and also have become acquainted with other regular participants in discussions that J Street conducts about every 6 weeks. I'm usually the only non-Jewish person in the group; early on, another non-Jew attended but he has not returned.

The meeting yesterday evening was scheduled to begin at 7:30 but I didn't arrive until 8:00: I was not sure it was a good idea for me to attend; I was afraid I would embarrass myself or say something out of line, so I called a dear friend to discuss with her the advisability of participating in an event that might get heated. I told her that I called her at 6:45 pm so that I would be talking when I should be leaving for the meeting, and our discussion would force a decision-by-default. We talked until 7:45, then I decided to go anyway, hurriedly jumped into the car and got to the event just in time to hear the Rabbi explain that 92nd St Y had "inexplicably" canceled the event in NYC, so we would not hear Christiane Amanpour.

Instead, four members of the congregation who were going to moderate the 92nd Street program, were called upon to pinch hit: each of the four spoke for 5 minutes (the Rabbi timed each and kept the event under tight order). Then, members of the audience were given one minute (timed by the Rabbi) to ask a question, and the four member panel responded. Only 4 or 5 questions from the audience were handled in that way.
Although the event was advertised to and for the broad community, once again, I'm pretty sure I was the only non-Jew among the 50 to 75 participants. No person who was not Jewish made any comment or was heard.
Phil and Adam, you know that I am an antisemite; that's why you banned me.
I wasn't always an antisemite. Years ago I lived in the home of a Jewish family who were members of Temple Sinai. My position in the family was as a companion to the family's elderly matriarch; I had accompanied her to Temple Sinai on numerous occasions. I loved Ida K. and she loved me, like mother and daughter.

Perhaps that's why it is so painful to hear hate and mendacity that I heard last night at Temple Sinai.

God bless Dr. Naftali, who spoke first, and, I thought, laid a foundation for what seemed to suggest a very different approach to the issue. Naftali said he wished to speak "not about what has happened but what is possible." He told the audience he was born in Haifa in 1951, and that from his early childhood he remembered how much he enjoyed the fine wood and beautiful details of the home where he lived with his parents, holocaust survivors. The house had been the home of a Palestinian family. He knew that in one part of his being; it was a fact like any other that a child knows. Dr. Naftali said that he matured, he realized that "the catastrophe of others was the price of his good life." Naftali spoke of the excitement and joy of the 1967 war, and also of the thrill of fear that he can still feel from that event. He marked it as the moment when Israel lost its soul. He called the twelve years after intifada (? or Oslo? my notes are fragmented) a "moral wasteland" for Israel.

In discussing his military service, Naftali noted that he lost 3 friends, who for some unknown reason were in Beirut when Israel started "that disgusting and immoral war" against Lebanon that was waged "for no reason other than to maintain dominance of power."

Similarly, Naftali registered abhorrence at the Gaza campaign, in which he lost three dear friends -- Dr. Abuelaish's children, who were known to him and were friends of his. This was the ONLY TIME in the entire duration of the event that Dr. Abuelaish was mentioned.

Then the other three persons began their comments. It was appalling. Nancy was first; even she slid into the standard Israel first rhetoric that someone like me recognizes all too frequently. Jewish people seem to have silos of thinking and speaking, and a rehearsed set of statements; it's as if their brains are cast in a mould that can comprehend and express only a pre-formed thought process and is incapable of even acknowledging that a different way of assessing facts, or a different set of facts, might exist. Nancy's comments were otherwise unremarkable: "growing up in DC I know the pain of My People . . .two-state is possible; 2400 people in DC; 500 students from 128 colleges -- the BEST colleges; 700 people lobbied Congress; Israel faces a threat to its Jewish character . . ."

The other two speakers were repugnantly and repulsively anti-Palestinian. One of those two, a past head of the local AIPAC, insisted that "Israel wants peace," then recited a list of headlines from Palestinian Authority media with the purpose of demonstrating that there IS no partner for peace. He said that Palestinians had squandered every opportunity for peace, listing from 1937 to the present the 6 or 7 opportunities that Palestinians had jettisoned. The former AIPAC leader was incensed at the notion that the US administration should be involved in pressuring Israel to make peace; it's condescending and patronizing." [So why was he a part of AIPAC, whose mission is to lobby US Congress on behalf of Israel?] He insisted that "settlements are not the issue; it's not about land," but rather, about the "existential threat to the Jewish people," and, his coup de grâce: the Palestinian Authority refuses to teach their children about the Holocaust. "We need to look into the education of Palestinian children; they need to learn about the holocaust."

Nancy affirmed Mr. AIPAC's declaration-- "Many children are not exposed" to holocaust education." She registered disappointment that no Palestinians were in the audience or on the panel, and said that future events would attempt to change that.

Mr. AIPAC said "J Street is the wrong tool to use,"

Most of the discussion between the panel members and between panel-and-audience devolved into "J Street good" "J Street bad" inside-Jewish-baseball attacks and counter-attacks.

As I recall them, the questions from the audience raised these issues:
Question 1. "Most Palestinians are Jordanian, so shouldn't they go back to Jordan." Responders corrected the Questioner's misapprehension, and asserted that "Jews should be able to live in Palestine and Palestinians should be able to live in Israel."

Question 2. "Al Jazeera reported that Wikileaks revealed that Palestinians made many, many concessions that were ignored." Response: [this is a direct quote]: IN THEIR MINDS they made concessions -- they've lost so many wars, they SHOULD make concessions." The responder continued, The Israelis are wise to proceed as they have; I trust Israel's government; they have been elected by the people.

Question 3. "First, Israel treats people badly. My second point, when Gershom Gorenberg spoke here he told us that settlements are illegal, and that Israel knows that the settlements are illegal." Can you comment? [I was at the Gershom Gorenberg talk. He showed on the large screen the document stating that the Israeli settlements are illegal. He came upon the document in archives that he spent five years attempting to search.]

My notes about the response to that questioner say only that Mr. AIPAC said, "thank god for Christian zionists."

I'm afraid I didn't stay and mingle after the panel was dismissed and people made their exits. I should have at least offered Dr. Naftali my hand in support; he was badly outnumbered. As I recall, 'Naftali' is a Sephardic name. I further recall David Sasha's explanation of pilpul-- it is an Ashkenazi technique, not practiced by Sephardic scholars. Facts are sometimes inconvenient things; Dr. Naftali has taken account of facts as they are, not as the received (Ashkenazi) narrative declares them to be. Since his mind is not pre-formed, he is able to make adjustment for other versions of reality without losing his identity.

And as I review my notes on the questions, it is heartening to see that most of the questioners were, like Dr. Naftali, far more rational and critical in their understanding than were three of the four panelists. "If the people lead, the leaders will follow."

The Rabbi closed the event with a brief explanation of a Torah passage (sorry, I don't have the citation) -- about two kinds of argument: "argument NOT for the sake of heaven," and "argument FOR the sake of heaven." He urged the group to argue FOR the sake of heaven.

Arthur Ruppin and Nazi Eugenics as Model for Hebrew Culture

Selections from, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture a dissertation submitted by Etan Bloom for the PhD at Tel Aviv University, December 2008.

"Throughout most of his career, Ruppin was in close relations with the academic field of German race scientists, who operated during the thirties with Nazi support and provided them with scientific legitimization and ideas. This group was not only among the first scientists to join the Nazi party, they were also involved in shaping the general lines of its policy to exclude the handicapped, Gypsies and Jews. Until the final solution stage of the Nazi policy, which began sometime at the end of the thirties, Ruppin was able to understand them perfectly, and to agree that their attitude towards the Jews was only natural."166

165 On the use of Ruppin and other Jewish resarchers by Nazi scholarship see: (Steinweis 2006, 19-22).
166 Ruppin’s relationship with the Nazi scientist Hans Günter and an assessment of his weltanschauung with regard to the Nazis, will be discussed at the end of this work.

3.9 The End of Theory [pp 146-147]
At the end of the 19th century, there was not a major thinker in any movement (from
liberalism and socialism to Zionism and nationalism) who did not use at least
Darwinian or biological arguments and often eugenic ones. In this regard, Ruppin is
typical and not an anomaly. Indeed, Ruppin was following many other Jewish and
Zionist racial scientists, including Elias Auerbach, Aron Sandler, Felix Theilhaber,
Ignaz Zollschan, S.A. Weissenberg, Redcliffe N. Salman and Joseph Jacobs, who
wrote the foreword to the English version of Ruppin’s The Jews of Today, and whom
Efron calls the first “racial Jewish scientist” (Efron 1994, 58). All of them were
motivated by a perceived need to end Jewish intermarriage and preserve Jewish racial
purity. Most of them believed that only by creating a Jewish homeland and by
reducing the assimilatory influences of the Diaspora, could Jews preserve their unique racial heritage (Gilman 1993, 109; Efron 1994, 136, 155). Race was at the essence of Zionist cultural identity. Since Zionism lacked many of the attributes associated with nationhood – common territory, language conduct and customs – race was an Archimedean point for constituting a nation (Hart 1995, 166; Falk 2006).
The Jewish racial scientists and thinkers became the subject of intensive and vibrant
research in the second part of the 1990s. Efron’s The Defenders of Race, Mitchel
Hart’s Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity and many others
described their theories and cultural identity and included Ruppin among them.
Nevertheless, what makes Ruppin’s case so different from that of the other social scientists is that he was able, like only few other eugenicists (e.g. Galton), to undertake a practical implementation of his ideas, as will be discussed in chapter five.
Indeed, as Penslar notes, there were other attempts at social engineering of the Jews, and at linking Jewish economic and physical health with planned colonization. This frame of work was shared by a variety of Jewish international relief agencies that experimented, from the 1870s until the 1930s, with social engineering in South
America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East (Penslar 2001, 223). Nevertheless, the
Palestinian-Zionist project was the only one of these experiments to succeed in
radically transforming modern Jewish identity and, in particular, the Jewish body. The successes of Zionism cannot be overestimated: from one of the many political and cultural options for identity in the culture space of the turn of the century it became, at the end of the twentieth century, a cultural synonym for Judaism.

Zionist ideology was for Ruppin – like, previously, religion – a vehicle
for eugenic codes and practices. When Ruppin wrote, at the beginning of the 1940s,
about the modern Hebrews who were born in the Land of Israel (the so-called Sabars),
he referred to them as a new sub-race, “the Maccabean type,” which had emerged, in
his opinion, as a result of his culture planning activities:182 “Most of the young
generation in the Land display a new type of Jew, a kind of Maccabean type from the
past” (Ruppin 1940b, 287). [Bloom p. 144]

181 (Sadeh 1945, 155-158). Sadeh’s story and images are prevalent in Israeli education system until today. See for example the Institute for Holidays, an internet site that provides stories and other texts
for teachers in kindergartens and schools [www.chagim.org.il/d.html#1].
182 As we shall see, Ruppin believed that his eugenic culture plan was working, see e.g. what he wrote at the end of the 1920s: “If today the level of the diligence of the agriculture workers is greater then 10 or 15 years ago we must first of all give the credit for that to the work of selection among the groups [kvutzot]. From the thousands that passed through the groups, a large part was discarded, maybe most of them. Those who stayed were those who passed the test of fire” (Ruppin 1928, 42).

Selections from, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of the Modern Hebrew Culture a dissertation submitted for the PhD at Tel Aviv University, December 2008.

"Throughout most of his career, Ruppin was in close relations with the academic field of German race scientists, who operated during the thirties with Nazi support and provided them with scientific legitimization and ideas. This group was not only among the first scientists to join the Nazi party, they were also involved in shaping the general lines of its policy to exclude the handicapped, Gypsies and Jews. Until the final solution stage of the Nazi policy, which began sometime at the end of the thirties, Ruppin was able to understand them perfectly, and to agree that their attitude towards the Jews was only natural."166

165 On the use of Ruppin and other Jewish resarchers by Nazi scholarship see: (Steinweis 2006, 19-22).
166 Ruppin’s relationship with the Nazi scientist Hans Günter and an assessment of his weltanschauung with regard to the Nazis, will be discussed at the end of this work.

3.9 The End of Theory [pp 146-147]
At the end of the 19th century, there was not a major thinker in any movement (from liberalism and socialism to Zionism and nationalism) who did not use at least Darwinian or biological arguments and often eugenic ones. In this regard, Ruppin is typical and not an anomaly. Indeed, Ruppin was following many other Jewish and Zionist racial scientists, including Elias Auerbach, Aron Sandler, Felix Theilhaber, Ignaz Zollschan, S.A. Weissenberg, Redcliffe N. Salman and Joseph Jacobs, who wrote the foreword to the English version of Ruppin’s The Jews of Today, and whom Efron calls the first “racial Jewish scientist” (Efron 1994, 58). All of them were motivated by a perceived need to end Jewish intermarriage and preserve Jewish racial purity. Most of them believed that only by creating a Jewish homeland and by reducing the assimilatory influences of the Diaspora, could Jews preserve their unique racial heritage (Gilman 1993, 109; Efron 1994, 136, 155). Race was at the essence of Zionist cultural identity. Since Zionism lacked many of the attributes associated with nationhood – common territory, language conduct and customs – race was an Archimedean point for constituting a nation (Hart 1995, 166; Falk 2006).
The Jewish racial scientists and thinkers became the subject of intensive and vibrant research in the second part of the 1990s. Efron’s The Defenders of Race, Mitchel Hart’s Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity and many others described their theories and cultural identity and included Ruppin among them.
Nevertheless, what makes Ruppin’s case so different from that of the other social scientists is that he was able, like only few other eugenicists (e.g. Galton), to undertake a practical implementation of his ideas, as will be discussed in chapter five.
Indeed, as Penslar notes, there were other attempts at social engineering of the Jews, and at linking Jewish economic and physical health with planned colonization. This frame of work was shared by a variety of Jewish international relief agencies that experimented, from the 1870s until the 1930s, with social engineering in South America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East (Penslar 2001, 223). Nevertheless, the Palestinian-Zionist project was the only one of these experiments to succeed in radically transforming modern Jewish identity and, in particular, the Jewish body. The successes of Zionism cannot be overestimated: from one of the many political and cultural options for identity in the culture space of the turn of the century it became, at the end of the twentieth century, a cultural synonym for Judaism.

Zionist ideology was for Ruppin – like, previously, religion – a vehicle for eugenic codes and practices. When Ruppin wrote, at the beginning of the 1940s, about the modern Hebrews who were born in the Land of Israel (the so-called Sabars), he referred to them as a new sub-race, “the Maccabean type,” which had emerged, in his opinion, as a result of his culture planning activities:182 “Most of the young generation in the Land display a new type of Jew, a kind of Maccabean type from the past” (Ruppin 1940b, 287). [Bloom p. 144]

181 (Sadeh 1945, 155-158). Sadeh’s story and images are prevalent in Israeli education system until today. See for example the Institute for Holidays, an internet site that provides stories and other texts
for teachers in kindergartens and schools [www.chagim.org.il/d.html#1].
182 As we shall see, Ruppin believed that his eugenic culture plan was working, see e.g. what he wrote at the end of the 1920s: “If today the level of the diligence of the agriculture workers is greater then 10 or 15 years ago we must first of all give the credit for that to the work of selection among the groups [kvutzot]. From the thousands that passed through the groups, a large part was discarded, maybe most of them. Those who stayed were those who passed the test of fire” (Ruppin 1928, 42).

5.1.8. The Borders of the Modern Hebrew Social Space
[…] there is not a single nation of the white race that is racially pure […] Only a part of any nation will correspond to the description of a particular racial group given by the anthropologists, and may thus be regarded as of pure race Ruppin, 194031 . . .

In his memorandum of 1907, Ruppin repeated, in a general way, the analysis he had presented in The Jews of Today. He described the groups existing at the time in the social field of Palestine and analyzed their position with regard to the new social field he planned to establish. As mentioned in the weltanschauung chapter, Ruppin aspired to create a new biological type for the new Jewish society in Palestine, and, as the new source or “gene pool” for this new Jewish Volkskorper, he chose the East European Jews (Ruppin also made divisions within that group, as will be described later).
The two groups that Ruppin saw as unsuitable and even antagonistic to his plans were, on the one hand, the Orthodox Ashkenazi Jews and, on the other, theSephardic and Oriental Jews whom, as he put it, he “lumped together” and defined disparagingly as “Oriental or Eastern Jews” [Heb. yehudey hamizrach].

31 (Ruppin 1940, 18). The title of the chapter in which this text appears is: Race; the conception of race; racial purity.

204
In his lecture The Land of Israel in the Year 1907, which he delivered to The Jewish Settlement Association in Vienna in 1908, Ruppin divided the Jewish population of Palestine into what he defined as four “distinct strata” (Ruppin 1908, 1):
“The first is made up of those Sephardic Jews who have lived in the country for centuries, have become closely assimilated, in mores and in their general mode of life, to the local Arabs and who, side by side with Ladino, speak Arabic too. A good picture of the life of these Jews is furnished by the town of Saida (the ancient Sidon) where 2,000 Jews – all of them Sephardic – may be found. They receive no Chalukkah, earn a difficult and pitiful living as small merchants and artisans, are poorly educated and of a not particularly high moral standing. The Jews of Morocco, Persia and the Yemen, who have come into Palestine in recent years, may be lumped together with this group” (ibid). This group, according to Ruppin, though “poorly educated” and lacking a “particularly high moral standing,” had one advantage: “They receive no Chalukkah”; an important sign of their productivity. In these early definitions we can detect Ruppin’s constant urge to verify his theoretical writings concerning the Semites through his observations in the Middle Eastern and Palestinian social field. As described at length, the ‘Orientals’ were always marked by him as unintelligent, nonmodern, bestial and immoral. Their only good quality and path for regeneration lay in their ability to be useful as an unskilled workforce.
The second group, as defined by Ruppin, was the Ashkenazi ultra-orthodox, (Heb. Charedim) who consisted mostly of an unproductive and aged population that was almost entirely dependent on the Chalukkah. The attitude of Ruppin to orthodox Jewry has already been described, and, as in other cases, his observations in Palestine corroborated his theory for he believed that, at least in Palestine, this group was in gradual decline.33
Ruppin’s hostility to these two groups intensified during the 1920s and he saw them as a constant threat to the new social field he was creating. In a letter to Jakobson in1922 he described these two groups – the Orthodox and the

33 As with many other models, this perception became part of the labor movement leadership’s

205
Sephardic – as the “hidden opponents” of the New Yishuv, which he characterized in this letter as the “organized ethnic group” [Heb. eda meurgenet] (Bein 1968, III, 32).
The third group defined by Ruppin was that of the so-called First Aliyah, which
suffered, according to his analysis, from several weaknesses caused by their economic structure being heavily based on the generosity of Baron de Rothschild. The Baron’s unconditional philanthropy led to an ever-weakening connection between them and the land, since it was not developed through their efforts and work but fell into their hands “as a present” (Ruppin 1908/1998, 209). It is important to emphasize that this specific criticism will shape his attitude to the young immigrants of the Second Aliyah.
According to Ruppin, this indifference to the land was the reason for the First Aliyah’s declining “enthusiasm,” – equated in Ruppin’s vocabulary with the “vital force” that his monistic weltanschauung regarded as the most important “element” or “energy” and the necessary quality for becoming a part of the New Yishuv’s Volkskorper. The failure of the First Aliyah is made evident by the fact that their children, the next generation, emigrated permanently from the country, leaving their places for Arab workers (Ruppin 1908/1998, 210).34
Having dismissed these three groups out of hand, Ruppin did however find a fourth, group that he considered a positive asset. This was composed of young immigrants from Eastern Europe who, according to his analysis, were in the first stage of constructive organization. This was the group that Ruppin felt included the best candidates for the mission at hand, which was to constitute the foundation of the healthy Volkskorper but “naturally,” they could succeed only if treated and molded according to the scientific conceptions of modern social sciences and eugenics.
According to Ruppin, this group could become a new “species” or “type” of Jew that would not suffer from the problems of the other groups, those that had to be held back, limited, marginalized or even rejected from the new social space and certainly from its dominant groups.
To Ruppin, reducing the dominance of the first three groups was a mission of no less importance than that of furthering the fourth group and was connected with his attempts to “inherit the land” as rapidly as possible; the same urgency that he exhibited in occupying the land had its parallel in his haste to occupy the social space by creating a new species of Jew, i.e., the Modern Hebrew, to be selected from the pool of young East European immigrants:




34 Needless to say, Ruppin’s assessments and differentiations as sketched above were a result of his weltanschauung and efforts to promote his culture plan rather than of the Palestinian “reality.” E.g., in his accounts, Ruppin ignored the fact that the upper class of the Sephardic community cooperated from the first stages with the “Ashkenazi modernists” and constituted an important link with the Ottoman rulers (Halpern & Reinharz 2000, 198-200). On many of the Second Aliyah working sites, the Sephardic and Oriental Jews– both natives and immigrants – had an important role in the labor and guard forces, and, as we shall see later, those of them who aspired to a greater involvement in creating the modern Hebrew space were usually rejected. The same goes for Ruppin’s assessment of the First Aliyah’s contribution as well as for his premise that there is an essential contradiction between modernity and religion.
206
“We must see most of the Eastern Europeans as desirable Olim [immigrants].
[…] because by transferring people considered morally inferior from one land to
another we are not enhancing their value, and what is more, these morally
inferior people are in most cases, ruining good social institutions” (Ruppin
1919e, 373).
Nevertheless, the fact that the “desirable” immigrants were East Europeans, i.e.
Ashkenazi, did not on its own qualify them. More than anyone else in the Zionist
movement, Ruppin emphasized in his writings and implemented in his practice, the
importance of selecting what he defined as Menschmaterial:

“We devoted ourselves extensively to the question of the economic, legal and
social structure of the Jewish society which we were erecting in Palestine but in
this we proceeded very much like a physicist who makes his calculation on
motion without taking into account the pressure of the atmosphere. We assumed
that all we needed to do was find a good social structure, proclaim it by fiat, and
presto, it would be there. We seemed to forget that even the best of social
structures become flesh and blood realities only by virtue of the individuals who
fit into them and that if the individuals who make up the society do not, in their
education, occupation and character, belong to that structure, they will either
alter its form or else reduce it to an empty shell” (Ruppin 1919d, 373).

This text reflects how Ruppin took the Zionist enterprise from its ideological phase into a phase of culture planning based on eugenic perceptions and, in particular, on the practice of selection. The Jews now became “human material,” a perception which legitimized and enabled the PO to increase its intervention in molding that “material.”

5.2 The Selection of Human Material for Palestine 5.2.1 “Enthusiasm” as “vital force”
The years to come will pass judgment on my work in Palestine. I can only say that I have always considered it my principal object to keep alive in those with whom I have worked the enthusiasm which they brought with them to Palestine. I have tried to guard the flame of this enthusiasm and work by its light .Ruppin36
In the Jews of the East [Europe], he [Ruppin] saw the starting point for the contin-uation of the line; in the most enthusiastic among them, the ancient genealogy. A.Tz’ioni37
As in Ruppin’s vocabulary in general, the meaning of the concept “enthusiasm” or “enthusiast,” (derived, in Hebrew, from the word for flame=lehava) in the above quotations is pregnant with eugenic meaning.38 As already mentioned, the concept of the “vital force” was linked to the concept of “energy” and to Ruppin’s monistic weltanschauung. According his bio-Volkisch perception, the appropriate match between the racial type and the particular type of soil that suited it was a necessary condition for the vitality and creativity of a given type. According to this logic, Ruppin figured that the immigrants who were more “enthusiastic” for the land, who were more connected to it and interacted well with its soil, were more likely to belong to the “ancient genealogy,” as Tz’ioni put it, or to the “Continuität des Keimplasmas” (the continuation of the germ plasma) as Ruppin described it (Ruppin 1903c, 197); i.e. they were more likely to be related biologically to the ancient, “Ur” (original) or “pure race Jews.” In other words, since Ruppin’s bio-historical proposition was that his Darwinismus und Sozialwissenschaft as “the vital force”
This concept – elaborated by Alfred Ploetz (1860-1940), is connected with the concept of Vitalrasse which means a stock with a good intersection of genetic lines of transmission

35 The most positive characteristic of the “desirable element” was what Ruppin had defined already in . (Erblinien). Vitalism saw life as driven by a harmonious final stage. It meant that cells and organisms had an innate drive towards a whole or harmonious form (Hutton 2005, 17, 27). On the particular vitalism of Ruppin, see also: (Penslar 1987; Bein 1968, I, 22).
36 (Ruppin 1936a, 152).
37 (Tzioni 1943, 4).
38 The particular quality that Ruppin sought in the young immigrants was what hardly any writer, from Renan to Ruppin, fails to mention, that is “indomitable ambition as an outstanding feature of the Jews, and added to their other qualities enumerated above it naturally makes them formidable exponents of the will to power, and ruthless competitors in any contest for influence and ascen-dancy.” The Jews, and the Jews in England, (Cobbet 1938) chapter IV, Character of the Jews.
. . .
341
5.2.8 The Kulturkampf of the Workers and Ruppin’s Educational Principles
The term “culture war” (Heb. milchemet tarbut or milchemet koltura) and even the original German expression Kulturkampf was used explicitly and frequently in the workers’ leading magazine Hapoel Hatzair with regard to various forms of Diaspora Judaism. The Kulturkampf was not directed only against the mentalities of the religious or assimilated Jews of the Diaspora or that of the ultra-orthodox communities in the holy cities of Palestine, but mainly against what might be termed the internal galut, the one that the Second Aliya people carried in their memories and bodies. . . .

The educational perceptions of the Degania members, their attitude to their galut parents and to their “ghetto bodies” reflected Ruppin’s weltanschauung and suggest that the rejection of the intellectual and of intellectualism was one of the dominant factors in the natural selection of the groups. As already noted, and contrary to some of the impressions prevailing in Germany and America, the Second Aliya workers opposed any sign of intellectualism, and many of them were even against reading. In 1910, one of the workers wrote that in the Galilee:

“neither the farmers’ sons nor the workers read much […] the place is ruled by the axiom that anyone who reads too many books is not qualified for work and doesn’t have the talent for it. This [not reading] is the sign of a ‘natural farmer’ and ‘natural worker’ […]” (Yardeni,Shochat 1930, 36).
Thus, as this quote reaffirms, many of the Second Aliyah workers not only lacked education, they actually celebrated ignorance as a sign of a healthy mind and body (Elboim-Dror 1996, 118, 127).
These poetic and ideological views were always connected in Ruppin’s weltanschauung to race and biology. The intellectual Jew who was exposed to the temptations of the modern Christian world would always tend to assimilate. The paradox was that the “excessive intellectualism” of the Jewish race was actually one of the reasons for its degeneration. Using the same logic that made the social Darwinists perceive the “excessive treatment” of modern medicine as an impingement
on natural selection, Ruppin saw in the Intellectualismus of the Jews one of their dysgenic fac-tors. As Gilman points out, Ruppin’s view that those who were labeled ‘intellectuals’ (intelligensia) tended to leave the faith and undergo baptism was a common turn of the century perception.
“In Vienna, fully one quarter of the Jews baptized belonged to the Intelligensia.
In the discourse of the time, on the superior Jewish intelligence, belonging to the
intelligentsia might signal a rejection of one’s Jewish identity and a flight into
mixed-race relationships with all their attendant dangers” (Gilman 1996, 78).
As noted already, Ruppin’s eugenic plan, and his constant anti-intellectualist position,
was devised to curb this trend of European Jews.227

223 As already discussed, according to Ruppin’s racial theories, the preservation and improvement of the Jew could occur only if there was a wide base of agricultural Jews. For him the “pathological” condition of the galut Jews could be solved only by a reversal of the pyramid of Jewish occupations, which was build on a wide base of merchants.
224 E.g. Oppenheimer: “For certainly in the situation in which most Jews in the Diaspora find
themselves today, this intellectualism is very nearly their only weapon in the struggle for existence, but it is unhealthy, it represents a one-sided, almost monstrous development, and the goal of all education and all true humanism (Menschentum) is the harmony of body and soul, a healthy soul in a healthy body” (Oppenheimer 1931, 220).
225 Ruppin’s ideas are similar to those of Borochov (Levita 1966, III, 776-777), but also to those of the Monist League which believed that, since man is limited by his animal nature, he can only weaken himself by attempting to impose upon life an erroneous intellectualism and rationalism (Gasman 1971, 35).

Williams is eeevil for 'denying holocaust;' Muslims 'backward' for denying holocaust; Jews Hokey Dokey for Demolishing Palestinian Property obla dee

related to: Pajamas Media article about Bishop Williams, "Holocaust denier"

see also, related: Edwin Black, "Farhud"
(see below)
1. Jabotinsky deliberately provoked the clash in Joffa -- find notes associated with Israeli demolition of Shepherd's Hotel, on behalf of New York Jewish gambling magnate Irving Moskowitz

but of course it’s the Arabs who are the bad guys. been that way since forever.

here’s the version of the Bad Guy Arab Uprising of 1929 from Jewish Virtual Library:

The Hebron Massacre of 1929 by Shira Schoenberg


see also

“For some time, the 800 Jews in Hebron lived in peace with their tens of thousands of Arab neighbors. But on the night of August 23, 1929, the tension simmering within this cauldron of nationalities bubbled over, and for 3 days, Hebron turned into a city of terror and murder. By the time the massacres ended, 67 Jews lay dead and the survivors were relocated to Jerusalem, leaving Hebron barren of Jews for the first time in hundreds of years.

The summer of 1929 was one of unrest in Palestine. Jewish-Arab tensions were spurred on by the agitation of the mufti in Jerusalem. Just one day prior to the start of the Hebron massacre, three Jews and three Arabs were killed in Jerusalem when fighting broke out after a Muslim prayer service on the Temple Mount. Arabs spread false rumors throughout their communities, saying that Jews were carrying out “wholesale killings of Arabs.” Meanwhile, Jewish immigrants were arriving in Palestine in increasing numbers, further exacerbating the Jewish-Arab conflict.
{snip}

In the mid-1800s, Ashkenazi (native European) Jews started moving to Hebron and, in 1925, the Slobodka Yeshiva, officially the Yeshiva of Hevron, Knesset Yisrael-Slobodka, was opened. Yeshiva students lived separately from the Sephardi community, and from the Arab population. Due to this isolation, the Arabs viewed them with suspicion and hatred, and identified them as Zionist immigrants. . . ..

On Friday, August 23, 1929, that tranquility was lost. Arab youths started throwing rocks at the yeshiva students. That afternoon, one student, Shmuel Rosenholtz, went to the yeshiva alone. Arab rioters later broke in and killed him, and that was only the beginning. . . .
{snip}
The police station turned into a shelter for the Jews that morning of August 24. It also became a synagogue as the Orthodox Jews gathered there and said their morning prayers. As they finished praying, they began to hear noises outside the building. Thousands of Arabs descended from Har Hebron, shouting “Kill the Jews!” in Arabic. They even tried to break down the doors of the station. . . . : The demonstration by Revisionist youth of 15 August was later identified as the proximal cause of the riots by the Shaw Commission.

Shaw Commission, Goldstone Report — pfff. we know that it was the Bad Guy Arabs that waged a pogrom against Jews .

The destruction of the Shepherd’s Hotel brings the tragedy full circle: Shepherd’s Hotel had been the residence of the Mufti of Jerusalem, central figure in the Wailing Wall controversy:

These attempts to secure the place as a Jewish site of worship were threatening to the Muslim Arabs, who considered this area a part of al-Haram all-Sharif (“the Noble Sanctuary”), the third holiest site in Islam. The Muslims were concerned that the Zionists would take over the whole area and rebuild the Temple. Under the leadership of Haj Amin al-Husseini, head of the Supreme Muslim Council and Mufti of Jerusalem, the Palestinian Arabs began an extensive campaign, urging the Arab rank-and-file in Palestine as well as Muslim leaders worldwide to oppose the Zionists and defend the Islamic shrines in Jerusalem.

That right there — don’t you see?? See how evil those Arabs were?

The Wall dispute flared up in the midst of prayer on Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, September 1928. A British police officer removed the screen separating men and women, claiming that its installation by the Jews was a technical violation of the rights of worship. Following the incident, Jews and Zionists in the Yishuv and around the world were enraged, in particular due to the fact that the British appeared to favor the Supreme Muslim Council’s side of the matter. In November 1928 Muslim notables from all over the Fertile Crescent and Egypt gathered in Jerusalem under the auspices of the Mufti. Their struggle over Muslim holy places led to the British Government’s reaffirmation of the status quo at the Wall. Yet the Zionists continued to demand possession of the wall while the Muslims, spurred on by the Supreme Muslim Council, harassed Jewish worshipers.

Tension increased as Palestinian Arabs observed with growing anxiety the gradual recovery of the Zionist movement after a few years of decline. First, Jewish immigration began to pick up discernibly from the beginning of 1928. A second source of concern was the Zionists’ plan for enlarging the Jewish Agency to include powerful organizations. Still a third worry was a poor harvest in 1929, aggravating an already existing economic crisis, and affecting many Arab farmers who were then obliged to sell their lands to Jews.

These three developments were a serious setback to the Palestinian Arabs’ cause. The Mufti and his followers in the Supreme Muslim Council assumed an increasingly important role in Palestinian Arab leadership. They set out to curb the Zionist progress, and the Wailing Wall dispute proved just the opportunity to do so. Using Jerusalem’s holy status in Islam, the Mufti could mobilize the Muslim world’s material and moral support for the struggle against Zionism. His fund-raising efforts, which had begun in 1923, intensified with the campaign against the Zionists’ claim to the Wall. He established connections with political and religious leaders throughout Iraq, India, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, and Transjordan, trying to use their influence to coax the British into acting in favor of the Palestinian Muslims.

What began with a seemingly minor argument over rights of worship at the Wailing Wall was now a major public dispute, involving both Jewish and Muslim communities worldwide. The year-long period of escalation which started in the summer of 1928 culminated in the violent riots of August 1929.

re "Farhud" --

Farhud: Roots of the Arab-Nazi Alliance During the Holocaust
Dec 19, 2010

National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors
Edwin Black looks at "The Farhud," a Nazi-Arab attempt to completely exterminate the Jews of Baghdad June 1-2, 1941. In Arabic, Farhud means "violent dispossession." He examines the alliance between the mufti of Jerusalem - Haj Amin al-Husseini - and Adolf Hitler. The mufti took up residence in Baghdad .. Read More
Edwin Black looks at "The Farhud," a Nazi-Arab attempt to completely exterminate the Jews of Baghdad June 1-2, 1941. In Arabic, Farhud means "violent dispossession." He examines the alliance between the mufti of Jerusalem - Haj Amin al-Husseini - and Adolf Hitler. The mufti took up residence in Baghdad after fleeing Palestine in 1936. After his presentation Mr. Black responded to questions from members of the audience. Mr. Black spoke at the Park East Synagogue in New York City at an event sponsored by NAHOS--National Association of Jewish Child Holocaust Survivors and Park East Synagogue and co-sponsored by Scholars for Peace in the Middle East; the State of California Center for the Study of the Holocaust, Genocide, Human Rights and Tolerance; the Binghamton Social Justice Fund; History Network News; the Institute for Religion and Public Policy; Jewish Virtual Library; The Auto Channel; Spero Forum; and The Cutting Edge News.

SEE ALSO, Etan Bloom, Arthur Ruppin and the Production of Modern Hebrew Culture pdf

Thanks for letting Jews off the hook, Pope; now tell someone to Kill Iranians

Lieberman says Pope's exoneration could bring peace
By JPOST.COM STAFF
03/07/2011 14:42http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=211123

During visit to Vatican Foreign minister thanks Pope Benedict XVI for reiterating that Jewish people are not responsible for Jesus' death.

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Monday, on behalf of the Jewish and Israeli people, thanked Pope Benedict XVI for reiterating that the Jewish people are not responsible for Jesus' death, Israel Radio reported Monday.

Lieberman said that the deceleration could help to bring about peace in the world.

RELATED:
PM praises Pope for clearing Jews of Jesus' death
Pope in new book: Don't blame Jews for Jesus' death

Lieberman made the comments when he met in the Vatican with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Secretary of State of the Holy See, and Archbishop Dominique Mambarti, Secretary for Relations with States.

The Pope made the comments in a new book released last week.

Lieberman also asked the Vatican to make its voice heard against the campaign of delegitimizing Israel that is being carried throughout the world.

The foreign minister expressed his appreciation of the balanced approach the Pope has expressed towards the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Lieberman also asked Vatican officials to speak against the Iranian threat.

Rvw of "The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism"

The Popes Against the Jews: the Vatican's Role in the Rise of Modern Anti-Semitism
by David I. Kertzer. Published by Knopf.

Just what role, if any, did the Roman Catholic Church play in the development of anti-semitism during the modern era? This is a serious question, because the answer to it also helps us answer the question of what sort of culpability the Roman Catholic Church has for the eventual Holocaust and deaths of millions of Jews.

Although David Kertzer is certainly not the first historian to tackle the Vatican's role in the Holocaust, he does approach the issue from an unusual perspective. Usually, when people address this issue, they focus on the years immediately surrounding World War II, and only look at the Vatican's actions which related directly to Germany and the Holocaust.

Kertzer, however, takes a much broader view and attempts to find out just what sort of ideological responsibility the Vatican has. After gaining access to large amounts of previously unavailable Vatican material, he delves into the role the Vatican may have played in the development of modern anti-semitism, an ideology which played a large role in the eventual attempt to exterminate Europe's Jews.

The Vatican has attempted to try and deal with its ideological responsibility in this area, and in 1998, it isued the report "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah," which was supposed to exonerate the Church of complicity in the Holocaust. The thesis of this report is essentially that the Holocaust grew out of "an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious."

In this way, the Vatican can take responsibility for the obvious and ancient religious prejudice while refusing to take responsibility for the modern racial and social prejudices which have come to be labeled anti-semitism. But is this distinction accurate? According to Kertzer, this report is "not the product of a Church that wants to confront its history," because the distinction created simply does not exist.

There are a number of key ideas which Kertzer describes as characterizing modern anti-semitism:

There is a secret Jewish conspiracy; the Jews seek to conquer the world; Jews are an evil sect who seek to do Christians harm; Jews are by nature immoral; Jews care only for money and will do anything to get it; Jews control the press; Jews control the banks and are responsible for the conomic ruination of untold numbers of Christian families; Jews are responsible for communism; Judaism commands its adherents to murder defenseless Christian children and drink their blood; Jews seek to destroy the Christian religion; Jews are unpatriotic, ever ready to sell their country out to the enemy; for the larger society to be properly protected, Jews must be segregated and their rights limited.

All of these developed largely due to a fear of modernity. Socially, the Jews were the group which benefited from modernity in some of the largest and most obvious ways. Because of this, at least in part, they became identified with modernity unlike any other group, and thus they became the scapegoat of modernity.

This explains why the anti-semitism in Catholic literature actually increased during the 19th century, rather than decreasing or remaining constant. Anti-semitism became a vital component of Catholic identity during these years, because it was the easiest way to communicate anti-modernism. As such, it was a new development rather than vestiges of medieval attitudes.

The characteristics listed above all share another important thing in common: all but a couple were very prominent in the beliefs and writings of the Roman Catholic Church, especially during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It is because of this fact, exhaustively documented in Kertzer's book, that it is impossible to exhonerate the Church from responsibility for having helped develop the ideology behind the Holocuast.

The Vatican has tried to argue that their anti-Judaism was never "racial," but this can be demonstrated as false:

...the Church was in fact involved in the development of racial thinking about Jews. Nor was this new. Views of biological differences between Jews and Christians, although contradicting other important aspects of Christian theology, have a long history in the church. These helped prepare Catholics in the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth for further developments in racial thinking, some of which came into open conflict with Church teachings on the oneness of humankind.

A good example of someone who explicitly used race when condemning the Jews was a French priest named Ernest Jouin who wrote during the 1920s, "From the triple viewpoint of race, of nationality, and of religion, the Jew has become the enemy of humanity." According to the Vatican, this is the sort of attitude which it rejected and condemned - yet Jouin was never criticized for his anti-semitic diatribes.

In fact, Pope Benedict XV made a point of praising Jouin's work. Shortly after Jouin published the first French edition of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," Pius XI praised him in a private audience because he was "combating our mortal enemy." It is worth noting that Pius XI has been seen in a very favorable light regarding the suffering of the Jews, but in a report of his while he was examining the situation in Poland following World War I, he stated, "One of the most evil and strongest influences that is felt here, perhaps the strongest and the most evil, is that of the Jews."

The Vatican has also tried to argue that in their anti-Judaism, they never portrayed the Jews as "irredeemable." This would be an important difference, because acceptance of it would cause people to move away from attempted conversions and toward expulsion or extermination as a "solution" to the "Jewish problem." But again, it is a difference that does not really exist:

Given the level of hostility against the Jews inculcated by the Church, popular commitment to the official Church position that Jews could be transformed from evil to good through the baptismal waters proved increasingly difficult to maintain. It strained credulity to imagine that a people so demonic could so easily be changed, that the person who until yesterday was Jewish could today be one of us.

The fact of the matter should now be clear: fascist anti-semitism in the twentieth century was a direct ideological outgrowth of Catholic anti-semitism of the nineteenth century. The connection is so close that many of the fascist anti-semitic policies and programs are direct inheritances from Vatican policies.

The chapter on Austria from the time of Pope Pius IX in the mid 19th century through the early 20th century is particularly interesting. For most of the book, Ketzer focuses on the actions of the Vatican in the areas where they had political control, because it is here that the responsibility of others can be factored out. Indeed, Ketzer is able to demonstrate that Jews had more rights and freedoms in many other places in Europe than they did while under the direct control of the Vatican.

But Austria, and particularly Vienna, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries is an especially important time period, because it was here that Adolf Hitler developed his political and social views towards the Jews. As Ketzer describes the situation, the papal nuncio, Monsignor Antonio Agliardi, enthusiastically supported the aggressively anti-Semitic political leader Karl Lueger, head of the nationalist Christian Socialist party, even though the Austrian church hierarchy itself was disturbed by Lueger's extremism.

The Vatican's attempt to make a distinction between its older, "religious" anti-semitism and the more recent "political" anti-semitism is not a new development. On the contrary, it first started just prior to World War II, when a few religious leaders started to realize that the anti-semitism they helped create might get out of their control.

As a result, they tried to tell people that there was a difference between the "good" anti-semitism promoted justly by the Church and the "bad" anti-semitism promoted by self-serving politicians and hate-mongers. But how could anyone really tell the difference? A good example of this comes from a pastoral letter written by the leading churchman of Poland, August Cardinal Hlond, in which he describes the Jews as "the vanguard of atheism, the Bolshevik movement and revolutionary activity." He added, however, that "one may not hate anyone. Not even Jews."

***Was Card. Hlond's statement factually correct? Did the facts that Hlond stated cause problems in the countries affected by them? Did NO ONE have a right to protest acts that were antithetical to the indigenous values? Does the community have the right to protest ideologies that it abhors, particularly when they are imposed from outside the community? ***

It must be remembered, of course, that the Vatican did not cause the Holocaust. It must also be remembered that even during the times when Catholic anti-semitism was at its worst, there were many Catholics who did not accept it. But if we can remember that, the Vatican should also be expected to remember just what responsibility - ideological and actual - it does bear. Instead, the truth is hidden or denied, which ultimately leads to victimizing the Jews all over again.

*** Jews must be expected to remember just what responsibility - ideological and actual - they do bear. Instead, the truth is hidden or denied, which ultimately enables Jews to subvert other communities all over again. ***

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH Vatican, 1998

COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH



At a press conference on March 16, 1998, Cardinal Cassidy, President of the Holy See's Commission For Religious Relations With the Jews, presented for publication the document, We Remember: A Reflection On The Shoah. Joining him in the presentation were Bishop Pierre Duprey, Vice President of the Commission, and Father Remi Hoeckmann, O.P., its Secretary.

We publish here Cardinal Cassidy's presentation of the document, along with Pope John Paul II's letter to the Cardinal about the document, and the text itself.



Presentation by Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy



The Holy See has to date published, through its Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, two significant documents intended for the application of the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, n. 4: the 1974 Guidelines and Suggestions; and the 1985 Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church.

Today it publishes another document, which the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews has prepared at the express request of His Holiness Pope John Paul II. This document, which contains a reflection on the Shoah, is another step on the path marked out by the Second Vatican Council in our relations with the Jewish people. In the words which His Holiness wrote in his letter to me as President of the Commission, it is our fervent hope "that the document [...] will help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices".1

It is addressed to the Catholic faithful throughout the world, not only in Europe where the Shoah took place, hoping that all Christians will join their Catholic brothers and sisters in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, on its causes, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again such a tragedy will happen. At the same time it asks our Jewish friends to hear us with an open heart.

On the occasion of a meeting in Rome on 31 August 1987 of representatives of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations, the then President of the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, announced the intention of the Commission to prepare an official Catholic document on the Shoah. The following day, 1 September 1987, the participants in this meeting were received at Castel Gandolfo by His Holiness Pope John Paul II, who affirmed the importance of the proposed document for the Church and for the world. His Holiness spoke of his personal experience in his native country and his memories of living close to a Jewish community now destroyed. He recalled a recent address to the Jewish community in Warsaw, in which he spoke of the Jewish people as a force of conscience in the world today and of the Jewish memory of the Shoah as "a warning, a witness, and a silent cry" to all humanity. Citing the Exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt as a paradigm and a continuing source of hope, His Holiness expressed his deep conviction that, with God's help, evil can be overcome in history, even the awesome evil of the Shoah.

We can read in the Joint Press Communiqué which was released at that time, that the Jewish delegation warmly welcomed the initiative of an official Catholic document on the Shoah, and expressed the conviction that such a document will contribute significantly to combating attempts to revise and to deny the reality of the Shoah and to trivialize its religious significance for Christians, Jews, and humanity.

In the years following the announcement, the Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews engaged in a process of consciousness raising and of reflection on several levels in the Catholic Church, and in different places.

In the Guidelines and Suggestions for Implementing the Conciliar Declaration Nostra Aetate, n. 4, published on 1 December 1974, the Holy See's Commission recalled that "the step taken by the Council finds its historical setting in circumstances deeply affected by the memory of the persecution and massacre of Jews which took place in Europe just before and during the Second World War". Yet, as the Guidelines pointed out, "the problem of Jewish- Christian relations concerns the Church as such, since it is when "pondering her own mystery" (Nostra Aetate, n. 4) that she encounters the mystery of Israel. Therefore, even in areas where no Jewish communities exist, this remains an important problem".

Pope John Paul II himself has repeatedly called upon us to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people. In doing so, "we must remember how much the balance [of these relations] over two thousand years has been negative".2 This long period "which", in the words of Pope John Paul II, awe must not tire of reflecting upon in order to draw from it the appropriate lessonsÓ3 has been marked by many manifestations of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, and, in this century, by the horrifying events of the Shoah.

Therefore, the Catholic Church wants all Catholics, and indeed all people, everywhere, to know about this. It does so also with the hope that it will help Catholics and Jews towards the realization of those universal goals that are found in their common roots. In fact, whenever there has been guilt on the part of Christians, this burden should be a call to repentance. As His Holiness has put it on one occasion, "guilt must always be the point of departure for conversion".

We are confident that all the Catholic faithful in every part of the world will be helped by this document to discover in their relationship with the Jewish people "the boldness of brotherhood".4

***

1 The letter of His Holiness is dated 12 March 1998.

2 Cf. Notes on the Correct Way to Present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching and Catechesis in the Catholic Church (24 June 1985).

3 Speech delivered on the occasion of the visit of His Holiness to the Synagogue of Rome (13 April 1986), 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

4 Pope John Paul II in his address to the Diplomatic Corps on 15 January 1994.

LETTER OF POPE JOHN PAUL II



To my Venerable Brother
CARDINAL EDWARD IDRIS CASSIDY

On numerous occasions during my Pontificate I have recalled with a sense of deep sorrow the sufferings of the Jewish people during the Second World War. The crime which has become known as the Shoah remains an indelible stain on the history of the century that is coming to a close.

As we prepare for the beginning of the Third Millennium of Christianity, the Church is aware that the joy of a Jubilee is above all the joy that is based on the forgiveness of sins and reconciliation with God and neighbour. Therefore she encourages her sons and daughters to purify their hearts, through repentance of past errors and infidelities. She calls them to place themselves humbly before the Lord and examine themselves on the responsibility which they too have for the evils of our time.

It is my fervent hope that the document: We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, which the Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews has prepared under your direction, will indeed help to heal the wounds of past misunderstandings and injustices. May it enable memory to play its necessary part in the process of shaping a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible. May the Lord of history guide the efforts of Catholics and Jews and all men and women of good will as they work together for a world of true respect for the life and dignity of every human being, for all have been created in the image and likeness of God.

From the Vatican, 12 March 1998.

JOHN PAUL II

COMMISSION FOR RELIGIOUS RELATIONS WITH THE JEWS

WE REMEMBER: A REFLECTION ON THE SHOAH



I. The tragedy of the Shoah and the duty of remembrance

The twentieth century is fast coming to a close and a new Millennium of the Christian era is about to dawn. The 2000th anniversary of the Birth of Jesus Christ calls all Christians, and indeed invites all men and women, to seek to discern in the passage of history the signs of divine Providence at work, as well as the ways in which the image of the Creator in man has been offended and disfigured.

This reflection concerns one of the main areas in which Catholics can seriously take to heart the summons which Pope John Paul II has addressed to them in his Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente: "It is appropriate that, as the Second Millennium of Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal".(1)

This century has witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, which can never be forgotten: the attempt by the Nazi regime to exterminate the Jewish people, with the consequent killing of millions of Jews. Women and men, old and young, children and infants, for the sole reason of their Jewish origin, were persecuted and deported. Some were killed immediately, while others were degraded, illtreated, tortured and utterly robbed of their human dignity, and then murdered. Very few of those who entered the Camps survived, and those who did remained scarred for life. This was the Shoah. It is a major fact of the history of this century, a fact which still concerns us today.

Before this horrible genocide, which the leaders of nations and Jewish communities themselves found hard to believe at the very moment when it was being mercilessly put into effect, no one can remain indifferent, least of all the Church, by reason of her very close bonds of spiritual kinship with the Jewish people and her remembrance of the injustices of the past. The Church's relationship to the Jewish people is unlike the one she shares with any other religion.(2) However, it is not only a question of recalling the past. The common future of Jews and Christians demands that we remember, for "there is no future without memory".(3) History itself is memoria futuri.

In addressing this reflection to our brothers and sisters of the Catholic Church throughout the world, we ask all Christians to join us in meditating on the catastrophe which befell the Jewish people, and on the moral imperative to ensure that never again will selfishness and hatred grow to the point of sowing such suffering and death.(4) Most especially, we ask our Jewish friends, "whose terrible fate has become a symbol of the aberrations of which man is capable when he turns against God",(5) to hear us with open hearts.



II. What we must remember

While bearing their unique witness to the Holy One of Israel and to the Torah, the Jewish people have suffered much at different times and in many places. But the Shoah was certainly the worst suffering of all. The inhumanity with which the Jews were persecuted and massacred during this century is beyond the capacity of words to convey. All this was done to them for the sole reason that they were Jews.

The very magnitude of the crime raises many questions. Historians, sociologists, political philosophers, psychologists and theologians are all trying to learn more about the reality of the Shoah and its causes. Much scholarly study still remains to be done. But such an event cannot be fully measured by the ordinary criteria of historical research alone. It calls for a "moral and religious memory" and, particularly among Christians, a very serious reflection on what gave rise to it.

The fact that the Shoah took place in Europe, that is, in countries of long-standing Christian civilization, raises the question of the relation between the Nazi persecution and the attitudes down the centuries of Christians towards the Jews.



III. Relations between Jews and Christians

The history of relations between Jews and Christians is a tormented one. His Holiness Pope John Paul II has recognized this fact in his repeated appeals to Catholics to see where we stand with regard to our relations with the Jewish people.(6) In effect, the balance of these relations over two thousand years has been quite negative.(7)

At the dawn of Christianity, after the crucifixion of Jesus, there arose disputes between the early Church and the Jewish leaders and people who, in their devotion to the Law, on occasion violently opposed the preachers of the Gospel and the first Christians. In the pagan Roman Empire, Jews were legally protected by the privileges granted by the Emperor and the authorities at first made no distinction between Jewish and Christian communities. Soon however, Christians incurred the persecution of the State. Later, when the Emperors themselves converted to Christianity, they at first continued to guarantee Jewish privileges. But Christian mobs who attacked pagan temples sometimes did the same to synagogues, not without being influenced by certain interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people as a whole. "In the Christian world—I do not say on the part of the Church as such—erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament regarding the Jewish people and their alleged culpability have circulated for too long, engendering feelings of hostility towards this people".(8) Such interpretations of the New Testament have been totally and definitively rejected by the Second Vatican Council.(9)

Despite the Christian preaching of love for all, even for one's enemies, the prevailing mentality down the centuries penalized minorities and those who were in any way "different". Sentiments of anti-Judaism in some Christian quarters, and the gap which existed between the Church and the Jewish people, led to a generalized discrimination, which ended at times in expulsions or attempts at forced conversions. In a large part of the "Christian" world, until the end of the 18th century, those who were not Christian did not always enjoy a fully guaranteed juridical status. Despite that fact, Jews throughout Christendom held on to their religious traditions and communal customs. They were therefore looked upon with a certain suspicion and mistrust. In times of crisis such as famine, war, pestilence or social tensions, the Jewish minority was sometimes taken as a scapegoat and became the victim of violence, looting, even massacres.

By the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Jews generally had achieved an equal standing with other citizens in most States and a certain number of them held influential positions in society. But in that same historical context, notably in the 19th century, a false and exacerbated nationalism took hold. In a climate of eventful social change, Jews were often accused of exercising an influence disproportionate to their numbers. Thus there began to spread in varying degrees throughout most of Europe an anti-Judaism that was essentially more sociological and political than religious.

At the same time, theories began to appear which denied the unity of the human race, affirming an original diversity of races. In the 20th century, National Socialism in Germany used these ideas as a pseudo-scientific basis for a distinction between so called Nordic-Aryan races and supposedly inferior races. Furthermore, an extremist form of nationalism was heightened in Germany by the defeat of 1918 and the demanding conditions imposed by the victors, with the consequence that many saw in National Socialism a solution to their country's problems and cooperated politically with this movement.

The Church in Germany replied by condemning racism. The condemnation first appeared in the preaching of some of the clergy, in the public teaching of the Catholic Bishops, and in the writings of lay Catholic journalists. Already in February and March 1931, Cardinal Bertram of Breslau, Cardinal Faulhaber and the Bishops of Bavaria, the Bishops of the Province of Cologne and those of the Province of Freiburg published pastoral letters condemning National Socialism, with its idolatry of race and of the State.(10) The well-known Advent sermons of Cardinal Faulhaber in 1933, the very year in which National Socialism came to power, at which not just Catholics but also Protestants and Jews were present, clearly expressed rejection of the Nazi anti-semitic propaganda.(11) In the wake of the Kristallnacht, Bernhard Lichtenberg, Provost of Berlin Cathedral, offered public prayers for the Jews. He was later to die at Dachau and has been declared Blessed.

Pope Pius XI too condemned Nazi racism in a solemn way in his Encyclical Letter Mit brennender Sorge,(12) which was read in German churches on Passion Sunday 1937, a step which resulted in attacks and sanctions against members of the clergy. Addressing a group of Belgian pilgrims on 6 September 1938, Pius XI asserted: "Anti-Semitism is unacceptable. Spiritually, we are all Semites".(13) Pius XII, in his very first Encyclical, Summi Pontificatus,(14) of 20 October 1939, warned against theories which denied the unity of the human race and against the deification of the State, all of which he saw as leading to a real "hour of darkness".(15)



IV. Nazi anti-Semitism and the Shoah

Thus we cannot ignore the difference which exists between anti-Semitism, based on theories contrary to the constant teaching of the Church on the unity of the human race and on the equal dignity of all races and peoples, and the long-standing sentiments of mistrust and hostility that we call anti-Judaism, of which, unfortunately, Christians also have been guilty.

The National Socialist ideology went even further, in the sense that it refused to acknowledge any transcendent reality as the source of life and the criterion of moral good. Consequently, a human group, and the State with which it was identified, arrogated to itself an absolute status and determined to remove the very existence of the Jewish people, a people called to witness to the one God and the Law of the Covenant. At the level of theological reflection we cannot ignore the fact that not a few in the Nazi Party not only showed aversion to the idea of divine Providence at work in human affairs, but gave proof of a definite hatred directed at God himself. Logically, such an attitude also led to a rejection of Christianity, and a desire to see the Church destroyed or at least subjected to the interests of the Nazi State.

It was this extreme ideology which became the basis of the measures taken, first to drive the Jews from their homes and then to exterminate them. The Shoah was the work of a thoroughly modern neo-pagan regime. Its anti-Semitism had its roots outside of Christianity and, in pursuing its aims, it did not hesitate to oppose the Church and persecute her members also.

But it may be asked whether the Nazi persecution of the Jews was not made easier by the anti-Jewish prejudices imbedded in some Christian minds and hearts. Did anti-Jewish sentiment among Christians make them less sensitive, or even indifferent, to the persecutions launched against the Jews by National Socialism when it reached power?

Any response to this question must take into account that we are dealing with the history of people's attitudes and ways of thinking, subject to multiple influences. Moreover, many people were altogether unaware of the "final solution" that was being put into effect against a whole people; others were afraid for themselves and those near to them; some took advantage of the situation; and still others were moved by envy. A response would need to be given case by case. To do this, however, it is necessary to know what precisely motivated people in a particular situation.

At first the leaders of the Third Reich sought to expel the Jews. Unfortunately, the governments of some Western countries of Christian tradition, including some in North and South America, were more than hesitant to open their borders to the persecuted Jews. Although they could not foresee how far the Nazi hierarchs would go in their criminal intentions, the leaders of those nations were aware of the hardships and dangers to which Jews living in the territories of the Third Reich were exposed. The closing of borders to Jewish emigration in those circumstances, whether due to anti-Jewish hostility or suspicion, political cowardice or shortsightedness, or national selfishness, lays a heavy burden of conscience on the authorities in question.

In the lands where the Nazis undertook mass deportations, the brutality which surrounded these forced movements of helpless people should have led to suspect the worst. Did Christians give every possible assistance to those being persecuted, and in particular to the persecuted Jews?

Many did, but others did not. Those who did help to save Jewish lives as much as was in their power, even to the point of placing their own lives in danger, must not be forgotten. During and after the war, Jewish communities and Jewish leaders expressed their thanks for all that had been done for them, including what Pope Pius XII did personally or through his representatives to save hundreds of thousands of Jewish lives.(16) Many Catholic bishops, priests, religious and laity have been honoured for this reason by the State of Israel.

Nevertheless, as Pope John Paul II has recognized, alongside such courageous men and women, the spiritual resistance and concrete action of other Christians was not that which might have been expected from Christ's followers. We cannot know how many Christians in countries occupied or ruled by the Nazi powers or their allies were horrified at the disappearance of their Jewish neighbours and yet were not strong enough to raise their voices in protest. For Christians, this heavy burden of conscience of their brothers and sisters during the Second World War must be a call to penitence.(17)

We deeply regret the errors and failures of those sons and daughters of the Church. We make our own what is said in the Second Vatican Council's Declaration Nostra Aetate, which unequivocally affirms: "The Church ... mindful of her common patrimony with the Jews, and motivated by the Gospel's spiritual love and by no political considerations, deplores the hatred, persecutions and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time and from any source".(18)

We recall and abide by what Pope John Paul II, addressing the leaders of the Jewish community in Strasbourg in 1988,stated: "I repeat again with you the strongest condemnation of anti-Semitism and racism, which are opposed to the principles of Christianity".(19) The Catholic Church therefore repudiates every persecution against a people or human group anywhere, at any time. She absolutely condemns all forms of genocide, as well as the racist ideologies which give rise to them. Looking back over this century, we are deeply saddened by the violence that has enveloped whole groups of peoples and nations. We recall in particular the massacre of the Armenians, the countless victims in Ukraine in the 1930s, the genocide of the Gypsies, which was also the result of racist ideas, and similar tragedies which have occurred in America, Africa and the Balkans. Nor do we forget the millions of victims of totalitarian ideology in the Soviet Union, in China, Cambodia and elsewhere. Nor can we forget the drama of the Middle East, the elements of which are well known. Even as we make this reflection, "many human beings are still their brothers' victims".(20)



V. Looking together to a common future

Looking to the future of relations between Jews and Christians, in the first place we appeal to our Catholic brothers and sisters to renew the awareness of the Hebrew roots of their faith. We ask them to keep in mind that Jesus was a descendant of David; that the Virgin Mary and the Apostles belonged to the Jewish people; that the Church draws sustenance from the root of that good olive tree on to which have been grafted the wild olive branches of the Gentiles (cf. Rom 11:17-24); that the Jews are our dearly beloved brothers, indeed in a certain sense they are "our elder brothers".(21)

At the end of this Millennium the Catholic Church desires to express her deep sorrow for the failures of her sons and daughters in every age. This is an act of repentance (teshuva), since, as members of the Church, we are linked to the sins as well as the merits of all her children. The Church approaches with deep respect and great compassion the experience of extermination, the Shoah, suffered by the Jewish people during World War II. It is not a matter of mere words, but indeed of binding commitment. "We would risk causing the victims of the most atrocious deaths to die again if we do not have an ardent desire for justice, if we do not commit ourselves to ensure that evil does not prevail over good as it did for millions of the children of the Jewish people ... Humanity cannot permit all that to happen again".(22)

We pray that our sorrow for the tragedy which the Jewish people has suffered in our century will lead to a new relationship with the Jewish people. We wish to turn awareness of past sins into a firm resolve to build a new future in which there will be no more anti-Judaism among Christians or anti-Christian sentiment among Jews, but rather a shared mutual respect, as befits those who adore the one Creator and Lord and have a common father in faith, Abraham.

Finally, we invite all men and women of good will to reflect deeply on the significance of the Shoah. The victims from their graves, and the survivors through the vivid testimony of what they have suffered, have become a loud voice calling the attention of all of humanity. To remember this terrible experience is to become fully conscious of the salutary warning it entails: the spoiled seeds of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism must never again be allowed to take root in any human heart.

16 March 1998.

Cardinal Edward Idris Cassidy
President

The Most Reverend Pierre Duprey
Vice-President

The Reverend Remi Hoeckman, O.P.
Secretary

TYPIS VATICANIS MCMXCVIII

(1) Pope John Paul II, Apostolic Letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 10 November 1994, 33: AAS 87 (1995), 25.

(2) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Speech at the Synagogue of Rome, 13 April 1986, 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

(3) Pope John Paul II, Angelus Prayer, 11 June 1995: Insegnamenti 181, 1995, 1712.

(4) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to Jewish Leaders in Budapest, 18 August 1991, 4: Insegnamenti 142, 1991, 349.

(5) Pope John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 1 May 1991, 17: AAS 83 (1991), 814-815.

(6) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to Delegates of Episcopal Conferences for Catholic-Jewish relations, 6 March 1982: Insegnamenti, 51, 1982, 743-747.

(7) Cf. Holy See's Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, Notes on the correct way to present the Jews and Judaism in preaching and catechesis in the Roman Catholic Church, 24 June 1985, VI, 1: Ench. Vat. 9, 1656.

(8) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Speech to Symposium on the roots of anti-Judaism, 31 October 1997, 1: L'Osservatore Romano, 1 November 1997, p. 6.

(9) Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Nostra Aetate, 4.

(10) Cf. B. Statiewski (Ed.), Akten deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche, 1933-1945, vol. I, 1933-1934 (Mainz 1968), Appendix.

(11) Cf. L. Volk, Der Bayerische Episkopat und der Nationalsozialismus 1930-1934 (Mainz 1966), pp. 170-174.

(12) The Encyclical is dated 14 March 1937: AAS 29 (1937), 145-167.

(13) La Documentation Catholique, 29 (1938), col. 1460.

(14) AAS 31 (1939), 413-453.

(15) Ibid., 449.

(16) The wisdom of Pope Pius XII's diplomacy was publicly acknowledged on a number of occasions by representative Jewish Organizations and personalities. For example, on 7 September 1945, Dr. Joseph Nathan, who represented the Italian Hebrew Commission, stated: "Above all, we acknowledge the Supreme Pontiff and the religious men and women who, executing the directives of the Holy Father, recognized the persecuted as their brothers and, with effort and abnegation, hastened to help us, disregarding the terrible dangers to which they were exposed" (L'Osservatore Romano, 8 September 1945, p. 2). On 21 September of that same year, Pius XII received in audience Dr. A. Leo Kubowitzki, Secretary General of the World Jewish Congress who came to present "to the Holy Father, in the name of the Union of Israelitic Communities, warmest thanks for the efforts of the Catholic Church on behalf of Jews throughout Europe during the War" (L'Osservatore Romano, 23 September 1945, p. 1). On Thursday, 29 November 1945, the Pope met about 80 representatives of Jewish refugees from various concentration camps in Germany, who expressed "their great honour at being able to thank the Holy Father personally for his generosity towards those persecuted during the Nazi-Fascist period" (L'Osservatore Romano, 30 November 1945, p. 1). In 1958, at the death of Pope Pius XII, Golda Meir sent an eloquent message: "We share in the grief of humanity. When fearful martyrdom came to our people, the voice of the Pope was raised for its victims. The life of our times was enriched by a voice speaking out about great moral truths above the tumult of daily conflict. We mourn a great servant of peace".

(17) Cf. Pope John Paul II, Address to the New Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany to the Holy See, 8 November 1990, 2: AAS 83 (1991), 587-588.

(18) Loc. cit., no. 4.

(19) Address to Jewish Leaders, Strasbourg, 9 October 1988, no. 8: Insegnamenti 113, 1988, 1134.

(20) Pope John Paul II, Address to the Diplomatic Corps, 15 January 1994, 9: AAS 86 (1994), 816.

(21) Pope John Paul II, Speech at the Synagogue of Rome, 13 April 1986, 4: AAS 78 (1986), 1120.

(22) Pope John Paul II, Address on the occasion of a commemoration of the Shoah, 7 April 1994, 3: Insegnamenti 171, 1994, 897 and 893.



Other Statements

LETTER OF JOHN PAUL II
TO THE LATIN-RITE DIOCESE OF JERUSALEM

The Holy Father wrote a Letter to the Latin-rite Diocese of Jerusalem to mark the 150th anniversary of Pope Pius IX's reorganization of that see. The Pope called on Catholics to prepare in every way to celebrate the coming Holy Year. Here is a translation of those paragraphs of his letter pertaining to relations with the Jews.



É By its presence in the same territory as the Islamic and Jewish communities and through the exchanges it has with them, the Latin community has been prepared over time to understand the importance of interreligious dialogue in the spirit desired and recommended by the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council. Daily life presupposes continuous contact with believers of other religious traditions, for the human, spiritual and moral development of peoples. It is obvious that respectful dialogue and joint, fraternal collaboration among all society's members can be a vigorous appeal for this same understanding to be achieved in other countries.

É Regarding the ties with those who belong to the Jewish religion, it should be recalled that Jews and Christians have a common heritage which links them spiritually (cf. Nostra aetate, n. 4). Both are a blessing for the world (cf. Gn 12:2-3), to the extent that they work together so that peace and justice prevail among all people and all individuals and do so in fullness and in depth, according to the divine plan and in the spirit of sacrifice which this noble project can demand.

They are all called to be conscious of this sacred duty and to fulfil it, through honest and friendly dialogue and by collaboration for the benefit of man and society; I am certain that this readiness to do God's will for the world will also be a blessing for our different communities and enable us to cry out with the psalmist: "Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky" (Ps 85 [84]: 10-11).

November 28, 1997

General Audience

January 14, 1998



To the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors the Holy Father said:

I welcome the members of the Bsnai Bsrith Anti-Defamation League, and I express the hope that your visit will help to strengthen the co-operation of recent years.

Pastoral visit to Cuba

January 21-26, 1998

Address OF JOHN PAUL II
to the Jewish Community

January 25, 1998



On the morning of Sunday, January 25, the Holy Father met representatives of the Cuban Council of Churches at the Apostolic Nunciature in Havana. During the course of his address, the Pope also specifically spoke to the Jewish community.

1. On this memorable day, I am very pleased to meet you, the representatives of the Cuban Council of Churches and of various other Christian communities, accompanied by members of the Jewish community in Cuba, which participates in the Council as an observer. I greet all of you with great affection and I assure you of my happiness at this meeting with those with whom we share faith in the living and true God. This auspicious occasion prompts us to say before all else: "How good and pleasant it is when brothers live together in unity" (Ps 132:1).

4. I also wish to address a particular greeting to the Jewish community represented here. Your presence is an eloquent expression of the fraternal dialogue aimed at a better understanding between Jews and Catholics, and which, promoted by the Second Vatican Council, continues to be ever more widespread. With you we share a common spiritual patrimony, firmly rooted in the Sacred Scriptures. May God, the Creator and Saviour, sustain our efforts to walk together and, encouraged by the divine word, may we grow in worship and fervent love of him. May all of this ever find expression in effective action for the benefit of each and every person.

5. To conclude, I wish to thank each one of you for your presence at this meeting, and I ask God to bless you and your communities and to keep you in his ways so that you may proclaim his name to the brethren. May he show you his face in the midst of the society which you serve, and may he grant you peace in all your undertakings.

Havana, 25 January 1998
Feast of the Conversion of St Paul

Apology NOT Accepted, So Jews Can Continue Killing Palestinians

Vatican's "Reflection on the Shoah" http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_en.html

also, find article describing Vatican's "bad antisemitism" and "good antisemitism." "Bad" = "Jews killed Christ." Church has abjured that meme; in remarks regarding his book on Jews & Capitalism, Abe Foxman answered a question about Catholic church's movement on "supercession" problem. Jewish people get all worked up that Catholic church has taken control of god/salvation, etc. Sometime in the last days of Feb 2011, Benedict did make some statement about Church's acknowledgement that Jews did NOT kill Jesus; I guess that called mollifying. sheesh. Now, can Jews admit that they are killing Palestinians, and stop doing so?

and a Jewish response and remonstrance to "Reflections:" Antisemitism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church: Origins, Consequences, and responses.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3244/is_2_47/ai_n29191611/pg_6/?tag=content;col1

Antisemitism, Christianity, and the Catholic Church: origins, consequences, and responses
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb3244/is_2_47/ai_n29191611/
Journal of Church and State, Spring, 2005 by Peter M. Marendy
For approximately 1,900 years, the relationship between Jews and Christians had been marked by anger, hate, and suspicion, particularly in Europe. The primary cause of this lamentable phenomenon was the commonly held Christian belief that Jews were responsible for the death of Christianity's founder, Jesus Christ. This charge of deicide was both extremely inflammatory and an unfair accusation--inflammatory because it provided religious and secular authorities with a justification for marginalizing and persecuting Jews and unfair because it condemned all Jews in perpetuity for the actions of a very small number of their ancestors. It formed the basis of the Catholic Church-sponsored anti-Judaic or Christian anti-semitic (1) prejudices, which consigned most European Jews to a second-class existence.
Until recently, historians have typically distinguished between this religious form of anti-semitism and the racist oriented modern anti-semitism, which came to prominence in the late nineteenth century. This essay aims to challenge this distinction by demonstrating that these forms of anti-semitism are more closely linked. Furthermore, it will argue that without the historical background of the religious and social prejudice towards Jews shaped by Christian anti-semitism, the development and success of a racially inflected modern anti-semitism in Europe would have been improbable. The most significant aspect of this thesis is that it challenges the accuracy of the Roman Catholic Church's official position on this issue represented in the Vatican document We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah. (2) It will achieve these goals by first defining the concepts of anti-Judaism and anti-semitism. The essay will then provide all overview of the New Testament origins of Christian anti-semitism, particularly focusing on the problems created by uncontextual readings of prominent anti-Jewish statements found in the Gospels of Matthew and John. After this overview, the essay will provide a detailed analysis of prominent manifestations of Christian anti-semitism in the classical era and the Middle Ages, and reveal the close links between it and modern anti-semitism. Lastly, this study will conclude by examining the merits of the Catholic Church's attempt since the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) (3) to atone for its role in the marginalization and persecution of Jews.
The terms "anti-Judaism"--also known as "Christian anti-semitism"--and "anti-semitism" refer to different, although closely related phenomena: prejudicial and discriminatory beliefs about Jews and Judaism. Anti-Judaism was "long-standing sentiment ... of mistrust and hostility" (4) held by Christians against Jews because the former, except for the apostles and very small communities of Christian Jews, rejected Jesus Christ's teachings and were purportedly responsible for his crucifixion. In contrast to this theologically based prejudice, the concept "anti-semitism," which was invented by the German journalist Wilhelm Marr in the 1870s, (5) refers to a racially based prejudice against Jews which denigrates and demeans them principally because of their ethnicity rather than their faith. Literally speaking anti-semitism means "opposed to Semites," (6) which technically also includes Arabs and other semitic peoples. However, in practice, anti-semitism refers only to an opposition or hatred of Jews and or Judaism. (7)
The origins of anti-Judaism or Christian anti-semitism (8) can be traced back to the growing estrangement between the early Christian communities and the Jewish leaders of formative Judaism (9) in the Roman Empire of the first century of the common era. According to a traditional reading (10) of the Gospels found in the New Testament, this hostility was a product of the Pharisees, Sadducees, and other Jewish groups' attacks and plots against Jesus, and more specifically, their stubbborn refusal to accept his teachings about the Law and the Kingdom of God. (11) For instance, in the Gospel of Matthew (27:23-25), the charge of deicide--possible one of the most damaging and enduring calumnies against Jews by Christians--finds its roots in the alleged response by the "Jews" to Pilate's claim of innocence, "Let Him be crucified! ... His blood be upon us and on our children." Likewise, a literal reading of the usually virulent anti-Jewish rhetoric found in the Gospel of John has also encouraged and justified the historical marginalization and demonization of Jews. For instance, the author of this Gospel records Jesus denouncing a group of Jews with the words, "You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do" (Jn 8.44). (12) However, modern biblical scholarship, which among other things, recognizes the vital importance of the contextual nature of these and other New Testament writings, clearly demonstrates that the above literal readings of Matthew's and John's Gospels distorts their meanings. Therefore, for the sake of atoning for past mistakes, preventing them from being committed again, and building a new relationship with Jews, today's Christians must utilize and promote contextual readings of the Gospels.
As pointed out above, the Gospel of Matthew contains anti-Jewish rhetoric, which, if read uncontextually, produces an uncharitable picture of ancient Jewish communities. (13) In contrast, a contextually aware interpretation demonstrates that Jesus' anti-Jewish rhetoric actually reflects the animosity of Matthew's community towards the local Jewish leaders of formative Judaism with whom it is in conflict. Matthew's community predominantly consisted of Jewish Christians who kept the Law, but in a manner that was faithful to those values taught by Jesus--justice, mercy, and faithfulness. (14) However, this respect for the Law and the Gospel writers' "extensive use of the Old Testament ... in order to connect Jesus to the history of Israel and to portray him as the embodiment of Jewish hopes [and] its stress on Jesus as one who comes not to destroy but to fulfil the Jewish law," (15) did not prevent conflict with the local leaders of formative Judaism. To the contrary, the author of Matthew was keen to differentiate and protect his community from what he believed were the false teachings of the scribes and Pharisees. (16) For example, the Gospel of Matthew makes the observation that because these Jewish leaders do not support Jesus' "new interpretation" of the law, they are not righteous (17) Furthermore, Matthew's desire to discredit those Jews who made life difficult for his community in Antioch (18) motivated him to present all the different Jewish groups as one homogenized, united force against Jesus and to insidiously exaggerate the conflict between Jesus and Jewish leaders by projecting his contemporary problems with the Scribes and Pharisees of Antioch into the world in which Jesus inhabited. (19)
The Gospel of Matthew is not the only New Testament source that has engendered anti-Jewish sentiment. Comparatively speaking, the Gospel of John is even more anti-semitic than any other Gospel. Despite its rebel as the "spiritual Gospel" because of its "uplifting and challenging" portrait of Jesus as the Divine Word, and its "overall Jewish 'feel,'" (20) this Gospel presents a very negative picture of Jews living in Palestine during the life of Jesus. Some examples of this representation of Jews are: it is claimed that the Jews wanted to persecute, and kill Jesus (Jn 5:16-18). because, he healed on the Sabbath anti equated himself to God; they do not follow anything in the Torah (Jn 7:19-24); they are potentially violent towards him when they take up stones to hurl at him (Jn 8:59 & 10:31); and they bear responsibility for Jesus' death because the chief priests and police shout out to Pilate who finds him innocent to "Crucify him! Crucify him!" (In 19:6) (21) Traditionally, Christians have interpreted these and other anti-Jewish rhetoric as evidence that virtually all Jews in the time of Jesus were against him and his followers and used this as an excuse to persecute for nearly two millennia. However, a contextual reading reveals that these negative representations, like those of the Gospel of Matthew highlighted above, are not an accurate reflection of Jesus' relationship with the Jewish leaders of his day; instead, they are a comment on the struggle between John's community and the local Jewish authorities who had recently being excluding Christians from some synagogues. (22) Thus, the Gospel of John can be considered a polemic and apologetic against a group of local Jews who "refuse[d] to believe that Jesus is the Messiah and Son of God" which presents Jesus and his followers as separate from "the Jews" (23) and Judaism, (24) not a manifesto to individually and collectively denigrate and persecute Jews.
Unfortunately, this historical-critical approach to the New Testament did not exist until the late seventeenth century, but even then the Catholic Church shunned it until Pope Plus XII in 1943 sparked a renewal of biblical studies with the encyclical, Divinio afflante Spiritu. (25) Consequently, distorted representations and beliefs about Jews stemming from the New Testament became a popular and durable component of Catholic theology from the classical era to the mid-twentieth century.
In the classical era, many prominent theologians and church leaders revealed their disdain for Jews and their religion by attacking "Judaisers" (26) and reiterating the charge that Jews were responsible for Jesus' death. For instance, in an attempt to counter Marcion's radical proposition to reject the Hebrew Scriptures as part of his wider campaign to distance Christianity from its Jewish roots, (27) church fathers such as Justine Martyr (100-165), Tertullian (160-225), and Origen (185-254) disclose their anti-semitism by, shifting the:
[r]everence for the Jewish tradition [found in the Hebrew scriptures] onto the Church while simultaneously demeaning the Jews as unworthy of the fruits of their own religion: because the Jews had rejected Jesus and the prophets, the entitlements of Judaism should now be transferred to Christianity. (28)
This demeaning theological depiction is also evident in the writings and speeches of Saints Melito of Sardis, Jerome (ca. 342-420), John Chrysostom (347-407), and Augustine of Hippo (354-440), who, in the name of apologetics, reveal their explicit distaste or hatred of Jews. In addition, the late second century bishop Melito of Sardis, who, fearing the prosperous Jewish community of Sardis which "undermined Christian claims to have replaced and perfected Judaism," was the first Christian to explicitly charge the Jews with "deicide." (29) In the Homily on the Passover, Melito of Sardis further demonstrates a prejudice against Jews with this interpretation of the "historical record":
Listen, as you tremble in the face of him on whose account the earth trembled. He who hung the earth in place is hanged. He who fixed the heavens in place is fixed in place. He who made all things fast is made fast on the tree. The Master is insulted. God is murdered. The King of Israel is destroyed by an Israelite hand. (30)
Approximately a century later, the renowned biblical scholar, St. Jerome, despite a personal relationship with a prominent rabbi similarly harbored a low opinion of Jews which p evident in the declaration, "If it is requisite to despise individuals, and the nation, so do I abhor the Jews an Inexpressible hate." (31)
Arguably two of the most influential classical Christian scholars and church leaders who harbored anti-semitic views were St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine of Hippo. St. John Chrysostom revealed his antipathy for Jews in his intemperate attacks against Jews and Judaisers expressed in his Eight Homilies against the Jews in 387. (32) For example, in Homily 1, Chrysostom describes the Jews as "pitiable and miserable" because they rejected "so many blessings from heaven." (33) He also supported the popular belief of deicide with the observation that Jews crucified "him whom the prophets had foretold." (34) Even more strikingly, he disparagingly claims that not only were Jews "dogs," (35) but incredulously they:
[s]acrificed their own sons and daughters to demons. They refused to recognize nature, they forgot the pangs, of birth, they trod underfoot the rearing of their children, they overturned from their foundations the laws of kingship, they became more savage than any wild beast. (36)
Despite the attempts of supporters to minimize their impact, (37) these attacks are unmistakably anti-semitic. A study of some of St. Augustine's works reveals that he shared a similar hatred for Jews. (38) According to Brackman, Augustine believed Jews were "filled with bitterness and gall like that they gave Jesus on the cross" and that the guilt for Jesus' death is an inherited trait. (39) While Augustine's "witness theory" (40) arguably qualifies this teaching, and thus seems to soften its impact, its ambivalent nature towards Jews became a "warrant for some Christians to express their attitudes in violent and inflammatory ways" and "encouraged inconsistency in subsequent church actions and policies." (41)
The consequences of the anti-semitic teachings of various church leaders and scholars, otherwise known as the "Adversus Judeos" tradition, (42) were highly damaging to Jewish-Christian relations in Europe. They were highly damaging because they formed the basis of the growing body of anti-Jewish law in the late antiquity that increasingly infringed on liberties Jews had enjoyed for hundreds of years within the Roman Empire, especially after Christianity was established as the official state religion in 380. (43) For instance, when the Theodosian Codes were instituted many church anti-Jewish proscriptions, such as the prohibition against the intermarriage between Jews and Christians, (44) were given an official status by the Roman state. Furthermore, when the Justinian Codes (or Corpus Juris Civilisus) came into force in 534, Jewish privileges were eroded even further. (45) As a result of the state's imprimatur of these church based anti-Jewish proscriptions, religious authorities could now more effectively promote their anti-semitic beliefs whereas previously they had to rely on a much less threatening moral authority to convince people of their purported merits. (46)
The passage of anti-Jewish laws in late antiquity greatly contributed to the spread and entrenchment of Christian anti-semitism in the emerging medieval society. While theologically there was more continuity than change in the church's negative attitude towards the Jews between these eras, (47) historical evidence strongly indicates Christian anti-semitism took on a more violent and hateful dimension. (48) Transparent examples of this successful spread and hardening of anti-semitic attitudes within Christian communities can be found in sixth- and seventh-century Spain. For instance after the Arian Visigothic King Reccared I (586-601) converted to Catholicism, the previously "peaceful" life enjoyed by Jews was soon undermined (49) when the third Council of Toledo (50) prohibited Jews and Christians from intermarrying, and prohibited Jews from holding public office or owning Christian servants. (51) A more extreme attack against Jews was made by King Sisebut who decreed in 613 that, "all Jews who refused compulsory baptism must leave Spain," which, reflecting the church's evermore ingrained anti-semitism, was lauded by the much admired Bishop Isidor of Seville as a "heroic deed." (52) Even compulsorily baptized Jews--who were often suspected of insincerity--were not immune From persecution. In 633, the fourth Council of Toledo declared these Jews were in bondage to the church thereby robbing them of even more dignity and freedom. It was not until the Arabs and Berbers invaded and conquered Spain in 711 that both Orthodox and compulsorily baptized Jews were spared from an increasingly oppressive anti-semitic milieu. (53)
The above examination of Jewish persecution in Spain clearly demonstrates that a significant segment of the Catholic Church was directly involved in fomenting anti-semitism and the violent persecution of Jews in the early medieval period. One church leader who greatly contributed to this spread of Christian anti-semitism in the medieval period was Agobard, archbishop of Lyon. According to Fredrick Leer, Agobard's anti-semitic prejudice was linked to a fear that because Christians could not match the Jews' missionary skills, the latter would become more influential and threaten the Carolingian Empire's Christian foundations. Agobard expressed this fear of Jewish improvement when he lambasted Emperor Louis for providing Imperial protection to the Jews in the letter De insolentia Judaeorum because tie claimed it "made the Jews insolent, so that they dared to abuse Christ quite openly." (54) The archbishop's anti-semitic worldview is also revealed in a pastoral letter he coauthored with two other bishops titled De judaicis Superstitionibus within which they demanded the prohibition on Christian and Jews from eating together and the immediate cessation of synagogue building. (55) Abogard justifies these discriminatory demands by arguing in this letter:
It is unworthy of our faith that a shadow should fall on the children of Light through their intercourse with the sons of Darkness. It is also unseemly that the Church of Christ, who should conduct immaculate and unblemished to her heavenly bridegroom, be defiled by contact with the unclean, senile and corrupt synagogue. It is strange to see the immaculate virgin, the promised Bride of Christ, seated at table with a whore. (56)
In addition, he describes Jews as "Sons of Devils" and instructs Christians to remember that, "the Jewish prophets themselves branded their race for all time as a sinful, useless race, as children of profligacy ... they are the descendants of the princes of Sodom and the people of Gomorrah." (57) Therefore, it is obvious Abogard and his supporters were in no doubt who was the church's and Christian Europe's major enemy--the Jews.
Bishop Abogard's transparent preudice towards Jews is only one of countless other historical examples of the church's keen support of Christian anti-semitism. One good example of this support was the inclusion during the ninth century of the anti-semitic petition Oremus er pro perfidis judaeis in the Good Friday prayer at the expense of the relatively benign, although patronizing, passage Pro Judaeis no flectant. (58) This petition along with similarly themed prayers and sermons were used in the church for centuries to propagate anti-semitic prejudice to the faithful and create a giant rift between Christian and Jewish communities. Evidence that this kind of preaching was successful in poisoning Christians' minds about Jews is starkly illustrated in the promise made by the leader of the First Crusade, Godfrey Bouillon, to "leave no single member of the Jewish race alive," (59) and the massacres and forced conversions of Jews in Rouen, Orlens, Limoges, Mainz, and Rome. (60) Also, the reason for the appalling massacre of tens of thousands of Jews in 1096 C.E. by unruly and fanatical Crusaders traveling through Europe--despite explicit orders from Emperor Henry IV to his knights not to attack Jews and the protection provided by some bishops--is inexplicable without the build-up of predujice and bitterness in Europe achieved by nearly one thousand years of anti-semitic teaching by the church. (61) Even Pope Callixtus II's (1119-1124) papal bull Sicut Judaies, which was an official attempt boll the church to curtail violence against Jews, (62) openly denigrated Jews for their "obstinacy" in remaining faithful to Judaism. (63)The evidence presented above strongly supports the thesis that there is a very close link between the spread of Christian anti-semitism in medieval Europe and Catholic Church tradition. However, there is evidence that religious prejudice was not the sole reason for this growing marginalization and persecutions of Jews by Christians throughout the Middle Ages. This essay will sup, port this argument by demonstrating how five historical developments from the Middle Ages indicate that race was also a factor, if only a small one, in the marginalization and persecution of Jews. These events include, the accusation of the ritual murder of St. William of Norwich (1144) and its link to the blood libel; the anti-Jewish cannons of the church's Fourth Lateran Council (1215); the anti-semitic preaching and boycotts against Jews led by the Franciscan order; and the virulent anti-semitic ravings of Martin Luther (1543).

The accusation of ritual murder, the blood libel, and charge of host desecration formed a potent nexus of calumnies against Jews commonly heard in medieval Europe. (64) The accusation of ritual murder was first recorded in 1144 and involved the myth that a group of local Jews in Norwich murdered a Christian child named William, an apprentice skinner, for the purpose of mocking Christ's crucifixion and acquiring Christian blood as a curative for hemorrhoids of which all Jews allegedly suffered from as punishment for Christ's death. (65) According to Thomas of Monmouth s biased account, (66) after a group of local Jews tricked William to go with them to a house, he was bound, tortured, stabbed, and fixed to a cross while rioting in a "spirit of malignity." (67) While no Jew was directly harmed-because of the murder, (68) ritual murder accusations and blood libels against Jews quickly spread to other areas in England and throughout Europe often resulting in cruel murders and massacres of Jews. (69) Also, a key element of this evidence was based on the belief that there was a secret worldwide Jewish network, which met every year to determine the place where the next ritual murder of a Christian child was to take place. This is an important observation because as Marc Saperstein, quoted by Carrol, explains, "earliest recorded account of Jewish ritual murder ... is embellished with the suggestion of an international Jewish conspiracy ..."--an idea which would become a key element of Nazi modern anti-semitism. Unsurprisingly, despite the Emperor Frederick II's and Pope's Innocent IV's rejection of the ritual murder allegations against Jews, (70) charges of ritual murder continued to be made into the twentieth century (71) and cults were even established to venerate some of its victims. (72)

The Fourth Lateran Council's (1215) anti-Jewish decrees are further evidence that Christian anti-semitism had a racial component. The anti-Jewish decrees required Jews to wear a special emblem to help prevent Christians from inadvertently mixing with them and restricted their movements during Holy Week. (73) While the second of these does have a clear connection to traditional religious prejudice, the first restriction suggests that influential people in the Catholic Church considered close or actual physical contact with Jews a threat to a Christian s health which is reminiscent of the biological character of modern anti-semitism. Also, Pope Innocent III's claim in the Lateran decrees that the Jews "unscrupulous use of money power ... had reversed the natural order--the free Christian had become the servant of the Jewish slave ..." [my emphasis] (74) also demonstrates that factors other than religion contributed to Christian anti-semitism in the second half of the Middle Ages. The Franciscan's organization of boycotts and creation of "piety funds to undercut the Jews and drive them out of business" in parts of Italy is further proof that Christian anti-semitism was not solely motivated by religious issues. (75) Likewise, Martin Luther's anti-semitic diatribe, The Jews and Their Lies of 1543, cannot be solely blamed on a religious prejudice against Jews. His advice to Christians is particularly baneful and it is difficult not to see parallels between it and future Nazi anti-semitic rhetoric. For instance, he recommends people, "set fire to their synagogues or schools ..." and proposes, "their houses also be razed and destroyed...." (76) According to lames Carol the ultimate aim of such measures was to make Germany juderein or free of Jews, (77) which history tells us was a major policy of Hitler's Nazi regime. (78) However, while this evidence demonstrates that Luther targeted Jews as a distinct group for ridicule and violence, his prejudice was largely based on supersessionist claims of religious superiority over Judaism as opposed to the racism of modern anti-semitism. The investigation of Christian anti-semitism's development from the New Testament era to the end of the Middle Ages ha-s presented compelling evidence that it was a key part of the Catholic Church's teaching and tradition. It also demonstrated that anti-Jewish hatred. and persecution could not be blamed solely on religious blot This essay intends to further strengthen these observations by examining t e role of the Catholic press in perpetuating anti-semitism during the second half of the nineteenth century. It is an important task because its results will challenge the notion propounded by the Catholic Church in the Vatican document, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shaoh, that there is no direct relationship between Christian and modern anti-semitism.

In the second half of the nineteenth century, newspapers and periodicals became an increasingly important medium for shaping Europe's public, opinion, for various reasons such as greater press freedoms and unproved literacy rates. (79) According to David I. Kertzer the Catholic Church hierarchy learned the value and power of the modern press during the notorious Edgardo Mortara affair (80) and thus almost certainly would have been encouraged by the rapidly growing numbers of Catholic periodicals and newspapers between 1870 and 1900. (81) Some prominent examples include: the Assumptionist religious order's French publication La Croix, the Vatican owned newspaper L'Osservatore romano, and the Jesuit journal La Civilta Cattolica. (82) Even a. cursory study of their output of the late nineteenth century uniquivocally demonstrates they pursued anti-semitic agendas. For instance, La Croix, which has been described by the historian Stephen Wilson as "the most important mouthpiece of Catholic anti-semitism," (83) shamefully contributed to the poisonous political environment during the infamous Dreyfus Affair in France by publishing anti-semitic drivel. (84) However, while La Croix anti L'Osservatore romano (85) played a significant part in the spread of anti-semitism in the modern era, La Civilta Cattolica is more significant because of its close connection with the Vatican and its blatant propagation of both traditional and racial anti-semitism. (86)

La Civilta Cattolica's support for anti-semitism is readily apparent in many of its issues. In its early years of publication, this journal stereotyped "Israelites" as materialistic and often described them as "rough and inclined, to idolatry, immoral, and liable to pejury, murder, theft, adultery." (87) Furthermore, in an 1853 issue, it stated that the collective suffering of Jews for deicide was a fact,

And in conformity with Catholic dogma responsibility toward God is not limited to the person but extends to the family, to the city, to the people, to all humanity. It was because of the transgression of a single person that humanity was subjected to the infection of that guilt that we call original and to the weight of the punishment that follows it. The curse of Ham still afflicts his race, the descendants of the ancient Jews still bear the mark of the wrath of God carved on the forehead. (88)Moreover, as Jose David Lebovitch Dahl observes, in the 1850s La Civilta Cattolica described Judaism as a "false sect of superstition" which is "pernicious" because of its obscene" Talmud and, along with Freemasonry and spiritism, was an "act of the devil, against God." (89) Eventually, this singular hatred of Jews led one of its contributors to absurdly conclude that Jews were assisting "the devil's destruction of the church and Europe." (90) Also, the La Civilta Cattolica's polemical campaign against the Risorgimento (91) blurred the distinction between traditional and modern anti-semitism by describing its political enemies as the "Jewish-liberal party" and arguing that Jews should never have the same legal rights as Christians because they are an "essentially foreign" element whose membership in a disciplined and invincible international Jewish army or "republic" prevents them from assimilating and becoming "real European citizens." (92)

The penchant of La Civilta Cattolica for blurring this distinction between old and new forms of anti-semitism and more generally disseminating racist anti-semitism in Europe is particularly-evident after 1880. For example, Kertzer observes that the journal, "kicked off its long campaign against Jews in December 1880 with a series of thirty-six fiercely anti-semitic articles" in which, among other anti-semitic nonsense, it was recommended that governments introduce "exceptional laws for a race that is so exceptionally and profoundly perverse" for the benefit of their citizens' well being. (93) One of the most influential and perfervid anti-semites to contribute material to this journal was Father Giuseppe Oreglia di Stefano. In his contributions to La Civilta Cattolica, Father Oreglia leaves no doubt in the reader's mind that he hates Jews and laments the turn of events which allowed them to exercise the same political rights as other Italian citizens. Some common themes to appear in his anti-semitic creeds include: the Jews were happier when they lived in ghettoes, which allowed Christians to live more peaceful lives; Jews were prevented from becoming wealthy in the former papal lands through job restrictions so they would not be "too despised"; Jews were always regarded as foreign people "and [were] never considered to have the right of either native-born or naturalized citizens"; and it is imperative that special laws be introduced to curtail the Jews because "if this foreign race is left too free, it immediately becomes the persecutor, oppressor, tyrant, thief, and devastator of the countries where it lives" [my emphasis]. (94) The last of these themes is particularly significant-because Father Oreglia explicitly identifies and attacks Jews as a race rather than as a religious group. Oreglia makes this racial distinction even more clearly in this passage from an 1880 article:

Oh how wrong and deluded are those who think that Judaism is just a religion, a people, and a nation! While it is certain that others can be, for example, both Catholic and either Italian, French or English ... or Protestant and a member of whatever country or nation ... it is a great error to believe that the same is true of the Jews. For the Jews are not only Jews because of their religion ... they are Jews also and especially because of their race [my emphasis]. (95) When these thoughts are combined with his warning that secularized Jews who, as the principal nucleus of the ascendant sects, conspire to exterminate all of Christian society and dominate the universe, it is plain that La Civilta Cattolica made a significant contribution to the growth of modern anti-semitism. (96)

There can be little argument that the above analysis paints an insalubrious picture of the Catholic Church hierarchy's predisposition towards Jews and Judaism over nineteen hundred years of history. However, there is historical evidence which indicates that a far more tolerant and respectful attitude about Jews existed among at least some members of the church immediately before and during World War II. For instance, the encyclical Mit brenneder Sorge (1937) by Pius IX is invariably cited by defenders of the church's record in relation to Jews and the Nazis as a clear example of its true disposition about anti-semitism. (97) Jacques Adler's study of Vatican Radio broadcasts during World War II also reveals some convincing evidence that the church under the leadership of Pius XII did not support anti-semitism and the Nazi persecutions of Jews it inspired, therefore challenging the view that this pope committed a "sin of omission." (98) For example, although Pius XII did not explicitly refer to the Jews in his Christmas message to the College of Cardinals in 1942, Adler argues that the church's revulsion about Nazi atrocities against Jews was expressed on the Vatican radio directed towards France which had official church support. Specifically, he says that, "until the end of 1942 Vatican radio was allowed to express the church's opposition to Nazi ideology and conduct a campaign in defence of those persecuted for racial reasons." (99) Furthermore, Adler asserts that these broadcasts inspired Catholics to resist Nazi rule and protect Jews and other persecuted minorities. (100) Intriguingly, some church supporters are citing, the unpublished encyclical Humani Genris Unitas (The Unity of the Human Race) written in September 1938 on the instructions of Pius XI as further evidence of the Vatican's deep concerns about Nazi racist ideology and the persecutions of Jews. (101) In summary, it is plausible to suggest that the Catholic Church and in particular Pius XII was not as silent about Jewish persecution as many church critics maintain. Nevertheless, questions remain--were these efforts enough? Did the church hierarchy do enough to stop Nazi persecution of Jews and curtail the anti-semitism that evidently sustained it?

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