Following

 

Pope Benedict XVI’s announcement in February that he would retire, numerous Jewish leaders in Israel and further abroad paid tribute to the pontiff’s relationship to the State of Israel and the Jewish people in general.

Israel’s Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar said that Benedict should be especially remembered for saying that God never abandoned his covenant with the Jewish people, and that Jews were Christians’ “older brothers” and “ancestors.”

Amar also praised Benedict’s strong stance and battle against all forms of anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

“I pray for the health and longevity of this warrior of justice, and call on the entire world to learn from his stance,” the chief rabbi said.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu also thanked Benedict for his work strengthening relations between the Holy See and Israel.

“I thank you for courageously defending Judeo-Christian values and the roots of our common civilization during your time as pontiff,” Netanyahu added. “I have no doubt that these values, which were so essential to building the modern world, are no less critical to securing a future of security, prosperity and peace.”

As reported in The Jerusalem Post, Rabbi David Rosen, the honorary adviser to the Israeli Chief Rabbinate on interfaith matters, described Benedict as a friend to the Jewish people who had worked toward improving relations between the two faiths. This, said Rosen, had been emphasized during the pope’s historic visit to Israel in 2009.

Rosen also noted Benedict’s attitude to increasing secularisation in the West.

“He sees himself as the defender of the true faith against the inroads of secularism, and therefore being able to ensure that his legacy continues is probably a factor in his decision to resign,” Rosen said in conversation with The Jerusalem Post.

Jewish organisations from around the world also acclaimed Benedict’s tenure as pope and his strengthening of ties between the Catholic and Jewish faiths.

“The papacy of Benedict elevated Catholic-Jewish relations to an unprecedented level,” said World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder in response to the news. Not only did Benedict maintain John Paul’s achievements, Lauder noted, he gave the relationship between the two faith communities a “solid theological underpinning.”

British Chief Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks said in response that Benedict was “a man of gentleness, of quiet and of calm, a deeply thoughtful and compassionate individual who carried with him an aura of grace and wisdom.”

In January, significant progress was made in negotiations between Israel and the Vatican.

 

 

The Living Bread International Church, an NGO working in Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, has teamed up with the Assaf Harofeh hospital in Tel Aviv to provide medical care in Israel for sick children from the West Bank and Gaza.

 

The Shalom Hartman Institute, a pluralistic education institution for Jewish studies in Jerusalem, hosted its 26th annual International Theology Conference from Feb 17 – 21 dedicated this year to the theme of forgiveness.

More than 50 theologians of different faiths and from countries around the world attended the four-day programme, which comprised a series of lectures, roundtable discussions and small-group study sessions.

Writing for the Times of Israel news website, Reform Rabbi and director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel Ron Kronish related the discussions in which he and seven other Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars held during the conference.

“Can there be unconditional forgiveness? Or is it always conditional? Is it not a process? And what do the different religious traditions have to say about this process?”, Kronish wrote. “Is forgiveness an antidote to Justice? Do we not need both Forgiveness and Justice in our communities and societies? And in our personal lives?”

Concluding his column, Kronish noted that “In the midst of all the conflict in our region, and the negotiations to form a government in Israel, and the manifestations of animosity, hatred, racism and violence in our society, fifty Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars and practitioners spent five days together in Jerusalem, quietly and without fanfare, demonstrating that we can engage in respectful study and dialogue which seeks to understand our human commonalities as well as our religious and cultural differences.”

Orthodox rabbi and Jewish philosopher David Hartman, who founded the institute in 1976, passed away earlier in February and the conference was dedicated to his memory.

Born in 1931 to an ultra- Orthodox family in Brooklyn, New York, Rabbi Hartman was one of the pioneers of a more liberal form of Orthodox Judaism and was an ardent advocate for religious tolerance and interfaith dialogue.

 

 

A delegation of young Catholic Priests from Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay arrived in Israel at the beginning of March for a week-long Jewish-Christian educational mission.

The seminar was organised following the creation of a new partnership between the World Jewish Congress (WJC), the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation in Israel (CJCUC) and the Latin American Jewish Congress (LAJC).

The goals of the project are to study the authoritative post-Second Vatican Council Church teachings about Jews and Judaism, and to introduce the young priests to the people of Israel and Israeli life.

“As Pope Benedict XVI leaves the papal office, his legacy of building bridges between Jews and Christians will continue in these young priests,” said CJCUC’s Founder and Chancellor Rabbi Shlomo Riskin. “There is a profound need for the academic advances of the past half century of Jewish-Catholic dialogue to be brought down to the parish and synagogue levels,” he continued.

David Nekrutman, Executive Director of the CJCUC stated that the centre of gravity for the Catholic Church was shifting to South America and Africa, and noted that it was “vitally important to create new friendships between the future leaders of the Catholic Church in Latin America and the Jewish people.”

According to the WJC, the mission, entitled In Our Age For Our Future, will highlight in particular the pivotal moment in the Church’s modern history of Nostra Aetate (“in Our Age”) declaration in 1965.

The Nostra Aetate repudiated the charge of deicide and condemned of all forms of anti-Semitism, and thus forged the path that led to the establishment of formal relations between the Vatican and the State of Israel in 1993.

The joint programme will also see the creation of several seminars every year and will seek to foster understanding of Judaism and Israel in the Latin American communities.

 

Picture credit: Noam Chen – Israeli Ministry of Tourism – www.goisrael.com

 

 

The Knesset Christian Allies Caucus and the World Jewish Congress presented awards to Christian supporters of Israel at the end of January, at the seventh annual “Night to Honor Our Christian Allies.”