News in Christian-Jewish Relations: March 2007
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German Catholic Bishops' visit to Israel sparks controversy |
Webmaster's Note: Some members of a German Catholic bishops' delegation visiting Israel during the first weeekend of March compared the situation of Palestinians restricted by the Israeli protection barrier to that of German Jews trapped within the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust. The comparison triggered strong critical reactions. Listed here are some news reports on the episode.
[from Haaretz (www.haaretz.com)]
Harsh words by a delegation of German bishops during a weekend visit to Israel, including a reference to "Ghetto Ramallah," aroused consternation at the German Embassy yesterday. "It is difficult to understand how they could say these things, the embassy said. "Only a few hours earlier the head of the delegation said moving things during a visit to Yad Vashem."
The Permanent Mission of the German Bishops' Conference to the Holy Land sent representatives from all 27 German bishoprics to Israel last week for a seven-day visit that also included the Christian holy places.
On Friday, the group went to Ramallah after a visit of a number of hours at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes Remembrance Authority. "During the visit we saw at Yad Vashem the pictures from the Warsaw Ghetto and in the evening we are traveling to Ghetto Ramallah," Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke told reporters who accompanied the group.
Earlier, when the group crossed the separation fence, Cardinal Joachim Meisner said "something like this is done to animals, not to human beings." Meisner, the Archbishop of Cologne, is from the former East Germany. "I never in my life thought to see something like this again," he said.
This is the first time the high-level Catholic ecclesiastical body has traveled outside Germany as a group anywhere but the Vatican.
At Yad Vashem, the clerics met with Deputy Premier Shimon Peres and asked about the state of the peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians. They expressed a desire to assist in bringing peace to the region.
The group returned to Germany on Sunday, and Monday their statements were released in the media throughout Germany.
By The Associated Press / Last update - 14:53 07/03/2007
The director of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial has sent a letter to Germany's top Roman Catholic official complaining about comments made by two
German bishops that compared conditions in the West Bank to the Holocaust.
Avner Shalev, director of Yad Vashem, said he was appalled and surprised.
"The remarks illustrate a woeful ignorance of history and a distorted sense of perspective. Israel's actions do not bear any resemblance to the Nazis," Shalev wrote in his letter Tuesday to Cardinal Karl Lehmann, head of the German Bishops Conference, who led a delegation to Israel and the West Bank last week.
Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported that during the visit, Eichstaett Bishop Gregor Maria Hanke said: "Photos of the inhuman Warsaw ghetto at Yad
Vashem in the morning, in the evening we go to the ghetto in Ramallah - that blows your lid off."
According to the report, Augsburg Bishop Walter Mixa also spoke of ghetto-like conditions and described the situation as nearly racism.
While saying that criticism of Israel is legitimate, Shalev said "comparing the Nazi plan to annihilate the Jewish people to the situation in the West Bank does nothing to help us understand what is going on today."
"These unwarranted and offensive comparisons serve to diminish the memory of victims of the Holocaust and mollify the consciences of those who seek to
lessen European responsibility for Nazi crimes," he said. "I urge all people to keep the Holocaust out of cheap political exploitation and demagoguery."
He said was especially disappointed because Lehmann had shown a deep understanding of the Holocaust and its significance for Jews, Germans and
the entire world.
On Tuesday, Germany's main Jewish group also complained about the bishops' reported comments.
Conference secretary Hans Langendoerfer has expressed regret over comments made by some individuals in the delegation.
In a letter to Avner Shalev, the chairman of the Yad Vashem Holocaust memoria in Israel, Lehmann said: "It was definitely not anyone's intention to offend the feelings of Shoa survivors or Jewish people in Israel."
He said it was not right to "link contemporary problems or situations of injustice in any way whatever with the Nazi genocide of the Jews," adding, "I can well understand that the remarks caused annoyance and protest."
Two Catholic bishops in a party that visited Yad Vashem this week had been quoted saying they were shocked to see on the same day images of the ghetto where the Nazis confined Warsaw Jews and the confinement of Palestinians in the West Bank by walls.
Lehmann said, "The German bishops are aware of their historical responsibility. We know that we have to constantly show this anew by being sensitive in our choice of words."
The quoted remarks caused outrage in the Jewish community in Germany and in Israel. Germany's 27 bishops were making a collective pilgrimage to the Holy Land when the remarks were made.
From: http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1173879096305&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
It was supposed to be a historic visit of reconciliation between German Catholics and the Jews.
Instead, a recent visit to the Holy Land by a delegation of 27 senior German bishops only served to reopen old wounds and turned into a PR fiasco when two of the bishops compared the conditions of the Palestinians in the West Bank to that of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Holocaust.
The remarks, which were first published in the German press after the delegation returned to Germany, sparked outrage in Israel and among aging Holocaust survivors, with Yad Vashem denouncing the comments as "political exploitation and demagoguery."
Following that harsh condemnation, Germany's top Roman Catholic churchman, Cardinal Karl Lehmann, who had led the delegation, called the comparison "not appropriate."
This was viewed as a half-baked response that fell far short of a full apology.
The contentious remarks added drama to what was, on the whole, an otherwise uneventful trip, and opened a whole new chapter of recriminations and charges of anti-Semitism.
Indeed, the German bishops' comparison stunned the usually placid Yad Vashem officials, who had hosted the senior Christian leaders just hours earlier on a tour of the Holocaust Museum, during which they had talked about guilt, joint liability and enduring shame.
"Photos of the inhuman Warsaw Ghetto at Yad Vashem in the morning; in the evening we go to the ghetto in Ramallah - that blows your lid off," Eichstaett Bishop Gregor Maria Franz Hanke was quoted as saying by the S ddeutsche Zeitung, one of Germany's largest newspapers.
Bishop Walter Mixa of Augsburg described the situation in Ramallah as "ghettolike."
The two bishops, both from eastern Germany, made the remarks to German journalists traveling with their delegation during a visit to Bethlehem, where they had been told of the hardships facing local residents as a result of Israeli security measures, and specifically the barrier which separates the town from nearby Jerusalem.
"The remarks illustrate a woeful ignorance of history and a distorted sense of perspective," Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev wrote to the head of the German delegation. "These unwarranted and offensive comparisons serve to diminish the memory of victims of the Holocaust and mollify the consciences of those who seek to lessen European responsibility for Nazi crimes."
"I urge all people to keep the Holocaust out of cheap political exploitation and demagoguery," he concluded.
BY COMPARISON, the response by Lehmann in a letter to Shalev was seen as tepid at best.
"Completely independent of the situation, one cannot connect in any way current problems or situations of injustice with the national socialist mass murder of the Jews," he wrote. "For this reason, I can well comprehend that a statement which referred to the Warsaw Ghetto in the face of Palestinian suffering caused irritation and objection."
As the furor spread, Hanke later told the German media that he had not meant to make such a comparison. But the damage was done.
"Such extraordinarily insensitive comments by the bishops point to a much deeper problem of the ongoing and continuing erosion of Israel's moral status, even in Germany," said Dr. Zvi Shtauber, director of the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University and a former ambassador to the UK. "What especially bothered me was that a German bishop - a spiritual leader - knows so little about the Warsaw Ghetto and apparently even less about the Palestinian cities."
"This is not an isolated incident," he added.
Avi Primor, a former ambassador to Germany who heads the Center for European Studies at the Herzliya Interdisciplinary Center, said that he was "surprised like everyone else" by the comparison, but noted that the two bishops who made the remarks came from eastern Germany and so did not have the sensitivity toward the Holocaust and the Jews that their counterparts in western Germany have.
"These are people who grew up with communist education in which everybody is righteous in East Germany and all the criminals are in West Germany," Primor said.
Ambassador to Germany Shimon Stein said that anyone who made such comparisons had "either forgotten everything, learned nothing or failed morally."
The Delegation of the Holy See?s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews and the Chief Rabbinate of Israel?s Delegation for Relations with the Catholic Church held its seventh Bilateral Commission Meeting in Jerusalem from March 11-13, 2007. The subject of the meeting was the Freedom of Religion and Conscience and its Limits.
According to the recently released joint summary statement, among the points discussed was the following: "it is legitimate for a society with a predominant religious identity to preserve its character, as long as this does not limit the freedom of minority communities and individuals to profess their alternative religious commitments, nor to limit their full civil rights and status as citizens, individuals and communities. This obliges us all to safeguard the integrity and dignity of holy sites, places of worship and cemeteries of all religious communities."
Southern Poverty Law Center: Antisemitism and "Traditionalist" Catholics |
"The New Crusaders" is the title of an article published in the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Report. Available online and written by Heidi Beirich, it argues that "radical traditionalist Catholics, who reject the teachings of the modern papacy, may form America's largest group of anti-Semites."
Included among the "Dirty Dozen" Catholic groups highlighted by the article is the "Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary" in Richmond, N.H. Heirs to the legacy of the late Boston priest Rev. Leonard Feeney, S.J., the community is defined by an absolutist understanding of the ancient expression, "outside the church there is no salvation." The "Slaves" have an "irregular" canonical status with the local Catholic diocese and have been publicly criticized by Bishop John McCormack for their antisemitism. See p. 5 of "The New Crusaders" for details on this group and to access the entire article.
Christian Zionists offer letter of repentance in the Isareli Knesset |
On Wednesday, March 28, 2007, some 200 self-described Christian Zionists offered a "Letter of Repentance" in the Israeli Knesset. It expressed remorse for the Christian persecution of Jews down through the centuries. That text follows:
To the people of Israel,
On behalf of millions of Christians who love Israel and pray for her, we would like to repent before you for crimes committed against the Jewish people throughout history in the name of ?Christianity.? We have sinned against G-d and against you. We have not lived according to the mandate given to us by the scriptures; to love G-d with all of our hearts, and to love our fellow man as we love ourselves. May G-d grant you the ability to forgive us and may we be brothers and sisters again.
For to you we owe much. Through you G-d gave us the Holy Scriptures of the Law and the Prophets and the revelation of the one true G-d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It is because of the truth of the Holy Scriptures that we have a heritage, a destiny, a hope and a compass for living.
Please know that there will always be a strong number of Christians who love Israel and will stand with her and ?seek the peace of Jerusalem.?
What a treasure you are in the sight of our G-d! You are His chosen ? the ?apple of His eye.?
?The L-rd bless you and keep you; The L-rd make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you. The L-rd lift up His countenance upon you, and give you PEACE.? (Numbers 6:24-26)