Catholics & Jews
Banki, Judith H.
Judith H. Banki CATHOLICS & JEWS Vatican Holocaust statement will help he ambivalence of Jewish reactions to the Vatican's recent statement "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" rings a...
...and Canada (9.2...
...Villanova, PA 19085 AA/EOE/M-F latest data indicate the United States continues to outspend the rest of the world by a huge margin...
...It affirms the religious roots of hostility to Jews in "erroneous and unjust interpretations of the New Testament," and spells out the consequences when Jews refused to abandon their faith and customs: discrimination, expulsions, attempts at forced conversions, scapegoating, occasional violence, looting, and even massacres...
...Similarly, only five countries devoted more than 9 percent of their Gross Domestic Product to health-care spending: The United States (14.2 percent...
...spending to that of other nations...
...Critics noted the schizoid nature of the document: positive affirmations about Judaism in one section were undercut by regressive, triumphalist formulations in others...
...teach three courses per year in peace and justice related issues...
...and Canada at $2,002...
...When Nostra aetate, the declaration on the church's relationship to the Jewish community, was finally adopted at Vatican lI and promulgated by Pope Paul VI after almost four years of equivocation and internal struggle--during which key passages were cut, restored, emasculated, and reworded--it was similarly greeted...
...Between 1990 and 1996, for example, per capita spending increased Commonweal | | April 24, 1998...
...Moreover, the numbers indicate that between 1990 and 1996--the period in which HMOs strengthened their grip on the U.S...
...The University, located twelve miles west of Philadelphia, is an independent university founded by the Augustinian Order of the Roman Catholic Church and has a student population of 10,13OO...
...Switzerland (9.8...
...The V I LLANOVA U n i v e r s i t y CAMPUS MINISTRY Villanova University is seeking a Campus Minister in the Offices of Campus Ministry and the Center for Peace and Justice Education...
...It adds the church's moral authority to the need to understand what gave rise to the greatest crime of the twentieth century, and to remember it, "for there is no future without memory...
...Judith H. Banki CATHOLICS & JEWS Vatican Holocaust statement will help he ambivalence of Jewish reactions to the Vatican's recent statement "We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah" rings a distinct bell...
...it "dashed the hopes of Jewish leaders...
...But, if Lutheran scholar and theologian Krister Stendahl's definition is correct ("Anti-Judaism is hostility to the lenets of Judaism...
...The Vatican's "Reflections" open a rich field for further common study, and its expression of human solidarity should guide the footsteps of those who seek to develop its teaching and preaching implications, to the end--in John Paul II's moving words--of "shaping a future in which the unspeakable iniquity of the Shoah will never again be possible...
...Requirements include: Master's degree in Theology, Social Services or related Peace & Justice area...
...Negative reactions focused on the absence from the document of any sense of contrition, any expression of regret, indeed, even an acknowledgment of the church's role in creating the antiSemitism it was now decrying...
...We are to believe that rising rates of enrollment in health plans that use HMO cost-control techniques account for this reduction...
...Switzerland at $2,412...
...health-care syst e m - t h e gap between the United States and the rest of the industrialized world increased...
...Despite the recent slowing of the medical-inflation rate in the United States, health-care spending here is rising faster than in the rest of the industrialized world...
...Luxembourg at $2,206...
...Commonweal | 0 April24, 1998 First, it affirms as "a major fact of the history of this century" the murder of millions of Jews for the sole reason that they were Jews...
...The OECD has been keeping track of economic and demographic data on twenty-four industrialized nations since the end of World War II (five less-prosperous countries were added after the fall of the Berlin Wall...
...The document does not explore these parallels, nor does it address the question of the willing perpetrators of genocide--the murderers and torturers--who considered themselves faithful Christians...
...Inherently contradictory theological views of Judaism were papered over by expressions of noble intention...
...In 1996, only five countries spent more than $2,000 per person on health care: The United States at $3,708...
...Send cover letter and resume by May 1, 1998 to: VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY Susan F. Kazmierczak, Assistant Director Human Resources 800 Lancaster Avenue...
...It falls short of a full reckoning of the role of the church in fomenting antipathy to Jews across the centuries...
...Twenty years after Nostra aetate, in 1985, the Vatican issued one of several follow-up documents designed to translate the declaration's broad principles into specific guidelines for teaching about Jews and Judaism in Catholic education...
...The documents were not perfect...
...Sound familiar...
...To some 800 million Catholic faithful and to the world at large, the church says: "It happened...
...Yes, it has weaknesses...
...Jewish reactions ranged from cautious enthusiasm to bitter denunciation...
...Jewish interfaith leaders, except for very few who welcomed it unreservedly, expressed disappointment, annoyance--in the words of the Jewish Week, "everything from anguish to anger...
...The United States is the only first-world OECD nation without a national health-insurance system, and is the only one that sports an uninsured rate of 16 percent...
...France (9.6...
...Its distinction between anti-Judaism--rooted in religious misconceptions--and anti-Semitism--the product of racism and exacerbated nationalism, which it sees as a pagan ideology totally opposed to Catholic values--is correct...
...Yet, they had powerful and positive consequences...
...The "Notes" appeared to reflect a tug-of-war between two incompatible mindsets toward Jews...
...Responsibilities include: develop and maintain a specifically pastoral presence to students, faculty, staff and administration, and serve as a resource person for social justice concerns...
...Germany at $2,222...
...Committed Christians and Jews used the opportunities opened by these documents to build a new relationship...
...Kip Sullivan HEALTH-CARE REFORM We s t i l l need i t ~ uch is being made by HMO advocates of a reduction in the U.S...
...It was "too little, too late...
...Jews, who are familiar with this history of persecution rooted in religious antagonism, should realize that it may come as a surprise to most Catholics, and that the church has done an important service to truth and justice by calling attention to these painful realities in very concrete terms...
...develop lectures and seminars that create a more intensive academic awareness of peace and justice issues...
...The "Notes," as they were called, were also roundly attacked...
...Nostra aetate, despite its weaknesses and compromises, launched a new Catholic-Jewish relationship--one of growing candor, mutual understanding and cooperation toward shared goals, though with many ups and downs along the way...
...Critics of the Vatican's "Reflections on the Shoah" should bear this history in mind, even as they express their disappointments...
...promote and plan activities including liturgical celebrations, retreats, service and other projects which raise awareness of peace and justice concems...
...Germany (10.5...
...It calls for an individual, not institutional, examination of conscience...
...The data, which were prepared by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), appeared in the November-December 1997 edition of Health Affairs, a health-policy journal...
...Judith H. Banki, both an official of and a participant in organized Jewish-Christian dialogue, is program director of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding...
...knowledge of, or expertise in, Catholic Social Teaching...
...From a Jewish perspective, both documents were seriously flawed...
...medical inflation rate that began around 1993...
...Nazism was indeed neo-pagan in concept and ideology, but many of the regime's repressive measures against the Jews--book-burnings, quotas in universities, the mandated wearing of distinctive clothing, confinement to ghettos--had their precedents in church legislation and practice...
...But they nevertheless initiated a systematic dialogue, studies and scholarship, informal networks, a fragile but genuine mutual trust, some real friendships...
...It stands as a forthright rebuttal to what has become an entire industry of Holocaust denial and revision...
...The "Notes," despite their inherent contradictions, provided the basis for more accurate, more appreciative teaching about Jews and Judaism in Catholic education...
...their defects rankled those who expected more--more self-criticism, more contrition, a more scrupulous accounting of the church's role in specific historical circumstances...
...It attributes to individual Catholics--"sons and daughters of the church"--errors of commission and omission and failures of courage without relating these to the church's policies and practices...
...ability and desire to develop and teach conflict resolution skills to students, faculty and staff...
...But the question of whether HMOs should take the credit for this blip in health-care spending seems quite secondary when we compare U.S...
...But focusing on what the document says, rather than on what it does not say, it says a good deal...
...anti-Semitism is hostility to the bearers of Judaism"), the line was frequently crossed...
...We are not being told that this reduction may be due entirely to a fall in the general inflation rate, rising numbers of uninsured, increased rationing of care among the insured, the "HilIary effect" (the tendency of insurers and providers to keep prices in check following an effort by the federal government to enact price or premium controls), and temporary premium reductions by insurance companies scrambling to build market share...
Vol. 125 • April 1998 • No. 8
