Henri Dunant, ’first Christian Zionist’, honored at international commemoration event in Geneva

"Already in 1866, 30 years before the first Zionist Congress, Dunant [founder of the International Red Cross] had proposed a repopulation of Palestine by Jews. As a personal friend of Theodore Herzl he was one of only a few non-Jews to attend the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. He was once referred to by Herzl as a ’Christian Zionist’, this being the first time the term was ever used. [...] "The values of Henry Dunant were the values of most Christian social reformers for the last 300 years, from William Wilberforce, 100 years before Dunant, to Martin Luther King 100 years after him. These great men of faith and social justice had a deep understanding of the struggles of the Jewish people and supported their right to self-determination," Sandell explained. The event clearly illustrated the fact that while the modern state of Israel currently faces a vicious NGO campaign of delegitimization and dehumanization the social pioneers who founded their movements were mostly warm friends of Israel."

Source: European Coalition for Israel

Geneva, 1 November, 2010 - The remarkable life of International Red Cross founder and first recipient of the Nobel Peace Price, HenryDunant was honored on Saturday at a private ceremony in Geneva in the presence of descendants of the Dunant family and the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Betty E. King. Saturday marked the 100th anniversary of the death of Henry Dunant.

Though most people remember Henry Dunant primarily as the founder of the International Red Cross very few know the man behind the vision.

"Henri Dunant was a man of faith who already at the age of twenty had committed his life to be more effective in Christian charity, heat up lukewarm believers and to convert those who had not met God," European Coalition for Israel Director Tomas Sandell said at the event quoting the Henry Dunant Society.

"This is a side of his life that documentaries seldom talk about but which helps explain his life and vision. Henry Dunant was a Christian activist (he helped found the World Alliance of YMCA in 1855), and a fervent believer in the restoration of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland of Palestine. Already in 1866, 30 years before the first Zionist Congress, Dunant had proposed a repopulation of Palestine by Jews. As a personal friend of Theodore Herzl he was one of only a few non-Jews to attend the First Zionist Congress in Basel in 1897. He was once referred to by Herzl as a ’Christian Zionist’, this being the first time the term was ever used.

"Henry Dunant understood already in 1866 what it took others another 80 years to grasp, namely that the Jewish people were entitled to live in their own ancient homeland of Palestine, side by side and in peace with their Arab neighbours. Just imagine how many lives could have been spared if also this life vision would have come to pass during his lifetime," Sandell concluded in his speech.

The Pope and Sarkozy dicuss the"injustice done to the Palestinian people"

Context: President Sarkozy and Pope discuss Middle East peace


Le Figaro reports that one of the issues the French President and the Pope discussed during their meeting las week was the "moral imperative" to "repair the injustice done to the Palestinian people".  There is also the somewhat vague call to ensure "the security to the Jewish people" (but not specifically the security of Israel and its people).


(Au Vatican, Sarkozy lève les malentendus avec Benoît XVI)

Israel basher replaces another at head of World Council of Churches

Ecumenical Blast Against Israel, Mark Tolley, FrontPage Magazine

The departing chief of the Geneva-based World Council of Churches (WCC) slammed Israel’s "sin against God" in his August 26 good-bye to the world’s largest ecumenical group.

"Occupation along with the concomitant humiliation of a whole people for over six decades constitutes not just economic and political crimes but, like anti-Semitism, it is a sin against God," declared Kenyan Methodist minister Samuel Kobia, during his farewell to the WCC’s governing central committee.

The WCC was founded after World War II and, in the wake of the Holocaust, robustly denounced anti-Semitism as a "sin against God." Evidently equating the Holocaust on some level with the Israeli presence in the West Bank, Kobia asked his international church audience: "Are we ready to say that occupation is also a sin against God?"

On paper, the WCC is important, with 349 denominations as members, representing over 500 million Christians, or about 25 percent of global Christianity. But in truth, the WCC never fully recovered from its 1970’s alliances with Marxist liberation movements. Catholics and most evangelicals do not belong to the WCC, which friends and foes alike view primarily as the voice of declining Western left-wing Protestantism.

Read the whole piece here
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Now read this :

New Norwegian WCC general secretary supports extreme Palestinian demand
Published: Friday August 28th 2009
From Med Israel for Fred (MIFF)

Olav Fykse Tveit, general secretary in Mellomkirkelig råd (MR), was on Thursday elected general secretary in the World Council of Churches.

"We can be proud over how a Norwegian is granted such an important post in the world’s largest ecumenical organization with more than half a billion members, says Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre in a press release.

Views "right of return" as "fair"

For friends of Israel and the Jewish state there is reason to grieve. Fykse Tveit supports the Palestinian demand of right to move at least five million Palestinians into the state of Israel. He has over several years been a driving force for presenting this as a “just demand” for the church, both domestically and internationally.

Fykse Tveit is yet to find how the right of return is to be solved. “It is not thereby said that it is a solution that the jews leave their homes”, Tveit said to DagenMagazinet, April 28th 2008. "There are different ways in which to accomodate the demand”, he wrote in an op-ed two days later. Is Tveit at all willing to contemplate that Jews must leave their homes? [...]

If Fykse Tveit had been preoccupied with the right of return for all large groups of refugees, his support to the Palestinians would have been more credible. If it additionally had been correspondingly attentive to a complete vindication and reimbursement of the Jewish refugees from the Arab world, it might even had been fair. But when the demand for rights of return are furthered solely for the Palestinians, and an implementation of this would mean the end of the world’s only state with a majority of Jews, one needs to ask oneself what the driving force is. It is in any case extreme."

Read the whole piece here (Norway, Israel and the Jews blog)

Vatican readmits society that propagates anti-Semitism, Cnaan Liphshiz

"The society's official U.S. Web site described Jews as "the enemy of man, whose secret weapon is the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy," adding that "heads of Jewry have for centuries conspired methodically and out of an undying hatred against the Catholic name." "

Article by Cnaan Liphshiz in Haaretz
Photo: Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais from the Society of St. Pius X holding a book on Action Française.

"In lifting the excommunication of Bishop Richard Williamson who has been accused of Holocaust denial last month, the Catholic Church also readmitted a priestly society that openly propagates virulent anti-Semitism, according to a probe by a Belgian Jewish newspaper.

The Roman Catholic Church excommunicated the Society of St. Pius X in 1988 along with Williamson and three other member priests, declaring their consecrations were "unlawful" and "schismatic."

In January of this year the Vatican lifted the excommunication. On the same day, a Swedish television station aired an interview with Williamson in which he denied the existence of gas chambers during the Holocaust.

In a research performed after the readmittance, a team of journalists from Joods Actueel, an Antwerp-based Jewish news publication, found what they describe as "a slew of anti-Semitic content" on the society's Web sites in five languages.

The probe whose results were made public on Thursday, found that the society's official U.S. Web site described Jews as "the enemy of man, whose secret weapon is the leaven of the Pharisees which is hypocrisy," adding that "heads of Jewry have for centuries conspired methodically and out of an undying hatred against the Catholic name."

The South African site said that "Jews have come closer and closer to fulfilling their substitute-Messianic drive towards world dominion."

The Irish site asks whether "the Jews are guilty of Deicide," answering: "We must say yes."

The site from Germany, a country with strict limitations on anti-Semitic speech, clarifies that "contemporary Jews are for sure guilty of the murder of God, as long as they don't recognize Christ as God."

The Belgian site accuses Jews of "still believing they are the chosen people" while "awaiting world domination."

The Austrian site warns that the Jewish organization B'nai Brith is "found everywhere" and "commands the entire world."

Michael Freilich, editor-in-chief of Joods Actueel, told Haaretz that anti-Semitic content was being pulled offline even as the team of four journalists were documenting and saving the material ? which Haaretz obtained from Joods Actueel.

Noting that The Society of St. Pius X is believed to have between 600,000 and a million followers, Frielich said: "Williamson's Holocaust denial has attracted much attention, but this anti-Semitic content is in many ways worse because he is a lone fool and not taken seriously by the masses, whereas here we are talking about an entire society spreading hatred around the world." Freilich added that "while Williamson's lies negate the past, what we have uncovered here is preaching of lies and hate against Jews today."

The Society of St. Pius X was founded in 1970 by French Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.

Experts on the Catholic Church such as Dirk Verhofstadt* - brother of the former Belgian prime minister - have said that in addition to expressing these positions on Jews, society members have also disavows the Nostra Aetate - a document whereby the Church says Jews were not responsible for the death of Christ."

* Dirk Verhofstadt, a scholar and brother of former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, has published a well researched and strongly argued book about the Pope Pius XII's sad conduct during the war : Pius XII and the extermination of the Jews (Pius XII en de vernietiging van de Joden).

Lublin's archbishop heralds new era of Polish openness to Jews (and Israel?)

"Archbishop of Lublin, Josef Zycinski, said this week ahead of a visit to Israel that there was a "new era" of Polish openness to Jews and defended controversial Holocaust-era Pope Pius XII as a "pragmatist."

"I would say that the situation has changed in free Poland," said the archbishop in a telephone interview from Lublin.

"In the late 1970s it was impossible to have access to the parts of Auschwitz that showed the enormity of the Jewish Holocaust," said Zycinski, who will participate Monday in a symposium entitled "Confronting a New Reality: The Polish Catholic Church, the Jews, and Israel."

"Poles were out of touch with the long Jewish history in Poland. But today a younger, more open generation of Poles is growing up with a more nuanced understanding of Jewish reality."

The symposium is being sponsored by The Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI), The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute, The Adam Mickiewicz Institute, The Polish Council of Christians and Jews, and Laboratorium Wiez in the framework of Polish Year in Israel 2008-2009.

Rabbi Michael Schudrich, Chief Rabbi of Poland, will also take part.

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Zycinski, known for his willingness to confront the Polish role in helping the Nazis perpetrate the Holocaust, said that in September he organized a meeting with students from Berlin's Reform Abraham Geiger College and Catholics.

"For many it was the first time they had come across a Reform Jew. All they had known was the stereotype Orthodox Jew," he said.

Zycinski, unlike other Catholic Polish clergymen, has publicly accepted the Polish people's guilt for the massacre at Jebwadne, a village in eastern Poland, which was first revealed in 1999.

For instance, Polish Cardinal Josef Glemp, known for his anti-Semitic comments, said after attending a mass in honor of Jedwabne's Jews in 2001 that Poland's surviving Jews should apologize for having brought Communism to Poland.

However, Zycinski pointed out that ironically, Poles' anti-Communist sentiments pushed many to support Israel in the Six Day War at a time when the USSR was openly supporting Egypt and other Arab states. "As a student in Krakow I remember the strong pro-Israel sentiments which were really an expression of opposition to Communist rule," he recalled. (...)

Dr. Rabbi Ron Kronish, head of the ICCI, said that the symposium was important for three reasons: "Israel needs to better understand contemporary Poland and not remain mired in images of the past, no matter how traumatic they might be. And part of that understanding is getting rid of the preconceptions that all Poles are anti-Semites," said Kronish.

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"Also, Israelis need to understand that the Polish Catholic Church has undergone major changes of thinking about Jews and Judaism. People do not know this because they continue to live in the past.
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"Finally, Poland is making in effort within the framework of Polish-Israel Year to better understand that for a Polish Jew, Israel is central to the formation of his or her Jewish identity.""

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Source: article by Matthew Wagner, TJP

Vatican suspends beatification of Pope Pius XII

Jews and non-Jews alike - this should be emphasised - are critical of Pope Pius XII's silence during and after the war and opposed to his beatification.

Dirk Verhofstadt, a scholar and brother of former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, has just published a well researched and strongly argued book about the Pope's sad conduct during the war : Pius XII and the extermination of the Jews (Pius XII en de vernietiging van de Joden).

Source: Arutz Sheva

"A spokesman for Pope Benedict XVI announced over the weekend that the Catholic leader had stopped the beatification of Pope Pius XII, an issue that has heightened tensions between the Vatican and Israel.

Pope Pius, who served during World War II, has been criticized by Jews the world over for his silence in the face of the Nazi genocide during the Holocaust.

Numerous Jewish groups as well as a leading Israeli rabbi expressed their opposition to recent steps toward beatification, which means making him a saint. Pope Benedict's spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi reacted and stated that the pope had decided to study the matter further.

The central umbrella organization for Jewish groups in France, the Conseil Representatif des Institutions Juives de France, warned in a statement, "Pope Pius XII, worried about burning bridges with Germany, never made a clear statement denouncing the singular monstrosity of the extermination of millions of Jews. Moreover, he did not do so after the war either, which is profoundly shocking. If carried out, the plan to beatify Pius XII, who was pope between 1939 and 1958, would deal a severe blow to relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish world."

Jewish groups in Italy and elsewhere have also urged the Vatican to reconsider the move. Amos Luzzatto, president emeritus of Italy's Jewish communities, noted in an interview published in the newspaper La Repubblica that numerous European leaders had spoken out against the deportation of Jews during the war. "I ask myself why Pius didn't do the same thing to call European Catholics to action. These are questions that haunt us Jews," he was quoted as saying. "The Vatican should know that for the Jewish world this would open up a wound that will be difficult to heal."

The charges were refuted by Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, who wrote in a pre-emptive full-page tribute to Pius XII published in the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, "It was precisely by means of a prudent approach that Pius XII protected Jews and refugees. If he had made a public intervention, he would have endangered the lives of thousands of Jews who, upon his directive, were hidden, in 155 convents and monasteries in Rome alone.""

- Beatification of Pius XII could be an impediment to Catholic-Jewish relations

- Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen: Pope Pius XII did not do enough to save Jews during WWII

Rabbi Shear-Yashuv Cohen: Pope Pius XII did not do enough to save Jews during WWII

Pope Pius XII was aware of the destruction of the European Jewish population by the Nazis and their acolytes but kept silent - after the war he did not explicitly and publicly condemned anti-Semitism. The Pope did not excommunicate any Nazi criminals and was the only head of State with Adolf Hitler to have given audience to the infamous Ante Pavelic. The Holy See showed great reluctance in recognizing Israel - the mutual recognition agreement was finally signed on December 30, 1993.

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Source: Free Republic
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"At this hour, the Synod is still being led by the afternoon-long presentation of the chief rabbi of Haifa Shear-Yashuv Cohen -- the first Jewish speaker ever to address the body.

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Yet with the gathering convening in the run-up to Thursday's 50th anniversary of the death of Pope Pius XII -- a milestone that, this year, just so happens to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement and Judaism's most sacrosanct observance -- Cohen said in an interview published this morning that, had he known of the confluence, he mightn't have come:

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"We feel that the late pope (Pius) should have spoken up much more strongly than he did," Cohen, 80, said in an interview hours before he was due to address the gathering of Catholic bishops from around the world.

Cohen said that in his speech he planned to make an indirect reference to Jewish disappointment about Pius as well as an appeal to all religious leaders to denounce Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Last month Pope Benedict forcefully defended Pius, saying he "spared no effort" on behalf of Jews during World War II.

Some Jews maintain Pius did not do enough to save Jews while the Vatican says he worked behind the scenes to help because more direct intervention would have worsened the situation.

"He may have helped in secrecy many of the victims and many of the refugees but the question is 'could he have raised his voice and would it have helped or not?'" Cohen said.

"We, as the victims, feel yes. I am not empowered by the families of the millions of deceased to say 'we forget, we forgive,'" said Cohen, who is chief rabbi of Haifa in Israel....

"I did not know (the anniversary commemorations) happened during the same meeting. If I had known ... I might have refrained from coming because we feel that the pain is still here," Cohen said.

"I have to make it very clear that we, the rabbis, the leadership of the Jewish people, cannot as long as the survivors still feel painful agree that this leader of the Church in a time of crisis should be honored now. It is not our decision. It pains us. We are sorry it is being done," he said.

Cohen said only God knows if Pius spoke out enough against the Holocaust: "God is the judge ... he knows the truth."The Pope will celebrate a memorial Mass for his wartime predecessor in St Peter's on Thursday's anniversary.

And at his turn in the Aula, Cohen followed through with the (unscripted) repeat of his wire comments:
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"We cannot forget the sad and painful fact of how many, including great religious leaders, didn’t raise a voice in the effort to save our brethren, but chose to keep silent and help secretly," said Cohen.

"We cannot forgive and forget, and we hope you understand our pain, our sorrow," Cohen said, speaking to an audience of some 253 cardinals, archbishops and bishops, as well as Benedict XVI.

Cohen never mentioned Pius XII by name, though in context the reference was obvious....

Cohen also issued a biting, though once again indirect, swipe at Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Cohen referred to the "terrible and vicious words of the president of a certain state in the Middle East" in a recent speech at the United Nations. Cohen said these "false and malicious accusations, the threats and anti-Semitic incitement" cannot help but remind Jews of the Holocaust....

Cohen called upon Catholic leaders to "raise your voice, so together with the help of free world defend, we can protect and save Israel from the hands of our enemies."

"What happened once should not happen again," Cohen said. "My being here makes me feel that we can expect your help, and I am sure your message will be listened to by influential people all over the world."

Synod: Rabbi says Jews cannot 'forgive and forget' Pius XII

Israeli rabbi addresses Monday evening Catholic Church synode

Pope slams anti-Semitism in meeting with French Jews

Henri de Lubac, S.J. (1896-1991): "To be anti-Semitic signifies being anti-Christian".
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Article by Haviv Rettig in TJP

Pope Benedict XVI slammed anti-Semitism as theologically unjustifiable and tantamount to being "anti-Christian" in a meeting with French-Jewish leaders in Paris on Friday.

The meeting came on the first day of a four-day trip to France, the pontiff's 10th trip out of Italy since his election in April 2005.

"The Church is opposed to every form of anti-Semitism, which can never be theologically justified," he said, quoting French theologian Henri de Lubac as saying he had understood that "to be anti-Semitic also signifies being anti-Christian."

Benedict lamented the victims of anti-Semitism, saying: "Once again I feel the duty to pay heartfelt recognition to those who have died unjustly, and to those that have dedicated themselves to assure that the names of these victims may always be remembered. God does not forget."

He called for greater Christian-Jewish understanding, noting that the two religions' "fraternal bonds constitute a continual invitation to know and to respect one another better."

Rabbi Joseph Sitruk, a former chief rabbi of France, said after the meeting that it had been a "historic rapprochement between Judaism and the Church.""

Pontiff's Greeting to Jewish Delegation: a translation of Benedict XVI's address at the apostolic nunciature in Paris, during a brief meeting with representatives of the Jewish community (ZENIT)
Photo: CRIF

Anti-Semitism: Anatomy of an Obsession

The Day After the Auto-da-Fé, by Francisco Duarte Azevedo

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Sources: TJP, an article by Haviv Rettig, and Rua da Judiaria

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"Being special is never easy. According to Dr. Avi Beker, an expert on international relations and former secretary-general of the World Jewish Congress, the idea that the Jews are special, are "chosen," has been the source of the greatest troubles they have faced across history.

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Yet, at the same time, it is "the key defining concept of Judaism," and an important factor in the development of the other major monotheistic religions. It is also one of the Jewish people's most controversial ideas both within and without the Jewish fold.

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In his new book, The Chosen: The History of an Idea, and the Anatomy of an Obsession, Beker attempts to explain the strange life and complex repercussions of this stubborn idea throughout Jewish history.

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Perhaps the key claim of the book is that the idea of chosenness has brought the Jewish people its greatest enemies and its most faithful friends.

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"The concept of chosenness has been and still is the driving force behind Jewish-Gentile relations," Beker writes. (...)

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"I don't accept classic theories of anti-Semitism that state that it's a hatred of the other, of the rich, of the different," Beker told The Jerusalem Post in an interview last week. "There's something deeper here, an obsession. You can't describe anti-Semitism as hatred of the type directed at Roma [Gypsies]."

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While the expressions of hatred can be similar - "there are other genocides" - anti-Semitism remains "the deepest, the oldest, and it doesn't change its characteristics across time and place. The Roma may be denigrated and dehumanized, but this isn't combined with conspiracies of world domination. If Henry Ford could write The International Jew, an irrational and counterfactual American version of the Protocols [of the Elders of Zion], then there's something obsessive going on here."

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In the book he asks starkly, "How have the Jews, of all people, come to represent at once the epitome of both the good and the odious? The priestly and the pariah? A source of envy and of enmity?"

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The question is not theoretical, he believes, because this tension "still informs new expressions of anti-Semitism and has a major impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict."

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In pinning Christian anti-Semitism on the doctrine of supersession, the ancient idea that Christianity is the "New Israel," Beker does not break new ground. But he offers a new perspective on even the Christian context when he places it alongside the Muslim doctrine of supersessionism that continues to this day.

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This widespread Islamic idea, a denial of Jewish legitimacy from koranic days to the present, is "one of the deep, serious stumbling blocks on the way to peace" between Muslims and Jews, Beker believes. It is rife throughout Islamic discourse, from the koranic view that Jews should remain in a state of humility to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's war against a "Zionist-dominated" world.

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Indeed, following a discussion of Muslim religious figures and the public discourse in Islamic countries, Beker concludes that the Muslim problem with Zionism is more theology than politics.
"The Jews are supposed to be humbled, scattered. Theologically, they're not supposed to win wars in the place that is part of their narrative of chosenness."

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Yet the idea of Jewish chosenness is also the intellectual wellspring for some of the most ardent supporters of Jews and Israel, groups such as Christian Zionists in America and elsewhere.

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Beker never explicitly offers his own view of "chosenness," instead focusing on the religious, social and political influences of the idea. In this, he cannot escape dealing with the often-tortured Jewish reflections on this idea.

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The Jews themselves, he believes, do not understand the root of the obsession with them. He quotes author A.B. Yehoshua's grave misgivings about the Jews' "ambiguous identity":

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"I have a fear because of the partial identity of the Jews. With their ability to penetrate the life of others. To live without borders, without taking responsibility... It is about time we should understand that our ambiguous identity is causing individuals and groups who suffer a chaos of identity to cast on us awesome implications."

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Yehoshua is "perplexed," Beker writes, because he is unready to recognize that it is "the religious dependency of millions of people" on the idea of chosenness that leads to obsessive anti-Semitism. (...)"

Pontiff's Greeting to the Jewish Community

Via Bennauro
WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 17, 2008 (Zenit.org)
Here is the greeting and message Benedict XVI gave today to the Jewish community.

My dear friends, I extend special greetings of peace to the Jewish community in the United States and throughout the world as you prepare to celebrate the annual feast of Pesah. My visit to this country has coincided with this feast, allowing me to meet with you personally and to assure you of my prayers as you recall the signs and wonders God performed in liberating his chosen people. Motivated by our common spiritual heritage, I am pleased to entrust to you this message as a testimony to our hope centered on the Almighty and his mercy.

To the Jewish community on the Feast of Pesah

My visit to the United States offers me the occasion to extend a warm and heartfelt greeting to my Jewish brothers and sisters in this country and throughout the world. A greeting that is all the more spiritually intense because the great feast of Pesah is approaching. "This day shall be for you a memorial day, and you shall keep it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as an ordinance for ever" (Exodus 12: 14). While the Christian celebration of Easter differs in many ways from your celebration of Pesah, we understand and experience it in continuation with the biblical narrative of the mighty works which the Lord accomplished for his people.

At this time of your most solemn celebration, I feel particularly close, precisely because of what Nostra Aetate calls Christians to remember always: that the Church "received the revelation of the Old Testament through the people with whom God in His inexpressible mercy concluded the Ancient Covenant. Nor can she forget that she draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles" (Nostra Aetate, 4). In addressing myself to you I wish to re-affirm the Second Vatican Council's teaching on Catholic-Jewish relations and reiterate the Church's commitment to the dialogue that in the past forty years has fundamentally changed our relationship for the better.

Because of that growth in trust and friendship, Christians and Jews can rejoice together in the deep spiritual ethos of the Passover, a memorial (zikkarôn) of freedom and redemption. Each year, when we listen to the Passover story we return to that blessed night of liberation. This holy time of the year should be a call to both our communities to pursue justice, mercy, solidarity with the stranger in the land, with the widow and orphan, as Moses commanded: "But you shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you from there; therefore I command you to do this" (Deuteronomy 24: 18).

At the Passover Sèder you recall the holy patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and the holy women of Israel, Sarah, Rebecca, Rachael and Leah, the beginning of the long line of sons and daughters of the Covenant. With the passing of time the Covenant assumes an ever more universal value, as the promise made to Abraham takes form: "I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing... All the communities of the earth shall find blessing in you" (Genesis 12: 2-3). Indeed, according to the prophet Isaiah, the hope of redemption extends to the whole of humanity: "Many peoples will come and say: 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that he may teach us his ways and that we may walk in his paths'" (Isaiah 2: 3). Within this eschatological horizon is offered a real prospect of universal brotherhood on the path of justice and peace, preparing the way of the Lord (cf. Isaiah 62: 10).

Christians and Jews share this hope; we are in fact, as the prophets say, "prisoners of hope" (Zachariah 9: 12). This bond permits us Christians to celebrate alongside you, though in our own way, the Passover of Christ's death and resurrection, which we see as inseparable from your own, for Jesus himself said: "salvation is from the Jews" (John 4: 22). Our Easter and your Pesah, while distinct and different, unite us in our common hope centered on God and his mercy. They urge us to cooperate with each other and with all men and women of goodwill to make this a better world for all as we await the fulfillment of God's promises.

With respect and friendship, I therefore ask the Jewish community to accept my Pesah greeting in a spirit of openness to the real possibilities of cooperation which we see before us as we contemplate the urgent needs of our world, and as we look with compassion upon the sufferings of millions of our brothers and sisters everywhere. Naturally, our shared hope for peace in the world embraces the Middle East and the Holy Land in particular. May the memory of God's mercies, which Jews and Christians celebrate at this festive time, inspire all those responsible for the future of that region-where the events surrounding God's revelation actually took place-to new efforts, and especially to new attitudes and a new purification of hearts!

In my heart I repeat with you the psalm of the paschal Hallel (Psalm 118: 1-4), invoking abundant divine blessings upon you: "O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever. Let Israel say, 'His steadfast love endures forever.' . . . Let those who fear the Lord say, 'His steadfast love endures forever'."
From the Vatican, 14 April 2008© Copyright 2008 -- Libreria Editrice Vaticana

Anglicans choose Jerusalem for key June conference

From an article by John Conger in the Jerusalem Post reporting on the division (mainly in Europe) among Anglicans about Israel:
"The battle over homosexuality that has threatened to split the Anglican Communion could be decided at a June meeting in Jerusalem. On December 26, a conservative coalition led by the archbishop of Nigeria, Peter Akinola, announced a June 15-22 conference in the Holy Land to chart the church's future course. …
However, Anglicans are as divided over Israel as they over homosexuality. While the meeting will focus on the current crisis facing the church, some Anglican and Jewish supporters of the gathering hope the presence in Jerusalem this June of conservative Anglican bishops from every continent will present an opportunity to broaden Israel's support in the developing world.
The growth of Christianity in Africa, from 10 million to 423 million adherents over the course of the 20th century, has been coupled with a decline in its hold over Europeans. The rising African voice in the Anglican Communion, as well as in the Roman Catholic and Lutheran churches, has witnessed a challenge to the anti-Israel agenda of many European-led Christian groups. …
Organizers of the meeting told The Jerusalem Post this was not merely a gathering of an anti-gay coalition of bishops, but a meeting for "orthodox" Anglicans to be "getting on with things, doing the work of the church." Jerusalem was chosen as the venue as a sign of their commitment "to a land that is our common heritage." The meeting would also "bring fellowship and bear testimony to the Christian communities in Israel/Palestine" that have been under intense pressure from Islamist militants.
"Those of us from Africa are no strangers to the pressure that Christian communities are put under from other religious groups and communities," they added. …
Over the past few years the Anglican Communion has endorsed a number of anti-Israel agendas and causes. In 2006, the Church of England adopted a call for divestment while several church-linked charities have demonized Israel for its security policies.
Christmas cards sold by War on Want, a London-based anti-poverty charity, depict Mary and Joseph unable to reach Bethlehem due to "Israel's separation wall and a state-of-the-art military checkpoint." The London-based Amos Trust offers for sale a nativity scene complete with wall, depicting the "year the wise men won't get to the stable."
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem think tank, has charged the relief agency Christian Aid with promoting a pro-Palestinian agenda. The charity offered a tendentious perspective on the conflict in the Middle East and "minimizes terrorism and Palestinian responsibility for violence and corruption," it said earlier this year.
Conservative Anglicans have denounced Anglicanism's anti-Israel drift. The former archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Carey, last year told the Post that the Church of England vote to divest from companies whose products are used by the Israeli government in the territories made him "ashamed to be an Anglican." It was "a most regrettable and one-sided statement," Lord Carey said, and totally "ignores the trauma of ordinary Jewish people" subjected to terrorist attacks. …
Prof. Jacob Olupona, a Harvard expert on African religion, observed that Israel holds a significant place in the minds of many African Christians, who see in the Old Testament a reflection of their experiences.
Last year approximately 15,000 Nigerian Christians made a pilgrimage to Israel. Many Nigerian pilgrims now affix the initials "JP" - Jerusalem Pilgrim - at the end of their names after their return, in a practice akin to Muslims adding "al Haj" to their names after making a pilgrimage to Mecca."