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Ruth E. Gruber

Ruth E. Gruber

Will Successor Tread Pope’s Jewish Path?

Much of John Paul\’s teachings about the Jews have been promulgated as church doctrine, and thus, technically are official church policy. But even before John Paul II died, there were indications that his policies had not been accepted unanimously among church leaders — or that they had trickled down to the world\’s 1.1 billion Catholics.

Pope’s Jewish Legacy

Though a staunch conservative on most Catholic issues, Pope John Paul II made bettering Jewish-Catholic relations a centerpiece of his policy and took revolutionary strides toward this goal during his more than 26-year reign.

Milestones in Pope’s Relations With Jews

During his papacy, Pope John Paul II repeatedly condemned anti-Semitism and met frequently with Jewish religious and lay leaders. He also took certain steps that Jews criticized. Following are some of the milestones in his relations with Jews and Israel:

Heading Toward Normal in Bosnia

Jakob Finci, longtime leader of the Bosnian Jewish community, took a swallow of local draft beer and gestured at the mellow crowd enjoying dinner in an upscale new restaurant not far from the city\’s synagogue.

Church Honors Gibson ‘Inspiration’

Mel Gibson\’s \”muse\” is on the path to sainthood. Pope John Paul II this week beatified Anna Katharina Emmerick, a 19th-century German nun whose mystic visions inspired Gibson\’s gory depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus in \”The Passion of the Christ.\”

Italy Jewish History Richer Than Gelato

Twenty years ago, an Italian television channel hired Annie Sacerdoti, a Jewish writer and editor in Milan, to produce a documentary about Jewish history in Italy\’s northern Lombardy region.

At the time, Sacerdoti had long been an active member of the 10,000-strong Jewish community in Milan, the Lombard capital.

But what she found while researching the program changed her sense of identity as an Italian Jew and in many ways changed her life. In small provincial towns around the region, she found Jewish cemeteries abandoned to the elements and deserted synagogues standing empty or used as carpenter shops or other places of business.

Commemorating the Warsaw Uprising

On April 19, 1943, heavily armed Nazi troops penetrated into the Warsaw Ghetto with a grim goal: the liquidation of the ghetto and the deportation of the last remnants of Warsaw\’s Jews — some 40,000 men, women and children.

History Comes Alive

Italian scholar Francesco Spagnolo is keenly aware of the long-standing Jewish presence in Italy.

\”Never before the creation of the State of Israel did Jews of so many varied origins live together, and in such a stimulating, if at times threatening, environment as in the land they called in Hebrew \’I-Tal-Yah,\’\” he says.

\”I-Tal-Yah\” — Island of Divine Dew in Hebrew — means Italy in Italian, a land where Jews have lived for more than 2,000 years and which has seen layer after layer of immigration from all over the Jewish Diaspora.

Klezmer in Krakow

Henryk Halkowski flops down in an armchair in the Klezmer Hois restaurant and orders a bowl of chicken soup with kreplach.

When in Rome

The election of Dr. Riccardo Di Segni as the new chief rabbi of Rome opens the latest chapter in the tumultuous life of a Jewish community that traces its history back to the days of the Maccabees.

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