October 20, 2005

Milken JCC Thrives With Dollars, Sense

Leave a Comment / Community / Jane Ulman

In recent years, one of the biggest Jewish stories in Los Angeles has been the death of the Jewish Community Centers. For decades they’d served the broader community as well as Jews, often providing a gateway for nonobservant Jews into Jewish life and culture.

But center after center closed — maybe their time was past, maybe the cause was gross mismanagement by the parent organization or maybe some combination of the two. Whatever the case, an era was coming to an end; a resource was shutting down.

Or not.

At least not in West Hills, where the scene that greets you at the New JCC at Milken is anything but sad. It tells a different story: that funding, commitment and leadership can keep such community centers thriving.

On weekdays, 150 children attend the preschool, in classes for 2-year-olds through kindergartners. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, 80 to 100 seniors suit up for aerobic and fitness programs. And on Monday and Thursday nights, up to nine teams of men, ages 20s through 50s, play in basketball leagues.

In fact, the JCC at Milken has just published its first program guide in more than 10 years, listing more than 35 pages of classes and activities — for infants to nonagenarians — ranging from educational to recreational, cultural to therapeutic.

Programs vary from Postnatal Mommy and Me Baby Yoga to Teen Late Night Out to World Literature for seniors. In addition, the JCC houses the Latin American Jewish Association, a new swim school run by Olympic champion Lenny Krayzelburg and the Los Angeles headquarters of the JCC Maccabi Games.

“Over 1,000 people a day pass through this building,” said Jack Mayer, executive director of the JCC at Milken, which shares the 100,000-square-foot facility, open most days from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., with The Jewish Federation/Valley Alliance, various social service agencies and the Finegood Art Gallery.

Nor is all this bustle taking place in a make-do or use-worn facility. The $15 million Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus, in its verdant residential setting, was finished in 1987 and then completely refurbished in 1995 after the Northridge earthquake. It’s spacious, comfortable and well maintained. And the $4.5 million Ferne Milken Youth & Sports Complex, dedicated in December 1999, added a 12,000-square-foot gymnasium, an Olympic-sized pool and a fitness center.

The center’s civic prominence and vitality got a public affirmation last month when the new Public Affairs Committee hosted a standing-room-only crowd of more than 400 to hear a talk by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

So what made the difference at the New JCC at Milken? Much of the answer is money. It was here that The Jewish Federation decided to invest in a JCC and also here that a center managed an early escape from the control of the foundering parent organization, the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles (JCCGLA).

Others haven’t fared as well. The Bay Cities and North Valley properties were sold off by the parent organization to help pay staggering debts. Conejo Valley shut down. Silver Lake became independent but needed to partner with Los Angeles’ Episcopalian Diocese to purchase its property from the parent organization. Valley Cities is trying to nail down a deal to buy its land.

The Westside JCC, located south of the Fairfax District, is perhaps the most financially viable of the other JCCs. It got an infusion of $115,000 from Olympic medalist Krayzelburg, for refurbishing the pool and hosting his swim school. Westside also is aiming to raise $14 million for crucial renovations.

The New JCC at Milken avoided a terminal financial bind because of its unique history. The West Valley Jewish Community Center, as it was originally known, was founded in the early to mid-1970s. It bought and moved to its current site, a former horse ranch consisting of a cottage and a converted garage on four and a half acres, in 1976. Then, in a complicated deal, the JCC parent organization deeded the property to The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which purchased an adjoining acre and a half and raised the $15 million needed to build the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus. Because the JCC parent organization didn’t control the land, it never had the power to sell off the land when it succumbed to financial tailspin, as happened with most of the other JCCs.

Moreover, from the beginning, The Federation has solidly supported the West Valley JCC, renamed the New JCC at Milken in October 2003 when it declared its full independence from the parent organization. The Federation’s rent subsidies amount to about $900,000 annually. Additionally, The Federation has provided cash allotments, about $375,000 this year.

Another factor is that this JCC, unlike others in Los Angeles, has been able to attract a large donor, the Milken Family Foundation, which contributed one-third of the original $15 million. The Foundation also donated $2.25 million of the $4.5 million needed to build the Youth and Sports Complex.

The Milken JCC is full service. It has “the three revenue-producing businesses of a Jewish community center — preschool, camp, and physical education and recreation,” said Allan Finkelstein, president of the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America.

The JCC caters to working and single parents with preschool hours that extend from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. and an after-school program that picks up about 65 students from 18 schools in the Los Angeles Unified and Las Virgenes Unified School Districts.

In the summer it sponsors Camp Yeladim, which was the fullest ever this year with 225 kids in grades kindergarten through sixth, plus 30 middle school-aged counselors-in-training. Another 65 youngsters participated in the new theater arts camp.

Fred Grafman, 82, joined the fitness center four years ago when his doctor ordered him to do “pool walking” and now comes four times a week. “The bottom line is that it’s a good place for older Jewish people,” he said.

The Federation named Jack Mayer executive director when the center became independent of the parent organization. Before that, since 1984, Mayer served as head of the Valley Alliance, except for a five-year stint at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion from 1990 to 1994.

“Jack’s office door is always open, and you can talk to him,” preschool parent Sigal Ratoviz said.

Mayer has harnessed creative and administrative talents for his board and staff, and also gets people to write checks. Still, despite its growth — from about 900 membership units or 2,700 people when it became independent to almost 1,450 membership units or over 4,000 people today — the New JCC at Milken still operates at a deficit.

“We don’t turn away anybody, no matter what their financial situation is,” Mayer said. “It’s a point of pride here.”

The JCC distributes almost $150,000 annually in full or partial scholarships to 30 percent of the preschoolers and after-school students, to 20 percent of the campers and to 15 percent of the seniors, who already benefit from reduced membership fees.

This year the JCC needs to raise an additional $300,000. A Debbie Friedman concert, celebrating the center’s second anniversary, took place on Oct. 9 at the Thousand Oaks Civic Auditorium, drawing a crowd of 1,400 and raising $30,000. And a Monte Carlo Night is scheduled for spring, in addition to other fundraising activities.

Mayer’s goals are to increase membership and visibility and provide new programming, including meaningful events such as Villaraigosa’s appearance. Mayer wants to continue to serve the estimated 240,000 Jews in the San Fernando Valley and some 40,000 in Conejo Valley — including immigrants and unaffiliated Jews, children and teenagers, seniors and singles.

He also believes that a Jewish Community Center’s mandate is to benefit the entire community, and thus he plans to feature more public figures and sponsor events that focus on poverty, education and housing. He sees the Milken JCC serving as a broad educational and cultural forum that is neither geographically nor ethnically limited.

“We’re working hard on a daily basis here to build a quality program,” Mayer said. “We’re struggling successfully.”

Milken JCC Thrives With Dollars, Sense Read More »

Nostra Aetate:

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Michael Berenbaum

When Pope John XXIII convened Vatican Council II, he initiated the process that led to Nostra Aetate, which 40 years ago this year essentially dropped the charge that Jews were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. Nostra Aetate accorded fundamental respect to Judaism, not only as the mother religion of Christianity, but also as an ongoing religious faith.

Perhaps more important than doctrinal shifts that occurred at the Vatican Council were the changes in church liturgy, so that Good Friday readings eliminated the mention of “perfidious Jews,” and scriptural readings were adjusted so as not to reinforce anti-Semitism and endow it with biblical and church sanctions.

Before these changes, it was theologically impossible for Catholicism to co-exist serenely with Judaism. There was, of course, the accusation that Jews were “Christ killers,” but also the notion of supercessionism, namely that Christianity had come to fulfill Judaism and replace Judaism — and that Jews should recognize this, convert and disappear. A religion that has no raison d’ etre commands no respect. And to say that a tradition has no future is to invite someone to make it so.

Finally, the teaching of contempt, that segment of Christian teaching that was not only anti-Jewish but deeply anti-Semitic, was deliberately muted in the aftermath of Vatican II. A redirected Catholic theology built on alternate traditions took center stage, de-emphasizing the problematic teachings.

The church didn’t stop there; it also employed the tools of religion to promulgate these altered directions.

Through new scholarship and exegesis, through bringing front and center traditions that had previously been ignored or underrepresented — such as Jesus the Jew — Roman Catholic teaching was transformed and renewed and a new sense of mission achieved.

This did not happen by accident. Pope John XIII met with the Jewish scholar of anti-Semitism, Jules Isaac. The pope understood the nature of this important research and thus, the scope of the problem presented by church teaching and tradition.

Representing the Jews in negotiations with the Vatican was Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, who entered the Vatican as the spiritual and intellectual equal of the men he encountered, representing and embodying the mother tradition. Heschel was so deeply learned that he understood church teachings, not just his own.

Heschel’s leadership took courage. Rabbi Joseph Dov Baer Soloveitchik, the great spiritual leader of Orthodox Jewry, publicly opposed the dialogue between the Catholic Church and Jews, although he was kept informed of every stage of negotiations. History has not proven his distrust — expressed so forcefully in “Confrontations,” an article published in Tradition — correct, and two of his distinguished disciples have tried to refashion these teachings.

Change did not happen in isolation. The teaching toward the Jews was one part of Nostra Aetate, which indeed charted the Roman Catholic Church’s acceptance of the reality of Christian pluralism, its embrace of ecumenicism.

It was a response to modernity and to the ethics of interreligious civility that was facilitated by the church’s role in the modern world. In fact, it was the adoption by the Roman Catholic Church of the norms of mutual acceptance that were common to the American religious experience. And the changes were later institutionalized in prayer and liturgy, in teaching and catechism.

A generation ago, they were revolutionary, now they are routine. Many devout Catholics and their priests do not remember a time before this acceptance of Jews and Judaism was the church teaching. Even in 1984, less than 20 years after Nostra Aetate, my students at Georgetown had never heard of the accusation of Jews as “Christ killers,” despite its persistence for some 2,000 years.

Let’s be candid. Nostra Aetate was, in large measure, an act of repentance in the post-Holocaust church. The change in Roman Catholic teaching is a pristine example of Jewish theologian Emil Fackenheim’s axiom that where there is recognition of the Holocaust as rupture and mending takes place, newfound strength is to be found.

The church’s theological evolution is also a paradigmatic illustration of the paradox that in the Holocaust, the innocent feel guilty and the guilty innocent. Archbishop Angelo Roncalli, who became Pope John XXIII, had behaved admirably during the war, when as apostolic delegate to Istanbul he worked with the Yishuv leadership to save Jews. He appealed to the Bulgarian king not to deport Jews, and after the war, possibly against the Vatican’s orders, he had Jewish children who had been baptized returned to their parents and/or the Jewish community.

Perhaps the only reason Yad Vashem does not honor him as a “Righteous Among the Nations of the Earth” is that he operated in neutral Turkey. So his life was never at risk, which is an essential criterion for the designation.

Undoubtedly, the changes in the church would have been much more radical had John XXIII lived longer to follow through with the reforms of Vatican II. More conservative church leaders, including his successor, Pope Paul VI, restrained the changes he championed. Pope John XXIII died well before the Vatican was ready to accord diplomatic recognition to Israel.

Enter Pope John Paul II, who had made the battle against Christian anti-Semitism a significant focus of his papacy. Pope John XXIII had once paused to greet Jewish worshippers on a Shabbat eve, treating them with dignity and respect in a then-unprecedented gesture by the bishop of Rome and the heir to St. Peter. Pope John Paul II went further; he entered the synagogue and prayed with the congregation.

When John Paul visited Jerusalem, he paid a courtesy call on the chief rabbis. The haredi dayanim (ultra-Orthodox religious court judges) were surprised — and in the words of one reporter, “overwhelmed” — by their own ecumenical feelings. He came to visit, not to convert. He came for a conversation, not a polemical confrontation as Jewish memory had led the rabbis to expect.

Something had changed. The church had been changed by the acts of the past 40 years.

Under John Paul’s leadership, the Vatican granted diplomatic recognition to the State of Israel and exchanged ambassadors. In 2000, the pope visited Israel, arriving at its international airport, meeting with the president and prime minister, according them the very same honor he would accord the leaders of other faiths and nations.

The pope then took the unprecedented step of praying at the Western Wall, inserting — as pious Jews insert their prayers — a prayer of apology in the Wall. No American president has yet stood at the Wall.

At Yad Vashem he said: “I assure the Jewish people that the Catholic Church, motivated by the Gospel law of truth and love and by no political considerations, is deeply saddened by the hatred, acts of persecution and displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews by Christians at any time and in any place. The church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being.”

His words were carefully chosen — the anti-Semitism acts were directed against Jews by Christians not by Christianity.

Were his statements all that could have been said or that should have been said?

Of course not.

Were they significant?

Absolutely.

“The church rejects racism in any form as a denial of the image of the Creator inherent in every human being.”

Surely these words were 60 years too late — at least. But surely they must be accorded respect and welcomed.

Was Pope John Paul II merciful toward the failures of his church by what was not said? Was he elliptical in the acceptance of responsibility by speaking of Christians and not Christianity?

Of course!

But the gesture was definitive and must be recognized. And the deed may speak louder than his words. The perfect cannot be the enemy of the good.

Clearly, there is a struggle going on between factions within the church over how to come to terms with modernity and pluralism, and how to speak of failure and sins, when there is a papal tradition of infallibility. The documents of the church, such as “We Remember,” reflect that struggle. They are the work of committees and demonstrate factional divisions, which is why organized Catholicism in France and the United States, for example, can move far more quickly than the Vatican.

Long after people have forgotten carefully crafted sentences that hedge on the question of responsibility, they will remember that the church is committed to remembering the Shoah and that Christianity rejects anti-Semitism.

Of course, there are still problems outstanding in Jewish-Roman Catholic relations. But when the history of the last third of the 20th century is written, the mending in Catholic-Jewish relations and the unprecedented civility, harmony and mutual respect between these two ancient faiths will be one of its significant — and most honorable — achievements.

It is a model for interreligious relations in the 21st century. It is an act of true repentance that ought to be recognized.

Nostra Aetate showed us that religion has tools and resources — such as commentary — for its own transformation. Commentary has enabled the leadership of a religious faith to take the sting out of religious teaching by its transformation, even while concealing the innovation within. All religions, especially Judaism, employ commentary. Otherwise we would still be taking out an eye for an eye.

The most significant religious issue in our world today is: How does one believe absolutely — fundamentally — in the integrity of one’s own faith while accepting the legitimacy of other traditions?

One way is to build on alternate traditions within one’s own religion, ones that emphasize co-existence.

The Roman Catholic Church did not abandon its teaching, but it built upon contemporary scholarship relating to the historical Jesus. It built on traditions that were ignored or underrepresented.

Anyone who has worked on the Bible knows that there is a much greater emphasis today on Jesus as the Jew, and on what first and second century Christianity and Judaism share in common.

We should give the Roman Catholic Church enormous credit for what has been done. It is a model of how religions must deal with one another if we are to survive.

Michael Berenbaum is adjunct professor of theology at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles and director of the Sigi Ziering Institute, whose mission is to explore the ethical and religious implications of the Holocaust.

Nostra Aetate: Read More »

A Timeline: Friends in Deed

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Jane Ulman

1955 — American Jewish Committee (AJC), in conjunction with Loyola University president, the Rev. Charles S. Casassa, S.J., starts Summer Human Relations Workshop.

1965 — Nostra Aetate becomes policy of Roman Catholic Church, opening the door to better relations between Catholics and Jews.

First year of Dialogues Unlimited is established by Casassa and Dr. Neil Sandberg to discuss interreligious issues. Thousands participate over five-year period.

1970 — Founding of Interreligious Council of Southern California

1972 — Summer Human Relations Workshop becomes the Martin Gang Institute for Intergroup Relations Training, named for attorney Martin Gang, who helped finance the program, and sponsored by Loyola University in partnership with the AJC.

1973 — Creation of Priest-Rabbi Committee sponsored by the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs.

1975 — Catholic-Jewish Respect Life Committee is created by the AJC, Archdiocese of Los Angeles and Board of Rabbis of Southern California. Statements are published on, among other topics, “Abortion and Related Issues” and “The Nuclear Reality.”

1977 — First Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference, with about 50 Jewish women and 50 Roman Catholic nuns, meets for full day at Camp Hess Kramer in Malibu.

The Priest-Rabbi Committee issues “Lenten Pastoral Reflections,” which states, in part, “We cannot make the mistake of blaming the whole Jewish people (of 33 C.E. or of today) for Jesus’ death.”

1978 — Catholic lay women join the Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference, which holds annual conference every Nov. 11.

1982 — Project Discovery started by Monsignor Royale Vadakin and Rabbi Alfred Wolf, who hosted Passover seders at Wilshire Boulevard Temple for Catholic students.

1983 — Vadakin and Wolf begin Jewish Intern Program, sending Jewish graduate students into Catholic high schools.

1989 — Vadakin and Wolf publish “A Journey of Discovery: A Resource Manual for Catholic-Jewish Dialogue.”

1992 — AJC’s Catholic/Jewish Educational Enrichment Program begins sending Rabbi Michael Perelmuter to Catholic high schools and Catholic educator Dr. Michael Kerze to Milken Community High School.

2000 — Pope John Paul II visits Western Wall in Israel and inserts note asking forgiveness

Approximately 300 rabbis sign Dabru Emet (speak the truth), which asserts, “We believe it is time for Jews to learn about the efforts of Christians to honor Judaism.”

2003 — Holy Land Democracy Project is created by The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles in partnership with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Jewish Community Foundation. Provides Catholic educators with training about and a trip to Israel.

The Anti-Defamation League’s Bearing Witness Institute, presented in cooperation with archdiocese, gives Catholic school educators tools to teach about anti-Semitism, the Holocaust and bigotry.

2005 — Pope Benedict XVI, on his first trip outside Rome as pope in August, speaks at a synagogue in Cologne, Germany.

Los Angeles Catholic and Jewish leaders host 40th anniversary celebration of Nostra Aetate at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels on Sept. 22.

A Timeline: Friends in Deed Read More »

What Happened When Jews Stopped Being Jesus’ Killers

Leave a Comment / Judaism, United States, Worldwide / Jane Ulman

The Rev. Robert J. McNamara plans to do something this Friday evening that would have been unthinkable in the first 2,000 years of the Catholic Church: He’s going to a synagogue.

More unthinkable, he’s going to be delivering the Shabbat sermon.

Indeed, until fairly recently, the Catholic Church forbade priests to step foot into synagogues, even under the highly unlikely circumstances that they had been invited. After all, according to the church’s official stance, Jews were infidels who rejected and killed Christ and who needed to be converted in order to be saved from eternal damnation.

But this Friday evening, along with 100 or so parishioners from St. Bernadine of Siena Catholic Church, McNamara will share the bima with Rabbi Stewart Vogel at Temple Aliyah in Woodland Hills. And he will very likely receive a standing ovation from the Jewish congregants.

Why? What changed?

What happened was something called Nostra Aetate, perhaps the most important document issued by Vatican Council II in Rome, and essentially the church’s first positive statement about Judaism since the Christian Bible began to be codified nearly 2,000 years ago.

Nostra Aetate (in our time), the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions, was promulgated by Pope Paul VI on Oct. 28, 1965. Radically reversing the church’s previous position, it states, “The Catholic Church rejects nothing that is true and holy in these religions,” referring to Judaism, as well as Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.

The landmark document’s fourth section pertains particularly to Jews, accepting that Jews also live in covenant with God. It states, ” … this sacred council remembers the spiritual ties which link the people of the new covenant with the stock of Abraham.”

Nostra Aetate removes the charge of deicide, absolving all Jews, past and present, of killing Jesus. It also clearly “deplores all hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism directed against the Jews at any time or from any source.”

And perhaps most ground-breaking, it advocates previously forbidden dialogue, declaring, “Since Christians and Jews have such a common spiritual heritage, this sacred council wishes to encourage and further mutual understanding and appreciation. This can be obtained, especially, by way of biblical and theological inquiry and through friendly discussions.”

Nostra Aetate, according Cardinal Roger Mahony, archbishop of Los Angeles, is “a short document but one whose implications and repercussions are enormous.” And perhaps nowhere is this truer than Los Angeles, home of the largest U.S. archdiocese, with almost 5 million Catholics and the second-largest U.S. Jewish population of about 550,000.

Here the 40th anniversary was publicly celebrated on Sept. 22 before a gathering of about 350 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, in an event jointly organized by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

But Catholic-Jewish relations in this city have not always been so cordial.

While Nostra Aetate received an overwhelming 2,221 votes to 88 by the bishops in Rome in 1965, it received a far less favorable reception in Los Angeles by Cardinal James Francis McIntyre, known for his archconservative views and opposition to Vatican II reforms.

McIntyre, who earned a reputation as a prolific “builder of schools,” was known to greatly admire Jewish real estate developers. He claimed, in fact, that every time a Jewish developer completed a large project, he would build a church or parochial school nearby.

He was less enthusiastic, however, about building interfaith relations.

Still, as far back as 1955, without McIntyre’s endorsement and even before Nostra Aetate’s arrival, the AJC, in conjunction with Loyola University president, the Rev. Charles S. Casassa, S.J., started the Summer Human Relations Workshop. The classes, comprised priests, nuns and seminarians, with a smattering of Jews, Protestants and nonbelievers, dealt with discrimination issues.

Casassa was assisted, beginning in 1958, by Dr. Neil Sandberg, who moved to Los Angeles as AJC’s western regional director and helped expand interfaith programs.

But when Sandberg suggested increasing these Catholic-Jewish outreach efforts, McIntyre responded, “We have dialogue; I talk to Edgar all the time,” referring to his close friendship with the late Rabbi Edgar Magnin of Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

But the groundwork had been laid by Nostra Aetate, by Casassa and Sandberg and, indirectly, by a situation at Carver Junior High School, where representatives of several faiths came together to defuse racial unrest in 1969.

Less than four years after the Watts Riots, with relations between the school’s Black Student Union and the United Mexican-American Students tense and with threats from the area superintendent to expel the black students, a small group of clergy was called in.

That was the first meeting of Monsignor Royale Vadakin, then associate pastor of All Souls Church in Alhambra, and Rabbi Alfred Wolf of Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

That effort triggered the founding of the Interreligious Council of Southern California in 1970, as well as a life-long friendship between Vadakin and Wolf that transformed the Catholic-Jewish landscape of Southern California.

Vadakin and Wolf became so close that Wolf’s grandson, confused at age 5 when hearing that Vadakin was Catholic, mused, “I thought Father Vadakin and papa were brothers.”

Together, they created the Priest-Rabbi Committee, sponsored by the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and the archdiocese’s Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, a new position offered to Vadakin in 1971.

One of the Priest-Rabbi Committee’s early concerns dealt with several Christian Bible passages read during Lent and Holy Week that fostered anti-Semitic sentiments. One such passage was the Palm Sunday reading of the Passion according to St. Matthew, where the people cry out, “Crucify him” (Matthew 27:22) and, “Let his blood be on us and on our children” (Matthew 27:25).

The response was Lenten Pastoral Reflections, the committee’s first formal statement, issued in 1977, which offered suggestions for handling such highly charged material. “We cannot make the mistake of blaming the whole Jewish people (of 33 C.E. or of today) for Jesus’ death,” the statement advised.

Vadakin and Wolf also tackled controversial subjects in the Catholic-Jewish Respect Life Committee, which they formed in 1975 in conjunction with AJC and which included priests, rabbis and lay people from both communities. Their first topic was abortion. Many Jewish groups have long been associated with maintaining the legality of abortions, which the church opposes. Despite disagreement on this matter, discussions remained respectful.

“Was I destined to do this [interfaith work]?” Vadakin asked. “I don’t know.”

His childhood recollections include any number of positive experiences with Jews. His father worked for Sears, Roebuck and Co., and the whole family looked on Sears President Julius Rosenwald as a great hero for instituting a profit-sharing plan. Plus, living in Pacific Palisades, Jews and Catholics — who were equally disliked and discriminated against by the Methodist majority — tended to band together.

More surprising, perhaps, is the devotion to interreligious work by Wolf, who grew up in Nazi Germany. A rabbinic student in 1935, he was saved when Hebrew Union College brought him and four other students to the Cincinnati campus

“In some ways, you’d think he wouldn’t have wanted to engage in Catholic-Jewish dialogue,” said Vadakin, now vicar general of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, “but he had just a very basic belief in the goodness of the human heart.”

And, in fact, Wolf’s son, Dan, believes his father, who died in 2004, reached out even more because of his early experiences in Germany and in Dothan, Ala., home of his first pulpit. There, blacks, Jews and Catholics were discriminated against by the Baptist majority, but Wolf, according to his son, was “determined to reform the South.” Dan Wolf said, “He saw firsthand what happens if groups don’t relate to each other.”

Today, Jews and Catholics in the United States, for the most part, do relate well to one another. And while most, outside of clergy and academics, are not familiar with the actual Nostra Aetate document and its significance, they recognize and appreciate a changed environment.

They saw Pope John Paul II, on his visit to Israel in 2000, inserting a note asking forgiveness in the Western Wall and conversing with Holocaust survivors at Yad Vashem. And Benedict XVI, on his first trip outside Rome as pope in August, spoke at a synagogue in Cologne, Germany.

Closer to home, contemporary works by 14 Jewish and Christian artists depicting Passover and Easter themes were displayed together last spring at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in an exhibition titled, “Passion/Passover: Artists of Faith Interpret Their Holy Days.”

And there are many educational programs.

Wolf and Vadakin’s Jewish Intern Program, taken over by the AJC and renamed the Catholic/Jewish Educational Enrichment Program, sends Rabbi Michael Perelmuter into classes of ninth- through 12th-grade students at 17 archdiocesan high schools.

On the Jewish side, also since 1992, Catholic educator Dr. Michael Kerze has been visiting 12th-grade Jewish studies classes at Milken Community High School in Los Angeles, comparing such Catholic and Jewish concepts as repentance and covenant. He also teaches a class at Milken Middle School in which, Kerze said, students move beyond asking questions about Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny to questions about the virgin birth and the Trinity.

Many Catholic leaders believe that Christians need to study the Torah and Judaism to better understand their own religion. But not all Jewish educators believe the reverse is true, because American Jews live in a culture permeated by Christianity.

That’s not the view, however, of Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, AJC western regional director, who pointed out that society typically offers a kind of “watered-down” Christianity. “The more we learn about other religions, the more we learn about our own,” he said.

Still, difficulties and even irreconcilable differences are inevitably going to arise between Catholics and Jews, given their conflicting concepts of covenant and the Messiah, of sin and redemption. And people on both sides are leery of proselytizing, some fearing that contact could lead to a departure from the tenets of their faith or even to conversion.

Many Jews have a deep distrust of non-Jews and fear even walking into a church. Middie Giesberg, for example, a devoted member of the Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference since 1978, remembers growing up in a heavily Irish Catholic neighborhood in Portland, Maine, and being scared to death just walking past a large Catholic church every day on her way to school.

And for the Orthodox community, Jewish-Catholic relations are generally not on the radar.

“It’s not that it’s not important, but when the Orthodox community does look outward, it has generally been in search of support for Israel, and that’s not the Catholic community, generally speaking,” said Yosef Kanefsky, rabbi of B’nai Judea Congregation in Los Angeles and president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

The limits of religious rapprochement were evident in the reaction to Mel Gibson’s film, “The Passion of the Christ.” Many Jewish leaders criticized the film as blaming Jews for the crucifixion of Christ. Many Christians, including Pope John Paul II, characterized the film as an accurate rendition of events as described in the Bible. Pope John Paul II said, “It is as it was.”

The film “was clearly a ripple and a setback, but it’s not going to impede our progress or our work together,” said Rabbi Mark Diamond, executive vice president of the Board of Rabbis of Southern California.

And AJC’s Greenebaum believes that the reaction to the film actually speaks to the success of Nostra Aetate. “Passion plays throughout history have been great causes of pogroms and violence against Jews,” he said, noting that Gibson’s film did not provoke such a response.

Years earlier, in fact, a notable segment of the Jewish community thought a meaningful acknowledgement was long overdue. Dabru Emet, a response to Nostra Aetate and subsequent Christian statements, was issued in September 2000 and signed by 300 Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbis.

“We believe it is time for Jews to learn about the efforts of Christians to honor Judaism,” reads the text of Dabru Emet [speak the truth]. “We believe it is time for Jews to reflect on what Judaism may now say about Christianity.” It presents eight statements on how Jews and Christians might relate to one another.

And Catholic and Jewish leaders recognize solid reasons for engaging in this work.

“Too often people look to each other in moments of crisis. It’s so much more important to establish positive relations before the crises hit,” said Temple Aliyah’s Vogel.

“We can study and learn each other’s traditions and beliefs and better understand our own,” Greenebaum added.

But there’s more work to be done.

Both Catholic and Jewish leaders would like to see more education, including more serious study of texts.

“I think that the average Jewish person knows precious little about Nostra Aetate and Catholic doctrine, about what unites us and what divides us,” Diamond said.

Some Catholics would like to see Jewish students learn more about Catholicism. “What I’d like to see, to be honest with you, is a little bit more reciprocity here,” said the Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith, the Los Angeles Archdiocese’s director of ecumenical and interreligious affairs.

Some religious leaders would also like to see more parish-synagogue partnerships.

Historically Wilshire Boulevard Temple developed ties with neighboring St. Basil Catholic Church and University Synagogue with St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church in Brentwood. But only Temple Aliyah and St. Bernadine of Siena appear to have an active exchange, dating back about seven years to a joint scripture study initiated by Sister Malua Conheady and Rabbi Tsafreer Lev.

Catholic and Jewish leaders would also like to see more joint community involvement.

“Look at the needs of our city. We both have charitable organizations. Why do we continually have to work as individual entities instead of pooling our resources to help people?” Smith said.

But that sort of challenge is a far cry from a Catholicism that for centuries made theological war on Judaism and sometimes actual war on Jews.

“We are both heirs to Abraham’s challenge, ‘vehyai bracha’ or ‘become a blessing,'” said Rabbi Michael Signer, professor of Jewish thought and culture at the University of Notre Dame. “As John Paul II said to us, first we need to become a blessing to one another. And then to the world. That’s the challenge that 40 years of Nostra Aetate lays before us.”

Nostra Aetate Events

Oct. 21 — “Two Faiths, One Community.” The Rev. Robert McNamara speaks at 8:15 p.m. at Temple Aliyah’s Shabbat service at 6025 Valley Circle Blvd., Woodland Hills.

Oct. 28 — “40th Anniversary of Nostra Aetate.” Rabbi Mark Diamond and the Rt. Rev. Alexei Smith speak at University Synagogue’s Shabbat service, 7:30 p.m., 11960 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles.

Nov. 3 — The Anti-Defamation League’s third annual “Bearing Witness Dinner,” 6:30-8 p.m. at Sephardic Temple Tifereth Israel, 10500 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. For information, call Jacquelyn Louk, (310) 446-8000, ext. 232.

Nov. 3 — “Nostra Aetate Today,” a lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Seitz Shewmon, 7:30-9:30 p.m., University of Judaism, 1500 Mulholland Drive, Bel Air. For information go to www.uj.edu or call (310) 440-1246.

Nov. 11 — “All About Eve: Saint or Sinner?” at the Catholic-Jewish Women’s Conference, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., St. Bernadine of Siena Church, 24410 Calvert St., Woodland Hills. For information, call Barbara Durand (805) 497-1370 or Tova Dershowitz, (310) 474-4883.

Nov. 12 — Vatican II: Nostra Aetate and Interreligous Dialogue, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Loyola Marymount University Extension, 1 LMU Drive, Los Angeles. For information, go to www.lmu.edu or call (310) 338-2700

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German Jews Praise Merkel

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / Toby Axelrod, JTA

As Germany stands on the brink of a new political era — about to have its first woman and first former East German as chancellor — Jews are peering over the horizon with cautious optimism.

Seven years of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder turned out to be rather good for the Jews. But Angela Merkel isn’t exactly an unknown quantity either.

When it comes to relations with Israel and with Germany’s Jewish community, a Merkel administration isn’t likely to bring much change, observers say. And transatlantic relations, another issue of import to the Jewish community, are likely to improve.

In coming weeks, Merkel’s Christian Democrat Union and Schroeder’s party, the Social Democratic Union, will craft their coalition.

“There’s no ‘getting to know you,’ no breaking-in period needed,” Rabbi Israel Singer, chairman of the World Jewish Congress and president of the Claims Conference, said of Merkel in a telephone interview. “We know her commitments.”

Merkel has “demonstrated considerable interest in a positive and dynamic relationship with the Jewish world,” Deidre Berger, head of the American Jewish Committee office in Berlin, who also has met frequently with the CDU leader, said in an e-mail interview.

Merkel was born in 1954 to a Lutheran pastor and a teacher. She studied physics and worked as a chemist before becoming involved in politics after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. She became a political protégé of former Chancellor Helmut Kohl, and has headed the CDU since 2000.

A proponent of economic and social reform, Merkel wants to make Germany more competitive by allowing longer workweeks and removing barriers to firing employees.

She is a strong advocate of transatlantic relations, and even supported the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq at a time when the view was most unpopular in Germany.

For German Jews, the top items on the domestic agenda are integration of Jews from the former Soviet Union, funding for cash-strapped Jewish communities, support for Jewish education and training of rabbis, security and efforts to combat anti-Semitism. Internationally, the issues are close ties with Israel and the United States.

Under Schroeder, Jewish communal life took a great leap forward with the signing of a historic contract in 2003 between the Central Council and the German government that placed the Jewish community on a legal par with the Protestant and Catholic churches.

“I look to Mrs. Merkel for at least as much understanding” as the past administration showed, Rabbi Singer said.

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Israeli Wins Nobel for Game Theory

Budget Crisis Stirs Organizations’ Fears

Leave a Comment / Worldwide / James Besser

The stakes for Jewish groups in the Capitol Hill budget crisis are increasing by the day as lawmakers and the administration try to figure out where to find hundreds of billions of dollars for Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans, without exploding an already huge federal deficit.

“Every year, they take a little more, and we have to do more with less,” said an official with one Jewish group. “The question isn’t whether there will be disruptive cuts this year; it’s how big and how disruptive the cuts will be, and how long we can go on, trying to pare back services.”

In recent weeks, congressional conservatives, rebelling against what they say is the Bush administration’s deficit disregard, have upped the ante in a budget “reconciliation” push that will preoccupy legislators for the next few weeks.

Republican leaders, who this summer called for $35 billion in cuts to “mandatory” programs such as Medicaid and food stamps, have added another $15 billion in cuts to their demands in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. They are also calling for a 2 percent cut in appropriated spending, which covers everything from education to law enforcement. At the same time, they are continuing to insist on up to $70 billion in additional tax cuts, which they say are needed to spur the economy.

However, Democrats say new tax cuts will just increase the deficit and add to the pressure for cuts that could devastate critical health and social service programs.

In the wake of the Gulf Coast disaster, “this is the worst possible time to cut the safety net for people at the bottom, while cutting more taxes for people at the top, and at the same time adding at least $20 billion more to the deficit,” said Thomas Kahn, Democratic staff director for the House Budget Committee.

A number of religious and social action groups agree. Recently, the Coalition on Human Needs, citing the images of desperate poverty on the streets of New Orleans, distributed a letter calling on Congress to “not just delay such service cuts and tax cuts — it must abandon them.”

Several Jewish groups, including the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the anti-hunger nonprofit Mazon and the National Council of Jewish Women, signed on.

The new budget pressure is coming mostly from the Republican Study Conference, a faction that has gained influence since the departure of Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) as majority Leader. GOP discipline has broken down, congressional sources say, and the conference, which represents the most conservative members of the House, has gained power — with potentially big consequences for the budget.

“The right is under rebellion on both the deficit and the Miers nomination,” said Marshall Wittmann, a senior fellow with the Democratic Leadership Council, referring to the fierce reaction from some conservatives to the recent nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. “They feel they’ve been ignored and abused by both the leadership and the White House; these proposed cuts are part of that new dynamic of pressure from the right.”

Jewish leaders say privately that the pressure is all the greater because Democrats — critical of the tax cuts and the growing deficit, but unwilling to cut defense spending or propose tax hikes — haven’t come up with viable alternatives.

The most Draconian cuts are unlikely this year, Wittmann said, because of resistance from Senate moderates and an outcry from governors — Democratic and Republican — about big, new Medicaid cuts. However, he warned that the budget crisis is real and getting worse.

“This is just the first act,” he said. “For Jewish groups, there should be caution and anxiety, but no panic.”

Jews Divided on Security Aid

One appropriation supported by some Jewish groups, but a source of anxiety to others, has cleared Congress.

Just before fall recess, lawmakers finished work on a Homeland Security appropriations bill that includes renewal of a $25 million fund to help vulnerable nonprofit organizations enhance security in the face of terrorist threats. That includes Jewish schools, community centers and synagogues, which is why the Orthodox Union and the United Jewish Communities worked hard for the groundbreaking appropriation last year.

However, other Jewish groups, including the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), argue that the measure sets a dangerous precedent for giving taxpayer money to sectarian institutions. They also say the relatively small amount — the $25 million covers all vulnerable nonprofits, not just religious institutions — doesn’t justify the constitutional risk or the risk houses of worship will become involved in political squabbles over funding.

This year’s appropriation was changed somewhat. Now, money will be allocated by the Department of Homeland Security, not state and local officials. That came after concerns that politics played a role in the distribution of some of the money last year.

The Orthodox Union praised the congressional action, saying in a statement that “the American Jewish community deeply appreciates Congress’ recognition of the current security challenges confronting our community’s institutions, including synagogues and schools, alongside other nonprofits.”

Nathan Diament, the group’s Washington director, thanked key sponsors, including Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.), Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) and Rep. Eric Cantor (R-Va.).

Pat Robertson “Helps” Miers

Conservatives are deserting President Bush on his nomination of White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, but at least one leader of the Christian right is standing tall: the Rev. Pat Robertson, the television evangelist and former Republican presidential hopeful.

However, some of Robertson’s recent comments — like his suggestion this summer that the United States should assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his comments suggesting Hurricane Katrina was divine retribution for abortion — may cause the beleaguered president even more trouble.

Last week, Robertson, speaking on his popular “700 Club” television program, punctuated his strong support for Miers with a historical comparison. In warning Republicans not to reject Miers, he noted that many GOP lawmakers had voted for Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg in 1993.

Robertson referred to Ginsberg’s former role as general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union and said that “now they’re going to turn against a Christian who is a conservative picked by a conservative president and they’re going to vote against her for confirmation? Not on your sweet life if they want to stay in office.”

Robertson did not mention the fact that Ginsberg is Jewish, but some Jewish leaders saw ominous hints of an inappropriate religious test in his comments — especially since other supporters of the Miers nomination have been touting her evangelical Christianity in trying to put down the rebellion from some conservative quarters.

Abraham Foxman, national ADL director, warned against using religious identification and faith as a talking point in the confirmation debate.

“I think we’re crossing lines all over the place,” he said. “Now, religion comes up in all kinds of skirmishes. It’s dangerous; it bodes ill for a basic idea of the social contract that has worked so well for this country: advancement by merit, not faith.”

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Paper: Israel, Vatican Close to Deal

Israel and the Vatican reportedly are close to an agreement on church properties in the Holy Land. The Times of London reported last week that the sides were readying the agreement in time for a visit by Israeli President Moshe Katsav to the Vatican next month. The Times reported that Israel will hand over control of the reputed room of Jesus’ last supper, in a building on Mount Zion in Jerusalem. In return, a historic synagogue in Toledo, Spain, which became a church after the Inquisition, will be returned to Jewish use, the newspaper said.

Groups Collect for Earthquake Relief

U.S. Jewish groups are collecting donations for victims of the earthquake that struck Pakistan, India and Afghanistan. At least 30,000 people died as a result of last week’s earthquake. Donations through the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee should be made payable to JDC: Pakistan Earthquake Relief and can be made to the group at Box 321, 847A Second Ave., New York, N.Y., 10017. Donations through the American Jewish World Service can be made by sending checks to the group at 45 W. 36 St., New York, N.Y. 10018, or online at www.ajws.org.

General Attacked at Western Wall

Worshippers at Jerusalem’s Western Wall attacked a top Israeli army official who helped carry out the recent Gaza withdrawal. Maj. Gen. Elazar Stern, head of the army’s manpower branch, was assaulted last week when he came in civilian dress to pray at the wall with his family. Worshippers surrounded Stern, yelling insults and trying to prevent him from reaching the wall. Police officers surrounded Stern as worshippers began throwing stones and other objects at him, Ha’aretz reported. Stern was not hurt. Police detained one suspect.

Bush Extends PLO Office

President Bush extended a waiver that allows the PLO office in Washington to remain open. Bush extended the waiver last week for six months, saying it was “important to the national security interests of the United States.” The Palestinian Liberation Organization is banned from operating in the United States under a 1987 anti-terrorism statute, but successive presidents have waived the provision since the early 1990s.

Colorado Inmate to Get Kosher Meals

A Jewish prisoner in Colorado, whose kosher meals were revoked for a year as punishment for a minor offense, had his rights restored this week. The move came after the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit on Timothy Sheline’s behalf Oct. 11. The lawsuit charged Department of Corrections officials in Colorado Springs with violating Sheline’s First Amendment rights, as well as federal statutes protecting prisoners’ religious practices, for taking away his kosher meals after a guard caught him pocketing two packages of butter and salad dressing from his food tray.

Analysts: Nuclear Iran Inevitable?

The West may have to live with a nuclear Iran, according to researchers affiliated with the Pentagon.

“The costs of rollback [of Iran’s nuclear weapons program] may be higher than the costs of deterring and containing a nuclear Iran,” said the report by Judith Yaphe and Col. Charles Lutes, fellows at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, a Pentagon policy analysis arm.

The study was released last week and reported in The New York Times. The study noted that Israel considers Iran “a clear and present danger” but warned that an Israeli or U.S. strike on Iran could reinforce the country’s ruling radical Islamists, and spark counterattacks.

Rome Mayor Leads Auschwitz Trip

Rome’s mayor escorted high school students on an educational trip to Auschwitz. It was the third straight year that Walter Veltroni led the trip. Several Italian Shoah survivors also took part and recounted their experiences. Veltroni told reporters that he hoped to make class trips to Auschwitz an official part of the curriculum for Rome high schools.

Interfaith Dialogue Earns Honor

The Vatican this week is honoring a member of the Polish Bishops Conference for dialogue with the Jews. Stefan Wilkanowicz, a member of the Bishops Conference and former editor-in-chief of the Polish monthly, Znak, will receive the Oswiecim Award for the Defense of Human Rights. Also honored will be Vaclav Maly, a Czech Catholic bishop and former anti-communist dissident. Pope Benedict XVI will present the awards personally. The award is given by the Oswiecim Center for Human Rights and was created by Pope John Paul II when he visited the former concentration camp at Auschwitz, known in Polish as Oswiecim, in 1979.

Bnei Menashe Converted

Israeli rabbis formally converted a community of Indians who say they are descended from Jews. Some 200 members of the Bnei Menashe underwent conversion last week under six rabbinical judges dispatched to India by the Shavei Israel organization. The conversions were performed with the approval of Israel’s chief Sephardi rabbi, Shlomo Amar. Last March, Amar recognized the Bnei Menashe, who claim descent from the lost Israelite tribe of Manasseh, as “descendants of Israel” and agreed to restore them to the Jewish people. According to Shavei Israel, more than 800 Bnei Menashe have immigrated to the Jewish state.

Moscow Gets Jewish School

A new Jewish educational complex was dedicated this month in Moscow. The 6,000-square-foot building will house a Jewish day school for 300 children and is believed to be the first Jewish school building constructed in Russia since the 1917 Russian Revolution. The multimillion-dollar complex is a project of the Federation of Jewish Communities, a Chabad-led group and Russia’s largest Jewish organization. The building is adjacent to the Marina Roscha JCC, the federation’s prime facility in Moscow. In addition to the Ohr Avner Chabad Day School, the building will house after-school programs for Moscow Jewish youth who aren’t enrolled in Jewish schools.

Briefs courtesy Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

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