Rabbi lobbied cardinal before Vatican II

National Catholic Reporter, Sept 21, 2007 by Chuck Colbert

Pope Benedict XVI's recent visit to the Holocaust memorial in Vienna's Judenplatz was another reminder that the relationship between Catholics and Jews has taken spectacular steps forward in the 40 years since the Vatican II document Nostra Aerate began a revolution of ideas within the worldwide Christian community.

Earlier this year, a two-day centenary observance was held at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass., to celebrate the life of rabbi, theologian and author Abraham Joshua Heschel, who died in 1972. Heschel, a human rights and antiwar activist, was instrumental in bringing the relationship between Christians and Jews to the church's attention. He reportedly lobbied his friend Cardinal Augustin Bea before the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council for improved relations between Catholics and Jews.

According to American Judaism: A History by Brandeis professor Jonathan D. Sama, Heschel had his first discussion of the issue with Bea in Rome in 1961.

Heschel eventually proposed to Bea that the Second Vatican Council focus on three things:

* "Reject and condemn those who assert that the Jews as a people are responsible for the crucifixion";

* "Acknowledge the integrity of and permanent preciousness of Jews and Judaism," rather than seeing Jews as potential converts to Christianity;

* "Eliminate abuses and derogatory stereotypes."

In the end, Heshchel reportedly was disappointed that the charge of "deicide" previously leveled against the Jews was not specifically renounced.

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The 1965 adoption of the fiercely debated Nostra Aerate, or "Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions," in fact marked a significant turning point in Catholicism, resulting in better understanding and improved relations among faiths, particularly Catholicism and Judaism.

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, author and editor of the periodical First Things, said in a telephone interview that Heschel "theologically legitimated Christian/Jewish dialogue, a historic contribution."

Moreover, Brandeis professor and conference organizer Edward Kaplan, a Heschel biographer, said "He was convinced of the sincerity of Cardinal Bea's commitment to a just view of Judaism."

At the Brandeis conference in March, Sushannah Heschel said that her father thought Catholics better understood Heschel's view of "depth theology," his view that "fear and trembling" and "humility and contrition," provided the best common ground for people of different faiths to meet. There, Heschel wrote in" No Religion is an Island," a seminal essay, "our individual moments of faith are mere waves in the endless ocean of mankind's reaching out for God."

[Chuck Colbert is a freelance writer living in Cambridge, Mass.]