Columbus Day / Who was the first Jew in the New World?
Apparently not Christopher Columbus, despite the rumors; but one person on that voyage to the New World was Jewish. He was also the world’s first western smoker.
By Elon Gilad | Oct. 5, 2014 | 12:18 PM

A statue of Christopher Columbus stands at Plaza Colon in Madrid, Spain (Bloomberg)

A replica of the Santa Maria (which has to be moved in order to renovate the riverfront), Columbus, Ohio (Aug. 13, 2014) Photo by AP

On August 3, 1492, just three days after the deadline given to Spain’s large and vibrant Jewish community to convert to Christianity or leave the country for ever, three ships – the Niña, Pinta, and Santa Maria – set sail from the port in Palos de la Frontera West.

They were heading for the rich spice markets in Asia. We all know where they wound up.

Much has been written about the supposed “concealed” Jewish identity of Christopher Columbus, leader of the voyage. But while the theory is plausible, it cannot be proved, and is based on rather strained circumstantial evidence.Yet one person on the voyage had unarguably been a Jew, though he converted shortly before setting out to the deep blue sea.

Luis de Torres was apparently born Yosef ben HaLevi HaIvri. He was the voyage’s interpreter. Columbus hired de Torres, who spoke Portuguese, Hebrew, Arabic, and Aramaic, believing that he could converse with the Jews they would find in the court of the Chinese emperor and with the merchants in the markets of the Orient.

After a brief pit stop in the Canary Islands, the voyage pressed westward. They reached a small island in what is known today as the Bahamas (or the Turks and Caicos), though which island exactly remains disputed. In any case they made shore on October 12, and Columbus claimed the island for Spain, naming it San Salvador.

Shortly after, the voyage continued in search of the mainland, though they didn’t actually reach it on this voyage. Instead they landed on the shore of Cuba on October 28.

A replica of the Santa Maria, Madeira. Photo by: Ben Salter, Wikimedia
Contact with the natives

A few days later, on November 2, Columbus sent a two-man expedition inland to scout the island and make contact with the native inhabitants. The two men were de Torres and the sailor Rodrigo de Jerez.

They found a village of native Americans, who received them amicably and with great honors. When they returned four days later they reported smoking tobacco, thereby becoming the first westerners to partake in this vice.

The car manufacturing mogul and confirmed anti-Semite Henry Ford had this to say about the incident in “The International Jew”: “Luis de Torres was the first man ashore, the first to discover the use of tobacco; he settled in Cuba and may be said to be the father of Jewish control of tobacco business as it exists today.”

Harvesting tobacco in Kentucky and no, it isn’t a ‘Jewish industry’. Photo by: Bloomberg
The fleet set sail back to Spain on January 15but de Torres and 38 other sailors stayed behind in Cuba, in a settlement that Columbus called La Navidad. De Torres was not however to become a tobacco magnate as Ford implies.

When Columbus returned on November 27, 1493, he found the village destroyed and its inhabitants, including de Torres, all dead. De Torres’ widow Catalina Sánchez received a grant to compensate her for her loss over a decade later. The only synagogue in the Bahamas, established in Freeport in 1972 was named after de Torres, the first Jew in the New World.

Post-humous portrait of Christopher Columbus, by Sebastiano del Piombo, 1519. Photo by: Wikimedia Commons
Thus the life of the first “American Jew” was short and ended abruptly and violently, but over the following decades many Jews would follow in de Torres’ footsteps. The first were Spanish and Portuguese “Marranos,” recent converts, who took the colonization of the Americas as an opportunity to escape the persecution of the Spanish Inquisition – though Inquisition tribunals were set up in the New World by the 1570s.

A group of Marrano Jews fleeing persecution in Brazil in 1654 settled in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, soon to become New York. These were the first Jews in North America. That very year they founded Congregation Shearith Israel, currently on the Upper West Side.

A few years later, in 1658, a group of Sephardic Jews settled in Newport, Rhode Island, founding the Jeshuat Israel congregation. In 1763 this congregation inaugurated the Touro Synagogue, the oldest synagogue still standing in the United States. By 1700, Jews were living in many of the colonies of North America, and synagogues were springing up in every major city. But the Jewish community remained small until the second half of the 19th century, when a mass migration from the Russian Empire brought hundreds of thousands of Jews to America’s shores.

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-features/.premium-1.619195 el domingo, 5 de oct de 2014.

The misadventures of a secular Jew on Yom Kippur
A new take on Judaism’s holiest holiday: ‘The Day of Atonement confronted me with the possibility of a terrifying fate. Was my name in the Book of Life?’
By Tal Abbady | Oct. 4, 2014 | 12:04 PM

Illustration of the Book of Life
Photo by Doron Flamm

The prevailing religion in my family’s home played on an endless loop of BBC broadcasts on my father’s short-wave radio. Israel and all news related to its progress – this was our creed. On the grown-ups’ bookshelf, a few Jewish liturgical texts moldered next to the latest books by Bellow, Uris, Updike and Morrison, not to mention “Valley of the Dolls” and “The Joy of Sex.” But we did have a running, Oxford-accented news commentary that filled the halls of our Venezuelan quinta with words like “Kiryat Shmona massacre,” “Arab League,” and “Operation Entebbe” uttered with such gravitas that the broadcasters – I imagined them as robed university dons – put small children in a mild trance.

Once a year, however, our peripheral religion broke through with its terrifying motif of a different kind of book. I sat up and listened. My parents greeted Rosh Hashanah with a quick nod of honey-dipped apples. But for Jews “lite,” Yom Kippur, with its 25-hour fast and repentance panic, was the real test to see if you could keep a foot in your tradition.

Every year, my father took us to services at the Conservative synagogue of Caracas, where I understood little except that the Book of Life was about to be sealed. As soon as Rosh Hashanah had come around, I’d been quietly alarmed by the sweetly exchanged wishes, among our Jewish friends and teachers, that we all survive the year to come. For a literal-minded kid who prayed in the privacy of my shag-carpet bedroom (open expressions of devotion were greeted with gentle eye-rolls at home), the words “May you be inscribed in the Book of Life” sounded dreadfully like all bets were off.

Despite assurances to the contrary from my two most-trusted non-believers, my parents, I couldn’t be sure that my name had been inscribed. Above the comfort zone of my family’s Israeli allegiances and foodie Judaism – the gefilte fish, latkes and matzo balls – hung the radical possibility of a recalibrated fate. Was my name in the Book, and what if it wasn’t?

I didn’t think too anthropomorphically about the God I prayed to, but I sensed he was basically a Jerusalemite from Rehavia, versed in all the languages of my home: English, Hebrew, of course, and Spanish. And every year he cracked open his books and drew up a list of the un-inscribed, which seemed to be filled with plenty of Catholics along with Jews (and Arabs, if you listened closely to the BBC dons and their bad news about attacks and counterattacks involving Israel). Could you be especially good between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur and be granted another year of life? And if you fell short, how would the end come? “Who by earthquake and who by drowning? Who by strangling and who by stoning?” the liturgy asks. Fire, water, sword, beast, hunger, thirst? Bleak choices all around.

For us, being good Jews meant being decent people: You shared your toys with your sister, you showed your children you loved them and you mingled well with your Catholic neighbors. If you were my father, you dug up your kippah and fasted for that one day. In turn, the goyim followed the same general mandates (minus the fast) and everyone would be okay.

But this was clearly not enough, even for those of us who were neither righteous nor wicked, but somewhere in between. As far as I could tell, that was most of us, including a child like myself who daily terrorized the family cats and stole imported candy from the children of diplomats during school lunch at the Escuela Campo Alegre in Caracas.

Gunfire and Syrians

One year, a good friend of my father, whose children often played at our house, didn’t make into the Book of Life. It was October of 1973. My father and his friend joined a handful of Israelis in Venezuela – former army officers working in the country’s oil economy and business sector. They traveled to Israel and volunteered their services in the Yom Kippur War.

I myself was getting to know Israel, from yearly visits, as a place of playgrounds and stray cats, where small children ran unsupervised on ethereal streets, among sand-colored buildings. Men who’d left, like my father and his friend, went back at a moment’s notice to protect it.

After 40 days, my father returned home. His friend didn’t. I don’t remember those weeks – only that my father’s pipe-scented den was strangely empty. In the years that followed, I’d often hear him tell the story of his friend Yoram’s death in halting words. There was gunfire. There were Syrian enemies. There was a low wall in the battlefield that didn’t protect Yoram, and (my conclusion back then) there was a fickle, impulsive God writing and crossing out names for kicks.

Growing up, a parallel world of dead people formed in my imagination. Those God had obviously rubbed out during the High Holy Days with his grim decrees showed up within the year.

When I was old enough to absorb my father’s stories about Yoram, I imagined him there, on an open terrace where those for whom the scales had tipped toward death could find refuge, and something like my mother’s orange-liqueur cake. In this place, beyond scrolls and ledgers, Yoram was several men at once – the soldier with impossible wounds lying in a field, the friend drinking coffee with my father in our Avenida Gloria house, and the father still watching over his children who’d since moved to Israel.

Other un-inscribed folks arrived over the years: my maternal grandmother with her sad sunglasses and tins of hand cream; my father’s cousin Rafi, from whom he’d been inseparable as a child in Jerusalem; our handyman, Alfonso, who tinkered our Zenith TV back to life every week and was fond of his motorcycle; and Kenneth, the brother of a classmate who sailed on his skateboard into a gate on the grounds of our school.

Every year on Yom Kippur, my otherwise non-observant father lay wilted in bed, all prayer focused on the chicken my mother was roasting for dinner after the closing service. Helping her prepare this Jewish meal was the influential housekeeper we loved and shared our home with – a Galician who kept a bleeding Christ framed on her bedroom wall.

Later, when the ledgers were shut, the judgment passed and the shofar’s painful wheeze signaled to the ill-humored adults at services that it was finally time to eat again, this was the only image I could conjure up back home: my own multidenominational pantheon of those who hadn’t made the right list, a private affront to the Days of Awe.

Israel-happy vulgarians

When I was older and living in New York, I fit in with that much maligned Jewish group – the Israel-happy vulgarians in America who should be taught their own religion. I was, as per the latest Pew labels, a Jewish “none,” an advocate for the writers and artists who defined modern American Jewish life (as much as Brooklyn’s Hasidim did). This was everyone from Philip Roth and Susan Sontag to Jerry Seinfeld.

I still had my open pantheon and talked to my dead, as I suspect many of us do, in defiance of the rabbinical, here-and-now sobriety my religion offered. Soon enough, I dropped even the little pretense of tradition that I’d had. One year I observed Yom Kippur; one year I didn’t. “But you need to show your Christian bosses that you have a religion too,” an Upper West Side boyfriend insisted.

One year I ate lightly; another year I fasted on the wrong day. One year at my parents’ New York apartment, I simply announced that I was going into work. My mother, who was undergoing chemotherapy, gave me an amused smile. “Show some solidarity with your people,” my father rebuked. This was years before I’d learn that I had two Catholic-raised half-sisters in Ecuador, where my father had traveled on business since my youth.

I’d long known the Book of Life was a metaphor rabbis used to exhort personal change. But I still bristled at the idea of arbitrary exclusions, which a city like New York was full of (especially if you couldn’t pay the steep synagogue-membership dues).

For me, the most poignant part of the High Holy Days story – the lousy state of suspension in which all in-between souls hung for 10 days – was close to the truth of the life I knew of dragged-out breakups, family illness and estrangement, small acts of redemption and forgiveness, and obscenely unrealistic goals for the future.

In this way, the message of Yom Kippur as I understood it gave me a gift: the idea of flux and fundamental uncertainty. Introspection and regret meshed with renewal and love. You wished for everyone to be scripted into another year of life, including yourself. And, like Zionist leader Berl Katznelson, who was happy with his “confused, uneasy soul” in a world of “reversals, torments and hopes” – you just put up with not knowing.

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/high-holy-days-2014/high-holy-day-news-and-features/1.618612 el sábado, 4 de octubre de 2014.

Fears of friction as Yom Kippur and Id al-Adha coincide
For Jews, it will be a day of abstention and repentance, while for Muslims, it will be a day of prayer and festivities, topped off with food and revelry.
By Judy Maltz | Oct. 2, 2014 | 9:29 AM | 1

Religious and community leaders at the tolerance meeting in Lod on Wednesday. Photo by Motti Milrod

LOD – Once every 33 years, the holiest day of the Jewish year coincides with one of Islam’s most important festivals. As Jews worldwide mark the fast of Yom Kippur starting sundown on Friday, Muslims will begin celebrating the first day of Id al-Adha, the four-day Feast of the Sacrifice

For Jews, it will be a day of abstention and repentance. For Muslims, it will be a day of prayer and festivities, topped off with food and revelry. With interfaith tensions already running high in Israel, this particular mix could be a recipe for disaster, many fear.

With that very much in mind, hundreds of Jews and Muslims crammed into a municipal auditorium here Wednesday for an unusual sort of gathering. Its declared purpose was heading off conflict based on misunderstanding.

Among the distinguished panel on stage were both the Ashkenazi and Sephardi chief rabbis, the president of the Islamic Sharia Court, ultra-Orthodox Jewish Knesset members alongside their Arab colleagues, the head Islamic judge of Jaffa and representatives of the municipality of Lod, one of a handful of mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel. In the audience, filling up every last seat, were hundreds of Jewish and Arab school children, among them Muslim girls with hijabs and Jewish boys with yarmulkes.

The gathering, organized in less than 36 hours, was a joint initiative of MK Merav Michaeli (Labor) and The Abraham Fund Initiatives, a non-profit that promotes Jewish-Arab coexistence. The message to the Jews was that barbeques and fireworks on Id al-Adha are not meant to be a provocation but simply the way Muslims celebrate this holiday. The message to the Muslims was that wild partying within sound and sight of Jews observing their most solemn of days could be perceived as a provocation. The message to both Jews and Muslims was exercise restraint and demonstrate respect and tolerance.

“Our main objective was to raise awareness of the potential for friction because there is a real danger here,” said Amnon Be’eri-Sulitzeanu, co-director of The Abraham Fund Initiatives. “But also we wanted to give religious and political leaders an opportunity to make statements to the public so that it doesn’t get sucked in by calls for incitement. I believe our message is seeping through, but Saturday will be the real test.”

Yair Revivo, the mayor of Lod, called the event “historic, both for our city and our country.” Representatives of the municipality handed out flyers, written on one side in Hebrew and the other side in Arabic, explaining the significance of Yom Kippur and Id al-Adha and the customs observed on each holiday. These flyers, said the mayor, would be distributed in all of the city’s synagogues and mosques over the weekend.

In the spirit of the gathering, Revivo said that the municipality would break with the longstanding tradition of ordering all shops closed on Yom Kippur and allow businesses in Arab neighborhoods to remain open so that Muslims could purchase food and other necessities for their holiday. Special arrangements would also be made, he said, to allow them to drive their cars without disturbing Jewish neighborhoods.

Michaeli, known as an outspoken feminist, said that only because the cause was so dear to her heart had she agreed to sit on an otherwise all-male panel. “There are so many forces trying to divide and pit Jews and Muslims against one another,” she said. “It’s easy for them because they’re up there and they don’t pay the price. But we cannot let others to use us in their wars.”

Dawoud Zini, president of the Sharia court in Israel, recounted that six years ago on Yom Kippur, riots broke out in his hometown of Acre, another mixed Jewish-Arab city, when an Arab accidentally drove his car into a Jewish neighborhood. “I made the trip down here today to make sure that this scenario doesn’t repeat itself, God forbid,” he said.

MK Ibrahim Tzartzur (United Arab List) urged the schoolchildren in the audience to pass on the message of respect and tolerance to their peers, noting that “this gathering demonstrates that religion is a unifying, rather than a polarizing, force.”

Three weeks ago, The Abraham Fund Initiatives launched a campaign to raise awareness of the potential for conflict resulting from the convergence of the two religious holidays on the same day in order that pre-emptive measures could be taken. Its representatives met with the mayors, as well as community organizers and police officials in the country’s mixed Jewish-Arab cities. They also undertook a major advertising campaign in both the Hebrew- and Arabic-language press.

“This is what happens when there aren’t any government mechanisms for creating a healthy shared society – especially around potential clash points,” said Anton Goodman, the international director of development at the organization. “We’ve basically stepped into the role of government and are filling this void.”

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/.premium-1.618720 el jueves, 2 de octubre de 2014.

The obscure origins of Yom Kippur
It is the holiest day in Judaism, yet its intent has markedly changed and its practice today is a far cry from the rites of ancient times.
By Elon Gilad | Sep. 30, 2014 | 10:47 AM

Orthodox Jews take part in a Tashlikh prayer, a Jewish New Year ritual, at Ashdod beach

A woman walks past Orthodox Jews taking part in a Tashlikh prayer, a Jewish New Year ritual, at Ashdod beach, Sept. 25, 2014. Photo by Ilan Assayag

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is by far the most widely observed of Jewish holidays and fast days.

It is a solemn day. The synagogues are packed with men and, usually in a separate section, women – often dressed in white, all praying that their sins be forgiven. Many of the worshipers wear Crocs, as leather shoes are not permitted.

Outside, children on bicycles race down the streets that in Israel at least, for this one holiest day of the year, are vacated by cars. Nothing but the odd ambulance or police car moves (except in mixed and Arab towns).

Yom Kippur in Israel is a special day indeed, but it is a far cry from the Day of Atonement of old.

Just when Yom Kippur began has been hotly debated by academics for over a century. The main question is whether it happened during the First Temple period. The evidence seems to indicate that it did not exist then.

Writing just after the First Temple was destroyed by the Babylonians, Ezekiel seems unaware of Yom Kippur. It is not on his list of holidays to be observed when the Temple would be rebuilt.

A rare relic from the First Temple period (found in the City of David, referring to Bethlehem). Photo by: Clara Amit, IAA
Neither does Zecharia seem to have any notion of it when he instructed the Jews returning from captivity on observation of fast days. When Ezra reads the Torah to the returning Jews on the first of Tishrei, they learned that they need to prepare for Sukkot, but Yom Kippur is not mentioned. This is only proof of omission, but it’s all we have.

Thus, it seems that the three biblical mentions of the Day of Atonement (Numbers 29:7-11, Leviticus 16:1-34, and Leviticus 23:26-32) were inserted by priests during the Second Temple period to validate new rites added to purify the Temple in advance of the most important holiday in the Jewish calendar at the time, Sukkot.

The priests of the Jerusalem Temple who inaugurated Yom Kippur seem to have had the 12-day Babylonian festival marking the new year, Akitu, in mind, particularly the fifth day of Akitu, which has some striking similarities to Yom Kippur that are unlikely to be coincidence.

That fifth day involved a purification ceremony called kuppuru, which involved dragging a dead ram through the temple, supposedly purifying it of impurities. Kuppuru and its Hebrew cognate kippur meant “to uncover” or specifically in this case “to remove impurity,” which means a better translation of Yom Kippur to English would be “Day of Purification.”

Preoccupation with sin

The purification of the Temple using an animal carcass was not the only similarity between Yom Kippur and the fifth day of Akitu. The two both share an occupation with sin, though they deal with it in a different way.

While in Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur is the only day the high priest enters the Holy of Holies, in the Babylonian tradition, the fifth day of Akitu was the only day the king enters the sanctuary of the god Marduk, accompanied by the high priest. Facing the statue of Marduk, the king would intone: “I have not sinned, O Lord of the universe, and I have not neglected your heavenly might.”

In the Jerusalem Temple on the other hand, no statement of good behavior was made. On the contrary, the high priest confessed to all the sins of the Jews in the presence of God, in a strange and ancient ceremony: “And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions, even all their sins; and he shall put them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of an appointed man into the wilderness.” (Leviticus 16:21)

The original scapegoat

The Temple priests, the Zadokites, saw themselves as descended from Aaron and backdated their legal prescriptions to him.

The practice of transferring the disfavor of a deity to an animal that is then removed from the community, what we call a “scapegoat” based on the biblical passage above, was common in the ancient Near East. It was probably practiced by at least some of the Hebrews from time immemorial long before incorporation into Yom Kippur ritual.

Slichot prayers at the Western Wall, ahead of Yom Kippur 2012. Photo by Michal Fattal
The earliest known reference to the practice was found in Ebla (in what is today war-torn Syria), in 1975, at a site archaeologists called “Palace G.” Among the texts found there dating from 2,400 to 2,300 BCE were two descriptions of a scapegoat ceremony, which are very similar to those found in the Jewish tradition. One reads: “We purge the mausoleum. Before the entry of Kura and Barama, a goat, a silver bracelet [hanging from the] goat’s neck, towards the steppe of Alini we let her go.”

An obscure origin for the fast

The biblical accounts of the Yom Kippur ceremonies are laconic. It is hard to know what exactly was done on that day. Even the act of fasting is not explicitly mentioned, just the phrase “ye shall afflict your souls,” which elsewhere in the Bible usually refers to fasting.

That is the only source for the most widely-practiced Yom Kippur tradition.

Thus to get a clearer view of what Yom Kippur was like in the Second Temple period we can only rely on the Mishnah, which was redacted over a century after the destruction of the Temple in 220 CE. Specifically, we should look in tractate Yoma, literally “The Day,” dedicated to Yom Kippur.

The Mishnah description – the first seven of eight Yoma chapters – is almost entirely about rites at the temple itself, nearly all officiated by the high priest himself. Only the eighth and final chapter deals with what everyone else is supposed to do on this holy day. Here is a summary of ancient Yom Kippur rites according to these chapters.

The High Priest’s rites

A week before Yom Kippur, the high priest would leave home and move into the Palhedrin Chamber in the Temple compound, where he would spend the week studying and practicing the rites he was to perform. On the night before Yom Kippur, he would stay up all night studying Torah, lest he sleep and have a “nightly emission” which would render him unclean and thus unfit to perform the ceremonies, dooming all of Israel.

In the morning, the high priest would immerse in a mikveh and adorn special golden clothes. He would then proceed to offer the normal daily sacrifice (the Tamid): A lamb doused with oil wine and flour would be burned on an altar. On all other days this would have been performed by a lower-ranking priest.

After the sacrifice, the priest would remove his golden garments, wash his hands and feet in a mikveh twice and don a set of special linen garments. He was now ready for the next stage.

Purifying blood

A bull bought with his own money would be brought in and the high priest would rest his hands on its head and confess his and his family’s sins before God, pronouncing his name, the Tetragrammaton.

Upon hearing God’s name, which in all other contexts was prohibited, the crowd would prostrate themselves. Then the high priest would kill the poor beast and its blood would be collected in a bowl for further use.

From the altar, the high priest would go to the Nikanor Gate in the eastern side of the temple, to which two goats had been led by priests. Pulling lots out of a box, the goats were randomly assigned to God and to Azazel, a slight corruption of the name of a wilderness demon. The one assigned to Azazel would be marked with a red string tied to its horns.

The next step was the trickiest. The high priest would carry glowing hot embers in a special shovel held using his armpit while his hands were full of incense. He would enter alone into the Holy of Holies, which was a large empty room only entered by the high priest and only on Yom Kippur, and place the shovel, embers and incense in its middle. He would wait for the room to fill with the aromatic smoke, then leave.

Once outside, he was handed the reserved bowl of bull’s blood and would enter again, this time flicking blood all over the room with his finger. He would leave the Holy of Holies and place the bowl with the remaining blood on a special stand at the entrance.

At this point the high priest would return to the Nikanor Gate, place his hands on the goat assigned to God and made a confession on behalf of the priestly class, once again pronouncing God’s holy name, at which point once again the crowd would prostrate themselves. Then he would kill the goat and its blood would be drained into a bowl.

This bowl of blood would be borne by the high priest to the Holy of Holies, where once again he would enter alone, sprinkle blood with his finger, exit and place the bowl on another stand.

Sanhedrin members preparing two sheep for sacrifice (2007). Photo by: Tomer Appelbaum
Standing between the two bowls of blood, the high priest would sprinkle their contents with his finger on the curtain obscuring the Holy of Hollies.

Next came purification of the golden incense altar. The high priest would pour the remaining goat blood into the bowl of bull blood. He would carry the blood mixture to the incense altar, and smear it with blood, then sprinkle some more.

This done, the high priest would return to the Nikanor Gate, place his hands on the head of the surviving goat and, pressing down, would confess the sins of all the People of Israel, once again pronouncing God’s name. During this, people in the crowd would make their own private confessions.

Sacrificing the scapegoat

Then the goat would be led into the wilderness by a specially appointed man, usually a priest, accompanied by the city’s dignitaries. Along the way they would stop at ten booths where food and drink were offered to the man, who would ritually decline.

At the tenth booth, the man and the goat would continue alone until reaching the top of a cliff in the Judean Hills. He would turn his back to the cliff, hoist the goat over his head and throw it down to its death.

While this was taking place, the high priest would disembowel the bodies of the bull and the goat. Once he was done the goat and bull would be taken to the Beit HaDeshen. Upon confirmation that the second goat was dead, the bull and goat carcasses would be burnt to ashes as the high priest exited the Nikanor Gate and entered the Women’s Courtyard, where he read the biblical passages describing the Yom Kippur sacrifices and rites.

After finished with this the high priest would make another wardrobe change, wash twice in a mikveh and put on another set of golden clothes. Once ready, he would go to the outer altar, where he would slaughter two rams and collect their blood into bowls, which he used to pour on the altar. Then he would disembowel the rams. Once this task was complete he would burn them on the altar, adding grain and wine.

Next up was the Musaf sacrifice, in which in a succession of animals were killed and burned: A bull, a deer, seven sheep, and yet another goat. Then the bowels of the bull and the goat from earlier in the day were burnt to ashes. After this, another ritual washing and change of clothes took place, and this time linen clothes were donned.

Now the high priest would return to the Holy of Holies and remove the shovel, embers, and incense. Then once again he would wash and change, into another set of golden clothes. Once dressed, he would sacrifice a lamb doused in flour and wine as a Tamid offering.

By this time it would be early afternoon and the day’s work was over. The dignitaries would retire to the high priest’s home, where they would celebrate with a feast.

As regards to everyone else, the Mishah says that people must abstain from food and drink, from anointing themselves with oil, wearing sandals, and sex. The young and infirm may eat and drink, it qualifies.

Elsewhere the Mishnah provides more detail what the people may do and may not: for example, if a person is buried by a landslide, one should check to see if he’s alive so he can be rescued. If he isn’t, the body must stay there until the next day.

Yoma ends with a discussion on whether all transgressions are remitted on Yom Kippur. It says that those transgressions carried out against other person’s are not, while those against God are. This is the origin of the tradition of asking your fellow man for forgiveness on the days leading up to Yom Kippur.

Naturally, once the Temple was destroyed by Titus in 70 CE, the main function of Yom Kippur, purifying the Temple in preparation for Sukkot, could not continue. Instead a new form of Yom Kippur formed over the centuries, centered on acknowledgement of wrongs, atonement – and praying for forgiveness in synagogues.

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/high-holy-days-2014/high-holy-day-news-and-features/.premium-1.618194 el martes, 30 de sept. de 2014.

«NOSOTROS RECORDAMOS:
UNA REFLEXIÓN SOBRE AL SHOAH»

I. La tragedia de la «Shoah» y el deber de la memoria

Se está concluyendo rápidamente el siglo XX y ya despunta la aurora de un nuevo milenio cristiano. El bimilenario del nacimiento de Jesucristo impulsa a todos los cristianos, e invita en realidad a todo hombre y a toda mujer, a tratar de descubrir en el devenir de la historia los signos de la divina Providencia que actúa en ella, así como los modos en los que la imagen del Creador en el hombre ha sido ofendida y desfigurada.

Esta reflexión atañe a uno de los sectores principales en que los católicos pueden tomar seriamente en consideración la exhortación que dirigió Juan Pablo II en la carta apostólica Tertio millennio adveniente: «Es justo que, mientras el segundo milenio del cristianismo llega a su fin, la Iglesia asuma con una conciencia más viva el pecado de sus hijos, recordando todas las circunstancias en las que, a lo largo de la historia, se han alejado del espíritu de Cristo y de su Evangelio, ofreciendo al mundo, en vez del testimonio de una vida inspirada en los valores de la fe, el espectáculo de modos de pensar y actuar que eran verdaderas formas de antitestimonio y de escándalo»[1].

Este siglo ha sido testigo de una tragedia inefable, que nunca se podrá olvidar: el intento del régimen nazi de exterminar al pueblo judío, con el consiguiente asesinato de millones de judíos. Hombres y mujeres, ancianos y jóvenes, niños e infantes, sólo por su origen judío, fueron perseguidos y deportados. Algunos fueron asesinados inmediatamente; otros fueron humillados, maltratados, torturados y privados completamente de su dignidad humana y, finalmente, asesinados. Poquísimos de los que fueron internados en los campos de concentración pudieron sobrevivir, y los que lo lograron han quedado aterrorizados para el resto de su vida. Esa fue la Shoah: uno de los principales dramas de la historia de este siglo, un drama que nos afecta todavía hoy.

Frente a ese terrible genocidio, que los responsables de las naciones y las mismas comunidades judías encontraron difícil de creer cuando era cruelmente perpetrado, nadie puede quedar indiferente, y mucho menos la Iglesia, por sus vínculos tan estrechos de parentesco espiritual con el pueblo judío y por su recuerdo de las injusticias del pasado. La relación de la Iglesia con el pueblo judío es diferente de la que mantiene con cualquier otra religión[2]. Sin embargo, no se trata sólo de volver al pasado. El futuro común de judíos y cristianos exige que recordemos, porque «no hay futuro sin memoria»[3]. La historia misma es memoria futuri.

Al dirigir esta reflexión a nuestros hermanos y hermanas de la Iglesia católica esparcidos por el mundo, pedimos a todos los cristianos que se unan a nosotros para reflexionar en la catástrofe que se abatió sobre el pueblo judío, y en el imperativo moral de asegurar que nunca más el egoísmo y el odio puedan crecer hasta el punto de sembrar tal sufrimiento y muerte[4]. Especialmente, pedimos a nuestros amigos judíos, «cuyo terrible destino se ha convertido en símbolo de las aberraciones adonde puede llegar el hombre cuando se vuelve contra Dios»[5], que dispongan su corazón para escucharnos.

II. Lo que debemos recordar

El pueblo judío, al dar su singular testimonio del Santo de Israel y de la Torah, ha tenido que sufrir mucho en diversos tiempos y en numerosos lugares. Pero la Shoah fue, ciertamente, el peor sufrimiento de todos. La crueldad con que los judíos han sido perseguidos y asesinados en este siglo supera la capacidad de expresión de las palabras. Y todo ello se les hizo por el mero hecho de que eran judíos.

La misma magnitud del crimen suscita muchas preguntas. Historiadores, sociólogos, filósofos políticos, psicólogos y teólogos tratan de conocer más sobre la realidad y las causas de la Shoah. Quedan aún por hacer muchos estudios especializados. Pero ese acontecimiento no puede valorarse plenamente sólo con los criterios ordinarios de la investigación histórica, pues exige una «memoria moral y religiosa » y, especialmente entre los cristianos, una reflexión muy seria sobre las causas que lo provocaron.

El hecho de que la Shoah se haya producido en Europa, es decir, en países de una civilización cristiana de largo tiempo, plantea la cuestión de la relación entre la persecución nazi y las actitudes de los cristianos, a lo largo de los siglos, con respecto a los judíos.

III. Las relaciones entre judíos y cristianos

La historia de las relaciones entre judíos y cristianos es una historia tormentosa. Lo ha reconocido el Santo Padre Juan Pablo II en sus repetidos llamamientos a los católicos a examinar nuestra actitud en lo que atañe a nuestras relaciones con el pueblo judío[6]. En efecto, el balance de estas relaciones durante dos milenios ha sido, más bien, negativo[7].

En los albores del cristianismo, después de la crucifixión de Jesús, surgieron disputas entre la Iglesia primitiva y los judíos, jefes y pueblo, los cuales, por su adhesión a la Ley, a veces se opusieron violentamente a los predicadores del Evangelio y a los primeros cristianos. En el Imperio romano, que era pagano, los judíos estaban legalmente protegidos por los privilegios otorgados por el Emperador, y las autoridades al principio no hicieron distinción entre comunidades judías y cristianas. Sin embargo, pronto los cristianos fueron perseguidos por el Estado. Cuando, más tarde, incluso los emperadores se convirtieron al cristianismo, primero siguieron garantizando los privilegios de los judíos. Pero grupos de cristianos exaltados que asaltaban los templos paganos, hicieron en algunos casos lo mismo con las sinagogas, por influjo de ciertas interpretaciones erróneas del Nuevo Testamento relativas al pueblo judío en su conjunto. «En el mundo cristiano —no digo de parte de la Iglesia en cuanto tal— algunas interpretaciones erróneas e injustas del Nuevo Testamento con respecto al pueblo judío y a su supuesta culpabilidad han circulado durante demasiado tiempo, dando lugar a sentimientos de hostilidad en relación con ese pueblo»[8]. Esas interpretaciones del Nuevo Testamento fueron rechazadas, de forma total y definitiva, por el concilio Vaticano II[9].

No obstante la predicación cristiana del amor hacia todos, incluidos los enemigos, la mentalidad dominante a lo largo de los siglos perjudicó a las minorías y a los que, de algún modo, eran «diferentes». Sentimientos de antijudaísmo en algunos ambientes cristianos y la brecha existente entre la Iglesia y el pueblo judío llevaron a una discriminación generalizada, que desembocó a veces en expulsiones o en intentos de conversiones forzadas. En gran parte del mundo «cristiano», hasta finales del siglo XVIII, los no cristianos no siempre gozaron de un status jurídico plenamente reconocido. A pesar de ello, los judíos, extendidos por todo el mundo cristiano, conservaron sus tradiciones religiosas y sus costumbres propias. Por eso, fueron objeto de sospecha y desconfianza. En tiempos de crisis, como carestías, guerras, epidemias o tensiones sociales, la minoría judía fue a veces tomada como chivo expiatorio, y se convirtió así en víctima de violencia, saqueos e incluso matanzas.

Entre el final del siglo XVIII y el inicio del XIX, los judíos habían logrado, por lo general, una posición de igualdad con respecto a los demás ciudadanos en la mayoría de los Estados, y un buen número de ellos llegó a desempeñar funciones importantes en la sociedad. Pero en este mismo contexto histórico, especialmente en el siglo XIX, se desarrolló un nacionalismo exasperado y falso. En un clima de rápidos cambios sociales, los judíos fueron a menudo acusados de ejercer un influjo excesivo en relación con su número. Entonces comenzó a difundirse, con grados diversos, en la mayor parte de Europa, un antijudaísmo esencialmente más sociopolítico que religioso.

Durante el mismo período, comenzaron a surgir teorías que negaban la unidad de la raza humana, afirmando la diferencia originaria de las razas. En el siglo XX, el nacionalsocialismo en Alemania usó esas ideas como base pseudocientífica para una distinción entre las así llamadas razas nórdico-arias y supuestas razas inferiores. Además, la derrota de Alemania en 1918 y las condiciones humillantes que le impusieron los vencedores, impulsaron en ella una forma extremista de nacionalismo, con la consecuencia de que muchos vieron en el nacionalsocialismo una solución a los problemas del país y, por ello, colaboraron políticamente con ese movimiento.

La Iglesia en Alemania respondió condenando el racismo. Dicha condena se realizó por primera vez en la predicación de algunos miembros del clero, en la enseñanza pública de los obispos católicos y en los escritos de periodistas católicos. Ya en febrero y marzo de 1931, el cardenal Bertram de Breslavia, el cardenal Faulhaber y los obispos de Baviera, los obispos de la provincia de Colonia y los de la provincia de Friburgo publicaron sendas cartas pastorales que condenaban el nacionalsocialismo, con su idolatría de la raza y del Estado[10]. El mismo año 1933, en que el nacionalsocialismo alcanzó el poder, los famosos sermones de Adviento del cardenal Faulhaber, a los que no sólo asistieron católicos, sino también protestantes y judíos, tuvieron expresiones de claro rechazo de la propaganda nazi antisemita[11]. A raíz de la Noche de los cristales, Bernhard Lichtenberg, preboste de la catedral de Berlín, elevó oraciones públicas por los judíos; él mismo murió luego en Dachau y fue declarado beato.

También el Papa Pío XI condenó, de modo solemne, el racismo nazi en la encíclica Mit brennender Sorge[12], que se leyó en las iglesias de Alemania el domingo de Pasión del año 1937, iniciativa que provocó ataques y sanciones contra miembros del clero. El 6 de septiembre de 1938, dirigiéndose a un grupo de peregrinos belgas, Pío XI afirmó: «El antisemitismo es inaceptable. Espiritualmente todos somos semitas »[13]. Pío XII, desde su primera encíclica,Summi pontificatus[14], del 20 de octubre de 1939, puso en guardia contra las teorías que negaban la unidad de la raza humana y contra la divinización del Estado, que, según su previsión, llevarían a una verdadera «hora de las tinieblas»[15].

IV. Antisemitismo nazi y la «Shoah»

No se puede ignorar la diferencia que existe entre el antisemitismo, basado en teorías contrarias a la enseñanza constante de la Iglesia sobre la unidad del género humano y la igual dignidad de todas las razas y de todos los pueblos, y los sentimientos de sospecha y de hostilidad existentes desde siglos, que llamamos antijudaísmo, de los cuales, por desgracia, también son culpables los cristianos.

La ideología nacionalsocialista fue mucho más allá, en el sentido de que se negó a reconocer cualquier realidad trascendente como fuente de la vida y criterio del bien moral. En consecuencia, un grupo humano, y el Estado con el que se había identificado, se arrogó un valor absoluto y decidió borrar la existencia misma del pueblo judío, llamado a dar testimonio del único Dios y de la Ley de la Alianza. Desde el punto de vista teológico, no podemos ignorar el hecho de que no pocos afiliados al partido nazi no sólo mostraron aversión a la idea de una divina Providencia que actúa en la historia humana, sino que dieron prueba de un odio específico hacia Dios mismo. Lógicamente, esa actitud llevó también al rechazo del cristianismo y al deseo de ver destruida la Iglesia o, por lo menos, sometida a los intereses del Estado nazi.

Fue esa ideología extrema la que se convirtió en fundamento de las medidas tomadas, primero para expulsar a los judíos de sus casas y, luego, para exterminarlos. La Shoah fue obra de un típico régimen neopagano moderno. Su antisemitismo hundía sus raíces fuera del cristianismo y, al tratar de conseguir sus propios fines, no dudó en oponerse a la Iglesia, incluso persiguiendo a sus miembros.

Pero conviene preguntarse si la persecución del nazismo con respecto a los judíos no fue facilitada por los prejuicios antijudíos presentes en la mente y en el corazón de algunos cristianos. El sentimiento antijudío ¿hizo a los cristianos menos sensibles, o incluso indiferentes, ante las persecuciones desencadenadas contra los judíos por el nacionalsocialismo, cuando alcanzó el poder?

Cualquier respuesta a esta pregunta debe tener en cuenta que estamos tratando de la historia de actitudes y modos de pensar de gente sujeta a múltiples influjos. Más aún, muchos desconocían totalmente la «solución final» que estaba a punto de aplicarse contra todo un pueblo; otros tuvieron miedo por sí mismos y por sus seres queridos; algunos se aprovecharon de la situación; otros, por último, actuaron por envidia. La respuesta se ha de dar caso por caso y, para hacerlo, es necesario conocer cuáles fueron las motivaciones precisas de las personas en su situación específica.

Al inicio, los jefes del Tercer Reich querían expulsar a los judíos. Por desgracia, los Gobiernos de varios países occidentales de tradición cristiana, incluidos algunos de América del norte y del sur, dudaron mucho en abrir sus fronteras a los judíos perseguidos. Aunque no podían prever cuán lejos iban a llegar los líderes nazis en sus intenciones criminales, las autoridades de esas naciones conocían bien las dificultades y los peligros a que se hallaban expuestos los judíos que vivían en los territorios del Tercer Reich. En esas circunstancias, el cierre de las fronteras a la inmigración judía, sea que se debiera a la hostilidad o sospecha antijudía, o a cobardía y falta de clarividencia política, o a egoísmo nacional, constituye un grave peso de conciencia para dichas autoridades.

En los territorios donde el nazismo practicó la deportación de masas, la brutalidad que acompañó esos movimientos forzados de gente inerme debería haber llevado a sospechar lo peor. ¿Ofrecieron los cristianos toda asistencia posible a los perseguidos, y en particular a los judíos?

Muchos lo hicieron, pero otros no. No se debe olvidar a los que ayudaron a salvar al mayor número de judíos que les fue posible, hasta el punto de poner en peligro su vida. Durante la guerra, y también después, comunidades y personalidades judías expresaron su gratitud por lo que habían hecho en favor de ellos, incluso por lo que había hecho el Papa Pío XII, personalmente o a través de sus representantes, para salvar la vida a cientos de miles de judíos[16]. Por esa razón, muchos obispos, sacerdotes, religiosos y laicos fueron condecorados por el Estado de Israel.

A pesar de ello, como ha reconocido el Papa Juan Pablo II, al lado de esos valerosos hombres y mujeres, la resistencia espiritual y la acción concreta de otros cristianos no fueron las que se podía esperar de unos discípulos de Cristo. No podemos saber cuántos cristianos en países ocupados o gobernados por potencias nazis o por sus aliados constataron con horror la desaparición de sus vecinos judíos, pero no tuvieron la fuerza suficiente para elevar su voz de protesta. Para los cristianos este grave peso de conciencia de sus hermanos y hermanas durante la segunda guerra mundial debe ser una llamada al arrepentimiento[17].

Deploramos profundamente los errores y las culpas de esos hijos e hijas de la Iglesia. Hacemos nuestro lo que dijo el concilio Vaticano II en la declaración Nostra aetate, que afirma inequívocamente: «La Iglesia (…) recordando el patrimonio común con los judíos e impulsada no por razones políticas, sino por la religiosa caridad evangélica, deplora los odios, persecuciones y manifestaciones de antisemitismo de que han sido objeto los judíos de cualquier tiempo y por parte de cualquier persona»[18].

Recordamos y hacemos nuestro lo que afirmó el Papa Juan Pablo II, al dirigirse a los jefes de la comunidad judía de Estrasburgo en 1988: «Repito de nuevo, junto con vosotros, la más firme condena de todo antisemitismo y de todo racismo, opuestos a los principios del cristianismo»[19]. La Iglesia católica repudia, por consiguiente, toda persecución, en cualquier lugar y tiempo, perpetrada contra un pueblo o un grupo humano. Condena del modo más firme todas las formas de genocidio, así como las ideologías racistas que los han hecho posibles. Dirigiendo la mirada a este siglo, nos entristece profundamente la violencia que ha afectado a grupos enteros de pueblos y naciones. Recordamos, en particular, la matanza de los armenios, las innumerables víctimas en Ucrania durante la década de 1930, el genocidio de los gitanos, también fruto de ideas racistas, y tragedias semejantes ocurridas en América, en África y en los Balcanes. No olvidamos los millones de víctimas de la ideología totalitaria en la Unión Soviética, en China, en Camboya y en otros lugares. Y tampoco podemos olvidar el drama de Oriente Medio, cuyos aspectos son muy conocidos. Incluso mientras hacemos esta reflexión, «demasiados hombres son todavía víctimas de sus hermanos»[20].

V. Mirando juntos hacia un futuro común

Mirando hacia el futuro de las relaciones entre judíos y cristianos, en primer lugar pedimos a nuestros hermanos y hermanas católicos que tomen mayor conciencia de las raíces judías de su fe. Les pedimos que recuerden que Jesús era un descendiente de David; que del pueblo judío nacieron la Virgen María y los Apóstoles; que la Iglesia se alimenta de las raíces de aquel buen olivo en el que se injertaron luego las ramas del olivo silvestre de los gentiles (cf. Rm 11, 17-24); que los judíos son nuestros hermanos queridos y amados; y que, en cierto sentido, son realmente «nuestros hermanos mayores»[21].

Al final de este milenio, la Iglesia católica desea expresar su profundo pesar por las faltas de sus hijos e hijas en las diversas épocas. Se trata de un acto de arrepentimiento (teshuva), pues, como miembros de la Iglesia, compartimos tanto los pecados como los méritos de todos sus hijos. La Iglesia se acerca con profundo respeto y gran compasión a la experiencia del exterminio, la Shoah, que sufrió el pueblo judío durante la segunda guerra mundial. No se trata de meras palabras, sino de un compromiso vinculante. «Nos arriesgaríamos a hacer morir nuevamente a las víctimas de muertes atroces, si no sintiéramos pasión por la justicia y no nos comprometiéramos, cada uno según sus propias posibilidades, a lograr que el mal no prevalezca sobre el bien, como sucedió a millones de hijos del pueblo judío… La humanidad no puede permitir que todo eso suceda nuevamente»[22].

Pedimos a Dios que nuestro dolor por la tragedia que el pueblo judío ha sufrido en nuestro siglo lleve a nuevas relaciones con el pueblo judío. Deseamos transformar la conciencia de los pecados del pasado en un firme compromiso de construir un nuevo futuro, en el que no existan ya sentimientos antijudíos entre los cristianos o sentimientos anticristianos entre los judíos, sino más bien un respeto recíproco, como conviene a quienes adoran al único Creador y Señor, y tienen un padre común en la fe, Abraham. Invitamos, por último, a todos los hombres y mujeres de buena voluntad a reflexionar profundamente en el significado de la Shoah. Las víctimas, desde sus tumbas, y los supervivientes mediante su emotivo testimonio de lo que sufrieron, se han convertido en un fuerte clamor que llama la atención de la humanidad entera. Recordar ese terrible drama significa tomar plena conciencia de la saludable advertencia que implica: a las semillas podridas del antijudaísmo y del antisemitismo jamás se les debe permitir echar raíces en ningún corazón humano.

16 de marzo de 1998

Cardenal Edward IDRIS CASSIDY
Presidente

Pierre DUPREY, m.afr.
Obispo titular de Thibaris
Vicepresidente

Remi HOECKMAN, o.p.
Secretario

NOTAS

[1] Tertio millennio adveniente (10 de noviembre de 1994),33:AAS 87 (1995)25.

[2] Cf. JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a la comunidad judía en la sinagoga de Roma (13 de abril de 1986), n. 4: AAS 78 (1986) 1.120; L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 20 de abril de 1986, p. 12.

[3] JUAN PABLO II, Ángelus del 11 de junio de 1995, n. 2: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 16 de junio de 1995, p. 1.

[4] Cf. JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a la comunidad judía de Budapest (18 de agosto de 1991), n. 4: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 30 de agosto de 1991, p. 10.

[5] JUAN PABLO II, Centesimus annus (1 de mayo de 1991), 17: AAS 83 (1991) 814-815.

[6] Cf. JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a los delegados de las Conferencias episcopales para las relaciones con el judaísmo (5 de marzo de 1982): L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 11 de abril de 1982, p. 11.

[7] Cf. COMISIÓN DE LA SANTA SEDE PARA LAS RELACIONES RELIGIOSAS CON EL JUDAÍSMO, Notas para una correcta presentación de judíos y judaísmo en la predicación y la catequesis de la Iglesia católica (24 de junio de 1985), VI: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 15 de septiembre de1985, p.18.

[8] JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a los participantes en el encuentro de estudio sobre «Raíces del antijudaísmo en ambiente cristiano» (31 de octubre de 1997), n. 1: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 7 de noviembre de 1997, p. 5.

[9] Cf. Nostra aetate, 4.

[10] Cf. B. STATIEWSKI (Ed.), Akten deutscher Bischöfe über die Lage der Kirche, 1933-1945, vol. I, 1933-1934 (Mainz 1968), Apéndice.

[11] Cf. L. VOLK, Der Bayerische Episkopat und der Nationalsozialismus 1930-1934 (Mainz 1966), pp. 170-174.

[12] La encíclica está fechada el 14 de marzo de 1937: AAS 29 (1937) 145-167.

[13] La Documentation Catholique, 29 (1938), col. 1.460.

[14] AAS 31 (1939) 413-453.

[15] Ib., 449.

[16] Organizaciones y personalidades judías representativas reconocieron varias veces oficialmente la sabiduría de la diplomacia del Papa Pío XII. Por ejemplo, el jueves 7 de septiembre de 1945 Giuseppe Nathan, comisario de la Unión de comunidades judías italianas, declaró: «Ante todo, dirigimos un reverente homenaje de gratitud al Sumo Pontífice y a los religiosos y religiosas que, siguiendo las directrices del Santo Padre, vieron en los perseguidos a hermanos, y con valentía y abnegación nos prestaron su ayuda inteligente y concreta, sin preocuparse por los gravísimos peligros a los que se exponían» (L’Osservatore Romano, 8 de septiembre de 1945, p. 2). El 21 de septiembre del mismo año, Pío XII recibió en audiencia al doctor A. Leo Kubowitzki, secretario general del Congreso judío internacional, que acudió para presentar «al Santo Padre, en nombre de la Unión de las comunidades judías, su más viva gratitud por los esfuerzos de la Iglesia católica en favor de la población judía en toda Europa durante la guerra» (L’Osservatore Romano, 23 de septiembre de 1945, p. 1). El jueves 29 de noviembre de 1945, el Papa recibió a cerca de ochenta delegados de prófugos judíos, procedentes de varios campos de concentración en Alemania, que acudieron a manifestarle «el sumo honor de poder agradecer personalmente al Santo Padre la generosidad demostrada hacia los perseguidos durante el terrible período del nazi-fascismo» (L’Osservatore Romano, 30 de noviembre de 1945, p. 1). En 1958, al morir el Papa Pío XII, Golda Meir envió un elocuente mensaje: «Compartimos el dolor de la humanidad (…). Cuando el terrible martirio se abatió sobre nuestro pueblo, la voz del Papa se elevó en favor de sus víctimas. La vida de nuestro tiempo se enriqueció con una voz que habló claramente sobre las grandes verdades morales por encima del tumulto del conflicto diario. Lloramos la muerte de un gran servidor de la paz».

[17] Cf. JUAN PABLO II, Discurso al nuevo embajador de la República federal de Alemania(8 de noviembre de 1990), n. 2: AAS 83 (1991) 587-588; L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 7 de diciembre de 1990, p. 20.

[18]Nostra aetate, 4.

[19] JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a los representantes de la comunidad judía de Alsacia (9 de octubre de 1988), n. 8: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 20de noviembre de1988, p. 19.

[20] JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a los miembros del Cuerpo diplomático (15 de enero de 1994), n. 9: AAS 86 (1994) 816; L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 21 de enero de1994, p. 19.

[21] JUAN PABLO II, Discurso a la comunidad judía en la sinagoga de Roma (13 de abril de 1986), n. 4: AAS 78 (1986) 1.120; L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 20 de abril de 1986, p. 12.

[22] JUAN PABLO II, Discurso con motivo de la conmemoración del Holocausto (7 de abril de 1994), n. 3: L’Osservatore Romano, edición en lengua española, 22 de abril de 1994, p. 15. 

Segun tomado de, http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/chrstuni/documents/rc_pc_chrstuni_doc_16031998_shoah_sp.html  el lunes, 29 de sept. de 2014.