In our times – book review


Father David, Latin Patriarchal Vicar, published a review of a new book in HaAretz newspaper in Hebrew on Friday, January 29, 2016. We publish here the English translation.

telaviv vatican2

Read on the HaAretz site here

Review of Dina Porat, Karma Ben Yohanan and Ruth Braude (editors), In Our Time: Documents and Articles on the Catholic Church and the Jewish People in the Wake of the Holocaust (Tel Aviv, Tel Aviv University Press, 2015), 294 pp.

One of the most remarkable revolutions of the twentieth century was one that was carried out without weapons and the spilling of blood. It began with a profound awakening and continued through the progressive purification of language accompanied by a repeated request for pardon. One hundred years ago, if I had asked pious Catholics in Poland, Argentina or the Philippines, “What is the first thing you think of when I say the word “Jew”?”, it is most likely that they would have responded: “They killed our Lord” or “An obstinate, stiff-necked people, rejected by God”. After the revolution, a similar question today would be answered by those who follow the teaching of the Catholic Church: “They are the people of God, who gave us our Lord” or “Without them, we would not be”.

The new book that has been published by Tel Aviv University Press, edited by Dina Porat, Karma Ben Yohanan and the late Ruth Braude documents this revolution in Hebrew. After centuries of “a teaching of contempt” that stereotyped Jews as an accursed people, the Catholic Church has been forming new generations of Catholics to recognize how much they are indebted to the Jews. The “teaching of contempt” has become “a teaching of respect”. Not only is the central figure of Christianity a Jew, Jesus of Nazareth, but Christians venerate the Holy Scriptures that were written by Jews and speak a language about God and God’s relationship with humanity that is profoundly based upon Jewish faith and experience.

The book is divided into two parts, the translation into Hebrew of some of the most important documents published by the Catholic Church that reformulate the Church’s discourse on Jews and Judaism, including also homilies of the Popes of recent times, and analytical articles from important researchers documenting the revolution. An all too short introduction by Karma Ben Yohanan and a word of conclusion by Rabbi David Rosen, one of the most Jewish important Jewish figures engaged in the dialogue between Catholics and Jews, enclose the collection. This book is an invaluable contribution to the very sparse material in Hebrew that documents the recent history of the Catholic Church and the dialogue with the Jews. The contribution is not only academic but also an important step in the dialogue between Jews and Catholics itself because too few Israelis are aware of how significant this revolution is. It is important to point out that much work still remains to be done in Israel to fight a Jewish teaching of contempt for Christians and Christianity in a country where Christians are a small minority and sometimes suffer the consequences of this contempt.

The book is entitled “In this time”, a reference to the document published by the Catholic Church on October 28, 1965, “Nostra Aetate”, a declaration on the relations between the Church and the members of other religions. It is not clear why the authors chose this translation of the Latin, which literally translated means “In our times”. It is also important to underline that the revolution was not restricted to Jews but also included a reformulation of discourse about the other world religions. This document was only one of a number of documents formulated during the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), a meeting of all the leaders of the Catholic Church, which transformed the face of the Church. It is also regrettable that the editors chose to use the name “Yeshu” for the man from Nazareth, a name that evokes a long tradition of Jewish hostility, rather than the name that roots him in the Jewish people, “Yeshua”.

The editors had to make important choices of what to include in this book and what to leave out. Undoubtedly, they have included the most important documents but a few other documents would have added important missing dimensions to the description of the changes that took place. Two striking absences for example are the address of Pope John Paul II to the Pontifical Biblical Commission in April 1997, in which he clearly described the necessity of understanding Jesus’ Jewish identity, and the address of Pope Benedict XVI to the Jewish community in Paris where he cited the Talmud. As is inevitable when publishing on current affairs, since the publication of the book, a new document has come out that takes the revolution a step further. On December 10, 2015, the Church’s Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews published a long and theologically complex document that reexamined the Church’s thinking about Jews and Judaism, underlining again the Church’s respect for the faith and experience of Israel.

The collection also omits the important series of documents that formulate the Church’s understanding of the Holy Scriptures in modern times. One of the most important sources for the “teaching of contempt” was the debate between Jews and Christians on the interpretation of the Scriptures of Israel and the New Testament. Over the centuries, Christians have characterized the Jews as “blind” because they do not see what Christians see in the writings of the Old Testament (Tanakh) – the promise of the Messiah Jesus. Essential to the revolution is the progressive realization that this accusation of blindness is erroneous and Catholics today are called to respect the Jewish understanding of Scripture as a possible one. Missing from the present collection is the new appreciation by Catholics of Jewish exegesis and respect for the insights that come from the Rabbinic tradition of the Sages of Israel (Hazal).

The analytical articles that were chosen to accompany the translations focus mostly on the period of the Shoah. Another companion volume in Hebrew will be necessary in order to present the larger context in which the Church carried out the revolution in discourse about the Jews. The Second Vatican Council provoked a revolution not only in relationship to the Jews, the Muslims and the faithful of other religions but also with regard to the modern world. The beloved and saintly Pope John XXIII, who initiated the Council, was convinced that the Church had much to learn from the modern world and he threw open the windows. Shortly after his death in 1965, a prayer was published that was attributed to him. This prayer rightfully accompanies the new volume: “O God, we are conscious that many centuries of blindness have blinded our eyes so that we no longer see the beauty of your Chosen People. Across the centuries our Jewish brothers and sisters have lain in the blood which we drew or caused to be shed by forgetting your love. Forgive us for the curse we falsely attached to their name as Jews. Forgive us for crucifying you a second time in their flesh for we knew not what we did. Amen”.

The revolution documented in this book can renew the hope that such revolution in thought, discourse and practice can indeed take place. As we continue to hope for justice and peace in the Holy Land, might we indeed hope and pray that a similar revolution become a reality in relations between Israelis and Palestinians.

Support Us Contact Us Vatican News in Hebrew Mass in Hebrew Child Safeguarding Policy


© 2020 Saint James Vicariate for Hebrew Speaking Catholics in Israel