Caritas NZ says the pilgrims are in Glasgow to pray and to press world leaders for strong action at COP26 - the 26th Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Religious leaders representing Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Sikh, Hindu, Buddhist and Baha'i traditions are offering prayers and calls for concrete actions.

The 31 October to 12 November conference is the first requiring countries to honour their Paris accord commitment to submit new, more ambitious plans to environmentally-damaging emissions.

Caritas NZ says the global Catholic charity has three critical targets it wants to see COP26 progressing:

• Strong emissions cuts to keep the 1.5C target alive
• More climate finance that is targeted and more readily accessible to the most vulnerable communities, equally shared between mitigation (cutting emissions) and adaptation. Finance to address Loss and Damage already incurred by the poor must be stepped up, recognising the ecological debt owed by richer countries to poorer ones.
• Tackling climate change in an integrated way, including protection and restoration of ecosystems and prioritising the needs of the poor in a just transition, in line with Laudato Si'.

During the conference, Caritas will hand over its "Healthy Planet, Healthy People" petition along with other messages from faith-filled activists and leaders from around the world.

Several hundred people gathered in the vicinity of the Scottish Events Centre when the conference opened, to pray for world leaders at the conference.

"We remind governments of their commitments made in Paris in 2015 to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees," says a multifaith declaration read at the event and signed by more than 50 religious leaders from Scotland and the United Kingdom.

Another multifaith statement asks "governments to swiftly and justly transition the global economy from fossil fuels toward renewables and compensate communities already affected by climate change."

"Across our doctrinal and political differences, we know that we must change our ways to ensure a quality of life which all can share, and we need to provide hope for people of all ages, everywhere, including future generations. To offer hope in the world we need to have confidence that those in power understand the vital role they have to play at the Glasgow COP26."

Scottish Catholic Bishop Brian McGee says the interfaith group is offering prayers for world leaders. It also expects to exert pressure on them to deliver on public demands for an urgent response to the climate crisis.

"Certainly that's what a lot of people have been doing. That is contacting the politicians and explaining to them that this is really, really important and we have to do something here," he says.

McGee says Catholic action at the climate summit shows love of God's creation and those suffering the impacts of global warming.

Pope Francis's "extraordinary leadership" in widening the ecological question beyond conservation has widened the way we look at creation and people suffering the impacts of global warming, McGee says.

"It's about how we treat people. It's about justice in all its forms."

Source

• La Croix
• Caritas
• Image: Caritas Internationalis

In common with other religious leaders in Iceland, Tencer is concerned the bill before Iceland's parliament compromised the Icelandic Jewish and Muslim communities' right to observe their religious practices.

"Jesus Himself was circumcised, as were His apostles," the bishop wrote in a letter to other religious leaders.

"We fully support Muslims and Jews in their fight to freely express their faith."

Tencer says the bill could be tantamount to religious persecution.

"To us [religious leaders] it looks like this can be an opportunity for those who are interested in this matter to misuse the subject of circumcision in an attempt to persecute individuals for their religion."

The bill, introduced by four political parties, uses the same wording as a 2005 Icelandic law banning female genital mutilation, changing the word "girls" to "children".

If passed into law, people who violate the ban could be imprisoned for up to six years.

Bishop of Iceland Agnes M. Sigurðardóttir has also condemned the ban.

"The danger that arises, if this bill becomes law, is that Judaism and Islam will become criminalised religions," she says, and "that individuals who subscribe to these faiths will be banned in this country and unwelcome."

Silja Dogg Gunnarsdóttir from the Progressive Party says she proposed the bill as part of children's health rights.

She says it not about religious beliefs but was instead a health issue.

"Everyone has the right to believe in what they want, but the rights of children come above the right to believe," she says.

Rabbi Yair Melchior says a circumcision ban does not exist in any country but Iceland. He is concerned if the bill is passed into law when politicians vote on it in June, it could set a precedent.

Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, the president of the Conference of European Rabbis, says the bill is perceived as an anti-immigration issue directed against Muslims "and we the Jews are the collateral damage."

It is "basically saying that Jews are not anymore welcome in Iceland," he says.

Ahmad Seddeeq, the imam of the Islamic Cultural Center of Iceland, called it "a contravention to the religious rights of freedom" that criminalises a centuries-old tradition.

Source

• Grapevine
• Christian Daily
• Image: RUV

The US$500 million museum's aim is to entertain and educate visitors about the Bible's history and significance.

Cardinal Donald Wuerl, the Israeli Ambassador to the United States and the museum's co-founder, evangelical businessman Steve Green, were at the opening.

Wuerl spoke on behalf of Pope Francis.

Through Wuerl, Francis sent his "fervent hope that ... through its extensive collections and exhibits [the museum] will promote a better understanding ... of the rich and complex history of the biblical text".

He hoped the "enduring power of the museum's message" would "inspire and shape the lives of individuals and peoples of every time and place."

Francis also said he hoped that through engaging with scholars of various traditions the museum would help advance inter-religious understanding and cooperation.

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also sent a message.

He said "the Jewish people are known as the people of the book because of the centrality of the Hebrew Bible in our faith, our history, and our lives.

"Our roots in the land of Israel as described in the holy scriptures stretch back nearly 4,000 years, but it was only 70 years ago after millennia of exile that we were finally able to reconstitute our nation and home at the Holy land..."

"...By featuring Jewish, Protestant, Catholic and other faith traditions, the museum highlights our shared values and beliefs as well as the history and development of the Judeo-Christian culture over the centuries."

The Israeli Association for Antiquities sent a number of artifacts including a large stone from the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Visitors are encouraged to touch the stone.

A whole floor includes an interactive exhibit featuring "The World of Jesus of Nazareth".

It includes replicas of homes and what food in Nazareth might have looked like in the time of Jesus.

Although the museum is supposed to be non-sectarian, there are few Arabic script exhibits apart from temporary items on loan from Jerusalem.

One of the permanent features in Arabic is a translation of a psalm engraved on a window.

It is set alongside 15 other panels in various languages in the entrance's main atrium.

There are also a couple of texts in Judeo-Arabic, varieties of Arabic spoken by Jews and written in the Hebrew script.

Arabic's absence elsewhere - including the 10-language digital guide - has raised questions about the museum's goals and target audience.

Source

• Town Hall
• The Atlantic
• Aljazeera
• Catholic News Service
• Image: Our Community Now at DC

They have named four countries that need urgent help. Read more

On the eve of this anniversary, the Anti-Defamation League — founded to protect Jewish lives and rights — called the Church's approval of Nostra Aetate "arguably the most important moment in modern Jewish-Christian relations." How so?

Q: What does "Nostra Aetate" mean?

A: It means "In Our Time." They are the first words of the declaration, which was written during the Second Vatican Council, the most far-reaching reform effort of the Roman Catholic Church in centuries.

The document's English title: "Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions."

In the fourth of its five sections, Nostra Aetate focuses in on the relationship between Jews and Catholics.

By the way, the entire declaration is a quick read — little more than a page long.

Q: Yeah, but could I have the Cliff Notes version?

A: Nostra Aetate draws a poetic connection with Jews, describing them as the "well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots, the Gentiles."

Crucially, it rejects the charge that the Jewish people are responsible for Jesus' death, an accusation used for centuries to justify the persecution of Jews.

The document reads: " . . . what happened in His passion cannot be charged against all the Jews, without distinction, then alive, nor against the Jews of today."

The Church, it continues, "decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone."

Q: Does Nostra Aetate mention the Holocaust?

A: No, but it was born of it. French Jewish historian Jules Isaac survived the Holocaust and then immersed himself in Christian texts, trying to understand how Christians could participate in Hitler's plan to murder Jews, or stand by as millions perished.

He concluded that a misinterpretation of the Gospels, a "teaching of contempt," had provided an excuse to persecute Jews for centuries, and that it must be supplanted by a teaching true to Jesus' message. Continue reading

Sources

• Crux
• Image: World Jewish Congress

She always thought she would live out her days as she had for decades, in a convent under the time-honored Roman Catholic tradition of younger nuns dutifully caring for their older sisters.

But with few young women choosing religious life, her church superiors were forced to look elsewhere for care.

Rooney now lives in Jewish Home Lifecare, a geriatric-care complex in the Bronx founded as a nursing home for elderly Jews. Read more

The Western press has become less an observer of this conflict than an actor in it, a role with consequences for the millions of people trying to comprehend current events, including policymakers who depend on journalistic accounts to understand a region where they consistently seek, and fail, to productively intervene.

An essay I wrote for Tablet on this topic in the aftermath of the war sparked intense interest.

In the article, based on my experiences between 2006 and 2011 as a reporter and editor in the Jerusalem bureau of the Associated Press, one of the world's largest news organizations, I pointed out the existence of a problem and discussed it in broad terms.

Using staffing numbers, I illustrated the disproportionate media attention devoted to this conflict relative to other stories, and gave examples of editorial decisions that appeared to be driven by ideological considerations rather than journalistic ones.

I suggested that the cumulative effect has been to create a grossly oversimplified story—a kind of modern morality play in which the Jews of Israel are displayed more than any other people on earth as examples of moral failure.

This is a thought pattern with deep roots in Western civilization.

But how precisely does this thought pattern manifest itself in the day-to-day functioning, or malfunctioning, of the press corps?

To answer this question, I want to explore the way Western press coverage is shaped by unique circumstances here in Israel and also by flaws affecting the media beyond the confines of this conflict.

In doing so, I will draw on my own experiences and those of colleagues. These are obviously limited and yet, I believe, representative. Continue reading

• Matti Friedman in The Atlantic

Matti Friedman's work as a reporter has taken him to Lebanon, Morocco, Egypt, Moscow, and Washington, DC, and to conflicts in Israel and the Caucasus.

These two popes' personal narratives are inseparable from the Holocaust, and their reactions to the systematic genocide of the Jews played a critical role in the revolution in Catholic-Jewish relations during the last half century.

The annihilation of 6 million Jews — one-third of world Jewry — and Eastern Europe's towering Jewish civilization was an unparalleled tragedy enabled by nearly 2,000 years of Christian demonization of Jews and Judaism.

Too often, too many stood by as Jews were slaughtered like animals during World War II.

Like many Jews of my generation, it is both a national and personal horror.

My father's aunt and first cousins were murdered by the Nazis in the forest outside Bialystok, their hometown in Poland.

But if telling the Holocaust story ends there, it has not been fully told.

We also have a responsibility to tell the story of the many who risked their lives to save Jews.

Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust memorial and museum, has identified more than 25,000 non-Jews who are called "Righteous Among the Nations."

Additionally, we should recognize the collective self-reflection of the churches in admitting Christian complicity and demonstrating a commitment to creating a world where the lessons of the Holocaust have been learned. Continue reading.

Rabbi Noam E. Marans is director of interreligious and intergroup relations for the American Jewish Committee.

Source: National Catholic Reporter

Image: Your Observer

Christian reawakening to the Jewishness of Jesus began in the late nineteenth century but received greater attention as Christians devoted increased attention to Jews and Judaism in light of the Shoah.

From the 1960s onwards, a desire for reconciliation with, and greater understanding of, Judaism became commonplace, epitomised by Vatican II and the publication of Nostra Aetate in 1965.

Nearly all Christian studies now take the Jewishness of Jesus seriously, but what is less well known is the work of Jewish scholars who similarly have re-awoken to the fact that Judaism nurtured Jesus the Jew.

In the latter part of the twentieth century, David Flusser and Géza Vermes, both of whom built on the pioneering work of a small number of Jewish scholars in the early twentieth century (notably Martin Buber, Joseph Klausner and Claude Montefiore), have been followed by three new Jewish scholars - Shmuley Boteach, Daniel Boyarin and Amy-Jill Levine.

While Flusser portrayed Jesus as a charismatic figure whose teaching demonstrated an extraordinary sense of mission, Vermes depicted Jesus as a Galilean Hasid and holy man.

For both, Jesus was a charismatic teacher, healer and prophet. Vermes in particular has had the greater impact, demonstrated by the title of his first book, Jesus the Jew, which in 1973 seemed revolutionary but now is taken for granted in New Testament scholarship. Continue reading.

Source: The Tablet

Image: Rockland411

At some point, however, the refugees no longer knew what to do next. Where would they be safe? How were the Nazis attempting to find them? There was no refugee center, no leadership, no organization and exasperatingly little reliable information. But what did exist was the art of improvisation and the helpfulness of many Danes, who now had a chance to prove themselves.

Members of the Danish underground movement emerged who could tell the Jews who was to be trusted. There were police officers who not only looked the other way when the refugees turned up in groups, but also warned them about Nazi checkpoints. And there were skippers who were willing to take the refugees across the Baltic Sea to Sweden in their fishing cutters, boats and sailboats.

A Small Country With a Big Heart

Denmark in October 1943 was a small country with a big heart. It had been under Nazi occupation for three-and-a-half years. And although Denmark was too small to have defended itself militarily, it also refused to be subjugated by the Nazis. The Danes negotiated a privileged status that even enabled them to retain their own government. They assessed their options realistically, but they also set limits on how far they were willing to go to cooperate with the Germans.

The small country defended its democracy, while Germany, a large, warmongering country under Hitler, was satisfied with controlling the country from afar and, from then on, viewed Denmark as a "model protectorate." That was the situation until the summer of 1943, when strikes and acts of sabotage began to cause unrest. This prompted the Germans to threaten Denmark with court martials and, in late August, to declare martial law. The Danish government resigned in protest. Continue reading

Sources

• Spiegel Online
• Image: The Jewish Daily Forward

They highlighted the threat to conscience posed by the mandate requiring almost all employers to cover contraception, sterilisation and abortifacient drugs and devices in their health insurance plans.

The 100-plus leaders included representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, Orthodox Christian and Jewish leaders

Continue reading

Her husband is waiting in the living room, surrounded by souvenirs and family photos. Stoliar, his light-blue eyes twinkling, appears much younger than 90. He laughs, chats about the weather, mentions the road conditions up on nearby Mount Hood. He's making small talk, obviously, to avoid the actual topic of this visit.

David Stoliar needs time to bring his thoughts — and himself — all the way back to that night. He's actually never discussed it before with a German reporter. "Nobody has asked me," he says with a shrug, adding emphatically that, after this meeting, he won't ever speak of it again — with no one, no matter what or where they're from.

"Not a good memory," Stoliar states matter-of-factly. "I just want to finish my life in peace."

But memories, of course, can't be dismissed so easily. Especially these memories. The explosion, catapulting him into the water. The screams of the others, fading slowly. The wait for his own certain death on that icy night at sea.

Stoliar's story has always been a taboo of sorts. His ordeal illuminates a forgotten, inconvenient chapter of the Holocaust, which the then-Allies would rather not be reminded of. For, if anything, they chose to look the other way — before, during and after.

"Everybody had an excuse," Marda says.

That chapter found its horrifying conclusion in the Black Sea, near Istanbul, in the wee hours of February 24, 1942. That's when a Soviet submarine sank a Jewish refugee ship en route to what was then the British Mandate of Palestine. All told, 786 people, among them 101 children, either died instantly or slowly froze and drowned in the wintry water.

Only one of them made it. Continue reading

Source

• Spiegel Online

Dignitaries from all walks of life will converge on Wellington to officially open the centre, with the ceremony including the unveiling of two suitcases belonging to children sent to New Zealand to get away from war.

Director Inge Woolf says it'll be an important day for many.

"We're welcoming guests from all denominations. It's not just going to be Jewish people because the Holocaust didn't just happen to Jews, it happened to the world."

Read More

The Vatican told the Society of St. Pius X that they must accept some core church teachings if they want to be fully reintegrated into the church. But the Holy See said some expressions contained in documents from the Second Vatican Council could be left open for "legitimate discussion."

A key Vatican II document, Nostra Aetate, revolutionized the Catholic Church's relations with Jews by declaring that Christ's death couldn't be attributed to Jews as a whole. Other Vatican II teachings to which the society objects concern religious freedom and ecumenical relations.

The uncertainty over what is being required of the society provoked unease among some Jewish groups.

The Swiss-based Society of St. Pius X was formed in 1969, opposed to many of Vatican II's reforms.

The Vatican refused to say which core teachings the society must accept to be reintegrated, and which elements of Vatican II documents could be left open for discussion.

Abraham Foxman, the Anti-Defamation League's U.S. director, said he was confident that Pope Benedict XVI would require the society to accept the church's "positive teachings" about Jews before being fully reconciled with the church.

"It would be unthinkable for the Vatican to allow a Catholic breakaway sect that includes a Holocaust-denying bishop, Richard Williamson, to be reintegrated into the church while still being allowed to promote anti-Semitism and anti-Judaism," he said in a statement.

Even Rabbi David Rosen, who heads the American Jewish Committee's interreligious affairs office and is a veteran of Catholic-Jewish dialogue, said he was worried about the Vatican's gesture and awaited further clarification.

"If 'Nostra Aetate' and 'Lumen Gentium' (another Vatican II document) are not considered fundamental doctrines of the Church, and it is possible to question them without challenging the authority of the church, then we (and not just Jewish-Catholic relations) are in for a very rough ride ahead," he said in an email.

The society's superior, Bishop Bernard Fellay, has said he would study the two-page document of core church teachings handed over to him by the Vatican and respond.

Source: Associated Press