British Chief Rabbi ‘profoundly Stirred’ by Vatican Step

British Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie said here today that all those who read the announcement of the submission to the Ecumenical Council of the document on Catholic-Jewish relations “must have been profoundly stirred.”

Noting that the document called for a complete reappraisal of the association of Jews with the trial and death of the founder of Christianity, as portrayed in Christian Scriptures, he said that, for 19 centuries, the historical traditional interpretation of the scriptural texts have contributed to the hostility, violence, hatred and persecution which have been the fate of Jews in Europe and elsewhere.

Despite Jewish apologetics and assured results of Jewish and non-Jewish scholarship, which have clearly established that procedure and events surrounding the trial could not be laid at the door of the Jews either of the first or 20th centuries, anti-Jewish bias has still persisted, he declared.

“It is indeed a blessing for us to be alive to read of the proposed resolution of the Church which is in keeping with the example of the leaders of the Church who endeavored to prevent the ugly consequences of interpretation charged with prejudice and leading so often to horrors and inhumanity, culminating in the unspeakable catastrophe perpetrated by the Nazis,” he declared.

“We pray that the distinguished prelates now assembled to study the doctrines of Christianity will succeed not only in redressing wrong committed against Jews; but, by their decision and implementation, affirm and reaffirm that all men, however attached and loyal they must remain to the beliefs and practices, are created in Divine image and worthy of Divine and human love,” the Chief Rabbi concluded.