There is more than a surface symbolism in the fact that Pope John Paul II arrives in the United States on Yom Kippur, the most solemn day in the Jewish year. For on Yom Kippur the Jewish people throughout the world articulate their deepest vol ues and aspirations for the redemption of the Jewish people, of Israel, and of the entire human family
“And may all wickedness be consumed as a flame,” Jews pray on this day, “and may evil rule be removed from the earth.” How is evil in the world to be overcome? The Jewish prayer book proposes as an answer, “May all Your (God’s) children unite in one fellowship to do Your will with a perfect heart.”
Pope John Paul II comes to these shores at a time when the American people, and particularly the Jewish people, feel deeply troubled about “the wickedness and evil rule” in the world. At Camp David on July 10 I joined a group of 10 religious leaders in discussing with President Carter and his top aides “the malaise of America” and “the crisis of confidence.”
For Americans, this pervasive anxiety and downbeat mood may well be an accumulated response to the shocks of Vietnam, Watergate, the assassinations of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King — a gloom now deepened by the economic decline and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries induced oil crisis.
THE PASSION PLAY OF ANDREW YOUNG
For American Jews who, as Dorothy Parker said, are like everybody else but more so, there is the additional emotional burden these days of watching incredulously as elements in our government and some public personalities fall all over themselves to embrace and legitimatize the Palestine Liberation Organization assassins, people who daily murder, bomb and terrorize innocent civilians, men, women and children.
Add to that dispiriting mood the Passion Play of Andrew Young — the first Black Ambassador to the United Nations who is perceived as martyred, and the fact that some demagogic leaders resort to raw, blatant, racist anti-Semitism trotting out the ancient and discredited canard of collective Jewish guilt — “the Jews crucified him.” And the President of the United States finally tells the truth, namely, that “the Jews” did not crucify Andy Young who foreordained his resignation by his own conscious actions.
Meanwhile, the collective Jewish guilt charge has become established as a dogmatic verity in much of the Black consciousness and will be as difficult to overcome as the original “Christ-killer” canard.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
