A principal Conservative layman has urged that Jewish congregational lay leaders be invited to join the rabbis scheduled to meet with Pope John Paul II in Rome in advance of the Papal trip to the United States in September, including a now uncertain meeting with Jewish leaders in Miami.
Franklin Kreutzer of Miami, president of the United Synagogue of America, announced Friday that he is “dismayed that the five delegates of spiritual dimension suggested for the meeting in Rome are not fully representative of the American Jewish community, of which the overwhelming majority consists of laymen.”
The rabbis he alluded to represent the member groups of the International Jewish Committee on Interreligious Consultations (IJCIC), which was invited last week to meet with the Pope and Vatican officials.
However, a spokesperson of the Synagogue Council of America, a member of IJCIC, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that the five IJCIC delegates probably won’t be chosen for two weeks, and would likely include two laypeople–Dr. Gerhart Riegner of Geneva, representing WJC; and Seymour Reich, president of B’nai B’rith. In addition to SCA, IJCIC consists of the American Jewish Committee, B’nai B’rith International, Israel Interfaith Association and the World Jewish Congress (WJC). Since 1972, it has represented the Jewish world to the Vatican. United Synagogue is the association of 850 Conservative congregations in North America, and is a member of SCA.
RATIONALE FOR LAY LEADERS
Kreutzer said the issues to be discussed at the meeting — reportedly the Pope’s recent audience with Austrian President Kurt Waldheim and the Papal attitude in general toward the Holocaust — transcend theological concerns.
The Jewish world has strongly criticized the Pope-Waldheim meeting, and the American Jewish Congress has pulled out of the September 11 Miami meeting scheduled between Jewish leaders and the Pope. SCA also has withdrawn, but has reserved the right to reconsider. Other organizations have said they are considering withdrawal, but the recently announced meeting may prevent that.
Kreutzer, however, is arguing a different principle. As he described it to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, rabbis can analyze and express ideas through a “spiritual dimension,” but can’t wholly express non-rabbis’ visceral feelings about an issue. He said the Pope’s meeting with Waldheim “literally is a sore festering in the minds, the hearts and the guts of North American Jewry.”
Kreutzer contended that the laity accepts rabbinic participation, and he would like reciprocity. He may not get it. Rabbi Gilbert Klaperman, SCA president, told the JTA that enlarging the delegation is unnecessary and unwise.
INVITATION CALLED SPECIFIC
He explained that the invitation for the meeting from Johannes Cardinal Willebrands, president of the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, was for a group of about five. Klaperman said that number could develop “one-on-one relations and discussions with the people that we’re meeting,” which he considered the best way “to develop an ongoing process” of communication.
Even if most of the delegations would be rabbis, Klaperman added, they would represent non-rabbinic organizations. In addition, he said he would listen to Kreutzer’s concerns about the Pope-Waldheim meeting if Kreutzer called.
The United Synagogue president said he has written of those concerns to Rabbi Mordecai Waxman, IJCIC chairman. Kreutzer claims that the Jewish delegation to the Rome meeting could be enlarged to include him as well as the top congregational lay leaders of U.S. Reform and Orthodox Jewry. He said he had not discussed the issue with any of them.
PROTEST EXPECTED
If his request is denied, he said he suspected “that the (Jewish) laity across North America will be very rebellious and will then make a decision as to what to do to this problem, because the Vatican should not be allowed to dictate” who represents the Jews on this issue.
Yet, IJCIC has been Jewry’s representative to the Vatican. “I don’t think that they’ve ever discussed many of these non-theological issues,” Kreutzer said, “and if they have, then I’m greatly concerned after all of these years that they still have this severe problem today.”
He explained he was referring to the lack of Vatican recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and of the State of Israel itself, as well as its stand on the Holocaust.
For his part, he said he would request the lay participation in “every place that’s appropriate, including the Vatican.”
GEOGRAPHICAL ISSUE
Kreutzer added that the issue had a geographical dimension. “I would hope that the Jewish leadership that is centralized in the Northeast corridor will be sensitive to all of America and will insist for us,” he declared.
The lay leader explained that he was challenging the make-up of the delegation based on the appraisal of United Synagogue’s representative at the latest IJCIC meeting, United Synagogue’s senior vice president and chief executive officer, Rabbi Jerome Epstein.
A rabbi representing a congregational organization whose president speaks so forthrightly against rabbinic representation of laypeople?
“He is our senior professional,” Kreutzer maintained. “We have other professionals on our staff who are not rabbis.” The president added that if he could have, he would have represented United Synagogue.
The SCA spokesperson noted that United Synagogue has been represented at all IJCIC meetings either by Epstein or Rabbi Benjamin Kreitman, its executive vice president.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
