Tuesday, August 28, 2007
RABBI LEON KLENICKI
The newest Papal Knight has been involved in improving Jewish-Catholic ecumenical relations through his position with the Jewish Anti-Defamation League as Director (now Emeritus) of Interfaith Affairs. In searching the web to discover some of what he stood for, I found one encouraging and a few controversial positions.
First in a report from the Zenit News Agency, posted at Free Republic, Rabbi Klenicki is quoted as saying:
As no other Pope in history, John Paul II will forever be recognized as the Pilgrim of Peace and the Apostle of Reconciliation.
"His prayer at Judaism's holiest site, the Western Wall, his visit to Yad Vashem to pay homage to the Jews who died in the Shoah, his meetings with the Chief Rabbis of Israel, Israeli officials and the Israeli people, were historic moments in his pilgrimage."
Not all of Rabbi Klenicki's opinions have been so cordial. He has been cited in some serious controversies.
Regarding the canonization of St. Edith Stein, Richard John Neuhaus Reported:
"Her canonization has created a storm of controversy in the Jewish community, affecting the Catholic-Jewish dialogue." That at least is the claim of Abraham Foxman, national director, and Rabbi Leon Klenicki, director of interfaith affairs, of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL). Certainly they are doing their best to stir a storm of controversy, although-to judge by the general media and the Jewish press-with limited success. Their press release attacking the canonization of Edith Stein (Sister Theresa Benedicta of the Cross) was issued almost simultaneously with the twentieth anniversary of this pontificate and the publication of ADL’s full-page advertisement in the New York Times praising John Paul II’s contributions to Jewish-Christian relations. But ADL cannot have it both ways.
The ADL press release complains about "certain Church figures" who are responsible for the "Christianization of the Holocaust," citing the canonization of Edith Stein and, earlier, of the heroic Father Maximilian Kolbe who, in a drive-by smear, the ADL implies was an anti-Semite. The canonization of Edith Stein is, we are told, "a Jewish text for a Christian pretext, an excuse whereby the Church can claim the same victimization which its own anti-Jewish practices foisted on innocent Jewish lives." The suggestion that her canonization will help interfaith dialogue is, says the ADL, "pure fantasy." The "certain Church figures" who have done and suggested what ADL deplores are Edith Stein and John Paul II. Rabbi Klenicki has elsewhere said that it was the duty of Edith Stein "to remain a good Jew and use her influence to urge other Jews to observe their faith." It is understandable that he holds that view, but it is a complaint he should take up with Edith Stein, which, one may be permitted to suggest, is not best done through a press release attacking the Catholic Church that she embraced. And, if ADL is interested in Jewish-Christian dialogue, it is not helpful to claim that the Holocaust was "the expression of a total pagan anti-Semitism nurtured by two thousand years of Christian teaching of contempt."
Rabbi Klenicki has over the years made important contributions to Christian-Jewish understanding. Ten years ago I was pleased to write a book with him, Believing Today: Jew and Christian in Conversation (Eerdmans). It is most regrettable that he allows himself to become party to a polemic against Edith Stein, Maximilian Kolbe, John Paul II, and the Catholic Church. And it is most unseemly that ADL treats the Holocaust as a dispute over a piece of merchandise. ADL declares that the Holocaust is an "essentially Jewish event"-as though millions of Christians were not also killed, as though Hitler were not also set upon the destruction of Christianity, in large part because of its Jewish origins.
He sought to have the Oberammergau Passion Play script reworded to eliminate lines that disturbed the Jewish community. Arts & Leisure reported:
Leading Jewish critics -- such as Rabbi James Rudin of the American Jewish Committee and Rabbi Leon Klenicki of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith -- working alongside prominent Catholic scholars have for the last two decades negotiated with the villagers over such issues as the costuming of the Jewish leaders, the Jewishness of Jesus, the role of the Romans in putting Jesus to death and the use of Hebrew scripture to foreshadow events in the life of Jesus. No issue has been more divisive than the retention of the "blood curse" from the Gospel of Matthew, which the villagers claim has scriptural authority and critics argue has fomented hatred of Jews. ...
The interfaith distance traveled between the 1990 and 2000 productions can best be measured by the prefaces to the respective printed texts. Ten years ago, the preface contained a spirited defense of the inclusion of the "blood curse." This year, it makes clear that "the Passion play is in no way meant to assign collective guilt," and acknowledges that "this Passion play, too, contributed in various ways to preparing the soil which eventually yielded the terrible harvest of the extermination of the Jews."
Rabbi Rudin and Rabbi Klenicki, who will travel to Oberammergau to see the play, are reserving judgment. Rabbi Klenicki is not optimistic. "Despite the many changes in the script," he said, "I fear that it will still be a source of anti-Judaism."
Catholic League's William Donohue cites Rabbi Klenicki's objection to an American passion play in an Open Letter to the Jewish Community:
In 1993, when the Passion Play "Jesus Was His Name" was performed in 23 American cities, Rabbi Leon Klenicki, director of the ADL's interfaith department, warned that the "presentation does not contribute to peace." The record will show that not one act of violence occurred in any city.
Then there is Rabbi Klenicki's objection to Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" as reported at the San Diego Union Tribune website:
"It's very anti-Jewish," Rabbi Leon Klenicki said of the film. Klenicki, director emeritus of interfaith affairs for the Anti-Defamation League in New York, hasn't seen the movie but has read the script.
Christ's passion, death and resurrection are major events in our faith. Is our doctrine subject to revision in the name of ecumenical dialogue? Is it more important to be politically correct than it is to be doctrinally correct? Given the Papal Knighthood, I could not blame Rabbi Klenicki if he comes to the conclusion that the answers to those questions might just be a cautious "yes".
One wonders, however, what we have gotten in exchange for that "yes". Has the animosity of the Jews toward Jesus and the Catholics been subdued or terminated in their religious documents? Has such a change even been discussed? Or does ecumenical dialogue run only in one direction-- to make the big bad Roman Catholic Church succumb to the demands of the persecuted minority?
