The sixtieth anniversary of the conciliar declaration “Nostra Aetate,” on the relationship with other religions but above all with Judaism, promulgated on October 28, 1965, had one effect. It marked a resumption of dialogue between the Church and the Jews, which in recent times had registered “misunderstandings, difficulties and conflicts,” aggravated by “political circumstances and the injustices of some,” as Pope Leo XIV acknowledged in celebrating the event.
In effect, “Nostra Aetate” marked a turning point in the millennia-long history of the relationship between Christians and Jews. The Catholic Church recognized that “God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers ; He does not repent of the gifts He makes or of the calls He issues,” and that therefore it too, the Church, “draws sustenance from the root of that well-cultivated olive tree onto which have been grafted the wild shoots,” where the good stock is the Jews and the wild graft is all the other peoples that recognize Jesus as the Messiah, as the Apostle Paul affirmed in his letter to the Romans.
But in recent years the dialogue between the two “olive trees” had effectively dried up, as acknowledged repeatedly by both sides, among others by the chief rabbi of Rome, Riccardo Di Segni, in a recent book covered by Settimo Cielo.
To start again, Pope Leo has wanted to cleanse the Church at least of the prime aversion still expressed from many sides against the Jews. He cited “Nostra Aetate,” where it is written that the Church, “mindful of the patrimony she shares with the Jews and moved not by political reasons but by the Gospel’s spiritual love, decries hatred, persecutions, displays of anti-Semitism, directed against Jews at any time and by anyone.” He added : “Since then, all my predecessors have condemned anti-Semitism with clear words. And so I too confirm that the Church does not tolerate anti-Semitism and fights against it, on the basis of the Gospel itself.”
And signs of a desire to revive dialogue have also come from the Jewish side in recent days. One need only look at the participation of many prominent Jews in the events held in Rome in commemoration of “Nostra Aetate,” with the active presence of the pope.
One of these events, organized by the Community of Sant’Egidio, was held on October 28 at the Colosseum, with a warm exchange of greetings between Leo and Rabbi Di Segni, and then with Rabbi David Rosen, director of the department of interreligious affairs of the American Jewish Committee, and with Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt (see photo), president of the European rabbis and former chief rabbi of Moscow, self-exiled from Russia in 2022 on account of its aggression against Ukraine.
To be sure, one of the main causes of difficulty in the dialogue between the Church and the Jews is their different interpretation of the Scriptures, where for Christians the Messiah Jesus is at the heart of everything, while for Jews the central theme is the promise of the land to the descendants of the patriarchs. After “Nostra Aetate” it is no longer so, but for centuries the conviction of Christians had in fact been that the Jews could not return to their land until they recognized the Messiah in Jesus, whom they had instead killed.
Hence the opposition that the Catholic Church has long expressed to Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel, which was accepted only in 1994 with the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but always from a perspective that has nothing religious about it but refers to the common principles of international law.
The chief rabbi of Milan, Alfonso Arbib, speaking on October 31 at a demonstration in Rome against anti-Semitic hatred, also acknowledged that “the most complex issue” in the dialogue between the Church and Judaism remains “the relationship with Israel and with the land of Israel.” If “relations with the Vatican have long been so problematic, and in part still are,” it is precisely because “the indissoluble bond between the Jewish people and their land is not fully recognized.”
Today no one demands that both sides agree in their interpretation of the Scriptures, but Jews certainly expect the Church to recognize their essential bond, religious too, with the land offered to Israel by God.
And it is precisely this bond that the text reproduced below describes.
The text is one of the sixteen chapters of “An Introduction to Judaism,” published this year in Italian and English through a joint initiative of the Italian episcopal conference and the Union of Italian Jewish Communities.
The book that contains the sixteen chapters – the full text of which is accessible for free online – is primarily intended for schools, to promote “culture and knowledge as a true antidote to all forms of anti-Semitism.” And it is especially timely at a moment like the present, when the war in Gaza following the pogrom carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has inflamed the minds of many young people precisely against Jews.
On November 5 the Italian embassy to the Holy See will host a presentation of the book, with remarks from both the president of the episcopal conference, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, and the president of the Union of Italian Jewish Communities, Noemi Di Segni.
These are the titles of each chapter :
1. The Hebrew Bible
2. The written Torah and the oral Torah
3. The name of God
4. The election of Israel
5. Justice and mercy
6. Precepts and values
7. The Jewish calendar and the cycle of holidays
8. The cycle of life
9. Priests, Rabbis and… Kohamin Priests
10. Women in Judaism
11. The people of Israel and the land of Israel
12. Jesus/Yeshua the Jew
13. Paul/Shaul the Jew
14. A brief history of Italian Jews
15. Jewish-Christian dialogue since the second Vatican Council
16. Description of the accurate meaning of certain terms
And so here is what the eleventh chapter says.
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THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL AND THE LAND OF ISRAEL
“Eretz Yisrael,” the Land of Israel, has been at the centre of the dreams and aspirations of the Jewish people since biblical times. The Lord said to Abraham : “Go forth from your land, and from your birthplace, and from your father’s house, to the land that I will show you” (Genesis 12:1). And it was there that Abraham wandered, digging wells, tending his flocks and behaving with justice towards all. It is also the land that God promised to Abraham’s descendants, who returned there after a long period of exile and slavery.
The Torah refers to the Land of Israel as the Land of Canaan, specifically the territory west of the Jordan River. In contrast, the area east of the Jordan River is usually referred to in the Torah as the land of Gilead.
The land of Canaan is the object of the promise made by the Lord to the patriarchs : “I assign the land you sojourn in to you and your offspring to come, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting holding. I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:8). In other passages of the Torah, the land of Israel is referred to as “the land” without further attribution, to be understood as a special land.
In the prophetic books, in addition to the land of Canaan, we often find the term “Land of Israel”, which is to become prevalent in conjunction with the term ‘Land’ adopted by the sages of the rabbinic tradition, as opposed to the other lands referred to as “Huṣ La-Haaretz” (outside the land) or “Eretz Ha’ammim” (land of the peoples). Sometimes the Divine Voice calls it “My Land.”
Another traditional term for Israel is “Eretz Hemdah” (land of desire), indicating that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob longed for this land, to the extent that Abraham purchased the Cave of Machpelah as a burial place for his wife Sarah, the Lord prevented Isaac from leaving Israel, and Jacob asked not to be buried in Egypt but in the Land of Israel.
Rarely does the Bible use the term “Holy Land.” Nonetheless, the Land is seen as a gift of God to Israel. God watches over this land and what happens in it in a special way (Deut 11:12). In fact, the Land belongs exclusively to the Lord, and its enjoyment is subject to obedience to His laws. The gift given to Israel is not gratuitous : three good gifts were bestowed on Israel by God and all three were given after suffering. The three are Torah, the Land of Israel and the life to come. (Berakhot 5a).
The centrality of “Eretz Yisrael” has traditionally been the most important element of Jewish worship and consciousness. When praying, Jews turn towards Land of Israel, and in particular towards Jerusalem and toward the site of the ancient Temple. This connection is cultivated through the observance of religious festivals, almost all of which are linked to the agricultural seasons of the Land of Israel, and through the study of the laws governing the sacred use of the land.
This strong spiritual and physical bond forms part of an ideal collective identity. The hope of returning to the Land is the theme of daily prayers, along with an immense liturgical and mystical literature, as well as various precepts not exclusively related to agricultural life. The application of criminal law, for example, cannot be practised outside Israel, and even in Israel some precepts require a number of preconditions, such as the sovereignty of the entire Jewish people in their own land.
The relationship between land, people and Torah has played a crucial role in all Jewish communities throughout history, and the longing for the lost homeland has driven Jews on the path of Return. In the days when the first waves of immigration arrived in Palestine as a result of political Zionism, Jewish communities already existed in the ancient holy cities of Jerusalem, Tiberias, Safed and Chevron.
The ancient “Yishuv,” i.e. the community that existed before the more recent influxes, was extremely poor. It was an orthodox community that lived off the charity of Jewish communities in the Diaspora. It testifies to the continuity of the Jewish presence in Palestine and is an expression of religious zeal, of the hope of the Return of the Jewish people to Israel, the waves of messianic enthusiasm that saw their aspirations transformed into a political reality with the Jewish national movement called Zionism.
Zionism is the movement for the political self-determination of the Jewish people, which led to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. Criticising the Israeli government for a decision it has taken does not amount to being anti-Zionist, but refusing to recognise the right of the Jewish people to their own nationhood certainly does.
Before the birth of the State of Israel, there were Zionist Jews and anti-Zionist Jews ; there was a legitimate choice. To be anti-Zionist today is to support the destruction of a state, albeit not a perfect one, but a democratic one, with nine million citizens.
Church authorities were largely against Zionism and opposed the creation of the State of Israel, initially for religious reasons linked to the non-recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. Since 1994, however, regular diplomatic relations have been established between Israel and the Holy See, with the opening of a nunciature in Israel and an Israeli embassy in Rome.
(Translated by Matthew Sherry : traduttore@hotmail.com)
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Sandro Magister is past “vaticanista” of the Italian weekly L’Espresso.
The latest articles in English of his blog Settimo Cielo are on this page.
But the full archive of Settimo Cielo in English, from 2017 to today, is accessible.
As is the complete index of the blog www.chiesa, which preceded it.