AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE INTERRELIGIOUS AFFAIRS COMMISSION AND RABBI JAMES RUDIN, 2006, revised 1/20

In late 1995, Bob Rifkind, the President of the AJC, asked if I would chair the Interreligious Affairs Commission of the Board of Governors, to which I had been elected two years earlier. As I was still serving as Chair of the Massachusetts Board of Education, as well as President of the Columbia College Alumni Association (1994-96), and was deeply involved in my legal and foundation practice, I declined A few months later, when it became clear that Bill Weld was not re-appointing me to the Board of Education, Bob called me again and said that I no longer had an excuse, and that I had to take the position. And so, I took on what turned out to be one of the most meaningful public service or charitable organization responsibilities, and one that I found most fulfilling.

The professional head of that department at AJC was Rabbi James Rudin, who grew up in Alexandria, Virginia and had served in the U.S. Air Force as a Chaplain based in Japan and Korea in the runup to the Vietnam War in the early 1960s. Jim was the most respected and important interfaith leader in the Jewish community in the country. His style was personal, warm, compassionate, and always worked quietly behind the scenes to achieve progress, as opposed to the more public attack style of the Anti-Defamation League (“ADL”). Jim had extraordinary personal relationships with many other interfaith leaders, but especially with Cardinal John O'Connor of New York and Cardinal Edward Cassidy, the head of the Vatican's Commission on Relations with the Jews. Jim was their trusted ally, and often gave them quiet advice on sensitive issues. They knew that they could share information with him that would not find its way into the press.

For many years there had been controversy over the efforts of the Carmelite Order to establish a center for Carmelite nuns at Auschwitz. As might be expected this was strongly opposed by Jewish organization leaders, who considered the ground not holy, but in fact charred with evil. The Carmelite Order did not mean offense by seeking to locate a convent there, but it would suggest that the victims of Auschwitz were Roman Catholics, when in fact they were almost exclusively Jews.

The Vatican was hoping that the matter would be resolved by church authorities in Poland, but after many months of fruitless negotiation, it became clear that only the intervention of the Pope himself would accomplish the decision that had been agreed upon by the Vatican that the convent should not be located directly at Auschwitz. Jim played a role behind the scenes with Cardinal Cassidy which led to Pope John Paul II telephoning the director of the Carmelite Order in Poland and ordering the convent to be moved.

Similarly, Jim, together with Irving Levine, a Boston businessman and a member of the AJC Interreligious Affairs Commission who was fluent in German, played a continuing role over many years in the negotiation of changes in the passion play at Oberammergau, the most famous (or nefarious) of the passion plays. Presented only every ten years, it was always a huge media event partly due to its obvious and many levels of anti-Semitism. The play was organized and carried out by the town and parish of Oberammergau, and no outside source had control over its presentation. The Vatican wished to stay out of the recurring controversies in hopes that they could be solved at the local level. As the passion play approached every ten years, various Jewish leaders would negotiate with the members of the German town’s organizing committee seeking to obtain improvement in the presentation of Jews in the play. While I was kept abreast of the changes being contemplated for the year 2000, I did not go to any of the meetings in Germany, but knew how effective Jim and Irving were behind the scenes, meeting quietly with leaders of the community, and obtaining many of the changes they sought.

Since the early 1990s, it became clear that the Vatican was going to present a major statement on Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, and Cardinal Cassidy kept in touch with Jim regarding the internal negotiations going on within the Vatican. Jim continually provided advice and suggestions on issues that would be raised by Cassidy. The document finally was issued in March 1998 with a brief introductory letter from Pope John Paul II, and the statement itself, We Remember: A Reflection on the Shoah, was the work of the Commission on Pontifical Relations with the Jews, ostensibly. However, it was clear from the final document that it in effect had two goals, with the appropriate acceptance of responsibility for laying the groundwork for centuries of hostility to Jews and the Jewish religion, but coupled with a defense of Vatican behavior, even praising the role of Pope Pius XII in his response to the Holocaust itself. Many Jewish and other leaders believed that the document was therefore deeply flawed, with both positive and negative aspects.

Jim learned that the document was a compromise, including parts drafted by the Commission that were changed by, and with sections added by, the powerful Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Sodano, who sought to protect the image of the Vatican and Pope Pius XII. Cardinal Cassidy was disappointed by the final version, and his chief aide, Msgr. Remi Hochmann, said to Jim “We sent them a racehorse; they sent back a camel”. The AJC released a statement both praising and criticizing different sections of We Remember, and invited Cardinal Cassidy to speak about the Vatican statement at the upcoming AJC Annual Meeting in early May 1998. Cassidy accepted, and this would be his first public presentation and defense of the document in the United States. Bob Rifkind wanted to have a major well-known scholar or other expert on the subject speak in conjunction with Cassidy. Given AJC policies, Jim would not be that spokesperson, as AJC never gave that kind of front and center position to any staff member other than the Executive Director, David Harris. I made clear that I would be honored to be that spokesman, and Jim made clear that he wanted me to be the presenter, and he told Bob that he couldn't imagine anyone else doing a better job. In fact, if I had been passed over, I would have resigned as Chair of the Interreligious Affairs Commission. Bob then agreed and I was chosen to be the major respondent to Cardinal Cassidy.

I worked on the draft, going through approximately ten revisions, continually seeking and obtaining advice from Jim. I wanted to make clear what was positive about the document and what we honored and appreciated in it, and at the same time, make clear what was unnecessary, ill suited for the document, and even fit for strong criticism.

Having had extensive experience in public speaking as Chairman of the Massachusetts Board of Education over the prior four years, I was confident that my delivery would be excellent, and that I could deliver a powerful statement. I would sometimes come up with thoughts about remarks to put in the speech, even when tossing and turning in bed, and would mark them down on paper.

One night, I came up with the phrase "The Freight Train of Twentieth Century History." I immediately got out of bed and thought of another concept to tie to it: Empty Boxcars. I immediately envisioned the key and highly emotional paragraph of the speech, but recognized that it could not be the final paragraph, as it could be interpreted too negatively. I practiced the speech frequently, to try to get to just the right tone, building to a challenging comment to the Vatican, followed by an appreciation of what they have done, and the knowledge that there was a better world of relationship between Catholics and Jews ahead.

Jim and I met with Cardinal Cassidy on the afternoon prior to the AJC Annual Meeting session at which he and I were to speak. Jim was to be the final respondent, and each of us were to be introduced by Bob Rifkind. I gave the Cardinal a copy of my remarks and he read the speech thoroughly as we sat with him. He said "This is about what I thought you would say, and it is fair". This viewpoint was not shared by Eugene Fisher, the lay person who served as secretary of the American Conference of Catholic Bishops in their relationship with Jewish leaders, who felt that my speech was too much of an attack on the Roman Catholic Church. He later moderated his views, and he has been a positive force in the development of the outstanding relationship that has been achieved between the Roman Catholic Church and the organized Jewish community.

In my speech, I spoke about everything that was good in the Vatican statement and then took issue with its attempt to place all responsibility for the Holocaust on 20th Century science and rationalism, the eugenics movement and German paganism. I archly noted that no one accused the Roman Catholic Church of perpetrating the Holocaust; only that the underlying anti-Jewish attitudes of the Church over centuries provided the ground in which Nazism developed its most toxic Anti-Semitism. I called on the Vatican to stop making the erroneous distinction between Anti-Judaism, for which the document acknowledged responsibility, and Anti-Semitism, for which they appeared to claim no responsibility.

I also argued that this document was not the place to provide a defense of Pope Pius XII, whose role during World War II was certainly in dispute. I came to my penultimate paragraph, having taken a pause and intoned slowly:

"The freight train of Twentieth Century history has been sitting on a siding for fifty years, its empty box cars waiting to reach their moral destination. (Gasps) Many nations and institutions will help the box cars get there; we hope the Vatican will do so too." (More gasps) I then went on to the final paragraph, expressing hope and expectation that out of this Reflection would come a new and better Christian-Jewish relationship in the future. I could see many people in the audience holding their mouths, others with tears. I received an immense standing ovation, but leaders of the American Jewish Committee, sitting in front, did not join that for fear of offending or embarrassing Cardinal Cassidy, who was sitting next to me on the dais and who had spoken before me.

Fisher told me that he thought Cassidy should have spoken after me, so that he could have responded to my comments, and perhaps he is correct, but there is no way that a visiting Cardinal would not have been given the honored position of being the lead speaker. Rabbi Gary Greenebaum, director of the Los Angeles Chapter of AJC, who later became director of the Interreligious Affairs Department of AJC, has since told me more than once that my speech was the best speech he ever heard at any AJC Annual Meeting. It apparently has been seen on C-Span a great many times

The following April, AJC sponsored a two-day symposium at St. Mary's Seminary in Baltimore, in conjunction with William Cardinal Keeler, the Archbishop of Baltimore, and an outstanding leader in interfaith dialogue. The subject was teaching about the Holocaust, and how both the Jewish and Roman Catholic communities could do that most effectively. In my prepared speech, I drew from the experiences in the town of Butrimonys, from which all of my paternal ancestors immigrated to the United States during the period 1895-1910. At that time, there were about eight hundred people in the town, approximately one-half Jewish and one-half Lithuanian. My parental grandparents, Morris and Jennie Kaplan, immigrated with their two young twin daughters a couple years prior to my father's birth in 1906. Between 1900 and 1910, not only did Morris, the oldest of ten children come to America, but so did all nine of his siblings, his parents, and at least one uncle and his wife and some of their children. Thus, by the time of World War I, there were no longer any close relatives of my father’s family remaining in Butrimonys. After the Germans invaded Lithuania in June 1941, as part of the attack on the Soviet Union, all of the Jews of the town were murdered in a forest, and buried in a mass grave. The killing was carried out by the local Lithuanians, encouraged by the Germans.

I made the point that the traditional division of European people during World War II into five categories, as defined by Lucy Dawidowicz in The War Against the Jews was lacking. She divided up all the people of Europe during the Holocaust into five categories: perpetrators, collaborators, bystanders, victims, or rescuers. I pointed out that she omitted the "beneficiaries”. I asked who moved into the homes of the Jews who were murdered? Who took over their household goods, clothing, food and supplies? These were not innocent bystanders; these were beneficiaries; and their presence was the reason Jews who were lucky enough, or unlucky enough, to return after the Holocaust, to reclaim their lost property and lives, were in fact driven out of town or murdered, as in the famous Pogrom in the Polish town of Kielce.

I also introduced a new piece into the analysis of the behavior of Pope Pius XII during the war, by comparing his Christmas messages during and immediately after the War. At no time during World War II did Pope Pius XII ever indicate any specific sympathy for the victims of Nazi aggression or extermination, but only veiled references to all the people suffering from the war. In contrast, in his 1945 or 1946 Christmas message the Pope went out of his way with clear sympathy for those only “following orders” and called for leniency for those caught up in war crimes trials, with a sympathy that bordered on the obscene.

The most important event of that conference at St. Mary’s however, was the presentation of the speech of Cardinal Cassidy, who was not present due to illness. Cardinal Cassidy expressed extreme frustration with the continuing criticism of the Vatican statement on the Holocaust by Jewish groups and others, and basically questioned whether the dialogue between the Roman Catholic Church and Jewish leaders should continue.

I read that statement as very dangerous, and firmly urged Jim to pick up the phone and call the Cardinal, and tell him that Jim and I were coming over on a plane to discuss his concerns as soon as his schedule would permit. Jim did that, and Cardinal Cassidy was pleased at our offer, but said that he would be in the United States in just three or four weeks , celebrating Holy Week in Chicago and suggested that we meet him there. We did just that.

Jim and I spent an hour and a half alone one late afternoon or early evening with Cardinal Cassidy at the home of Cardinal George in Chicago. Jim spoke in his quiet and effective style with his good friend, the Cardinal, about the merits of the Reflection on the Shoah, the issues the Jewish community had with it, and the need to clarify the issues that were problematic. I made several key points to Cassidy:

While Jews in the past, including the AJC, have called for opening all of the records of World War II in order to make a full analysis of the role of Pope Pius XII, I suggested that everyone should drop the Pius XII issue. I stated that no one in the Jewish community had suggested that he committed the Holocaust, and that the Vatican should stop making him out to be a hero, whether they believed it or not. Every time the Vatican would seek to portray Pius XII's role in World War II as positive, they would create a hair-trigger reaction from the Jewish community.

I stated that I doubted there would be a strong Jewish objection if the Vatican chose to make Pope Pius XII a saint for reasons unrelated to the Holocaust, such as his role in restructuring much of the Vatican ‘s legal and diplomatic systems; that was up to them. However, there would be a major and angry reaction if Pius XII were made a saint because of his role saving or protecting Jews during the Holocaust. I urged Cardinal Cassidy to have the Vatican disconnect Pius XII from discussions of the Holocaust and not defend his role during the War.

I again reiterated my suggestion that they completely drop the distinction between Anti-Judaism and Anti-Semitism, and asserted that no one was accusing Christianity, or the Roman Catholic Church, of perpetrating the Holocaust. The German people have to answer for Nazism and the Holocaust. The issue is only one of the role Christianity played over centuries in making the soil of Europe fertile for Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to grow, which every Christian faith had already acknowledged, accepted, and for which most Christian churches have made apologies. I said, " Let' s move on."

The Cardinal listened intently to Jim’s and my comments, and took notes. We do not know what role our meeting or our comments had on future Vatican policy. However, the Vatican stopped drawing the distinction between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism, and they stopped talking about Pius XII in connection with the Holocaust and his role during the War.

This was demonstrated most clearly when Pope John Paul II visited Israel in 2000, accompanied by Cardinal Cassidy, as well as by Jim Rudin. The Pope's trip was very successful. Israelis, who had tended to have low expectations for it, were simply overwhelmed by the emotional impact of the Pope's presence, comments and charisma. Pope John Paul II never missed a beat; everything was in perfect tone. He never mentioned the distinction between Anti-Semitism and Anti-Judaism, and he never mentioned the role of Pope Pius XII or the Church during the Holocaust. In fact, he decided to make an unscheduled last minute visit to the Western Wall to leave a note, which he would put in the Wall between the stones as so many others do when they come there to pray. Cardinal Cassidy called Jim early in the morning of the last day, telling him of the Pope’s desire to go to the Wall again and leave a note. He asked Jim for advice as to what the note should say. Jim suggested that rather than negotiate some new statement, the Pope should have the note state the same simple message he had given the prior day at Yad Vashem.

In 2001 Cardinal Cassidy was honored at the AJC Annual Meeting, and stated: “I think Martin Kaplan, Jim Rudin and I made some history here a couple years ago”.

Throughout the AJC’s long relationship with the Vatican and the Catholic Church, Jim Rudin was the most important contact, not only with the Vatican, but also with Church in the United States and even in the Oberammergau and Carmelite monastery issues in Europe. Following his retirement, Jim completed his research on Nostra Aetate, the 1965 landmark document that repudiated Anti-Semitism and the charge that Jews were collectively responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus. It was adopted by Vatican II, the Second Vatican Council, called by Pope John XXIII and presided over by Pope Paul VI. Jim’s research led him to an understanding of the prelates, Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York, a strong conservative leader in the Church, and Cardinal Richard Cushing of Boston, who was more open to reform. Both played significant roles in convincing the 2500 bishops and other Church leaders to adopt Nostra Aetate in the strongest language possible.

Jim was also a great admirer and friend of Cardinal John O’Connor of New York, and Jim decided that he should include Cardinal O’Connor in his book along with telling the story of the roles of Cardinals Spellman and Cushing at Vatican II. I strongly urged Jim to write that book, which he and I referred to as the Three Amigos, and Jim was kind enough to give me credit when the book was published, and for which I organized parties at the Lotos Club in New York and Boston College in Boston. We invited Cardinal Dolan in New York and Cardinal O’Malley in Boston to those events; neither could attend, but sent letters of support to be read. I also invited former Boston Mayor Ray Flynn, who had also served as U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican, to the Boston College event, who spoke with glowing review not only of the three Cardinals but also of the role Jim played in Catholic Jewish relations.

I also wish to note that at some early point after I became chair of the Interreligious Affairs Commission of the AJC, I called Cardinal Bernard Law’s office in Boston seeking a half hour visit with him to introduce myself, knowing of course that he had an intimate relationship with the Boston office of the ADL but none with AJC. I called in February and was offered an appointment in November of that year, nine months later. I suggested that perhaps an earlier appointment would be possible. I was firmly told No. I then said that I would not make the appointment that far in advance and would hope to meet the Cardinal on another occasion. Given his later history, perhaps I could have looked him up when he accepted exile in Rome.