by: By Abraham H. Foxman | April 18, 2013 The Huffington Post One of the first things Argentinian native Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio did after being elected pope on March 13 was to send a message of friendship to Rome's chief rabbi, Riccardo Di Segni -- and, by extension, the Jewish people.
"I sincerely hope to be able to contribute to the progress that relations between Jews and Catholics have enjoyed since the Second Vatican Council," wrote Cardinal Bergoglio, who took the name Pope Francis…
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January 02, 2013 Q. What is the basis for ADL's concerns about Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ"?A. We first learned about Mr. Gibson's plans to make a film based on the final hours of Jesus' life in a New York Times Magazine article that appeared in February 2003. An early version of the script was shared with us. In August 2003, an ADL representative saw a rough cut in Houston. On January 21, we saw a version of the film at a screening in Orlando, Florida. We had hoped to see the film…
August 03, 2012 Jewish day school funding is a real challenge and doesn’t lend itself to easy solutions. Letters to the Editor The Jewish Telegraphic Agency To the Editor:
Jewish education and religious freedom are both vital to the American Jewish community. But it would be a mistake to sacrifice one for the other, as advocated by Shai Franklin (“ADL must reassess opposition to gov’t support for parochial schools,” Aug. 1).
We are in agreement that Jewish…
by: Abraham H. Foxman | July 11, 2007 Jewish Telegraphic Agency NEW YORK (JTA) – With anti-Semitism resurgent in the world, one of the encouraging elements for the Jewish people, particularly if one is to compare things today to the 1930s and 1940s, is the remarkable change in the Catholic Church's attitudes toward Jews. In the past four decades, a conceptual revolution has taken place in the church's relationship with the Jewish people. The first step came with Vatican II and its…
August 01, 2006 The following is the text of Mel Gibson's apology to the Jewish Community for his anti-Semitic statements. There is no excuse, nor should there be any tolerance, for anyone who thinks or expresses any kind of Anti-Semitic remark. I want to apologize specifically to everyone in the Jewish community for the vitriolic and harmful words that I said to a law enforcement officer the night I was arrested on a DUI charge. I am a public person, and when I say something, either…
On December 11, 2019, President Trump signed an Executive Order on anti-Semitism. The order is designed to give the federal government more tools to protect Jews from anti-Semitism by addressing a gap in the interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a key federal statute prohibiting discrimination in programs receiving federal financial assistance. The order addresses that gap by explicitly adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of…
In 1965, the Second Vatican Council made historic changes to church policies and theology. Among them was Nostra Aetate, Latin for "In Our Time," a document that revolutionized the Catholic Church's approach to Jews and Judaism after nearly 2000 years of pain and sorrow.
Section four of Nostra Aetate repudiates the centuries-old "deicide" charge against all Jews, stresses the religious bond shared by Jews and Catholics, reaffirms the eternal covenant between God and the People of…
Introduction
The right to freedom of religion is so central to American democracy that it was enshrined in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The Founding Fathers wrote the First Amendment in response to two centuries of state-sponsored religious conflict and oppression in America, and with a keen understanding of the religious persecution in European nations resulting from official state religions and religious wars.
Recognizing the unique and intimate nature…
Freedom of religion is one of our nation's most cherished liberties. It is at the very foundation of America. Our nation's Constitution protects religious freedom for all, prohibits religious tests for public office, and mandates separation of church and state. These are essential American ideals and values, which candidates for public office should respect.
Candidates for public office are, of course, free to worship as they choose. And they should feel comfortable explaining their…
The central narrative of Christian theology is the passion, i.e. the trials and crucifixion, and resurrection of Jesus. There are four different accounts of the passion in the gospels of Christian Scriptures, in which Jews play different roles. All these accounts culminate in the death and resurrection of Jesus as revealing God's saving power available to humanity. Good Friday and Easter celebrate respectively the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus as the high points of Christian creed and…