c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the national interreligious affairs director of the American Jewish Committee.)

JERUSALEM _ Pope John Paul II’s Middle East pilgrimage is now over, and as one of the nearly 2,000 journalists who were in Israel’s capital city to cover this historic event, here are some of my lasting impressions.

The pope’s rain-swept arrival in Tel Aviv was highly emotional as the Jewish state officially welcomed the spiritual leader of 1 billion Catholics. John Paul was greeted by Israeli President Ezer Weizman and Prime Minister Ehud Barak. The two former generals have both fought in Israel’s many wars but are now leaders in the peace process.

The pope’s presence at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, drew huge media attention. Just before Barak and John Paul spoke in the dimly lit Hall of Remembrance, it was standing room only and absolute quiet in the Jerusalem press center as five large TV screens carried the event live.

In his eloquent speech at Yad Vashem, Barak recited lines from a poem about the Holocaust written during World War II by the Israeli poet Natan Alterman: “As the children cried underneath the gallows, the wrath of the world we did not hearâÂ?¦”

However, Barak carefully omitted the next lines of the poem: “And the Holy Christian Father in the city of Rome did not leave the palace … to experience the pogrom.” Many Israelis know this poem by heart, and Barak’s subtle message about Pius XII was clear without deliberately offending John Paul.

The pope’s Yad Vashem address must be understood on two levels. While he expressed his personal sadness for the slaughter of 6 million innocents, some Jews and Christians felt he could have said more. However, the poignant image of the aging Polish pope leaving his seat and walking over to personally greet seven Jewish survivors of the Holocaust was beamed around the world, and is now a permanent part of the world’s collective memory bank.

A searing negative image emerged a few hours after the pope’s Yad Vashem visit. John Paul participated in an interreligious meeting in Jerusalem with Chief Rabbi Israel Lau and Sheikh Tatzir Tamini, the head of the Palestinian religious courts. Tamini used the occasion to unleash a lengthy and vicious verbal attack on Israel. During his vitriolic harangue, Tamini asserted that Jerusalem and the Holy Land were “Islamic” and only “the establishment of an independent Palestinian state with Yasser Arafat as its president and Jerusalem as its capital can end the religious strife between the religions.”

The audience was stunned by the sheikh’s outburst and stared in disbelief when the Muslim cleric whispered something into the pope’s ear and then rudely left the event before its conclusion. The empty chair next to the pope and the chief rabbi is forever etched in my mind. Israel Radio later reported that the pope’s entourage was outraged by Tamini’s speech, and Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the outburst damaged the purpose of the interreligious gathering.

Incredibly, the pope’s remarks delivered in English at the Palestinian refugee camp near Bethlehem were not translated into Arabic. As a result, many in the audience did not understand John Paul’s strong words of compassion. Was this an administrative blunder by Palestinian officials? Or was it a cynical attempt to minimize the pontiff’s message? Who knows, but it is clear that the lack of an Arabic translation was a missed opportunity for the Palestinians that will not soon occur again.

The ailing 79-year-old pope appeared at every event in his crowded schedule and fulfilled all his speaking commitments. The large number of Christian pilgrims who came from all over the world to attend the Mass on the Mount of Beatitudes deeply impressed the Israeli population. The event itself was conducted amid a colorful sea of flags and in a myriad of languages.

The papal visit compelled many Israelis to recognize for the first time the extraordinary positive advances in Catholic-Jewish relations. Until now, those gains were usually articulated at academic conferences or frequently appeared to be the exclusive preserve of interreligious professionals. Not anymore.

The pope dramatically gave personal meaning to those achievements, and his visit was a series of lasting electronic icons that will influence future Christian-Jewish encounters. In one of his last public acts in Israel, the pope placed a signed prayer for forgiveness for Catholic anti-Semitic acts in one of the crevices of the Western Wall, Judaism’s most sacred holy place. No one, not even the enemies of Israel, can ever misinterpret or forget that papal act of repentance.

KRE END RUDIN