Florida Catholic | Rabbi Rosen Visits

Peace-activist rabbi visits

YÉDICA LEAL | SPECIAL TO THE FLORIDA CATHOLIC

Published: 11.08.07

Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, a group that represents the Jewish faith across the world in its relations with other world religions

Rabbi David Rosen is president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, a group that represents the Jewish faith across the world in its relations with other world religions.
World Economic Forum | File

MIAMI | Miami Auxiliary Bishop Felipe Estévez received a special visitor last month: a rabbi from Jerusalem who works for world peace.

Rabbi David Rosen, president of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, a group that represents the Jewish faith across the world in its relations with other world religions, visited Bishop Estévez in an effort to strengthen the relationship between Catholics and Jews in south Florida. “We’re looking for ways we can serve together — not only our communities, but humanity,” explained Rabbi Rosen, who in 2005 became the first Jew to be made a Knight of St. Gregory, an honor bestowed by Pope Benedict XVI.

The papal honor, typically accorded in recognition of extraordinary service to the church, was given to Rabbi Rosen because of his efforts on behalf of reconciliation between Christians and Jews.

From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Rabbi Rosen served as the Anti-Defamation League’s co-liaison to the Vatican. Based in Jerusalem, he now also serves as director of the American Jewish Committee’s Department for Interreligious Affairs.

During their meeting, he informed Bishop Estévez that the American Jewish Committee is looking to work with the Hispanic Catholic community in the United States to promote understanding between both religious groups.

“We are developing for the first time ever a program for priests, seminarians and activists where we will share the history of our common roots, painful history of separation and the joy of rediscovery, especially after the Second Vatican Council,” Rabbi Rosen said.

The goal, he said, is “to attain knowledge from one another to strengthen the deepest values we share.”

Rabbi Rosen first established relations with the Catholic Church in 1973, while he was chief rabbi of the largest Jewish congregation in South Africa. Worldwide efforts to promote reconciliation between Catholics and Jews first began after the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 release of “Nostra Aetate,” a declaration on the church’s relationship to non-Christian religions.

“We are on a highway. We’ve been on it before. John Paul II intensified the pace,” Rabbi Rosen said, calling John Paul II “the great hero of Catholic-Jewish relations. He visited synagogues in Jerusalem, shared the Sabbath with us and was very involved in the Middle East conflicts” in addition to establishing formal relations between the Holy See and the state of Israel.

Rabbi Rosen said Pope Benedict XVI has remained faithful to his predecessor’s interreligious commitments.

“Benedict XVI was John Paul II’s right hand. They have different styles and personalities, but the commitment is the same,” Rabbi Rosen said, noting that the new pope met with Jewish representatives before he met with representatives from any other religious group.

He also recalled Pope Benedict’s words to him at their first meeting in the late 1980s, when the current pope was the cardinal in charge of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

“He told me, ‘You are our living roots. In you there is nothing false. You are pure. Everything that has religious significance to you has religious significance to us.’”

“I have a deep understanding that Benedict XVI would not see Christian theology separate from Jewish theology,” agreed Bishop Estévez.

Both he and Rabbi Rosen say it is necessary to bring a message of hope to a world marked by interreligious conflicts.

Among the events Rabbi Rosen has helped organize is the Alexandria Summit, a gathering of Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders which took place earlier this year in Alexandria, Egypt, and brought together the patriarch and the bishops of Jerusalem, the chief rabbi of Israel, leading Muslim imams, and representatives of other religious communities.

He explained that the goal of that meeting was to open avenues of communication, combat misrepresentation and defamation, and support initiatives for Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation.

“With these interfaith encounters we are starting to change perceptions and promote interreligious cooperation in Jerusalem,” Rabbi Rosen said. n

Leal writes for La Voz Católica, the Spanish-language monthly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Miami.

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