Posted April 15 2008
The Pope Goes to Synagogue
Never in the history of the papacy has a pope visited a synagogue in America. In fact, popes have only visited two synagogues ever before, that is until this Friday. On Friday, April 18th, Pope Benedict XVI will make an historic stop at the Park East Synagogue for twenty minutes or so, late in the afternoon.
Rabbi Arthur Schneier, spiritual leader of the Upper East Side shul, will be officially welcoming the Pope just hours before Shabbat and right before Pesach.
“I look at it as a message of good will by Pope Benedict, saluting the largest Jewish community in the world outside of Israel — New York — but in a greater context, American Jewry and world Jewry,” Rabbi Schneier said in today’s New York Times. “Basically, the message is: ‘I am continuing the outreach to the Jews.’ ”
It has become custom that a group of bishops visit Yeshiva University every year on their tour of New York, in an effort to further the dialog between our faiths. The Pope going to an American shul is, however, a very big deal and really shows the positive progress our two communities have made. It is even more appropriate that the Pope visit a synagogue on the eve of Passover, being that the Last Supper was a Seder. So much pain and violence has been endured by Jews because of the the absurd accusation of blood libels, claiming we use the blood of Christian children to make Matzah.
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