Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Lau- Pontiff-s Request for Forgiveness Disappointing

(Communicated by the Chief Rabbinate Spokesman)
March 13, 2000

Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau commends the fact of Pope John Paul II's initiative in requesting forgiveness from the Jewish People, which has been persecuted for the past 2,000 years. Rabbi Lau definitely sees this as a positive change in contrast to previous Pontiffs.

However, Rabbi Lau expresses his deep disappointment over the fact that the issue of the Holocaust was not mentioned at all even though Pope John Paul II personally experienced the Holocaust in Poland. "To recall the horrors of the Inquisition of 1492 but to omit the Wansee conference of 1942 constitutes serious historical myopia. Even though the 'Final Solution' was a Nazi invention, not a Church one, the Pontiff who headed the Roman Catholic Church during the Holocaust period, Pius XII, did nothing to either condemn it or protest against it; his standing by while blood was being shed deserves full condemnation, on behalf of future generations as well. At Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, there is an avenue on which every tree is dedicated to the memory of a Righteous Gentile. Had Pius XII fulfilled his basic duty, this avenue would be much longer and the lives of many more Jews would have been saved during those horrible days. I hope that the completion of this request for forgiveness will be voiced by the Pope in his remarks at Yad Vashem next week," Rabbi Lau said.