Fight anti-Semitism and defend Palestinian rights, convert priest urges
May 08, 2024
» Continue to this story on L'Osservatore Romano (Italian)
CWN Editor's Note: In “Anti-Semitism and Palestine,” a lengthy essay in the Vatican newspaper, Father David Neuhaus, SJ traced the history of anti-Semitism and argued that anti-Semitism has been a “catastrophe for Palestinians.”
The priest, a convert from Judaism and former vicar for Hebrew-speaking Catholics in the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, argued that anti-Semitism helped contribute to the Zionist movement: he said that many Europeans were happy to be see their Jewish neighbors go to a far-away homeland.
Much as the Shoah (Holocaust) defined the Jewish sense of identity, the Nakba, or forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes, was a defining moment in Palestinian identity, he continued. “While the victory of the Allies and the destruction of the Nazi government put an end to the Shoah, the Nakba has not yet ended and the life of the Palestinians continues in its shadow: exile, occupation and discrimination.”
Lamenting both “radical anti-Arab Zionist extremism and extremist Arab anti-Semitism,” Father Neuhaus wrote that “those who fight against anti-Semitism, those who defend Palestinian rights, and those who promote the vision of a society in Israel/Palestine based on justice, peace, freedom and equality should be allies in building a better world, and not enemies of each other.”
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