Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 36, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 3, 1987 Page: 2 of 20
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Texas Jewish Post, Thursday, September 3,1987
The Cutting edge
BY EDWIN BLACK
\A^hen the Pope agreed to meet
with Jewish leaders, bells rang in the
offices of American Jewry's com-
munal hierarchy. The atmosphere
resembled the classic comedy film
"It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,"
with Jewish leadership scrambling
and jockeying to see who would go to
Rome as part of a five man delegation
to meet with the Pope. The question
was which five?
"It was like trying to fit a size
twelve foot into a size six shoe," says
Gunther Lawrence, a central figure in
the arrangements and spokesman for
the Synagogue Council of America.
"The backbiting, backstabbing and
politicking of this week has been in-
credible," adds a member of the five
man delegation that finally flew to
Rome. Seymour Reich, president of
B'nai B'rith International, also of the
delegation summarized it this way:
"simple a schande."
Accusations by communal officials
against their colleagues could fill a
small archive. But verifiable specifics
are hard to come by because so many
people were promising so much to so
many and then reversing themselves
so continuously, that the process can
only be described as an amorphous
continuum of communal conflict.
However, this much is known:
throughout the whirlwind week
preceding the departure to Rome, the
list of approved and proposed
delegates changed hourly.
Indeed, as this reporter monitored
the selection progress, proposed
delegates would say, "as of two hours
ago, seven are going, and I am one of
them." This, only to be counterman-
ded by another Jewish leader who
would claim, "Well, then you don't
know what I know because as of thir-
ty minutes ago, eight are going and
(name deleted) is not on the list." And
then that would be challenged by a
third leader, insisting, "As of five
minutes ago, nine are going but only
five get to see the Pope and four have
to wait outside."
The dynamics began simply
enough. The International Jewish
Committee on Inter-religious Con-
sultations (IJCIC) did the right thing
and protested the June 25 audience
with Kurt Waldheim. IJCIC is the
traditional Jewish body overseeing
Jewish-Catholic relations. In a crucial
July 9 meeting with the Vatican's
number two man, Secretary of State
Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, four
IJCIC rabbis "made very serious poin-
ts for two hours," recalls Marc
Tanenbaum of the American Jewish
Committee. The four were Tanen-
baum, accompanied by Gilbert
Klaperman and Mordechai Waxman
of the Synagogue Council of America,
and Wolfe Kelman of the Rabbinical
Assembly — all IJCIC experts in
either the theology, history and
organization of two religious com-
munities.
The four rabbis were so cogent in
their negotiations with Casaroli that
the Vatican acceded to their assertive
request for a personal meeting with
the Pope. "So much progress arose
out of four people meeting with
Casaroli," explains Tanenbaum, "that
the Vatican asked us to send no more
than five to Rome." Here is where the
CN number "five" originated. Lawrence
Pre- Papal Palpitations
adds, "This way, we would have not
an audience, but a real discussion
where substantive issues could be
dealth with.
Suddenly, everybody wanted to get
in on the act. And indeed, there were
strong reasons to include the many
leaders vying for the mission. But the
Papal invitation was only to members
of IJCIC and only called for five
delegates. IJCIC is comprised of B'nai
B'rith International, the World Jewish
Congress, the Israel Interfaith Com-
mittee, the American Jewish Commit-
tee and the Synagogue Council of
America.
Problem: the American Jewish
Congress, one of the big four
American Jewish organizations, is not
a member of IJCIC. On the other
hand, they were bona fide co-
sponsors of the scheduled September
11 Miami ceremony with His Eminen-
ce. On still another hand, however,
the Congress was perhaps the last
oranization that could promote a
useful dialog with the Vatican
because they had spearheaded the
Miami boycott, including a caustic
open letter to the Pope and an ad in
the New York Times. And yet on one
final additional hand, they could not
conceivably be excluded because
had it not been for the principled
public stand of AJC executive direc-
tor Henry Siegman — even as others
were shushing — the Vatican would
have never agreed to the Jewish
community's requests.
"A way was finally found for
Siegman to attend — under the ban-
ner of the World Jewish Congress,"
explains one delegate just before
departing for Rome. AJC is a member
of the World Jewish Congress, which
is in turn a bona fide IJCIC member.
until an August 19 IJCIC meeting. Ac-
cording to reports, the American
Jewish Committee and Union of
American Hebrew Congregations
asserted that the Vatican was angry at
the Congress in general and Seigman
in particular because of the New York
Times ad. Siegman was called a "red
flag" who should not attend. The plan
was then to list the Congress as a par-
ticipant, but drop them if the Vatican
objected.
Siegman heard the news the next
morning, and decided to make a
stand at the IJCIC meeting convened
that afternoon He opened the 3 pm
session declaring, "I have a
statement." After stressing that the
Congress from the outset maintained
that they need not be part of the
delegation, especially as a matter of
principle, Siegman declared that the
very notion that the Vatican could
dictate which Jewish organizations
would participate in a Jewish
delegation has now "made it a matter
of principle."
Siegman enunciated a new
position: The Congress agreed to be
listed on condition that if the Vatican
tried to veto them, IJCIC would insist
on their remaining. If IJCIC couldn't
make this guarantee, the Congress
preferred its name not be listed. "But
then we reserve for ourself the right
to inform the Jewish community what
IJCIC did," said Siegman. Communal
leaders variously interpreted
Siegman's stance as everything from
"Great statesmanship," to "outright
blackmail." That began a series of
organizational maneuvers designed
to either thwart or support Siegman's
position.
But the World Jewish Congress had
already reserved a seat one of the
five-man seats for Gerhard Reigner,
their Geneva director, a founder of
IJCIC and a pioneer in post-war
Catholic-Jewish relations. If Siegman
attended, then the WJC would hoard
two out of the five delegate seats —
excluding other deserving Jewish
organizations, such as the Anti-Def-
amation League.
To avoid being a logjam, recalls
Seigman, "we continually told
everybody that neither Henry
Siegman nor the American Jewish
Congress need be part of the
delegation — indeed that no
organization's participation should
be raised to the level of high prin-
ciple." That was the Congress' stance
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum
The problem was actually solved
on the spot during the August 20
IJCIC meeting when Alexander
Schindler on behalf of UAHC and
Tanenbaum disassociated themselves
from the idea of letting the Vatican
veto the delegate list. Seigman then
withdrew his ultimatum. But in Jewish
organizational life, tactics set in
motion often develop their own
steam engines.
Even as the Congress controversy
was burning, the Anti-Defamation
League posed its own problem. As a
prime mover in Catholic-Jewish
relations, the AdL deserved a place in
the mission. But ADL quit IJCIC two
years ago to pursue Vatican relations
on their own. ADL sources declined to
comment on exactly why the
organization bolted’ IJCIC. "In any
event, ADL now wanted back in," an
IJCIC member declared, presumably
under the aegis of B'nai B'rith, a valid
IJCIC member. This only complicated
the numbers game, and generated its
own cycle of vicious intracommunal
rumor mongering and one-
upsmanship.
Ironically, this chaos may not have
been unwelcome to one organization
that at least three delegates
described as "the chief obstruc-
tionist," namely, the World Jewish
Congress. "By keeping alive the
inability to form a delegation, the
mission and indeed our erdibility was
continually undermined," declares
one leader. Their motive: "They were
the prime movers on the whole
Waldheim issue. If the Jewish com-
munity reconciles with the Pope, they
(the WJC) lose a villain."
Hence WJC officials Israel Singer
and Elan Steinberg, respectively
secretary general and executive
director, were severely criticized by
several delegates for fostering dissen-
sion. Delegates say WJC tactics in-
cluded trying to convince Elie Wiesel
to upstage the mission with a "pre-
emptive audience" before the Jewish
leaders were received. Unknown to
Steinberg and Singer at the time,
Wiesel already had received his own
Papal invitation. He declined after
sustained importuning by delegate
members. Critics say that when the
Wiesel effort failed, the WJC
deliberately kept the list of names
unresolved.
Asked about the allegation, Stein-
berg responded by reading a hot off
the wire UPI dispatch datelined
Rome. The dispatch twice quoted
Vatican sources as referring to the
meeting as an "audience" confined
to "inter-religious issues." Steinberg's
voice unmistakably stressed the
Papal terminology because an
"audience" confined to a purely "in-
terreligious" agenda was exactly what
Jewish leaders sought to avoid.
"This meeting must be a meeting in
which substantive issues take place
between the world Jewish community
and the Jews, not just a ceremony,"
insisted Steinberg. " We don't need
to fly to Rome for another Miami. I
would love to be proven wrong, but
even now (last Thursday afternoon), I
am concerned that the substantive
issues will not be discussed — pre-
eminent among them being
diplomatic relations with Israel — the
absence of which is an affront to
every Jew in the world."
Steinberg confirmed that the WJC
originally proposed Wiesel as "the
smartest guy" the Jewish community
could offer. Later he suggested that
disputing Jewish leaders stage a
"mudwrestling contest with the win-
ner going to Rome." Prone to the
jocund, Steinberg seriously asserts
the WJC's view this way: "We always
thought it was less important who
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Wisch, J. A. & Wisch, Rene. Texas Jewish Post (Fort Worth, Tex.), Vol. 41, No. 36, Ed. 1 Thursday, September 3, 1987, newspaper, September 3, 1987; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth755006/m1/2/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; .