Against the Spirit of the Gospel

Very little remains of Eastern Europe’s once-thriving and deeply rooted Jewish communities. The Holocaust and subsequent emigration of most of the survivors of that unspeakable crime have left remnant Jewish populations of only a few thousand in countries where before World War II hundreds of thousands or even millions had flourished. But the near-disappearance of Jewish life has not produced the disappearance of anti-Semitism. In Romania and Hungary and most especially in Poland, the ancient bigotry has resurfaced. Jean-Paul Sartre’s observation that if the Jew didn’t exist the anti-Semite would invent him is again being validated.

The reappearance of anti-Semitism in post-Communist Eastern Europe prompted an international conference in Prague three months ago between Roman Catholic and Jewish representatives. From it emerged a strong statement condemning anti-Semitism as “a sin against God and humanity.” In his endorsement, which in part restated the declaration of the Second Vatican Council, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that some aspects of Catholic teaching had in fact fostered anti-Semitism, and called for strong efforts to combat its revival in Eastern Europe.

Poland’s Roman Catholic bishops have now produced a document, to be read in all of that country’s churches on Jan. 20, that both condemns anti-Semitism and expresses regret over the cooperation by some Poles with Nazi mass murders of Jews a half-century ago. Those activities, the bishops wrote, “forever gnaw at our conscience.” Acknowledgement of the role taken by some Poles in the Holocaust comes late, but may still help as a moral deterrent to the new anti-Semitism in Poland.

Lech Walesa, who is to be sworn in today as that country’s president, himself made comments during his campaign widely inferred to be anti-Jewish. Some of his followers left no doubts about their own anti-Jewish sentiments. This in a country where only about 6,000 Jews survive out of a prewar population of 3 million. The old prejudices seem far from extinct in the new Poland. The Polish bishops’ message that anti-Semitism is against the spirit of the gospel is one that can’t be restated too often.