ADL worked internationally and locally to help people discover their common bonds and respect their differing faiths. We cooperated with the Vatican to expose and eradicate age-old causes of anti-Semitism, and organized local gatherings that allowed Jews, Muslims and Christians to express their views in a spirit of open inter-religious dialogue.

VATICAN-JEWISH RELATIONS

In keeping with ADL's ongoing relationship with the Vatican, the League joined in Pope John Paul II's effort to reconcile the Catholic Church with the Jewish people. To salute the Pope's March 2000 Great Jubilee Year Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, which ADL's Israel Office in Jerusalem helped coordinate, ADL placed ads in American and Israeli newspapers citing the unprecedented initiatives in Catholic-Jewish relations.

On the eve of that pilgrimage, the Vatican issued two landmark documents related to what the Holy See called its "tormented history" with the Jews. ADL praised Memory and Reconciliation: The Church and the Faults of the Past, which reviewed Catholic wrongdoings dating back centuries, including the Crusades, the Inquisition and the Holocaust. A week later, when the Vatican issued its Liturgy of Forgiveness, calling on the world to forgive Catholics for sins committed over the past 2,000 years, ADL expressed grave disappointment that the document made no specific reference to the Holocaust.

In September, ADL again spoke out against injustices by the Church when the Vatican beatified Pope Pius IX, who was responsible for the 1858 abduction of a six-year-old Jewish child and later blamed Rome's Jews for what he believed was a Protestant conspiracy to defeat the papacy. ADL called the Vatican's action "troubling."

OBERAMMERGAU PASSION PLAY

Passion plays, based on New Testament narratives of the Passion of Jesus, have historically been used to justify theological anti-Semitism. One of the most notorious passion plays, performed annually since 1634 in Oberammergau, Germany, was praised three centuries later by Adolf Hitler as a "precious tool" in the fight against Jews and Judaism.

Since the late 1970s, ADL has been working with authorities in Oberammergau to reduce the strongly anti-Jewish tone of its Passion Play. Though some progress has been made, ADL has still recommended that tour groups visiting Oberammergau be informed about the problems related to the presentation of Jews and Judaism in the Play.

MOURNING CARDINAL O'CONNOR

ADL mourned the passing of an ally in the battle against anti-Semitism, John Cardinal O'Connor, the Archbishop of New York. At a memorial prayer vigil at St. Patrick's Cathedral, ADL Interfaith Affairs Director Rabbi Leon Klenicki spoke movingly of his friendship with the Cardinal and their joint efforts to improve Catholic-Jewish relations. National Director Abraham H. Foxman noted that the Cardinal "denounced anti-Semitism in all forms, declaring the hatred of the Jewish people a sin, and expressed unequivocal support for the State of Israel."

MESSAGE OF FREEDOM RESOUNDS

Interfaith Seders sponsored by ADL continued to unite racial and religious groups, as they shared Passover's message of freedom.

Chicago's fourth annual African American-Jewish Seder hosted guest-of-honor Sherialyn Byrdsong, widow of Ricky Byrdsong, a victim of the shooting rampage by racist gunman Benjamin Smith, who killed two people and wounded eight others in July 1999. She led the nearly 600 participants in reading the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, the Jewish philosopher and theologian who marched with Dr. King in Selma, Alabama, in 1965.

In Boston, ADL's African American-Jewish and Catholic-Jewish Seders were attended by more than 1,500 people. At the African American-Jewish Seder, the second annual Eyes on the Prize award was presented to the late New England Regional Director Leonard Zakim's widow, Joyce. The award recognizes her husband's achievements, including the vital role he played in organizing the first African American-Jewish Seder nearly 20 years ago and making it a continuing Boston tradition.

In New Jersey, the Statewide Solidarity Seder was conducted in the wake of 1999 bias attacks on the First Baptist Church and desecration of Jewish cemeteries, as well as the controversy over racial profiling by the State Police. Numerous Protestant and Catholic religious leaders attended the Seder, which was preceded by a commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In Ufa, the capital of Bashkiria, a Russian republic 1,000 miles east of Moscow, ADL and the Russian Jewish Congress co-sponsored the Interfaith Passover Celebration. Organized with the help of Hillel students from a local university, this first interfaith Seder in the former Soviet Union was attended by more than 400 Muslim and Christian students and clergy. With the goal of lessening the ignorance that still contributes to anti-Semitism in Russia, the Seder explained the themes of the Haggadah with presentations in a variety of media. The ADL Moscow Office gave each Seder participant a text emphasizing the Seder's universality and the historical bond between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

OTHER INTERFAITH PROGRAMS AND EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS

ADL groups across the United States and as far away as Peru have set up interfaith programs.

* In Peru, the ADL and the Interfaith Committee of Peru jointly presented a course on Jews and Judaism and Interfaith Dialogue to a group of Catholics and Protestants from Peru.

* In Dallas, Rabbi David Rosen, ADL's Israel Office Director, and Yahya Abdullah, Imam of the Masjid of al-Islam Mosque, shared passages from the Torah and the Koran with a large group of Muslims and Jews. 

NEW ENGLAND

Twenty-five Jewish, Christian and Muslim high school students from the ADL New England Region's Interfaith Youth Leadership Program attended a two-day Interfaith Youth Forum at the United Nations. World religious leaders spoke to them about visions for world peace, and the students made proposals for the Millennium World Peace Summit for Religious and Spiritual Leaders at the UN. At the completion of the Youth Forum, the students attended the Summit's opening ceremonies at the UN General Assembly, where they witnessed religious leaders in unified prayer. 

HOUSTON

Houston's Mayor Lee P. Brown proclaimed Fall 2000 as "Community of Respect" season in recognition of ADL's Coalition for Mutual Respect program. The six-year-old coalition sponsors pulpit exchanges and student training to promote understanding between diverse religious, ethnic and cultural groups in the Houston area.

Next: Looking to the Future