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THE EXHIBITION:
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A
Blessing to One Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People
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The
2,000-square-foot exhibition takes its name from the Pope’s 1993
commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. On
that anniversary, he said, “As Christians and Jews, following the
example of the faith of Abraham, we are called to be a blessing to the
world (cf. Gen. 12:2 ff.). This is the common task awaiting us. It is
therefore necessary for us, Christians and Jews, to be first a blessing
to one another.” The exhibition was created in Cincinnati, Ohio, and is
a collaboration between Xavier University and the Hillel Jewish Student
Center of Cincinnati, and the Shtetl Foundation.
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Born Karol Wojtyla,
Pope John Paul II lived in Wadowice, Poland, a town where a quarter of
his classmates were Jewish. He was especially close to Jerzy Kluger, the
son of the president of Wadowice’s Jewish community. Kluger lives in
Rome today and remained a close friend of the pontiff until John Paul
II’s death in April 2005.
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Eight-foot-high
replicas of vintage photographs and postcards serve as the exhibit
walls. These photographs, along with artifacts and videos, take visitors
back in time to prewar Wadowice, the Krakow Ghetto during World War II,
and Cardinal Wojtyla’s ministry in Krakow and Rome. As visitors walk
through the exhibit, symbolically retracing the Pope’s steps, they will
see the church in Wadowice as the future Pope saw it from his own
bedroom window. They will learn about Jewish life during World War II
after walking through a recreation of the gate of the Krakow Ghetto. At
the exhibit’s end, visitors will be able to write prayers and place them
in a replica of the Western Wall in Jerusalem, just as the Pope did
during his visit to
Israel
in 2000. These prayers will be transferred to
Jerusalem
after the exhibit closes.
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Exclusively for the
exhibition’s
New York run,
the Museum has secured a unique artifact – the note left by Pope John
Paul II at the Western Wall in Jerusalem during his historic pilgrimage
to the Holy Land in 2000. On loan to the Museum from Yad Vashem, the
national Holocaust memorial museum in
Israel,
the Pope’s prayer says, in part:
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We are deeply
saddened
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by the behavior of
those
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who in the course of
history
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have caused these
children of yours to suffer,
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and asking your
forgiveness
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we wish to commit
ourselves
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to genuine
brotherhood
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with the people of
the Covenant.
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Other photographs
and artifacts being loaned from museums in the United States, Poland,
Italy, and Israel include:
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Reproductions of the Pope’s baptismal certificate and high school and
college transcripts, on loan from the City of
Wadowice
Museum;
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An
official license plate, bearing the swastika symbol, from one of five
Nazi-owned vehicles used in Wadowice, loaned by the City of Wadowice
Museum;
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Shoes
worn by Jewish prisoners at Auschwitz and a can used for Zyklon B, the
chemical used by the Nazi Germany to kill Jews in gas chambers. These
items have been loaned by the
Auschwitz-Birkenau
State Museum in Poland;
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The
biretta that the future Pope received when named a cardinal in 1967 and
vestments he wore at an inter-religious prayer service in Assisi, on
loan from the John Paul II Cultural Center in Washington, D.C.
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The creation of the
exhibit itself is a testament to inter-religious dialogue. Dr. James
Buchanan, Rabbi Abie Ingber, and Dr. William Madges, exhibit
co-creators, in their work in establishing the exhibit, transformed the
face of Catholic-Jewish dialogue in
Cincinnati.
Dr. James Buchanan, co-executive director of A Blessing to One
Another, and director of Xavier’s Edward B. Brueggeman Center for
Dialogue, believes that what is being celebrated is much more than just
an exhibit. “Our hope is that it will be an experience that has a
spiritual dimension to it as well as stimulating people to begin to
think more deeply about and engage more actively in inter-religious
dialogue.”
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This exhibition is
part of a long tradition of interfaith efforts at the Museum of Jewish
Heritage in New York that started with its dedication in 1997 at which
John Cardinal O’Connor said, “I pray… that through this Museum, every
Jew will be ever prouder to be a Jew and that those of us who call
ourselves Christians will become ever prouder of our Jewish heritage.”
Since then the Museum has used its educational and public programming to
promote interfaith dialogue. A highlight of these efforts is the
Museum’s annual symposium for New York Archdiocese teachers on how to
incorporate the Holocaust and Jewish tradition into their lesson plans.
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“It is important
that this exhibition be held at our Museum,” said Dr. David G.
Marwell, the Director of the Museum. “Cardinal O’Connor’s remarks at
the Museum’s dedication set us on a path of understanding, and I believe
this exhibition is an important milestone in our efforts to meet the
standards he set for us. This inspirational exhibition exemplifies the
universal message of our Museum and reminds us all of what we have in
common.”
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“It is my hope that
New Yorkers of every religious persuasion will have the opportunity to
experience what promises to be a very special exhibition,” said
Edward Cardinal Egan, head of the Archdiocese of New York. “Our
late, beloved Holy Father, Pope John Paul II, had a unique relationship
with the Jewish people, and this effort by the Museum of Jewish Heritage
A Living Memorial to the Holocaust will not only help people to
understand that relationship, but it will also promote Pope John Paul’s
vision of peace and understanding among all faiths.”
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“It cannot be
denied, neither by Jew nor Christian, that Pope John Paul II reached out
with loving sensitivity and compassion to the descendants of Abraham and
Sarah as no other occupant of Peter's Throne during nineteen centuries
of Western history,” said Dr. Ronald B. Sobel, Senior Rabbi
Emeritus of Temple Emanuel of New York, and Museum Trustee. “His
Holiness sought to begin a process of healing to an all too long story
of persecution and hatred. Our Museum rises in reverence before those
efforts and thus gratefully presents this exhibition.”
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About the Exhibition
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A Blessing to One
Another: Pope John Paul II and the Jewish People
was created and
produced by Xavier University (Cincinnati), Hillel Jewish Student Center
(Cincinnati), and The Shtetl Foundation. The New York exhibition is
presented by the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the
Holocaust thanks to the generosity of Angelica Berrie, Peter S. Kalikow,
The Fritz and Adelaide Kauffmann Foundation: Elliot M. Hershberg,
Theodore N. Mirvis, Bernard Turner; the Ollendorf Center for Religious
and Human Understanding, the Oster Family Foundation, and the Theodore
and Renee Weiler Foundation: Richard I. Kandel. The Museum also thanks
the Pave the Way Foundation and the Center for Interreligious
Understanding. The lead financial sponsors of A Blessing To One
Another are the Jewish Foundation of Cincinnati and Xavier
University. Media sponsorship provided by New York Post.
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