A Friday Night in Rome

Hello, friends.

I had the excellent opportunity on a recent Friday night to attend a Catholic mass...in Hebrew!

Now, I've been to an extremely high number of Catholic masses in my life, and in particular this year--whether it was for the opening of the academic year at my university back in the fall, or in a cave with our group of fellows when we were in Israel in January, or to support my (soon-to-be-ordained) seminarian friend when he recently gave a homily here in Rome. So when I met a nice priest (Fr. Steve) back at an audience with Pope Francis in April who invited me to come to mass in Hebrew once he found out I was Jewish, I was a bit reluctant. I very often enjoy seeing services of other faiths, but it was just feeling like a lot of Catholicism at that point, and I needed a bit of a break. However, after a few weeks, the priest shot me an e-mail letting me know that the final Hebrew mass of this school year was coming up, in case I wanted to come. I was free that Friday night, so I decided to don some appropriate-for-church clothing (despite the heat) and head out to meet him at the Pantheon to walk to mass together.

A photo I took at our university's audience with Papa F on April 10th

And I am so glad I went. Before the mass started, I was able to meet with a few of the people who would be attending. Everyone greeted me warmly, and seemed delighted to find out I was Jewish, which makes sense since in a lot of ways, this was a group of Catholics trying to honor their Jewish roots. The main celebrant was a priest from Belgium, and he and I had a nice short chat about where I came from and such.

The group attending was small, around ten people. We met in a small chapel at a residence for Jesuits, a little white room with minimal but very nice adornments, and sat in a semi-circle of chairs surrounding the altar. Almost everyone at the mass were priests, with one lay lady and myself. The mass is held on Friday nights to honor the start of the Jewish Sabbath, Shabbat, and opened with the lady lighting candles, similar to how a Jewish person would to open Shabbat. The mass is usually in all Hebrew and Italian, and they threw in some English since I was there (not realizing I speak Italian). Some of the prayers (over the Eucharist and the wine) opened in actually the same Hebrew wording as the hamotzi and kiddush (over the bread and the wine) in Judaism. It was pretty neat.

The main celebrant gave a short homily, in which he said some moving things. He explained that the mass was "special because Allyson is here, she's Jewish and wanted to come pray with us." Knowing where I come from, he also said, "Let us pray for the Jewish communities of New York City and the surroundings, the Orthodox, Reform, Conservative, and the more liberal." He explained how once Jerusalem and Alexandria were the centers of worldwide Jewry and Jewish learning, and how now it is Jerusalem and New York. Also, he discussed the then-impending trip of Pope Francis to Israel, and the importance of dialogue. To hear a Catholic priest, in a room of mostly young priests, talk about something so touching and so vital, to welcome me so honestly, at a Hebrew service in the center of Rome and thus worldwide Catholicism, was a critical example of how it only take one person (or a small group of people) to really positively impact interfaith relations. I am sure the memories from this mass will stay with me for a long time.

Perhaps not a typical Friday night activity, but definitely a worthwhile one.

After the mass, a Brazilian priest who lived in the building took us up to the roof to show us their incredible view of the city of Rome. I've got to tell you--I've now been to the top of a hill overlooking the city called Gianicolo (a few times), climbed the dome of St. Peters, and gone on the roofs of the British College (where the British priests live), the North American College (where the American priests live), and now the Jesuit residence, Casa Bellarmino, and all I can say is that these priests have the best views of Rome.

The view from Casa Bellarmino--that's St. Peter's in the distance

As I finish up my last twelve days (!) in Rome, I am starting to reflect on what this year has meant to me, and where I am going from here. I am sure this introspection will continue for a long time, but for now, I know that I've learned a lot, met some great people that I will miss, and that I'm excited for these interfaith opportunities to continue when I move back to New York in just a few weeks.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,
Allyson

Interfaith Means Defending the Other

Hello, friends.

A belated Happy Passover, Happy Easter, and Happy Everything to everybody. I hope all of those who celebrate had good spring holidays.

The past three weeks have been very eventful in a lot of ways. On the one hand, I had an excellent visit with my parents during my spring break, as we traveled all around Italy. We ate dinner overlooking Florence, visited the Jewish ghetto in Venice (from which the word "ghetto" actually originates), stayed directly on Lake Como, and went on a brilliant hike between two towns in Cinque Terre.

A photo of the town of Vernazza taken during our
(challenging, over-a-mountain, sunny) hike last week

But as excellent as our trip was, I could not help but feel worry and sadness as I read the news stories about the numerous, horrible antisemitic things that seemed to all be taking place over the past few weeks.

The worst of these antisemitic events took place on April 13th: a deadly shooting spree in Kansas at a Jewish community center and a Jewish retirement home by a white supremacist, with previous links to the KKK. The man, 72-year-old Frazier Glenn Cross, opened fire at the two locations, eventually killing a 14-year-old boy, the young man's grandfather, and another middle-aged woman. Apparently as he was arrested he shouted "Heil Hitler." While I've been living in Europe, I have heard non-Americans make hurtful jokes about the gross number of shootings in our country, and it is unfortunately a constant problem that has only gotten worse in the past few years. Often, though, the shootings seem to have more to do with the shooter having a mental illness--this time, it was specifically a hate crime (though perhaps combined with some mental illness). You can read more here. Ironically, none of the three individuals he murdered were Jewish; they were all Christian. Such a tragedy.

Also around the same date, it emerged that a teacher in a London school told a misbehaving teenage Jewish girl that if the girl didn't behave, the teacher was going to send her "to one of your gas chambers." This, in a supposedly progressive city, and in a school with a supposedly sizable Jewish student population. You can read a brief article on the incident here. According to the articles I've read, details on what, if any, disciplinary action has been taken against the teacher are not being released.

Another frightening thing that took place right around the same time happened as Jews in Donetsk, in Eastern Ukraine, were emerging from synagogue services on Passover, when they were met by masked individuals who handed them pamphlets explaining that they had to register with a government agency. Here is a USA Today article from April 17 explaining what went on. As Michael Salberg, director of the international affairs at the New York City-based Anti-Defamation League, is quoted in the article as saying, "Jews are the default scapegoat throughout history for despots to send a message to the general public: Don't step out of line." It was extremely frightening when the news first came out, as it harkens back to the way Nazis and their supporters gathered information about the Jewish people during World War II in order to more effectively persecute them. Not to mention the fact that the Ukraine is not too far from where I live here in Rome--this wasn't happening in some vague, far-off place I couldn't conceive of, it's happening here, in Europe. It has since emerged that this was some type of political hoax being used in the political upheaval in that region and not an actual requirement for the Jewish people of the city, though the fact that people would use antisemitic fear in order to wage political battles is disturbing at best.

I sometimes feel a bit uncomfortable and careful about how I defend Judaism in situations like these. It feels like, because I am defending my own group, it might come across as me overreacting, like I am too personally connected to the issue to see it clearly. But since I specifically research antisemitism in Europe, and keep track of it in the US, it is pretty clear that is has never gone away, and incidents like these are unfortunately not isolated but part of a larger trend. However, I do think it often comes across much more strongly when members of other groups defend groups that are being persecuted--like when my friends stick up for Judaism, or I for other groups. Here is a great quote by Eboo Patel, the founder and leader of the Interfaith Youth Core in the USA:

 

I feel a personal responsibility to defend people suffering persecution--whether that is in some big way by trying to fight discrimination on a larger scale, or in small ways by looking at my own failings. I have never cared very much what people think of me, which makes it significantly easier for me to speak up when I see something that comes across as wrong. It is not always easy, and I am not even saying that I always succeed--far from it--but I feel an absolute moral imperative to do so, whatever religious (or other) group is being abused in any way. Especially as a Jewish person, given our teachings and our history of discrimination and persecution, I rarely manage to stay quiet when someone makes comments about other groups.

Do you feel this moral responsibility? Would you speak up if someone said Muslims are horrible people? Or that Christians are filled with hatred? Or that gay people are going to hell? Or that Jews are going to hell? How would you respond? I know sometimes social protocol implies that we should hold our tongues, not raise an issue when someone says something casually that just rubs you the wrong way. But I, at least, think that their biases break social protocol and demand action on the part of others. I fear that if we let people get away with their hate speech without challenge, that these problems will just continue and escalate--as they did in Kansas and other places around the world. This is the heart of interfaith: speak up.

So please, think about what you would do if someone made a comment in front of you--because believe me, when someone from another groups defends me or anyone, it makes a big difference.

Now go out and love one another.

<3,

Allyson

 Our interfaith souvenir from Venice!