Learning about the Holecaust in the Holy Land

CNS has this STORY: "In Israel, U.S. Catholic teachers learn of Holocaust, Judaism."

U.S. Catholic teachers get an education of a lifetime. Here are the details:

When Holocaust survivor Yaakov Handeli, 78, finished telling the story of how he was the only member of his immediate family to survive Auschwitz, his audience of 30 American Catholic educators gave him a standing ovation.

Meeting Handeli and visiting the Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum "broke my heart," but it also "strengthened my resolve," said Jennifer Kugler, a history and geography teacher at St. Catherine of Siena Catholic School in Horsham, Pa., and a participant in the "Bearing Witness" Holocaust and anti-Semitism study program.

"As a Catholic I am called to reach out ... and bring justice into the world. As human beings we are our brother's and sister's keepers," she said. "What we don't learn from history we are doomed to repeat."

"Bearing Witness" is a cooperative effort of the Archdiocese of Washington, the Anti-Defamation League and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The encounter with Handeli and the subsequent tour of Yad Vashem was the culmination of a five-day visit to Israel for the educators from 19 states. While in Israel, the teachers also met with local Jewish Israelis and Christian Arab Israelis and visited Christian pilgrimage and tourist sites.

The program has earned great accolades, including this praise from the Vatican:

Initiated in 1995 as a Washington-area program by David Friedman, director of the ADL Washington regional office, "Bearing Witness" expanded into a national program in 1997. It aims to provide educators with the tools to implement teaching units on the Holocaust and anti-Semitism while examining complex issues in Catholic-Jewish relations throughout history. This was the first year participants of the program traveled to Israel.

The program is endorsed by the National Catholic Educational Association and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. It has been cited by the Vatican as one of the most important programs in improving relations between Catholics and Jews, according to the ADL.

"Nothing is as simple as it seems; it is not just a program about a period of history ... but about an entire civilization ... and the marginalization of that civilization for centuries, which culminated in the Shoah (Holocaust)," said Kugler, who took part in another "Bearing Witness" trip to Poland last summer.

Kudos to the program, if it does as advertized. Any program that can improve Catholic-Jewish relations through an honest appraisal of a troubled history deserves respect. Bearing Witness appears to do that.