Challenges for contemporary dialogue: old conflicts revisited
-Lessing s Ringparable 2003
Following the Holocaust, which had decimated Jewish communities throughout the European continent, Europe s remaining Jews benefited from a historically almost unprecedented attitude of popular sympathy and the accordance of equal rights in democratic Europe. Significant steps taken by the Catholic Church during the papacies of John XXIII and John Paul II fundamentally changed the relationship between the Church and the Jewish people. The question that has arisen in recent years is whether this period in which Jews were at last truly accepted as fellow-citizens in Europe is coming to an end. Do we see a return to traditional antisemitism? Or are we now encountering a form of antisemitism that is new to Europe? If the answer to either or both questions is in the affirmative, what measures can be taken to counter this new trend?
