Dialogue Document
Communique of Meeting Between the USCCB Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the National Council of Synagogues (2013)
Communique of Meeting Between the USCCB Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and the National Council of Synagogues, May 7, 2013 at the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York City
The semi-annual meeting of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs (BCEIA) and the National Council of Synagogues was held at the Jewish theological Seminary in New York City on May 7. It addressed the topic: “Covenant and the Holy Land.” Archbishop Wilton Gregory of Atlanta, BCEIA dialogue chairman, presided at the morning session. Professor Burton Visotzky, Ph.D. of the Jewish Theological Seminary presented a paper on sources in the Bible and rabbinic literature that extol the Land of Israel as the optimal place to fulfill the covenant with God. He reported that love of the Holy Land and the centrality of Jerusalem are frequent themes in those classic sources but that rhetoric has often obscured this reality. Nevertheless, nostalgia for return to an idealized Holy Land, Eretz Yisrael, lasted for 2,000 years. The tales the sages told helped Jews to form a covenantal reality with a deep attachment to the Land of Israel.