Never Forget

In 1891 Edith Stein was born Jewish and culturally and linguistically German in Breslau, Prussian Poland. When she and her sister Rosa were gassed by Nazis in Auschitz in 1942 as a baptized German Jew, Edith had no doubts that she was BOTH Jewish, Christian and a Carmelite nun. Some Jews have criticized Edith Stein, the person, for not having used her massive intellect to plumb her inherited Judaism more profoundly before becoming a Christian. But no one seriously disputes her right to change her religious views. *** And yet to this day no small number of Jews is upset about other aspects of Edith Stein: not so much her personal life 1891 - 1942 but what the Catholic Church made of her death and martyrdom. *** Edith Stein became an atheist in her teens. She was 29 when she converted, not, technically, from Judaism but from Atheism to Roman Catholicism. In her own mind she was no less a racial, cultural or even RELIGIOUS Jew once she became Christian. And she and scores of other Roman Catholic Jews in the Netherlands were rounded up and quickly executed in August 1942 because Nazi leaders dared not do the same to the Catholic bishops and every parish in the Netherlands that had only days earlier denounced German deportation of Jews from the Kingdom. To the Vatican, Edith Stein, her sister, four Trappist siblings and other Catholic Jews executed at Auschwitz were killed as Roman Catholic martyrs to the Christian faith. *** German Carmelite nun Waltraud Herbstrith has collected the thoughts and recollections of several dozen writers, including Jews and Christians, in NEVER FORGET: CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON JEWISH STEIN. What fueled widespread Jewish objections were two actions by Pope John Paul II: (1) in 1987 he beatified Edith Stein, PhD; (2) in 1998 he canonized her as the Catholic martyr, Sister Teresia Benedicta a Cruce. It might be noted that before he was a bishop and pope, Karol Wojtyla was a professor of philosophy and a serious student of that philosophical approach called "phenomenology" of which Edith Stein was an earlier pioneer. There was, I suspect, a natural mental affinity and sympathy between these two thinkers of historical, culturally divided Poland. *** I call your attention to two especially good essays in NEVER FORGET. *** The first is by Pennsylvania Rabbi Nancy Fuchs-Kreimer, "Sister Edith Stein: A Rabbi Reacts." Not an Edith Stein scholar, Rabbi Fuchs-Kreimer admires Stein as a great, thoughtful, prayerful woman. "She always considered herself a proud member of the Jewish people and she admired traditional Jewish life. ... The question that remains for me as a Jew is whether and how Stein sought spiritual nourishment from Judaism before she turned to Christianity. ... Did she read the Baal Shem Tov or Maimonides? Did she know of Martin Buber? Did she attend the Frankfrt Lehrhaus where a brilliant renaissance of Jewish learning was occurring at the very time of her conversion? This we don't know. ... I am angry when a Jew chooses not to continue to struggle with the civilization into which she was born, however difficult she may find it." *** The second, more critical analysis is "The Canonization of Edith Stein" by Rabbi Daniel F. Polish of New York. Both Edith Stein and many Catholics wish to see Stein as a bridge between Jews and Christians, especially Catholics. Rabbi Polish does not expect that to happen. Was she Jewish when she died? Hitler would have said yes. Edith Stein herself certainly did say yes. But "from a Jewish perspective," Stein had exercised her right and had left Jewish life. "While a non-practicing, even nonbelieving, Jew is considered to be Jewish, one who embraces another faith is understood by Jewish teaching as renouncing Jewish faith and must, as a consequence, be considered no longer a Jew." Rabbi Polish fears that the Vatican, by canonizing Edith Stein, as a "Jewish-Christian" was consciously campaigning to convert Jews by making them feel "comfortable" as Catholics, much as is currently happening with married Anglican and Lutheran clergy and their flocks who convert to Catholicism with special concessions from Rome. *** NEVER FORGET: CHRISTIAN AND JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON EDITH STEIN is a book well worth reading for insightful contemporary views on what makes Jews Jewish and followers of Jesus Christian and whether Jews can be simultaneous Christians or, if not, whether Edith Stein, as a topic for discussion, as a role model, as a self-proclaimed "Queen Esther for her people," might possibly help Jews and Christians better to grasp their differences and to respect one another despite tensions created by Rome. -OOO-