The event, organized by the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, together with the American Jewish Council (Global Jewish Advocacy) – AJC and Yad Vashem, will take place in Jerusalem, on April 29^th, 2013, at the Konrad Adenauer Conference Center, “De Botton Auditorium”.

Mr Yair Zaban, a former Israeli Minister, will chair the whole event. Together with Mr Tenembaum, many distinguished personalities will participate in the conference, including scholars, representatives from the Vatican, the Israeli Chief Rabbinate and Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, heads of NGO’s, etc.

The day-long conference will be divided in four Sessions:

Session I – Roncalli and the Shoah, chaired by Prof. Dan Michman.

Session II – Roncalli and the Establishment of the State of Israel, chaired by Mr. Baruch Tenembaum.

Session III – John XXIII, Vatican II and Nostra Aetate, chaired by Cardinal Peter Turkson.

Session IV – The Legacy of John XXIII for Catholic-Jewish Relations – Europe and the World.

In representation of the IRWF, Mr Tenembaum will be accompanied by Pastor Annemarie Werner, head of the Vaterunse Evangelical Church and the IRWF Representative Office in Berlin, Dr. Yoav Tenembaum, Vice-President of the IRWF, Mr. Danny Rainer, head of the IRWF Representative Office in Berlin and Mr. Heroi Landsman, researcher and Ms. Evelyne Noama, office manager of the IRWF Representative office in Jerusalem.

The IRWF has also invited Ms Nieves Farina, Member of the Board of “Casa Argentina en Israel – Tierra Santa”, an interfaith NGO, affiliated with the IRWF and Rabbi Simon Mogilevsky – a distinguished Argentine Rabbi devoted to the interfaith dialogue and longtime member of Casa Argentina.

The IRWF extended a special invitation to Monsignor Loris Capovilla, former secretary of Pope John XXIII. Due to his advanced age, Mgr Capovilla cannot fly from Italy to Jerusalem but a special letter from him to the organizers and attendants of the Roncalli Conference will be read during the event.

Roncalli is one of the leading authorities on John XXIII. His research, published in various books and articles, has helped to highlight aspects of the life of this Pope. One particular event emphasized in Roncalli’s work took place during the WWII era. This was before John XIII had become Bishop of Rome, where he was able to save so many persecuted Jews.

Roncalli, born in Bergamo (Northern Italy), whose grandfather was actually the younger brother of the Pope of that time (Angelo G. Roncalli), has been researching John XXIII over the past 25 years.

On June 12th, the International Roaul Wallenberg Foundation awarded him the Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli medal. He received the award in the Centro Rusia Ecumenica, just feet from the Vatican.

Representatives from the Diplomatic Corps participated in the ceremony. Among them was the British ambassador for the ”Holy See”, Francis Martin-Xavier Campbell and the current Argentine representative for the Vatican, (who is still waiting the appointment of an ambassador), Hugo Javier Gobbi.

Gary L. Krupp, one of the religious representatives, is the founder of the ”Pave the Way Foundation”, an institution that promotes interreligious dialogue

The founder of the IRWF, Baruj Tenembaum, shared a word with the participants of the ceremony. In his message he reminded them of how monseñor Roncalli, while representative for the Pope, saved the lives of Jews in Bulgaria and Turkey.

As apostolic delegate for the Pope,` in Istambul, in 1944, he ”organizad a rescue network for Jews and others persecuted under Naziism. Thanks to his actions, thousands who had been condemned to death were spared,” said Tenembaum.

Tenembaum went on to say that ”a new era of relations between the Catholic Church and followers of Judaism were opened with the Papacy of John XXIII, the ”Good Pope”. It was a new period of understanding and tolerance, after years of denigration, prejudice and religious persecution.”

”The doors for interreligious dialogue that were opened due to the efforts of John XXIII, continued to creak open during the papacy of Pope John Paul II, the Pope that would often refer to the Jewish people as, ”our older brothers”. John Paul also visited the Nazi concentration camps as a sign of respect for the Jewish victims. He even took the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in the state of Israel”, Tenembaum said.

In the last few years, the Wallenberg Foundation has done a significant amount of research focused on bringing to light the humanitarian labor performed by monseñor Roncalli.

”This award could not have been given to a more deserving candidate than the distinguished intellectual, Marco Roncalli. He is a man of letters and of compassion. And we humbly recognize him for his efforts.

”Marco Roncalli fulfills a double labor, being faithful to the historical truth and also to ethics of journalism. He gave the public the best version possible of the truth and likewise documented the events of daily life with great precision and investigative zeal.”

The medal was given to Roncalli by Jesus Colina, Zenit news director.

During his acceptance speech, Roncalli recognized the Wallenberg Foundation’s contribution, ”For the work of historic reconstruction performed by Angelo G. Roncalli, through his actions and attitude, in favor of the Jews residing in Turkey and Bulgaria, who were subsequently persecuted by the Nazi regime.”

According to Roncalli, this work has been a source of encouragement. He has increased his efforts to expand the ”Righteous People Among the Nations” program. The Yad Vashem committee developed this initiative in order to recognize individuals that risked their lives in the act of helping persecuted Jews.

The writer thanked the IRWF for the extensive research put into documenting the life-long labor of the arch-bishop Roncalli. He expressed his gratitude on behalf of the Roncalli family and the villiage of Sotto il Monte (where the pope was born).

Translation: Brandon Pipkin

Monsignor Roncalli (1881-1963) was the Apostolic Delegate in Istanbul in 1944. In his capacity as the Vatican Representative during the Second World War he contributed to save tens of thousands of Jews and others persecuted by the Nazi regime from extermination. In 1958 he was elected Pontiff and adopted the name of John XXIII. He was later known as the Good Pope.

His rescue actions during the Second World War have been object of a thorough investigation carried out by this foundation which I have the great honour to preside and which counts with the support of important personalities from all over the world, among them more than fifty heads of state, a Monarch (King Mohammed VI of Morocco), as well as eight Nobel Prize award winners.

The Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli International Committee of the Wallenberg Foundation, which was launched in New York City in September 2000 with the presence of the Secretary of State of the Holy See, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, is currently focused on developing the Luján and Fátima Projects. The Archbishops of these global centres of Catholic faith of Argentina and Portugal, Monsignor Rubén Di Monte and the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, Monsignor Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo, respectively, are both honorary members of the Roncalli Committee.”

Furthermore, to coincide with the 102nd anniversary of Monsignor Roncalli’s birthday, the Wallenberg Foundation paid tribute to Archbishop Renato Martino, who recently completed his term as Apostolic Nuncio at the UN and is to assume the new and important position as President of the Pontifical Council for Peace and Justice in the Roman Curia. Monsignor Martino was awarded the Angelo Roncalli Medal, specially designed and coined by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation with the aim of distinguishing those people who stand out for their inter-confessional work, as did Pope John XXIII throughout his entire life.

On November 23rd the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation inaugurated together with Father Horacio Moreno, President of the ecumenical association Interamerica Jerusalem, the Inter-confessional Centre of Services to the Human Person. The beginning of the activities of this centre that opens its doors to all religious beliefs is further proof of the spirit of understanding that has been nurtured within our organisations from almost four decades. Built in a fourteen-hectare site with natural forests and a great lake, situated in the city of Ingeniero Maschwitz, 40 kilometres north of the city of Buenos Aires, it will serve as a home for the adequate physical and spiritual recovery of people, who will be accompanied at all times by the closeness of their religious values.

As a corollary of all the activities, the Wallenberg Foundation will present for the first time the English edition of the documentary film ”First Primate Pilgrim”, which narrates the visit to Holy Land made by the late Primate Cardinal of Argentina, Antonio Quarracino (1923-1998).

At the same time, a film about Monsignor Roncalli is to open in March 2003 in many of the most important capitals of the world. The publishing of books, stamps, with the participation of several American and European Postal Offices, as well as the unveiling of monuments and the opening of Roncalli-John XXIII educational centres, will be part of the Reconciliation Project already anticipated by our international organisation.

We thus celebrate this new anniversary of Monsignor Roncalli’s birthday advancing along the path of his teachings promoting understanding, defence of freedom, respect for your fellow men and love for life.

* Baruch Tenembaum is Founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation

A commission integrated by the author of the initiative, Baruch Tenembaum, the rabbis Jacobo Fink and Schlessinger, the historians Boleslao Levin, Stanford Shaw, Christian Feldman, ]ohn Morley, Ira Hirschmann, Peter Hebblethwate, Ted Szulc, Arthur Morse, Giancarlo Zizola, Barry Rubin, Stefano Trinchesse and Randolph Brahan, prepared the project that took many years of hard work and that ended a few weeks ago, with the conclusions of the reports being summed up by the vice-president of the Jerusalem branch of the Wallenberg International Foundation, Dr. Mario Ablin.

Nuncio Roncalli was elected Pope taking the name of John XXIII, and established the foundation for the interconfessional labour in the Vatican Council that announced historical decisions with the spirit of respect and reconciliation, as it had already been pointed out by Baruch Tenembaum, Schlessinger, Arthur Herzberg, Abraham Foxman and Zvi Kolitz, in the public presentation, attended among others by the Vatican Secretary of State, Angel Sodano.

The group of intellectuals, community leaders, rabbis and historians that 30 years ago came up with the idea of honouring Nuncio Roncalli, informed the different factors of the public opinion, through reports number 1, 2, 3, including Yad Vashem, the Vatican, ADL and 105 Interfaith Organizations, and 40 heads of states who are members of the Raoul Wallenberg International Foundation.

Andreé Chouraqui, of Jerusalem, and a group of European and American leaders will soon summon the members of the Roncalli International Committee for the awaited announcement and the launch of the activity programme.

During the ‘60 decade, the movement of understanding among the different confessions started in Argentina, prompted by Rabbi Guillermo Schlesinger, Priests Carlos Cuchetti and Ernesto Segura, who later became the representative of the Jewish Committee Maximo Yagupski, Pastor Sossa and others.

Almost 40 years ago, Baruch Tenembaum and Rabbi Schlesinger announced the idea to honour Pope John XXIII for his trajectory and openness ”towards a better world” with the concepts of ”living together” and dialogue.

More than a year ago, the Vatican Secretary Cardinal Angelo Sodano and the founder of the NGOs

”Interamerica -Interfaith” and the International Foundation Raoul Wallemberg, arrived in New York. They got together at the Embassy before the United Nations, the Nunciature, which is headed by Archbishop Renato Martino, at a meeting attended by Rabbis, community leaders, diplomats and intellectuals of the three Americas.

In that opportunity it was announced the creation of a special committee integrated by historians, theologians and experts in inter-confessional issues. This committee was to verify through the corresponding documents the attitude of Nuncio Angelo Roncalli during World War II.

The summary of the work and the surprising testimonies, backed by statements and writings of personalities like the Great Rabbi of Israel Herzog, the prominent shelita rabbis Arthur Herzberg, Eder Marcos, ambassadors, intellectuals including Hana Arendt, Salim Pelitaus, historians and researchers, surprised the most diverse members of the club of ”Enterprises of the Spirit”, seated in Jerusalem, New York and Buenos Aires.

In Rome, it will be announced the creation of the movement ”Reconciliation Nuncio

Roncalli (John XXIII)” that will include the International Foundation Reconciliation.

The members of the ”International Foundation Raoul Wallemberg” will be able to integrate this new centre that will honour the ”Good Pope”, for his unforgettable epic historical labour in Istanbul as a diplomat. This list includes other royal houses: King of Spain, Queen of England, Queen of Holland, Russia President Putin, Presidents of France, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, Czech Republic, Malta, Albany, Poland, Bulgaria Ecuador, more than 20 Prime Ministers from the five continents; Nobel Prize Awardees Elie Wiesel, Ramos Horta, David Trimble apart from 15 Nobel winners suggested by the founders of ”Reconciliation”, the King of Marrakesh, Islamic leaders, among others.

The proclamation of this project that makes justice in honouring Angelo Giusseppe Roncalli, will be done in accordance to the dates of audience at the Vatican , which will be announced simultaneously in New York, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem and Rome

Nowadays the social changes are faster than the fastest of the ideas. They look towards the horizon searching for the surmounting of its present.

In contrast to that, the aggiornamiento of the Catholic Church, promoted by Pope John XXIII with the Second Vatican Council, was inspired and fed on the sources of its origin themselves. That potential and fecundity was the germ that its founder created.

That is why Pope John XXIII, put the whole universal ecclesiastical community in the opening of dialogue, he activated the Christian faith in the patriarch Abraham as a father of the believers in the only God. His baptismal name was Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. On November 25, it was the 120 anniversary of his birthday.

For the first day in history, this Pope receives, in 1960 at the Vatican, a group of more than 100 American Jews. To everybody’s surprise, he receives them arms wide open exclaiming as the Biblical Joseph to his brothers in Egypt: ”I am Joseph, your youngest brother”.

This fraternal action was not just a mere political speculation, but the confirming testimony of a whole interior-vindicating attitude of the chosen people by God in the Old Testament and that had just been massacred during the Holocaust.

To the Second Vatican Council also corresponds the abolition of the perfidy stigma with which in the cult of the Holy Week the Jewish people was remembered.

The rescue of Jews stood up his mission as Apostolic Nuncio in Istanbul, Turkey, during the Shoah.

These actions of rescue are, for the first time, organically vindicated due to Baruj Tenembaum’s initiative, who is the founder of the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation. With the approval of the Vatican’s Secretary of State, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, historical and testimonial materials have been exhumed which document the actions that Monsignor Roncalli developed, making explicit his security and that of his apostolic representation.

He did not only exercised a direct action to save thousands of men, women and children condemned to extermination but also he was restless in the act of revealing to the Holy See and the allied countries of the horrendous genocide that was taking place.

The memory of John the good sets new paths of renovation not only for the Catholic Church but also for the whole humanity responsible of the supreme values of life, the fundamental equality of people and freedom.

*Father Fidel Horacio Moreno is the president of Casa Argentina en Jerusalem NGO.

Translation: IRWF

© Copyright 2001, prohibida su reproducción total o parcial sin expresa autorización de ”Diario La Nueva Provincia S.R.L.”

The International Raoul Wallenberg Foundation remembers on November 25, 2001 the 120th anniversary of Monsignor Nuncio Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli’s birth and it celebrates it by editing an unprecedented research work created with the aim of documenting the actions in favor of persecuted carried out by the Apostolic Nuncio in Istanbul during the Holocaust.

The Angelo Roncalli International Committee is composed by people of different religions and ideologies. All of them are united by the will to make public something of which little is known throughout the world: the rescue of persecuted during the Holocaust, of whom were mostly Jewish, by someone who later became Pope John XXIII.

The constitution of this Committee, founded by Baruch Tenembaum, a son of the Argentine Jewish colonies, already has the support of Cardinal Angelo Sodano, Vatican Secretary of State; Apostolic Nuncios Santos Abril and Castelló and Monsignor Renato Martino; Professor Andre Chouraqui, translator into French of the Torah, the New Testament and the Coran; Monsignor Jorge Bergoglio, Cardinal of the Argentina and Monsignor Estanislao Karlic, President of the Argentine Episcopal Conference.

Among its members it is worth mentioning Rabbies Joseph Ehrenkranz, from the Center for Christian-Jewish Understanding of the US; Simón Moguilevsky, President of the Israeli Congregation of the Argentine Republic; Mario Ablin and Norman Lamm, President of the New York Yeshiva University.

Hannah Arendt in her book ‘Eichmann in Jerusalem’ praises and stands out Roncalli’s actions during his time in Istanbul. The same does the former judge of the court who judged Adolf Eichmann, Gideon Hausner, in his book ‘Justice in Jerusalem’, among many other well-known intellectuals.

The membership is completed with the businessman Natalio Wengrower; Father Horacio Moreno; Mordechai Arbel, Historian and Researcher and former Consul of Israel in Istanbul and Dr. Antonio Boggiano, Judge of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Argentine Republic. Other important members are the historians and journalists Dr. Yoav Tenembaum, José I. García Hamilton and Nicholas Tozer.

It can be said that this Committee is a natural continuation of the sitting of the Commemorative Wall to the Victims of the Holocaust installed within the Buenos Aires Cathedral during April of the year 1997 at the request of the IRWF, carried out by the late Cardinal Antonio Quarracino and preserved by the determination of his successor, Cardinal Bergoglio.

• Read Roncalli Reports
• Read ‘When John XXIII baptized Jews’