What do Judaism and Christianity have in common?

"The Jewish religion is not an external reality vis-à-vis Christianity, but something internal; our attitude toward it is different than toward any other religion," John Paul II taught. "Jesus is a Jew and will be a Jew for ever," proclaims the Holy See's 1985 document "Jews and Judaism in the Teaching of the Catholic Church. Christian-Jewish relations have not always been easy. A revolution from the Catholic side was the declaration "Nostra aetate" of the Second Vatican Council, which recommends us to "know and respect".

On 20.06.2022 we realized the next point of our educational project "The story of pre-war, bicultural Mszana Dolna" . It was a reflection on the Christian-Jewish relations, the origin of many customs, celebrations, prayers, similarities and differences between these two great religions. We drew attention to the Jewish roots of Christianity and the need for mutual respect and coexistence. The participants learned, among other things, what a mezuzah is and how it relates to the Christian crozier, what the most important prayer and confession of faith in Judaism sounds like, what a yad is, and what the tassels of the cloak from the Gospel were that the healed woman touched. We saw how much Catholics could learn from the followers of Judaism - such as respect for God's name, the holy day and the Holy Scriptures. Everything was supported by solid theological arguments, as the meeting was conducted by Urszula Antosz-Rekucka, a graduate in theology from the Pontifical University of John Paul II, a member of the Polish Council of Christians and Jews and the "Alliance" Club of Christians and Jews, who teaches Catholic religion on a daily basis. 

This is the sixth edition of the project under the Honorary Patronage of the Mayor of Limanowa. The project has received financial support from Limanowa Poviat, Małopolskie Province and the Minister of Culture and National Heritage under the program of the National Center for Culture: EtnoPolska Edition 2022 (grant acquisition: Marek Rekucki)

The meeting was broadcast on the Facebook profile of Sztetl Mszana Dolna and is available on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1RFYdgbzuA 

Photo: Agnieszka Józefiak Lewandowska and Rachela Antosz-Rekucka

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)