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The Pope Benedict I knew: A keeper of his faith with a deep respect for Judaism
(JTA) — I was first introduced to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, later to become Pope Benedict XVI, in the late 1980s when he was visiting Jerusalem. Teddy Kollek, mayor of Jerusalem, was eager for me to meet with the cardinal, telling me that I would discover a very different person from the image portrayed in the general media. He was so correct.
That image was in no small part the result of Pope John Paul II having made him the head of the Vatican Office for Doctrine and Faith, to enforce orthodox Catholic teaching. In addition, the fact that Ratzinger was a shy man with a professorial background and attitude often led people to see him as aloof and even cold.
He could not have been more different. I discovered a man of warmth and humor whose company was enjoyable and stimulating. Most significant for me was the discovery of the depth of his respect for Judaism and the Jewish people, something that always impressed me in the course of more than a dozen encounters with him when he was Pope, most of which were in my capacity as the American Jewish Committee’s international director of interreligious affairs.
He always reiterated his commitment to continuing the path of his predecessor in advancing Catholic-Jewish relations, and he highlighted the unique relationship between Christianity and Judaism.
Benedict XVI, who died Dec. 31 at age 95, was the first pope to ever invite Jewish leaders both to the funeral of a pontiff, and above all, to the celebration of his own coronation at which I was privileged to be one of those present.
Already during the first year of his pontificate he received many Jewish delegations and notable individuals, including the chief rabbis of Israel and the chief rabbi of Rome. In receiving the latter, he declared, “the Catholic Church is close and is a friend to you. Yes, we love you and we cannot but love you, because of the Fathers: through them you are very dear and beloved brothers to us.”
The last time I met him personally was well after he had demonstrated his genuine and impressive humility in stepping down as pontiff and devoting himself to study and prayer. I visited him at the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican gardens. While he was physically weak his mind was still lucid.
We spoke in particular about the positive treatment of the Jewish scriptures in the work of the Pontifical Theological Commission that dealt with this subject, and which was published under his imprimatur. At that time, I recalled our first conversation in Jerusalem when he said to me, “your duty as a believing Jew is to be true to Torah, and everything that is holy for you must have theological meaning for us.”
I said to him, “You know there are many of us who see religious significance in the return of the Jewish people to its homeland.”
“Of course, I know,” he replied. “We must also view it as a sign of God’s fidelity to His covenant with the Jewish people that has sustained you, even if we cannot attribute to it the same theological meaning as you might.”
Cardinal Ratzinger was a member of the papal commission that ratified the Fundamental Agreement between the State of Israel and the Holy See, establishing full diplomatic relations between the two. It was my great privilege to have been part of the Israeli negotiating team that concluded that agreement.
One of Ratzinger’s closest Israeli friends, the late professor Zvi Werblovsky of Hebrew University, told me that the cardinal phoned him from Rome to express his joy and congratulations on the agreement, declaring it to be a fulfillment of Nostra Aetate, the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council declaration of 1965 that revolutionized the Church’s teaching and approach towards Jews and Judaism.
During Benedict’s papacy a couple of serious crises in Jewish-Christian relations emerged relating to the Society of Saint Pius XII and to the wider provision of the Latin Mass and its text. These crises, as much a result of church governance mismanagement as anything else, were followed by clarifications that emphasized the Vatican’s commitment to Nostra Aetate; its unqualified rejection of antisemitism as a sin against God and man, and a complete disavowal of proselytization of Jews.
Unfortunately, they still did not completely repair the damage to Benedict XVI’s papacy. Nevertheless, Benedict explicitly and sincerely strove to continue to advance the paths of his predecessor, especially regarding the relationship between the Church and the Jewish People.
In repeating his predecessor’s dramatic gestures of going to the great synagogue in Rome; of paying homage in Auschwitz to the victims of the Holocaust, and of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, where he paid respects to the State of Israel’s highest national civic and religious authorities, Pop Benedict institutionalized such steps, demonstrating the sincerity of Catholic-Jewish reconciliation for the Church as a whole.
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Iranian Regime Uses HispanTV to Spread Antisemitic Propaganda Across Latin America, ADL Warns
Iranians attend an anti-Israel rally in Tehran, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
As the Iranian regime escalates its campaign of disinformation against Israel, Tehran is now flooding Latin America with antisemitic propaganda and pro-terrorist messaging, using outlets such as HispanTV to reach millions of Spanish-speaking audiences and reshape public perceptions in the region.
On Tuesday, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released a new report detailing a dramatic rise over the past two years in antisemitic and anti-Israel content on HispanTV, the Spanish-language network run by the Iranian regime as part of its coordinated disinformation campaign across Latin America.
With the capacity to reach nearly 600 million Spanish speakers through satellite, cable, livestreaming, and social media, ADL characterizes HispanTV, which launched in 2012, as “the world’s leading platform for peddling antisemitic hate and disseminating anti-Israel prejudice and incitement across Latin America and the wider Spanish-speaking world.”
According to the report, HispanTV consistently disseminates content that reinforces long-standing antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish influence, spreads conspiracy theories, fuels the demonization of Israel, and glorifies Iranian-backed terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.
The study notes that the network’s hateful content has escalated sharply over the past two years, especially in the wake of the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
“HispanTV consistently frames Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks as legitimate and praiseworthy acts of resistance worthy of celebration,” the report says. “This reframing is essential to the channel’s ideological project, converting mass violence into a foundational myth of liberation.”
Across its broadcasts, HispanTV portrays Jews and Zionism as “an omnipresent, evil force” manipulating governments through a coordinated malicious scheme, reinforcing deeply entrenched antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish influence and power.
The report also finds that another central theme in the network’s coverage is the glorification of terrorist groups, depicting them as “extraordinary examples of heroism and bravery,” celebrating attacks that killed civilians, and vowing continued violence until the “complete annihilation of the occupants” — an apparent reference to Israel.
“The Iranian regime’s media outlet is spreading classic antisemitic conspiracy theories and anti-Israel propaganda to potentially millions of people across Latin America and beyond, making the Islamic Republic a destabilizing force not only in the Middle East, but across the Spanish-speaking world,” ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt said in a statement.
“With antisemitism already at historic levels globally, Tehran is funding a massive media propaganda operation that is priming the pump for spreading antisemitism and hate against Israel and Jews the world over,” he continued.
While systematically undermining Israel’s right to exist — depicting the Jewish state as a “colonial,” “genocidal,” and “terrorist” project — HispanTV presents the Iranian regime as a principled alternative to Western democracies and positions Tehran as the leader of the “Axis of Resistance,” according to the ADL’s newly released report.
The Iranian network also depicts Jews and Israelis as “operating a highly organized global disinformation apparatus designed to deceive the world and justify genocide,” minimizing or outright denying the reality of antisemitism.
The ADL argues that the lack of decisive action by governments, international bodies, and corporations has allowed the Islamic regime to leverage HispanTV to disseminate its hateful conspiracies around the globe.
“If this threat is not seriously addressed, the result will likely be the radicalization of Spanish-speaking audiences across Latin America and beyond,” the report says.
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US Justice Department Launches Investigation Into Antisemitism at Lincoln Memorial University Medical School
US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon at the Justice Department in Washington, DC, US, Aug. 7, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kent Nishimura
The US Department of Justice has opened an investigation into Lincoln Memorial University (LMU) in Tennessee for allegedly having “engaged in discrimination against its Jewish students” over several years, the agency announced last week.
The investigation, which will receive support from the US Department of Health and Human Services, was prompted by complaints that high-level officials at the LMU DeBusk College of Osteopathic Medicine “intentionally” prevented Jewish students from finishing final exams — an action that could lead to academic failure as well as squandering tens of thousands of dollars in tuition fees.
According to WBIR-TV, a local news outlet based in the city of Knoxville, LMU enacted a new policy which proscribed granting students exam exemptions based on their observing religious holidays. Two Orthodox Jewish students studying medicine are known to have been disproportionately impacted by the dictate, and, according to Rabbi Yossi Wilhelm of Chabad of Knoxville, their qualifications for becoming doctors were allegedly called into doubt by a college official who implied that religious observance is disqualifying.
“This Department of Justice is fiercely committed to shutting down the concerning outbreak of antisemitism that has been spreading on college campuses since the Hamas attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023,” Harmeet Dhillon, assistant attorney general of the civil rights division of the Justice Department, said on Friday when the investigation was announced. “When colleges and universities single Jewish students out for adverse treatment, they are in clear violation of our civil rights laws and of this nation’s promise of equal opportunity for all Americans.”
Paula Stannard, director of the civil rights office of the Department of Health and Human Services, added, “All students should be free to learn and train in environments free from discrimination. Antisemitism has no place in our nation’s educational or medical training institutions, and OCR [the Office of Civil Rights] will work to ensure that federal civil rights laws are fully enforced.”
In a statement to The Algemeiner, Lincoln Memorial University denied discriminating against anyone, citing its “belief that every single person, regardless of race, situation, or background, deserves the right to a quality educational experience.”
It continued, “We would never intentionally discriminate against any member of our community, and we do not believe we did so as has been alleged in the concerns under investigation by the Department of Justice. Educating our future leaders is why we exist. Any decision that is made is always with the goal of providing the best education for each and every student.”
Antisemitism in academic medical centers located on college campuses is fostering noxious environments which deprive Jewish health-care professionals of their civil right to work in spaces free from discrimination and hate, according to a study by the StandWithUs Data & Analytics Department in May.
“Academia today is increasingly cultivating an environment which is hostile to Jews, as well as members of other religious and ethnic groups,” StandWithUs director of data and analytics and study co-author, Alexandra Fishman, said in a statement at the time. “Academic institutions should be upholding the integrity of scholarship, prioritizing civil discourse, rather than allowing bias or personal agendas to guide academic culture.”
Titled “Antisemitism in American Healthcare: The Role of Workplace Environment,” the study includes survey data showing that 62.8 percent of Jewish health-care professionals employed by campus-based medical centers reported experiencing antisemitism, a far higher rate than those working in private practice and community hospitals. Fueling the rise in hate, it added, were repeated failures of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) initiatives to educate workers about antisemitism, increasing, the report said, the likelihood of antisemitic activity.
The study is not StandWithUs’s first contribution to the study of antisemitism in medicine. In December 2024, the Data & Analytics Department published a study which found that nearly 40 percent of Jewish American health-care professionals have encountered antisemitism in the workplace, either as witnesses or victims.
The study included a survey of 645 Jewish health workers, a substantial number of whom said they were subject to “social and professional isolation.” The problem left over one quarter of the survey cohort, 26.4 percent, “feeling unsafe or threatened.”
The issue is currently being investigated by the US House Committee on Education and the Workforce, with a focus on the University of California, Los Angeles’ (UCLA) David Geffen School of Medicine, the University of Illinois’ College of Medicine, and the University of California, San Francisco’s School of Medicine.
“This investigation will aid the committee in considering whether potential legislative changes, including legislation to specifically address antisemitism discrimination, are needed,” education committee chairman Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) wrote in a letter to Steven Dubinett, dean of UCLA’s Geffen School. “The committee has become aware that Jewish students and faculty have experienced hostility and fear at the hands of peers, colleagues, and administrators at UCLA Med, and it has not been demonstrated that the university has meaningfully responded to address and mitigate this problem.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Captain of Israeli Olympic Bobsled Team Responds to Swiss Commentator’s Claims He ‘Supports Genocide in Gaza’
Milano Cortina 2026 Olympics – Bobsleigh – 2-man Heat 2 – Cortina Sliding Centre, Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy – February 16, 2026. Adam Edelman of Israel and Menachem Chen of Israel react after their run. Photo: REUTERS/Athit Perawongmetha
The captain of Israel’s bobsled team competing in the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in Italy has responded to remarks made by a commentator on the Swiss network Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS) who claimed the athlete should have been banned from the Olympics because of his “support of the genocide in Gaza.”
Commentator Stefan Renna made the remarks as Adam Edelman, an American-Israeli, and his teammate Menachem Chen performed their two-man bobsleigh run on Monday, in which they finished in last place. Renna said on air that Edelman is a “self-defined ‘Zionist to the core’” who had posted “several messages on social media in support of the genocide in Gaza.” The commentator also claimed Edelman had poked fun at a “Free Palestine” demonstration.
Renna further commented that Edelman had “said the Israeli military intervention was, I quote, ‘the most morally justified war in history.’” He also said Edelman should have been barred from the Milan-Cortina Games just like the International Olympic Committee banned Russian athletes if they made comments in support of the war that started after Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. “This just goes to show that sport is obviously eminently political,” Renna told viewers.
A clip featuring the commentary was removed from the RTS website on Monday night because it was not “appropriate” for a sports broadcast, a spokesperson for the network told Deadline.
Edelman took to social media to respond to the RTS clip and the comments made about him.
“I am aware of the diatribe the commentator directed towards the Israeli bobsled team on the Swiss Olympic broadcast today,” he wrote on Monday. “I can’t help but notice the contrast: Shul Runnings [the team’s nickname] is a team of 6 proud Israelis who’ve made it to the Olympic stage. No coach with us. No big program. Just a dream, grit, and unyielding pride in who we represent. Working together towards such an incredible goal and crushing it. Because that’s what Israelis do. I don’t think it’s possible to witness that and give credence to this commentary.”
Edelman also reposted a comment from US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who said the RTS broadcast was “beyond disgusting” and that the “Jew-hating” Swiss commentator “spewed bigotry and bile” as the Israeli team competed.
The Israeli bobsled team is competing in the final two-man run on Tuesday and the four-man run later this week.