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Editorial
The Editors

With this issue SIDIC commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of the Seelisberg Conference, the post-World War II international gathering of Christian and Jewish leaders in Switzerland in 1947. Its purpose was: i) to study the present extent of the evil of anti-Semitism and the contributory factors to its persistence and growth in post-war Europe; ü) to formulate plans for immediate and long-range activity through educational, political, religious and social institutions both of a national and international character, for removing the causes, and remedying the effects of anti-Semitism.
SIDIC marks this anniversary by paying tribute to all the post-Shoah pioneers in ChristianJewish relations, even though the articles which follow are able to recount the lives and works of only a few of them. The authors look mainly, though not exclusively, at the period between the Seelisberg Conference and Vatican Council II, the event which for Roman Catholic Christians was the affirmation and continuation of Seelisberg's insightful and courageous vision. The portrayal of Jules Isaac and Pope John XXIII on the cover of this issue symbolizes this link and recalls the historic meeting of these two men in 1960.
As this issue holds before us some of the early efforts to build bridges of reconciliation and understanding, we see that the developments in various continents and countries were influenced and shaped by very different cultural, religious, social and political factors. SIDIC regrets that it is unable to represent all the countries which contributed to this pioneer effort.
In the articles which follow we see the
Participants at the Seelisberg Conference
gradual implementation and further development of the Seelisberg vision as articulated in THE TEN POINTS OF SEELISBERG:
1. Remember that One God speaks to us all through the Old and New Testament. 2. Remember that Jesus was born of a Jewish mother of the seed of David and the people of Israel, and that His everlasting love and forgiveness embraces His own people and the whole world. 3. Remember that the first disciples, the apostles and first martyrs were Jews. 4. Remember that the fundamental commandment of Christianity, to love God and one's neighbour, proclaimed already in the Old Testament and confirmed by Jesus, is binding upon both Christians and Jews in all human relations, without any exception. 5. Avoid distorting or misrepresenting biblical or postbiblical Judaism with the object of extolling Christianity. 6. Avoid using the word 'Jews' in the exclusive sense of the enemies of Jesus, and the words the 'enemies of Jesus' to designate the whole Jewish people. 7. Avoid presenting the Passion in such a way as to bring the odium of the killing of Jesus upon all Jews and upon Jews alone. It was only a section of the Jews in Jerusalem who demanded the death of Jesus, and the Christian message has always been that it was the sins of mankind which were exemplified by those Jews and the sins in which all men share that brought Christ to the Cross. 8. Avoid referring to the scriptural curses, or the cry of a raging mob: "His blood be upon us and our chldren" without remembering that ths cry should not count against the infinitely more weighty words of our Lord, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. " 9. Avoid promoting the superstitious notion that the Jewish people are reprobate, accursed, reserved for a destiny of suffering. 10. Avoid speaking of the Jews as if the first members of the Church had not been Jews.