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England: Catholic Text Book on Jews
C. K. - London

Three projects are being prepared by the National Commission set up in June by Cardinal FEKA.7 to implement the Vatican Council's Declaration on the Jews. The 'ommission's joint secretary, Sister MARIE LOUIS-GABRIEL, told the Jewish Chronicle that the commission would publish a book about the Jews in Catholic school texts in English.

The second project would be an educational kit for Catholic schools, containing reproductions of Jewish religious articles, such as tefilim, talisim and hagadot. The third project on which the commission was working was a tape-recorded discussion by a Catholic and a Jewish scholar ou the purposes and limitations of a Christian-Jewish dialogue. It would be sent to Catholic and Jewish student groups as a basis for further discussion. The commission would have preferred a theological dialogue on a higher level, but had to alter its plans because of difficulties in getting Jewish scholars to participate. "I found the prejudice of Jewish scholars perfectly justified", Sr. Louis Gabriel said, "as they are afraid of our intentions to proselytise. However, we have no such intentions".

The commission was also trying to stimulate interest in the establishment of scholarships to enable Catholic youth to study Judaism at university level.
The Jewish Chronicle, 14.10.66.

In addition to these projects, a number of teacher-training colleges are regularly visited by lecturers, trying to instruct future teachers on the need of a balanced presentation of the Gospel events. As a result a number of college students do their obligatory independont work on a theme connected with Judaism.

A survey has just been completed of catechetical textbooks•in England over the last 30 years. It is hoped to publish this soon, together with a positive explanation of controversial points.

The commission has charged a sociologist to work out a scheme to investigate the oral classroom presentation of Jews in catechetics. The completion of this project will take at least two years.