| DEATH
OF AN ARCHBISHOP
Death
of Beloved Archbishop
By
TIM BOXER
JOHN CARDINAL O’CONNOR, who
just died at age 80, was celebrated by the Jewish community at an
Anti-Defamation League dinner three years ago at the New York Hilton. Rabbi
Ronald Sobel of the prestigious Emanu-El Temple on Fifth Avenue hailed
America’s most influential Catholic leader as “a true friend of the
Jewish people while remaining steadfast to the teachings of the Catholic
Church.”
Rabbi Sobel told how Cardinal
O’Connor, archbishop of New York since 1984, could be relied upon to
help a Jewish cause – and do more than asked. He remembered calling
cardinal O’Connor and asking him to convey privately to President Ronald
Reagan that he not go to Bitburg, where Nazi storm troopers were
buried.
“The letter is on the way to
the White House,” Cardinal O’Connor replied. “It’s not only a
private communication – it will be in the press tomorrow.”
In his eloquent style, Cardinal
O’Connor, resplendent in his ecclesiastical robe and the crimson satin
skullcap of his station, pleaded with the Jewish elite gathered at the ADL
dinner to be proud Jews.
“We are all in your debt,
certainly Catholicism, which is totally rooted in Judaism,” he said.
“Be Jews. Don’t yield to the passion for respectability. Continue to
support your spiritual homeland. Don’t ever feel embarrassed; don’t
feel you have to hide. To me your homeland is the embodiment of Judaism
itself.”
Rabbi Sobel, the first Jewish
spiritual leader to preach from the pulpit of St. Patrick’s Cathedral,
was fair game for the cardinal’s humor.
“I
always like to embarrass my good friend Rabbi Sobel by wearing a yarmulke
when he never wears one,” the cardinal said. “Even when he invited me
to speak at his temple, I was the only one to wear a yarmulke.”
Gift Fit For A Cardinal
In the wake of John Cardinal
O’Connor’s death, stories about the New York archbishop abound.
Fanya Heller
says she had in her possession a cross that was 150 years old, inlaid with
mother of pearl and appraised at $6,000. She can’t remember how she got
it, possibly at an estate auction, but it’s been in her East Side home
for three decades.
“Every time a rabbi came
over,” she said, “my husband made sure to hide it.”
When Yad Vashem two years ago
honored the Christian family who saved Fanya in the Holocaust in Poland,
she had a private audience with Cardinal O’Connor.
“I brought the cross with
me,” she said. “I gave it to him, and he was touched to tears.”
It Pays To Know the
Cardinal
The death of Cardinal O’Connor
prompted Dr. Ernest Birnbaum, a retired professor of chemistry at
St. John’s University, to recall an appropriate story I’d written 11
years ago.
Father Flynn, the head of
the university, needed $30,000
to acquire a rare Hebrew manuscript for the school’s Catholic library.
He called Rabbi Samuel Belkin,
then president of Yeshiva University. Flynn was quite aware of Belkin’s
skill for separating wealthy Jews from their money.
“No problem,” Belkin assured
the priest. “Give me a week.”
Less than a week later the rabbi
called the priest: “I got you $30,000. Congratulations.”
“Gee, rabbi, that’s
wonderful. Tell me, how did you do it?”
“That
was easy. I called Cardinal Spellman.”
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