Catholics and Jews

We have read, somewhere, that, pre-Vatican II, Catholics who were regular church-goers were among the more anti-Semitic of Americans, but that post-Vatican, Catholics who are regular church-goers are not anti-Semitic. That says a lot about how far we have progressed. Which brings us to a story in the Times Union about a display of Jewish history. The article reports:

ALBANY -- The history of Schenectady's Jewish community is spread across the walls of the Sage College Opalka Gallery off Albany's New Scotland Avenue.
. . .
The exhibit was culled from resources around the state. The Columbia County Historical Society lent a portrait of Mordecai Myers, a War of 1812 hero who settled in Schenectady. The New York State Museum offered a licensing book that every Schenectady peddler signed -- many Eastern European Jews became peddlers in America.

A scroll resting on the back wall resembles a traditional Torah, the five books of Moses that are handwritten in Hebrew on vellum and read from weekly in a synagogue. Except this scroll is not a Torah, but rather an unusual way of listing the departed members of one local congregation.

The Opalka Gallery show runs through Sunday. After that, a smaller version will be on duisplay at the Schenectady County Historical Society from March 11 through May 15.

Harvey Strum [a Sage College professor] will speak about the exhibit at 2 p.m. on March 12 at the historical society. The lecture is free.

We hope to see you there.