NEW YORK (RNS) Rabbi Leon Klenicki, who spent decades advancing Jewish-Christian understanding as an author, theologian and the Anti-Defamation League’s liaison to the Vatican, died Sunday (Jan. 25) after a long illness. He was 78.
Klenicki retired from the Anti-Defamation League in 2001, but continued writing and teaching on interfaith relations. In August 2007, he received a papal knighthood in recognition of his contributions to improving historic tensions between Jews and Catholics.
“He could talk to Jews and Christians with equal facility and ease,” said Abraham H. Foxman, the ADL’s national director, in a statement. “It was amazing to witness the depth of respect the Catholic leaders showed Rabbi Klenicki. This was because he was always honest with them, ready to criticize them when necessary, to praise them when appropriate, and always to be constructive in the relationship.”
Klenicki also worked with the Catholic organization Opus Dei as it confronted accusations of anti-Semitism in the early 1990s. “He came to bat for us, and said he had never come across any evidence of anti-Semitism in Opus Dei,” said Opus Dei spokesman Brian Finnerty. “He was greatly appreciated.”
A native of Argentina, Klenicki received his bachelor’s degree from the University of Cincinnati and his master’s degree and rabbinical diploma from Hebrew Union College.
In 1967, Klenicki became director of the Latin American office of the World Union for Progressive Judaism. During Pope Paul VI’s 1968 visit to Colombia, Klenicki delivered a major paper representing the Jewish community at the first Latin American meeting of Jews and Catholics. While serving as spiritual leader of a Buenos Aires congregation, he also published the first Reform prayer book in Spanish and Hebrew specifically for Argentinians.
Klenicki joined the ADL in 1973 to oversee Catholic-Jewish relations. In 1984, he was named director of the ADL’s interfaith affairs department and was tapped as co-liaison to the Vatican. He co-authored, with Eugene Fisher of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, an interfaith guide to commemorating the Holocaust.
“This is a shattering loss,” said Rabbi A. James Rudin, the former longtime head of interfaith relations at the American Jewish Committee. He and others, including Fisher, have been compiling a collection of essays on Christian-Jewish relations that was scheduled for release in time for Klenicki’s 80th birthday next year. “He was a giant in our field.”
