The Popes and the Jews: A lecture by Paul Forgasz

On October 28, 1965, the Second Vatican Council, promulgated Nostra Aetate, the declaration concerning the Catholic Church’s relations with non-Christian religions. What was particularly revolutionary about this document was its unequivocal pronouncement that the Jews should not be held accountable for the death of Jesus, as well its repudiation of centuries of anti-Semitism inspired by this accusation. The extent of this ground breaking shift in Jewish-Christian relations is best appreciated against the background of the fraught, yet complex relationship between the Popes and the Jews over the centuries, which will serve as the focal point of this lecture Paul Forgasz’ career has spanned both the secondary and tertiary sectors of education. For more than a decade he was the Headmaster of the secondary school campus of Mount Scopus College, a large K-12 Jewish day school in Melbourne. He was a lecturer in Jewish history and comparative religion at Monash University’s Australian Centre for Jewish Education and taught about Jewish education, as well as school leadership, in the university’s Faculty of Education. Paul has maintained an active involvement for many years in Jewish adult education, particularly through the Jewish Museum of Australia's community education program. Since 2010, under the auspices of the Jewish Museum of Australia, he has also led a number of sell-out Jewish study tours to various European destinations including Spain, Italy, Germany, Vienna, Poland and Lithuania. In 2022, Paul is planning to conduct a first-time tour of Jewish Greece. With the support of Multicultural Museums Victoria.