Il concilio Vaticano II e la ridefinizione dei rapporti della chiesa con il popolo Ebraico

After centuries of anti-Jewish doctrine and "teaching of contempt", Pope John XXIII and the Vatican Council II pushed for a radical change of direction in the thought of the Church towards the Jews and Judaism; the council declaration Nostra Aetate (n. 4), though timid and often ambiguous, represented a momentous event for a new relationship between Catholicism and the Jewish people. The Jews were no longer to be put "back in their place", but they had to be respected as partners in a new fraternal dialogue. Though approved by nearly unanimous vote, the course of the document during the Council was much more difficult than the final consensus would lead to believe: in fact, a strenuous fight against its approval was carried on by a pugnacous traditionalist minority.