While credit must be given to Pope John XXIII as the pioneer of the process, John Paul II demonstrated more devotion and commitment to improving the relationship with the Jewish people than all the other popes in history together.

In his speech at his momentous visit to the Great Synagogue in Rome, he deepened the language and implications of the Second Vatican Council document Nostra aetatet, describing the Jewish people as Christianity's "...dearly beloved brothers....our elder brothers...beloved of God who has called them with an irrevocable calling".

Similarly he embellished Nostra Aetate's condemnation of anti-Semitism, declaring it to be a "sin against God and humanity" (Vatican Information service, no 75.4:172-178) and expressed the most profound regret for past hostility towards the Jewish people, stating that "...for Christians the heavy burden of guilt for the murder of Jewish people must be an enduring call to repentance; thereby we can overcome every form of anti-Semitism and establish a new relationship with our kindred nation of the Old Covenant" (on receiving the first ambassador of a reunited Germany, Rome, November 1990).

Undoubtedly both his childhood experiences and friendships with members of the Jewish community in his hometown of Wadowice had an influence on this endeavour. But above all it was the experience of the Shoah, the Nazi Holocaust, that impacted most profoundly on him in this regard. It was my privilege to meet him on some dozen different occasions, but the most extensive conversation between us was at Assisi in January, 1993, at the prayer meeting for the Balkans. On that occasion the Pope emphasised how central the Shoah was to his own worldview, and how crucial he believed the memory of that tragedy is in order to prevent human society from such terrible degeneration again. "The memory of the Shoah must animate our teaching and preaching for the sake of future generations," he said with emotion.

His understanding of the meaning of the State of Israel for the Jewish people led him to give his total support for the process of full normalisation between the Holy See and the Jewish state. His visit to Israel during the Great Jubilee Year of 2000 personified the remarkable transformation in the Holy See's attitude towards the idea and the reality of the re-established sovereignty of the state of the Jewish people in the land of its ancestors.

During his Pontificate a number of very significiant Vatican documents were issued. Arguably the most important of these was the 1985 document entitled The Common Bond - Christians and Jews - Notes for Preaching and Teaching, prepared by the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jewish people. Using John Paul II's own statements and theological formulations, this text gives principle emphasis to the Jewish roots of Christianity and to deepening a new understanding and appreciation of Judaism as a living faith. In addition, it seeks to put "problematic" passages in the New Testament in context and thus countervail possibly prejudicial conclusions.

Another significant document was that produced by the Vatican's commission for Justice and Peace in 1988 entitled The Church and Racism, which contained a powerful passage on anti-Semitism, in which it also condemned the "anti-Zionism that serves as a guise for anti-Semitism".

In 1987, Pope John Paul II told Jewish leaders at a meeting in Castelgandolfo that the Vatican would work on a document dealing with the Shoah and the relationship between it and anti-Judaism in Church teaching.

This document, which took more than a decade to produce (issued in March, 1998) was not without controversy. Nevertheless, it is the first Vatican document to formally address the subject of the Shoah, acknowledging the "failures of the sons and daughters of the Church" in this context and urging a spirit of repentance within the Church accordingly.

This was most powerfully expressed in the liturgy of the service of forgiveness held at St Peter's on March 12th, 2000, and repeated by John Paul II on his pilgrimage to the Holy Land where he placed this liturgical text in the crevies of the Western Wall - the ancient symbol of Jewish attachment to Jerusalem and the land of Israel. Among the many significant dimensions of his pontificate, the Jewish community will remember John Paul II above all for his unparalleled trail-blazing of a thoroughly new era in Catholic-Jewish relations, that enables us to turn from the tragic past and face the future together in respect for our differences, but also out of a deep sense of our special shared patrimony and responsibility for our world.

David Rosen is a former Rabbi of the Synagogue in Dublin.