At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem’s Old City on Sunday, Judith Salman, a Palestinian from Bethlehem, knelt for long moments at a marble slab venerated by Christians as the place where the body of Jesus was prepared for burial.
Her prayers this day were for Pope John Paul II.
“He was with the people,” she said. “He was simple and humble, and he brought forgiveness between Christians, Muslims and Jews.”
In this city divided by religious and political conflict, the pope was remembered Sunday as a beacon of tolerance, who during a 2000 visit brought a message of reconciliation that was overshadowed in the following years of violence.
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Sandra Nasser, who came from Bethlehem to pray, said the pope’s visit to the West Bank town five years ago boosted Palestinians’ spirits.
“He supported us all, Muslims and Christians,” she said.
Among Israelis, the pope was praised as a friend who promoted conciliation between Christians and Jews.
He was remembered for establishing diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel and for his visits to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial, and to the Western Wall, Judaism’s most revered shrine, where he placed a note asking forgiveness for Christian persecution of Jews throughout history.
“This was an unforgettable step and a memory that will never be erased,” Yisrael Meir Lau, a former chief rabbi of Israel who met the pope, wrote in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper.
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called the pope “a friend of the Jewish people who recognized the uniqueness of the Jewish people and worked for a historic reconciliation” between Christians and Jews.