Shalom. Recently, the Hebrew faithful in Costa Rica invited influential clerics from other religions for an ecumenical remembrance of a terrible act of religious intolerance that shall never be repeated. With the recent atrocities perpetrated by ISIS against the good people of France as background, the Judaic and Christian communities of Costa Rica commemorated Kristallnacht (night of the broken glass) by calling upon all of us to celebrate the joys of tolerance and religious diversity.

Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Mr. John H. Lang recently and succinctly explained Kristallnacht:

Monday, Nov. 9, marks the anniversary of Kristallnacht in 1938, when Nazi hordes ran wild throughout Berlin, as well as in other German cities. Jewish houses of worship were desecrated and then set afire. Thousands of Jews were rounded up, some beaten to death, others sent to concentration camps. Jewish-owned businesses and homes were looted.

As it happens, Mr. Lang -may God always bless him- is a survivor of Kristallnacht. He was eight years old at the time, and he still remembers his Berlin synagogue set on fire that night and uniformed Nazi party members crowding the streets the next day.

In Costa Rica, the Kristallnacht remembrance was observed along with the 50^th anniversary of Nostra Aetate, Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council. To this effect, the Archbishop of San Jose, Monsignor Jose Rafael Quiros, was a keynote speaker at the event.

According to a report filed by Yariela Novo of daily tabloid Diario Extra, about 500 guests attended the event, and they included the Ambassadors of the United States, the European Union, Argentina, Uruguay, Japan, Germany, Israel, and the Dominican Republic. Costa Rica B’nai B’rith president Marcelo Burman stressed the importance of remembrance, for condemnation of Kristallnacht was not widely disseminated at the time. Mr. Burman believes that attacks such as those against Paris should not be ignored because they have a foundation of hate and intolerance.

Monsignor Quiros thanked the assembled for their invitation, which happens to be the seventh consecutive.