Rabbi Leon Klenicki (l.) met with Pope Benedict XVI in 2007. Rabbi Leon Klenicki, in 2007 named a Papal Knight of the Order of St. Gregory the Great by Pope Benedict XVI for his service to the Catholic Church in helping to promote interfaith dialogue and holder of one of only two Papal knighthoods ever bestowed upon interfaith officials, died Sunday, Jan. 25, 2009. Klenicki is survived by his wife, Myra Cohen Klenicki, his son, Daniel, his daughter, Ruth Finkelstein, and his grandson, Eliyahu Finkelstein. Klenicki and his wife were members of the Astoria Center of Israel during the 1980s and part of the 1990s.

Born in Poland, and brought up in Argentina, Klenicki became a prominent Jewish leader in New York. He was the longtime director of interfaith affairs of the Anti-Defamation League, and a liaison to the Vatican. During his more than 30 years in those positions, Klenicki developed many sources of constructive communication with Christian groups, and especially with the Catholic Church. Those relationships enabled him to become an essential part of the team of American Jewish leaders who eventually convinced the Vatican to relocate a group of Carmelite nuns who had inhabited a building inside the grounds of Auschwitz. Through those efforts, the nuns agreed to move to a convent directly outside the gates of the concentration camp.

Klenicki was instrumental in directly expressing the concerns and distress of Jews worldwide when Pope John Paul II met with former Nazi, Austrian President Kurt Waldheim in 1987. Klenicki was also a determined advocate in helping the Jews of his former home in Argentina. He frequently traveled there as well as to many other parts of the world.

In their own community, Klenicki and his wife formed a Chavurah group by inviting many people into their home and eventually setting up round robin, homebased Sabbath services, which provided a very intense personal spiritual experience for those who participated at that time. He was also the co-author, along with Dr. Eugene Fisher of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops of a Holocaust Memorial Service to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass" commonly considered the beginning of the Holocaust in Nazi Germany) in November 1988. This was a major event in the Astoria Center of Israel community. Fifteen different Jewish organizations in the community participated in the service and more than 700 people attended from churches, synagogues, mosques and schools throughout the community. Myra Klenicki was the narrator of that service.

Throughout his life, Klenicki was a worker for Tikkun Olam (Repairing the World).