Purely Commentary
Obstacles to Good Will .. . A Challenge to Christians
Ecumenism, its possible services to mankind, the attitudes towards
Jews, the Christian silence in an ever-threatening Holocaust—they are
factors that keep haunting the querulous.
Many have spoken up in recent months in protest against the
silence and in questioning the sincerity of ecumenical outpourings. The
obstacles nevertheless continue to emerge grotesquely, and the chal-
lenges are not to be silenced.
One such protesting voice was that of a noted scholar, one of the
leading rabbis of our time—Dr. Stuart E. Rosenberg of Beth Tzedec
Congregation in Toronto. He spoke at an inter-faith dinner a very few
weeks ago, and the platform was a natural one. There were Jews there
who should be informed; there were Christians who should hear an
echo of the Prophets. It was the right place for Rabbi Rosenberg to con-
cede that "Christian ecumenism is clearly one of our century's most
hopeful 'isms' " and also to ask: "Will Christian ecumenism serve the
world or just save the churches?"
Public speeches do not always lend themselves to scrutiny, to
analysis. This one does. Dr. Rosenberg continued to pose questions to
his mixed audience: "The acid test of ecumenism's truest significance
comes when, in the midst of their 'search for Christian unity,' we ask
both Catholics and Protestants: What about non-Christians? What role
do you assign to those outside of the Church? Only if Christians can
deal with the question in a new and radical way can current attempts
at Christian renewal be said to possess universal significance."
He posed these questions "as a Jew ... because in many ways the
future of Judaism itself as a universal influence in the world is linked
to the answers. It is good for Judaism, too, I believe, that Christianity
successfully renew itself, and radically orient itself to the 20th Cen-
tury." And he added:
"But it is even more important for the future of Christianity that
these questions be asked by Jews. For the supreme historical example
of the stranger within the gates of Christendom was and is the Jew. It
is only in the secular, democratic modern world that Jews and Judaism
may coexist as co-equals with Christians and with the Church. But will
Christianity sign a peace treaty with Judaism—or only observe a cease
fire? Will its ecumenism reach out to the non-Christian world?"
Then came his presentation of the obstacles—the "three stumbling
blocks which divide Christianity from a full understanding and compre-
hension of its own share in a renewed Judaism and its need to accom-
modate to the vital existence of the Jewish people in the world. Unless
these three issues are properly resolved, ecumenism will fall short of its
universal, worldly possibilities, and Christian renewal will be without
real influence on the world beyond the church."
"What are these three obstacles?" he asked. "In the first place,
Christianity must learn to uproot the contempt for the Jews and for
Judaism which found its way into Christian life and thought as a
result of the early teachings of the Church. Second, Christianity
must come to spiritual terms with the Holocaust—that demonic and
diabolical challenge to Christianty which is so often glossed over
and forgotten by people in the Church. Nor will it do for Church
leaders,‘ when reminded by Jews, to tell us that we are paranoid.
That won't do: no theologian worthy of attention will treat lightly
those who assist his work by reminding him of the demonic and the
diabolical in human nature and affairs.
"And finally, the Christian world must come to regard the re-
newal of the people of Israel on the land of Israel, as more than a
political event or a fight for national rights, but rather as a renewal
of Judaism itself, as the restoration of Jewish religious and cultural
thought to an old-new framework, for its authentic expressions and
development. Christianity must come to regard as a RELIGIOUS
FULFILLMENT for Jews, the renewal of that land where Jesus
lived as a Jew. Perhaps, there, Psalm 151 may yet be written,
where the original 150 had their birth."
Dealing skillfully with the three obstacles, Dr. Rosenberg pointed
to a significant conclusion by a prominent Protestant scholar (Dr. Roy
Eckart) that "All the learned exegesis in the world cannot negate the
truth that there are elements not only of anti-Judaism but of anti-
Semitism in the New Testament. . . . We do not appear to realize—
perhaps we do not wish to know—that until the Church admits unquali-
fiedly, and , goes out of its way to proclaim to the world the anti-Semitic
proclivities within sections of its basic canon, hostility to Jews will not
be finally rooted out anywhere in Christian teaching."
Turning to the second obstacle, Dr. Rosenberg declared: "I do not
believe that there can be Christian renewal worthy of Christianity until
Christians are capable of coming to terms with the implications of the
Holocaust and the demonic slaughter of the Jews by the Nazis and
others. Unless the Church is capable of regarding the Holocaust as a
judgment not only upon the world, but upon a Church which did not
sufficiently change or challenge that world, I have grave doubt as to its
ability to reach men now, in this age of violence and criminal passion."
It is about the third obstacle that the Toronto rabbi was especially
concerned, and on this score he has earned special consideration.
The restoration of a representative portion of the people of
Israel to the land of Israel, as a sovereign state recognized by the
international community, has raised many theological problems for
Christianity. But a Christianity that can only regard the dispersion
of the Jews as a merited punishment for their rejection of Chris-
tianity, or Christian teachings which can only see in the wander-
ing, dispersion and exile of the Jews, the necessary and proper
penalty for their refusal to convert to Christianity, cannot really
live wholesomely in the 20th Century with those who are not
Christians. It may seem presumptuous for me to urge Christians
not to structure the theology of their renewal without taking account
of the dynamics of Jewish renewal. But I am doing more than that.
I am suggesting to Christians that they cannot come to the new
world, nor accommodate to the secular world of this time and
place, unless they can also come to see the Jews as having the
same equal rights and sovereign possibilities, as they do.
With regard to the problem of Christian teaching and anti-
Semitism, many significant and creative things have been accom-
plished. Many studies have been undertaken by various Christian
denominitions to review their textbooks, to make certain that no
church materials in school, pulpit or pew are used which cast
aspersion upon Jews or Judaism. Many theologians, Catholic and
Protestant, have published books and essays attempting to expur-
gate from modern Christian thought, the traces of early anti-Semit-
ism which entered Christianity in the first centuries. The most
creative efforts have been in biblical studies.
Christian scholars have been learning to read the Hebrew
Bible as the Bible reads—and not as they would like to read into it.
2—Friday, April 11, 1969
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Obstacles to Ecumenism, Appeal for Christians'
Action to Prevent Denigration of the Interests
Involving Holocaust, Israel, Made by Scholar
The Hebrew Bible is not a book that describes what happened in the
Middle Ages or in Europe. Other peoples have helped to eternalize
it by appropriating it. But you cannot change Sinai—nor leave the
Jewish people out of their own story
These scholars have been creatively raising the key questions.
They have made it necessary for Christians to come to terms with
themselves, asking these questions: "Who am I?" "Who was
Jesus?" And slowly answers come: I am the product of Jesus the
Jew; Jesus of Palestine. Christians are learning not to overlook the
humanity of Jesus—Jesus as the teacher, the Jewish teacher.
Much, then, has been done to overcome the barriers that have
caused hostility between Church and Synagogue, and surely much
more will get done. Unfortunately, however, one does not find the
same sensitivity regarding the second and third problems I have
described. Some European Christians—notably German, Dutch and
Scandinavians have established atonement programs in the land of
Israel. Yet most Christians still do not see the connection between
the Holocaust and the rise and vitality of the state of Israel.
I must submit, however, that only Christians who are alive and
sensitive to the meaning of the Holocaust, can ultimately under-
stand the meaning and rise of the state of Israel. This is why in
June of 1967, many Jews, hearing the Arab calls for the total anni-
hilation of the population of Israel, again heard Hitler's voice and
words—and were again reminded of the world's basic indifference
to Jewish survival. There was a silence in too many parts of the
Church — a silence that was frightening to the Jews of the world.
Perhaps this will explain to Christian friends why we felt so alone
and hurt during the weeks of May 1967. After the lightning war,
we asked some of these friends why they stood aside and stayed
aloof from our agony and travail during those harrowing weeks
when the Arab threats of destruction were hurled at us broadside.
"Why did you stand aside?" we asked. "We were speaking,
having dialogue. You were coming to synagogue, listening to my
prayers. I thought you heard me in my depths. Where were you.
then, in May 1967?" They replied: "We didn't understand that the
land of Israel was so important to the faith of the Jews every-
where, or so vital to the life of Jews outside it."
No, they did not understand. And this gives special signifi-
cance to a statement made by a group of Christian teachers and
leaders some few months ago in Jerusalem. These Christian teach-
ers, members of the Rainbow Group, write as follows: 'We believe
that one of the greatest disservices that Christians have rendered
to the Arab peoples and states in the last 20 years, is in not having
helped them to face the comprehensive Jewish reality, particularly
the Jewish link with the land. This concerns the inevitability of the
continued existence of Jews in that land in terms of a contempor-
ary state of Israel. By playing down this fact, Christians have
involuntarily encouraged the persistence of belligerency and pre-
vented the opening of talks leading to a negotiated settlement... .
Christians for too long have taken it for granted that the Jewish
people left their land and only returned with the rise of a modern
Zionist movement in the 19th Century. But actual Jewish
history is characterized by an unbroken continuity, physical and
spiritual, in the relationship of the people of the land. It is incum-
bent upon Christians to come to terms with this fact ..
At this moment this is surely one of the greatest obstacles
which faces Christian-Jewish dialogue and understanding, here and
elsewhere. And it is now being further complicated by a new and
frightening fact. The Arab-Moslem world regards itself free from
the bloodstains of the Holocaust. It claims that the Holocaust was
an outgrowth of the Western world—of European Christendom, to
be exact. But this claim of inculpability, now embrazens the Mos-
lems, and emboldens their leaders to undertake a hate campaign
which is based on the same hostilities and distortions which made
the Holocaust possible.
Arab anti-Semitism, of course, begins simply enough with anti-
Zionism—its spokesmen suggest that they have nothing against
Judaism or the Jewish people, but only against those Zionist-Jews
who live in Israel—it is they who are foreign and who must be up-
rooted. But like all other forms of violent, irrational hatred, what
starts out claiming only a partial hostility, becomes increasingly
desperate when it does not win, does not negotiate, and will not
recognize; it ends up with total revulsion and fosters inhuman
desires for human destruction .
Imagine what love, cooperative effort, and sincere dedication
could have wrought for these one million unfortunate Arabs, victims
of war and violence! Compare their unrelieved, wretched home-
lessness to the present condition of almost one million Jewish refu-
gees from Arab lands—from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Libya,
Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Yemen—who only recently fled fearfully
these lands in which their ancestors had lived for almost 2,000
years—long before the Arabs conquered these territories in the
7th Century. Their families had settled in Iraq long before the
modern Iraqi Arabs; in Egypt, with the Copts, centuries before the
modern Egyptians; in Syria, before Damascus was Arab.
But see how these Jewish refugees from Arab countries have
been given a new life in the state of Israel, by brethren who truly
care. Compare them with the way Arab politicians and govern-
ments have for 20 years kept their own poor and miserable people
languishing in refugee camps, filling their children with fierce and
violent hatred against the Jews, and refusing any effort to rehabili-
tate, resettle or compensate them, on political grounds,
It is this political conflict with Israel which is causing a new
anti-Semitism to flourish and which has become a dangerous wea-
pon in Arab hands, to drive you and we apart. A recent scientific
study by Professor Harkavi of the Hebrew University, analyzes 150
books published in the last three years by official Arab govern-
ments—books dealing specifically with Jews, Judaism and Zionism.
Every third book studied—a full 50—based its interpretations on the
long-discredited, malicious forgeries, the Protocols of the Elders of
Zion, which invented the heinous myth that the whole of the Jewish
people is a threat to the safety and security of the entire world,
since all Jews are purportedly bent on one thing only—the domina-
tion and the subjugation of the world.
In this new Moslem hate - mythology, two anti - Jewish themes
are made to coalesce—the reviling image of the Jews as a de-
based, untrustworthy people is linked to the frightening image of
the Jews as a world threat. Over and over again the claim is made:
the current conflict between Arabs and Jews is but a continuation
of the stealth and violence committed by the ancient biblical Israel-
ites against what they gratuitously call the fathers of Islam—the
original owners of Palestine, the Canaanites!
It is precisely at this juncture that what is naively regarded
By Philip
Slomovitz
as only simple, elemental anti-
Zionism, has been skillfully
transformed into a violent hatred
of Judaism and its bearers
everywhere—the Jewish people.
It is in this sinister way that
Israel's radical political enemies
are spreading a new anti-Semit-
ism to the world.
What makes this turn of
events so very frightening is
this: just as the Christian world
began moving away from its
medieval anti-Jewish views,
making a sincere attempt to
come to terms with Jews and
Judaism in the modern era, a
new Moslem fanaticism grafted
on to pan-Arabism, now seeks
to re-infect Christian thinking
throughout the world.
I must therefore turn to my
Christian neighbors and col-
leagues with an urgent plea and
profound prayer: let us not be
moved farther apart, just at a
time when Christian and Jewish
renewal could bring us closer to-
gether. Jews must not under-
estimate Christian concern for
the Arab refugees. Nor should
we fault you when you are cri-
tical of Israel, on specific moral
issues, just as you would be cri-
tical of any government, includ-
ing our own in Ottawa. But
Christian compassion should be
creatively harnessed to imagina-
tive programs that will serve the
cause of peace and justice to
Arabs and Jews.
It must never become the un-
witting tool of those who would
exploit Christian humanitarian-
ism for the purpose of spreading
hatred of Israel, or of the Jewish
people. Sensitive Christians will
be on their guard to prevent anti-
Zionist propaganda from leading
them away from a warm and
open encounter, and a brotherly
embrace of their Jewish breth-
ren.
I share your concern for the
Arab refugees, for the innocent
civilians who have suffered from
war and hostilities. I believe that
Israel would demonstrate com-
passion and cooperation tomor-
row—if Arab governments would
permit themselves to meet with
Israeli leaders in sincere dia-
logue looking toward peace. I
am convinced that if, once and
for all, Arab governments re-
frained from regarding their
refugees as powerless but useful
pawns in their game of politics
and propaganda, the Jews of the
world would willingly volunteer
to participate in schemes helping
to resettle, rehabilitate and edu-
cate the Arab refugees. Israel
cannot live in a sea of poverty,
illiteracy and hatred. It is in
Israel's self-interest that Arab
neighbors be raised to higher
human levels—to make coexist-
ence meaningful.
In the long history of Juda-
ism and Christianity ours is an
age of the "Great Breakthrough."
It is only yesterday that we be-
gan our dialogue. Shall we per-
mit our new communication—
this grand new sound we heard
—to be disrupted and destroyed
by those who now dare to stand
between us, for their own spuri-
ous, hateful reasons? Shall we
Jews and Christians not learn to
hold hands before it is too late
for us all? Shall we not together
learn to begin again?
It is because it is vital to the
issue that such a long quotation is
utilized. What Dr. Rosenberg has
said has been alluded to, pleaded
for, reiterated time and again. We
ourselves have resorted to the re-
vealing studies by Gen. Jehoshafat
Harkabi and we welcome what
Rabbi Rosenberg said. In the total-
ity of his address, however, Dr.
Rosenberg covered major issues
with such firmness that if they
are read—as we hope they were
listened to—perhaps we will really
be able to overcome the obstacles
that challenge all men, that out of
Zion will come forth not only the
,Law but the spirit of the Law as it
brflutrieet