Friday, October 31, 1980 8 5
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Church Leader Warns of Christian Attitude Toward Israel
CLEVELAND (JTA) —
Stating that "no serious
Jewish-Christian discus-
sion today can avoid touch-
ing centrally on Israel," the
Rev. Allan Brockway of the
World Council of Churches
(WCC) reviewed a range of
Christian attitudes regard-
ing Israel, and explored the
question of "why it is that
the question of Israel's very
existence_ remains unre-
solved in the minds of
Christians."
The WCC official ad-
dressed the National Inter-
religious Affairs Commis-
sion meeting in connection
, the American . Jewish
Coi.tnittee's four-day Na-
tional Executive Council
meeting.
Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum,
the AJCommittee's inter-
religious affairs director,
reported on a recent meet-
ing between Jewish groups
and the WCC, and urged
that "Jewish groups inten-
sify their relationship with
the World Council which is
constantly subjected to
anti-Jewish and anti-Israel
pressures from the PLO and
the Arab world."
Brockway, who is
associate director for
Christian-Jewish Rela-
tions of the WCC in
Geneva, Switzerland,
noted that "there is a
great perplexity in the
Christian mind as to what
Israel is and what it re-
presents, a perplexity
that arises out of the
abysmal ignorance of
Christians about the
Jewish people, and about
their national identify
that has persisted
through persecutions,
the like of which obliter-
ated other peoples and
nations."
Among the reasons for
ambivalent or negative
attitudes about Israel
among Christians, Brock-
way noted the following:
Since Israel was brought
into being by people who
were persecuted in Europe
— although "the extent of
that persecution has been
largely blurred and forgot-
ten . . ." — some Chris-
tians "have been taught
that Jews took over a land
that did not belong to them,
displacing the indigenous
population, the Palestinian
Arbas."
Identifying the Palesti-
nians as "the poor and op-
pressed," they will choose
the Palestinians over Israel
in the international policies
they encourage.
While this is "an
or Aing principle for
mu , Christian bodies,"
Brockway said, its falacy
lies in the "absence of his-
torical memory and in a
misreading of the com-
plexities of contempor-
ary political reality.
When this fallacy is
coupled with an under-
standing of Judaism that
allows Christians to
separate Judaism as a
`world religion' from the
lived life of the Jewish
people, a formidable
ideological foundation is
laid for an insidious form
of anti-Semitism, dis-
guised as anti-Zionism."
Another source of nega-
tive attitudes toward Israel,
Brockway stated, comes
from representatives of
Third World churches who
tend to view Israel as a
Western nation and link it
with the United States and
Western Europe as a "colo-
nial" power, the dominance
of which must be rejected
and overcome.
"In the context of current
international political
rhetoric, it is all but im-
possible for Third -World
church representatives to
comprehend Israel as a na-
tion of refugees from all
three worlds," Brockway
said.
The situation is compli-
cated by the fact that these
Third World churches are
influenced by the Christian
theology of 19th and 20th
Century missionaries, he
added, "so-that a theological
anti-Semitism lurks even
further beneath the con-
scious surface than is the
case in Europe and North
America."
Brockway noted that
the WCC's Consultation
on the Church and the
Jewish People was cur-
rently drafting a set of
"Guidelines for Jewish-
Christian Dialogue,"
which focuses attention
on the "indissoluble bond
between the Jewish
people and the land of Is-
rael," and that the sig-
nificance of these words
from the proposed
"guidelines" indicated
growing attention to
Jewish sensibilities
which may become "a
base for widening the
constructive dialogue be-
tween the churches and
the Jewish people . . ."
Contrasting this ap-
proach of a 1948 state-
ment of the WCC that was
essentially missionary in its
approach to the Jewish
people, Brockway stated
that "a vast amount of new
thinking, new education,
new preaching is required
to remove the sting from
almost 2,000 years of Chris-
tian hatred toward Jews."
Emphasizing that he was
speaking for himself,
Brockway concluded:
"I am deeply concerned
that Christians support Is-
rael and the Jewish people,
not so much because I be-
lieve such support will
enhance Judaism but be-
cause I believe that the vit-
ality and validity of Chris-
tianity is at stake.
"The real test for Chris-
tianity lies, not in its
specific answers to the
question, 'what do you
say Israel is?'—though
that question will con-
tinue to be addressed —
as it does in whether it is
willing and able to tran-
scend that essential ques-
tion to struggle faithfully
with the existential ques-
tion, 'How may we sup-
port Israel — people, land
and state — in assuming
its God-given role in the
lives of people and na-
tions?' That is a goal in
which Christians and
Jews may join, though
perhaps for different
reasons."
Other speakers at the
AJCommittee sessions in
Cleveland included:
• Anita Miller, project
specialist for the Ford
Foundation, who said
stabilization and revitaliza-
tion of neighborhoods in the
U.S. may create a Jewish
renaissance in areas where
Jews originally lived;
• Maynard I. Wishner,
president of the AJCommit-
tee, who said that "disturb-
ing developments" in the
UN might make it neces-
sary for the U.S. to reassess
its role in that body;
• U.S. Middle East Am-
bassador Sol Linowitz,
said even though "there
is still a distance to go"
there are good prospects
for peace based on the
Camp David agreements;
• Prof. Michael Brocke, a
Roman Catholic Scholar at
the University of Duisberg,
West Germany, said a sys-
tematic program of publica-
tion of religious and secular
textbooks on the Holocasut
will be started soon for all
West German schoolchil-
dren;
• Rev. Jimmy Allen,
former president of the
Southern Baptist Conven-
at the meeting that a
"Shabbat \ Haggadah"
has been published by
the AJCommittee as a
new approach to family
and group education.
tion, said that a "religious
political bloc vote" may
endanger the "healthy
pluralism" in American
society. He warned that
this effort was marked by "a
total capitulation of a seg-
ment of the evangelical
Christian movement to
right-wing politics and
sword-rattling jingoism;"
• Hebrew University
Prof. Peter Y. Medding said
Diaspora. Jews must deal
with Israel as "a reality,
rather than a miracle." He
said current attitudes will
affect Diaspora Jewry's per-
sonal and philanthropic in-
volvement in Israel's fu-
ture.
It was also announced
The book is authored by
Michael Strassfeld, who
also authored the AJCom-
mittee's "Passover Hag-
gadah."
The AJCommittee's Na-
tional Executive Council
also adopted a resolution
stressing that bilingual
education programs can aid
newcomers to America as
long as they are based on
the emphasizing of the na-
tion's common language,
English.
Holocaust Memorial Council Urges
Public Outcry Against Anti-Semitism
.
NEW YORK (JTA) —
The U.S. Holocaust Memo-
rial Council, at an emer-
gency session last week,
called on political, religious
and industrial leaders as
well as all citizens of the
United States to speak out
against the resurgence of
anti-Semitism and Nazism
in the wake of the bombing
of a Paris synagogue Oct. 3.
Noting that the 1930s and
1940s demonstrated that
the "distance between
words and deeds are very
small," the writer Elie
Wiesel, chairman of the
Memorial Council, said he
would send a delegation
from the Council to Europe
to- meet with French
President Valery Giscard
d'Estaing and other Euro-
pean leaders to discuss the
situation.
He said there are also
plans to hold an interna-
tional conference against
the anti-Semitism either in
the U.S. or Europe.
President Carter sent a
telegraph to the meeting
in which he said the ses-
sion "is an indication that
the memorial, which we
conceived and planned
together, must serve not
only as an ever-present
reminder of the
Holocaust, but as a chal-
lenge to people
everywhere to meet the
continuing threat to
human decency."
The council was estab-
lished by Carter to recom-
mend a suitable memorial
to_ the Holocaust.
Rep. Bill Green (R-N.Y.),
a member of the Holocaust
Memorial Council, said the
Paris bombing is not an iso-
late& case and "we must or-
ganize" to combat the rise of
anti-Semitism and racism.
A resolution considered
by the council blamed the
rise of anti-Semitism on the
United Nations General
Assembly's "Zionism is ra-
cism" resolution "which has
given permission for the
anti-Semite to speak and
act with impunity"; on the
Soviet Union which, it said,
was "the most virulent
source of. anti-Semitism in
the world" and which is "a
full-time exporter of racial
hatred," and on "unsettled
world-conditions which al-
ways breed the extremist
carrying simplistic and
false solutions to social
problems."
In its call for persons to
condemn the resurgence
of anti-Semitism, the
council noted that "not to
speak at this moment is
not only the sin of silence,
but may result in a catas-
trophe engulfing all of
mankind. We ask that
community leaders ad-
dress the issue head on
publicly. We ask that
sermons be preached
condemning hatred.
"We ask that com-
munities organize rallies,
meetings and other appro-
priate forums to express
condemnation and indigna-
tion at the rise of anti-
Semitism and other forms of
racism not only all over the
world, but particularly in
our own beloved democ-
racy."
In London, Marc Fred-
ricksen, the French neo-
Nazi leader, denied that
Nazi Germany had deliber-
ately planned to kill Jews
and said that far fewer than
six million had died during
the war. Those who had died
had simply been victims of
wartime food shortages and
concentration camp dis-
eases, he said on BBC-TV
"Panorama Program."
However, Fredriksen,
whose group is suspected of
complicity in anti-Jewish
outrages in France, also ac-
cused the Jews of being an
elitist people who wanted
"to dominate the world,"
and said that Hitler's atti-
tude towards them had been
"totally normal."
Fredricksen was inter-
viewed in a hospital and
showed the scars and
bruises he had suffered two
weeks ago when he was at-
tacked by a group of Jewish
youths.
Two Jewish activists
also appeared in the pro-
gram and according to
the interviewer one of
them had carried a re-
volver. Both men ap-
peared anonymously and
with their faces con-
cealed.
One of them warned that
Fredricksen had lost the use
of a hand after raising his
hand against Jews, and
warned that "next time he
will lose his tongue." The
Jewish activist added: "We
are not terrorists and do not
want to kill anybody. But if
the Nazis want to go one
stage higher, we too will go
one stage higher."
In the program, which
also investigated the neo-
Nazi revival in other Euro-
pean countries, Jean
Pierre-Bloch, a French
Jewish member of Parlia-
ment who supports
President Valery Giscard
d'Estaing's government,
said that the government
had taken no precautions to
protect Jewish properties
because it had not believed
that actions like last
August's fascist bombing of
Italy's Bologna railway sta-
tion could occur in Paris.
The BBC asked Jose De-
ltorn, chairman of the
Trench police trade union,
about his allegations that
30 French policemen were -
named on a list of 150
dangerous anti-Semites.
Deltorn denied that his re-
velation of the list was
politically motivated, say-
ing: "My only interest is to
clean up the police."
Rabbi Michael
Williams, the English-
born spirtual leader of
the Rue Copernic Temple
which was bombed Oct.
3, said that since taking
up his French post four
years ago he had become
aware of the depth of
French anti-Semitism
and the "very poisonous
distinction" between
Jews and Christian
Frenchmen. "I am
frightened to show my
Jewish identity while
traveling in public," he
said.
Meanwhile, in a state-
ment on the terrorist bomb-
ing of a synagogue in Paris,
the general secretary of the
United States Catholic Con-
ference said "The Catholic
community cannot be in-
different when a wave of
anti-Semitic violence
strikes at the Jewish
people."
"It is a time to stand be-
side them in their anguish,"
.
said Bishop Thomas C.
Kelly, 0.P., "and to reaf-
firm, in the words of the
Second Vatican Council,
our absolute opposition to
all 'hatred, persectutions or
displays of anti-Semitism
directed against Jews at
any time and by anyone."
In Jerusalem, it was
learned that Premier
Menahem Begin will not go
to Paris next month, the
prime minister's office an-
nounced Tuesday.
In reaction to press. re-
ports about a scheduled-
-visit to Paris, the prime
minister's office said Begin
did not intend — neither
does he intend at the pre-
sent — to visit France in the'
foreseeable future.
The statement said Begin
would not do so, despite two
invitations to visit that
country, the reason being
"the unfriendly attitude of
France toward Israel." If an
Israeli minister will go to
France to attend the Israel
Appeal convention, it will
be Foreign Minister Yit-
zhak Shamir.
,
AAJE Grants
Total $40,500
NEW YORK — The
American Association for
Jewish Education has
authorized fellowship and
scholarship grants totaling
$40,500 to 11 Jewish -
educators this year through
its Fellowships in Jewish
Education Leadership
(FIJEL) program.
Dr. Harry Passow of
Teachers College, Columbia
University, chairman of the
FIJEL advisory committee,
said that two new intern fel-
lowships have been
awarded and that three
others, originally granted
in 1979, have been renewed.
In addition, Dr. Passow
said that two supervisors
and teachers in Jewish
schools have been chosen to
receive scholarship grants
for graduate studies in var-
ious educational and ad-
ministrative disciplines,
and that four other mid-
career educators who had
been presented such grants
in 1979 have had them ex-
tended for the current aca-
demic year.