Pax Christi Long Beach Island Chapter NY

JEWISH/MUSLIM DIALOGUE

Beatification of Franz Jaegerstatter

FREE GRANTS JEWISH//CHRISTIAN STUDIES

Saudi King Abdullah’s plan for an interfaith conference that would include Jews, announced last week, was the third Muslim gesture in six months aimed toward a Jewish-Muslim interfaith dialogue.

The outreach began in October, when 138 Muslim clerics, scholars, and political leaders presented a document called “A Common Word,” which directly addressed Christianity but implicitly addressed Judaism as well. By now, it has more than 240 Muslim signatures from a broad spectrum of Muslim countries, including Jordanian Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal; clerics from Indonesia, Nigeria, Italy, and Bosnia; and even U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.).

Where most Christian groups responded before the year’s end, the Jewish response, mindful of the situation in Israel, was measured and deliberate — as it should be. In early March the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations, which represents world Jewry to other world religions, issued a call for Jewish-Muslim dialogue.

In fact, by the time all participating Jewish organizations were on board and IJCIC’s invitation was publicized, there was a new Muslim statement, “A Call to Peace, Dialogue and Understanding between Muslims and Jews.” It was issued in February through the Centre for Muslim-Jewish Relations at the University of Cambridge, England. “Call to Peace” directly addressed the Jews for academic, theological, and political dialogue.

Still, the Jewish response has been criticized by some in the community as hasty — an error in assuming that IJCIC was responding to the new statement, rather than responding slowly to the letter from last fall.

These statements come as the Islamic world seeks to overcome the isolation brought on by the 9/11 attacks, and as the Jewish community is coming to appreciate the impact of five decades of Jewish-Christian dialogue.

Many Jews are ready to be partners to these dialogues. But it is understandable that Jewish-Muslim dialogue would have its Jewish critics.

The critics complain that dialogue is not appropriate when an Islamist group — Hamas — is carrying out warfare against Israel.

These critics fail to appreciate the serious and wide-ranging nature of Islam’s outreach to the Jews, even as they fail to perceive the true nature of the Muslim community. Islam is the faith of 1.3 billion people — 19 percent of the earth’s people. Most are not Arabs or connected to Middle East events. India and China each have more Muslims than the entire Middle East.

Some Jewish organizations clearly accept as one of their basic tenets that one can raise much more money and community support not by diplomacy but by screaming “anti-Semitism.” Many also generate broad guilt-by-association, claiming that no Muslim cleric is ever more than two degrees of separation from a terrorist.

Yet in February, Commentary magazine, not a progressive or liberal journal by any standard, ran an important article, “In Search of Moderate Muslims,” by Joshua Muravchik and Charles P. Szrom. They advocated outreach to Islamic moderates who promote democracy, advocate equal rights, and avoid violence.

American Jews who fail to see an immediate purpose to any interfaith encounter with Islam must remember that dialogue is a long-term process. They should also know that extremists on either side are not part of dialogue; rather, dialogue aims to remove the ground from beneath extremists.

‘Equal footing’

Dialogue does not assume that both parties enter dialogue on equal footing with comparable goals and motives. This approach would have guaranteed that the Jewish community would not have been speaking to Catholics or Protestants in the early days of Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Requiring shared motives is unfair and unreasonable.

After the Holocaust, the Christian communities undoubtedly had more work to do in the dialogue than the Jews. Should we not have engaged in that dialogue until we were “on equal footing”? Yet look at the amazing results from that encounter. When dialogue with Catholics started in the 1950s some Christians entered with a problematic treatment of Judaism. Eventually, the Catholic Church moved from teaching contempt to recognizing Judaism as a living faith. It recognized the State of Israel, and sought to remove anything in Catholicism that can be used to teach anti-Semitism.

Several of the Muslim positions recently circulating, such as the Cambridge statement, are at least equally problematic. They offer to include Judaism under the Islamic polity, as part of the same entity. While a vast improvement over the Islamicist position that Jews are a foreign cancer in the Muslim polity, the statement still seeks to consider Judaism a part of Islam.

Yet, when Jews first engaged Catholics, the immediate narrow focus was fighting anti-Semitism. Over time, Catholics began to address the very nature of their relationship with Judaism, and the problematic elements were overcome. So, too, with Islam, we need to start with small steps. Islam should be given the same chance to show reciprocity and respect. In fact, the Muslim representatives to the Vatican last month to start this round of interfaith activity even included a noted Muslim Zionist.

Many in the Jewish community resist all such endeavors, and we are similarly aware that not all Muslim leaders are themselves prepared to sit with us. The Saudis may not yet be ready for religious tolerance, but right now, Muslims from Minnesota to Malaysia are seeking dialogue as a means of overcoming Western stereotypes of their faith.

We should not kiss every hand extended to us, nor expect every initiative to be successful. But we should not refuse to shake hands with those who have the ability to significantly change the face and future of Islam.

Rabbi Alan Brill holds the Cooperman-Ross Distinguished Professor Chair in Jewish-Christian Studies in Honor of Sister Rose Thering at Seton Hall University in South Orange. He engages in interfaith encounter under the auspices of the IJCIC

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Working for Peace and Reconciliation in the Holy Land:

The Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel

Monday, May 19, 7:30 p.m. at Temple Sinai of Roslyn, 425 Roslyn Rd., Roslyn Heights

Religiously-motivated violence has been a significant deterrent to the progress of the Middle East peace process, and yet little to no attention has been paid to the Israeli and Palestinian religious communities, and few attempts have been made to utilize religion as a tool for peace and reconciliation.

The mission of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel (ICCI) is to harness the teachings and values of three Abrahamic faiths and transform religion's role from a force of division and extremism into a source of reconciliation, coexistence, and understanding.  To accomplish this, ICCI works with youth, women, and religious leaders to promote Jewish-Arab coexistence and peace-building projects.

Participants:

Issa Jaber

Issa Jaber was educated in Turkey and Israel and has held a variety of educational leadership positions in Abu Ghosh, an Arab town west of Jerusalem. He currently serves as Director of Education, Abu Ghosh Local Council

Rev. Samuel S. Fanous

Rev. Fanous, an Anglican priest, serves Emmanuel Church of Ramle in central Israel.

Rabbi Ron Kronish

Rabbi Kronish is the Founder and Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel. An author, scholar and activist, Rabbi Kronish has been intimately involved in interreligious reconciliation for almost three decades.

The program is free and all are invited. Call 516-621-6800 for directions or further information.

Rabbi Michael White invites clergy and religious leaders of all faiths to a lunch with these three speakers from the ICCI at Temple Sinai at 12:30 on May 19. Please RSVP to the synagogue office at 516-621-6800 if you can come.

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VATICAN CITY, APRIL 4, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the communiqué released today by the Vatican press office on the publication of the new "Oremus et pro Iudaeis" for the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal.

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Following the publication of the new Prayer for the Jews for the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, some groups within the Jewish community have expressed disappointment that it is not in harmony with the official declarations and statements of the Holy See regarding the Jewish people and their faith which have marked the progress of friendly relations between the Jews and the Catholic Church over the last forty years.

The Holy See wishes to reassure that the new formulation of the Prayer, which modifies certain expressions of the 1962 Missal, in no way intends to indicate a change in the Catholic Church's regard for the Jews which has evolved from the basis of the Second Vatican Council, particularly the Declaration Nostra Aetate. In fact, Pope Benedict XVI, in an audience with the Chief Rabbis of Israel on 15 September 2005, remarked that this document "has proven to be a milestone on the road towards the reconciliation of Christians with the Jewish people." The continuation of the position found in Nostra Aetate is clearly shown by the fact that the prayer contained in the 1970 Missal continues to be in full use, and is the ordinary form of the prayer of Catholics.

In the context of other affirmations of the Council -- on Sacred Scripture (Dei Verbum, 14) and on the Church (Lumen Gentium, 16) -- Nostra Aetate presents the fundamental principles which have sustained and today continue to sustain the bonds of esteem, dialogue, love, solidarity and collaboration between Catholics and Jews. It is precisely while examining the mystery of the Church that Nostra Aetate recalls the unique bond with which the people of the New Testament is spiritually linked with the stock of Abraham and rejects every attitude of contempt or discrimination against Jews, firmly repudiating any kind of anti-Semitism.

The Holy See hopes that the explanations made in this statement will help to clarify any misunderstanding. It reiterates the unwavering desire that the concrete progress made in mutual understanding and the growth in esteem between Jews and Christians will continue to develop.

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Published November 1st, 2007

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Historian links late pope’s Jewish connections to convening of Vatican II
Ecumenical council led to openness in Catholic Church towards Jews
By Martin C. Barry • TLN

Photo: Martin C. Barry
Italian Vatican II expert
Alberto Melloni.

The official version of history doesn't always tell the whole truth — sometimes it's necessary to seek it out on your own. According to a top-ranking expert on the Roman Catholic Church's recent history who addressed a multi-faith gathering in Montreal last month, some of the late Pope John XXIII's life experiences — including his early contact with Jews — helped pave the way towards the sweeping 1960s Church reform which was Vatican II.

Opening the windows
Alberto Melloni is one of Italy's top academic experts on the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). The council, which over its three-year term produced a large number of statements — including Nostra Aetate regarding Church relations with non-Christians — was convened by the pope, who explained at one point that he was doing so because he wanted to "throw open the windows of the church so that we can see out and the people can see in."

Views influenced
Addressing a lunchtime gathering at the Gelber Conference Centre on Oct. 18, which was organized by the Quebec wing of the Canadian Jewish Congress and the Canadian Centre for Ecumenism, Melloni told the story of Angelo Roncalli (as John XXIII was known before becoming pope) and how a life-changing experience made him decide to do something for the wartime plight of the Jews. Melloni's central argument is that the future pope was influenced by personal contacts he made, while stationed as a Vatican diplomat in Turkey, into adopting views which led eventually to convening Vatican II.

Met persecuted Jews
While records of his earlier writings show that Roncalli, like other Vatican officials, had some initial sympathy for the Italian fascist movement, a shift in his attitude started to occur in 1942, when he began meeting Jews from eastern Europe who were escaping German Nazi persecution. They saw Turkey as a stepping stone to Palestine. In a letter around this time providing one of the first indications of Roncalli's changing attitude, he describes the Jews as "the poor children of Israel! … I am sorry for them and I try my best to help … the relatives and the countrymen of Jesus." In an article on the future pope's war years being published next month in the ecumenism centre's magazine, Melloni says that through diplomatic channels, Roncalli was able to intervene and secure safe passage on numerous occasions for the fleeing Jews.

A 'spiritual reserve'
While noting that many of the Vatican's prelates remained under the influence of fascism, he says Roncalli stood out as an exception because he had a "spiritual reserve" which "allowed him to be susceptible to the Jewish tragedy." While Roncalli did not know that his Turkish and war experiences would be important to the future Pope John XXIII, in January 1959 he convened the Ecumenical Council, which would lead towards a greater openness within the Catholic Church towards Jews.

Photo: Martin C. Barry
Victor Goldbloom, left, and Italian Vatican II expert Alberto Melloni during Melloni’s
lecture on Pope John XXIII’s relationship with the Jews.

History 'disputable'
"History has so much importance for our future," he said after speaking, responding to questions about the Church's role during World War II. "Sincerity about the past is the only way that we have to go into the future … But at the same time we have to know that history is making a very disputable job. History reduces the emotional weight of experience.

Questions 'official' history
"History takes an awful lot of individual stories in which there are immense individual tragedies, immense individual loves, immense individual fortunes or misfortunes (and) makes a sort of grey average … And for this reason I think that the problem and maybe sometimes the mistake that has been made is to think that history has to be made by officials — historians representing the Jewish community, historians representing the Holy See, and this has not brought any success at all. It simply added confusion in many simple matters."

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