For Jews, Christians' Letter to Congress Was Last Straw
Frustrated by what he saw as hostility toward Israel,
Rabbi Eric Greenberg recalled how a few years ago he presented Christian leaders
in an interfaith dialogue with a study highlighting historic Jewish ties to the
Holy Land. Sitting across the table, one of the church leaders replied that, according to the prophets, the Jewish people sinned and lost their right to the land.
“And I thought, after all these years, what have they learned?” said Greenberg, director of interfaith affairs at the Anti-Defamation League, in a recent conversation with the Forward. “It was eye-opening.”
The back-and-forth illustrates the rocky path charted by the interfaith roundtable since it was launched eight years ago. The squabbles erupted into an open split after 15 mainline Protestant Church leaders wrote a letter to Congress on October 5, calling for an investigation into Israel’s use of American military aid.
Jewish organizations abruptly pulled out of an upcoming roundtable annual meeting after hearing about the letter to Congress.
Rabbi Steve Gutow, president and CEO of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, said there is a need for a pause in the dialogue in order to reexamine how both sides can work together in the future.
“It is very difficult now to go into the room and breathe the same air,” said Gutow, one of the leading Jewish participants in the interfaith gatherings. He stressed that in any case there is importance in finding ways to continue interfaith dialogue.
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