Conference taveng::bagels

1377.0. "Article: Jewish-Christian dialogue/relations" by ICS::RADWIN () Fri Dec 17 1993 18:03

    The following aricle has been circulating on the net; thought Bagelers
    would find it of interest.
    
    Gene
    
    =======================================================================
    
                     THE PERSONAL DIMENSION OF DIALOGUE
  
                            By Cherie Brown
    
  The majority of Jews and Christians in the United States will probably 
  never attend a "Christian-Jewish Dialogue"; they won't have intense 
  discussions about Christian theology and social policy issues; and they are 
  probably unfamiliar with the National Council of Churches recent position 
  on the Middle East conflict and the ensuing debate which occurred amongst 
  Jewish and Protestant leaders.
  
  Yet, Jews and Christians see each other every day.  We work together.  We 
  live in the same neighborhoods.  And many of us are trying to figure out 
  how to communicate with each other while remaining openly identified with 
  our own backgrounds and heritage.
  
  What are the day-to-day 'living' issues that surface between Christians and 
  Jews, the spoken and unspoken sensitivities that become barriers to 
  effective relationships?  And what are some of the steps that could be 
  taken toward removing those barriers?
  
  Judging from a series of workshops I have recently led between Christians 
  and Jews, as well as from my own personal experiences, there are a number 
  of issues which seem to recur.
  
  At one workshop, a Jewish woman shared an experience she had had working on 
  a project with a group of Quakers and Jews.  Apparently, after several 
  months working successfully together, the Jews were beginning to get 
  discouraged.  During one particularly difficult meeting, one of the Jews 
  turned to her Quaker colleague and said, "you know, I always ask you all 
  these questions about your life and you never ask me anything about mine.  
  I've decided that you're just not interested."  "You have to understand", 
  she responded.  "I was raised in a strong Quaker tradition where asking 
  questions of another person was considered a rude intrusion of privacy."
  
  The Jewish woman laughed and said, "Are you kidding?  In my family there 
  was no such thing as privacy.  If you didn't ask a million questions it 
  meant you didn't care."
  
  The group then began to discuss the difference in work styles that were 
  hindering the effectiveness of the group.  For instance, the Jews felt that 
  the Quakers were always smiling and cheerful and acting like everything was 
  fine no matter what was going wrong.  And the Quakers felt that the Jews 
  were always too serious and overly worried about problems.
  
  
  NEED FOR A NEW VOCABULARY
  
  What makes it so difficult to openly discuss personal differences and 
  difficulties between Christians and Jews?  Since the early 70's with the 
  increase in consciousness about issues of attitudinal racism and sexism, it 
  is possible to find blacks and whites or women and men sharing their 
  experiences of the personal and sometimes subtle tensions between them.  It 
  appears, though, that we have not yet found an acceptable language in which 
  to speak about the range of mistreatment and insensitivity that is often 
  directed against Jews.
  
  After one particularly trying session of a Christian-Jewish dialogue on the 
  Middle East a year ago, in which the concerns of the Jews were often 
  criticized as being based on "irrational fears", I turned to one of the 
  Christian men present, a well known human rights activist, and told him I 
  had experienced anti-Semitism during the session.  Without exploring my 
  concerns further, he looked at me and said, "Oh, Cherie, don't say that."
  
  Whereas a woman in a room dominated by male speakers can legitimately 
  complain of sexism, and a person from a racial minority can point out the 
  unconscious racism of a group of whites, when a Jew speaks up about 
  anti-Semitism, everyone gets very uncomfortable.  Because the word 
  anti-Semitism immediately brings to mind the worst images of Nazis marching 
  Jews off to concentration camps, we have not yet been able to talk about 
  the degrees of mistreatment or oppression directed against Jews.  Therefore 
  people often deny the existence of the anti-Semitism or explain it away as 
  something other than what it is. 
  
  
  THE ISSUE OF TRUST
  
  And then there is the issue of trust.  No matter how much we think we have 
  transcended the events of the past, there is often the unspoken, yet 
  ever-present question:  "But can we really trust them?"
  
  At one workshop, I worked with a Jewish woman and a Protestant man who were 
  considering marriage.  He was willing to convert to Judaism, to observe 
  Jewish traditions, and to raise a Jewish family.  At the time, he was 
  studying Hebrew in preparation for their upcoming trip to Israel.  Yet she 
  described her persistent though vague feeling of separateness - a feeling 
  that she had not been able to define or resolve.
  
  "No matter how much he becomes a Jew," she explained, "there are some 
  things he'll just never understand."  What she was unaware of until that 
  day was how painful that barrier was for him.  He began to tell her for the 
  first time about his own hopelessness that his efforts would ever make a 
  difference to her.  He was committed to becoming a Jew, and eagerly 
  awaiting their trip to Israel.  Did his blue eyes and blond hair and the 
  fact that he hadn't grown up with the sound of Yiddish in his home, or the 
  constant reminder of the Holocaust prevent him from becoming a Jew in her 
  eyes?
  
  As painful as it still is for many Jews to feel that we cannot trust 
  non-Jews, it is important to remember that it is equally painful for our 
  non-Jewish friends to be shut out from the center of our lives.  And 
  although it will understandably take some time and effort for us to free 
  ouselves from all the fears of the past, our relationships could be 
  improved if we tried to choose a point of view that there are Christians 
  who actually do want to understand what it has been like for us as Jews, 
  and who would like to get as close as they can to us.
  
  Much of what turns into mistrust and distance between Christians and Jews 
  seems to be rooted in early confusion and misinformation.  In one group of 
  Jews and Christians, I asked a Catholic man to talk about the first time he 
  had ever heard about Jews.  He remembered coming home from school and 
  telling his parents about a new Jewish girl who had just joined his first 
  grade class.  He wanted to know what it meant to be Jewish.
  
  His parents began a lengthy discussion about whether Judaism was a religion 
  or a culture but never actually answered his question.  He left the 
  discussion feeling extrememly confused about Jews, and ended up being too 
  afraid to befriend the girl.  What often begins as sincere interest and 
  curiosity in children ends in confusion, as well-meaning parents and 
      teachers pass on their own misunderstandings.
  
  
  THE HOLOCAUST - A SOURCE OF UNIVERSAL POWERLESSNESS
  
  For several years, I have worked with Jews on their feelings about the 
  Holocaust.  Only recently, however, has it become clear how important it is 
  to work with non-Jews on this issue as well.  When I first began to ask 
  Christians to talk in the presence of Jews about how the Holocaust had 
  affected their lives, I noticed that some Jews were reluctant to listen or 
  to acknowledge that non-Jews have also been deeply hurt by the experience.
  To do so seems to challenge the belief that non-Jews did not ultimately 
  care about what happened to Jews.
  
  When Christians are given a chance to talk about it however, it becomes 
  clear that the Holocaust has left them with great feelings of despair and 
  powerlessness.  And it is this powerlessness and not a lack of concern that 
  keeps them from being the kind of allies Jews want and deserve.
  
  Today Jews are saying "no" to the lies and myths about being "led like 
  sheep to the slaughter" and are reclaiming the actual history of resistance 
  to the Nazis.  It is equally necessary for Christians and Jews to uncover 
  an accurate picture of the many ways Christians risked their lives to save 
  Jews and fought back against the Nazi menace.  Most of these stories have 
  yet to be told.
  
  This past month I received a letter from a friend in England.  She had been 
  invited to speak about Jewish women at a conference.  Following her 
  presentation, a man came to her and said, "You know, I never told this to 
  anyone before...When I was 14, two Jewish boys came to our school and they 
  always looked at me strangely, as if they expected me to say something mean 
  to them.  But, I wanted them to be my friend and I didn't know what was 
  wrong.
  
  "I learned to care about the Jews from my father.  He had been a soldier 
  and had served in Palestine at the end of the war during the time when the 
  boats from Cyprus were bringing over Jewish refugees and the British 
  soldiers were told to turn their boats back.  But my father had deep 
  respect for Jewish people.  He told me that he and several of his mates 
  would not turn the boats back.  They would cross their arms and turn their 
  backs and let the Jews in."
  
  
  OVERCOMING THE BARRIERS
  
  Where Jews need to acknowledge the positive aspects of the historical and 
  contemporary relationships between Christians and Jews, Christians need to 
  be more sensitive to the difficulties Jews have in making these 
  relationships work.
  
  
  When I am talking to Christians about what it can feel like to be Jewish in 
  the United States, I ask them to picture an image of someone functioning 
  with apparent freedom but with an invisible "loose noose" around their 
  neck.  Jews have upward mobility and, compared to many other minority 
  groups, seem to have a degree of security.  But the noose is always there, 
  waiting to be pulled should the time demand a scapegoat.  No matter how 
  well we function or hide the insecurity, it affects our lives daily.
  
  Two Dutch friends of mine decided last year that they wanted to support 
  each other as they tried to learn to dive.  Nurith is Jewish, Yoke is 
  Catholic.  It took Yoke three months before she could get herself to jump 
  off the diving board.  Each time she would get near the board she would 
  freeze.  Nurith, in contrast, climbed up the steps to the board the first 
  time and leaped into the water.  Yoke was envious.  Jewish women are so 
  fearless, she thought to herself.
  
  While Yoke hovered by the water's edge for three months, getting up her 
  courage to jump off the board.  Nurith increased her expertise to the point 
  where she was able to do back-dives.  Then one day, a few weeks after Yoke 
  had finally learned to dive, Nurith climbed up to the board and froze.  She 
  was suddenly terrified to jump.
  
  In a world that has forced Jews to struggle for our very right to exist, we 
  never had to function compulsively despite any fears we have.  Nurith could 
  only let herself feel her own fear after her friend had stopped being so 
  scared herself.  As long as Christians only see the accomplishments of Jews 
  and ignore the past and present fears and vulnerabilities under the 
  surface, they will miss much of what it means to be Jewish even today and
  find it hard or confusing to be effective allies for Jews.
  
  Ongoing relationships and friendships between Christians and Jews will have 
  their difficult moments.  The good-will and "righteousness" that some 
  Christians demonstrate turn Jews off.  It communicates a message that 
  Christians think they are somehow morally superior to Jews.
  
  I have also found that those non-Jews who make the most concerted effort to 
  commit themselves to Jews sometimes become the brunt for the pain and 
  resentment Jews have stored up from all the other times when no one came 
  through for them.  As the non-Jew begins to get close, the Jewish person 
  becomes safe enough to express these feelings.  In the midst of this 
  criticism, it may be hard for Christians to remember that such negativity 
  can indicate that they are actually succeeding at breaking through years of 
  hurt and isolation.  It will be well worth weathering the storm!
  
  Paying attention to these personal dimensions of our interactions can 
  complement our other efforts to create a new chapter in Jewish-Christian 
  relations today.  The possibilities are encouraging and hopeful.
  
  ***************************************************************************
  Cherie Brown is an Associate Editor of genesis2.  She serves as a 
  consultant to many organizations on issues of Jewish identity and 
  intergroup relations and regularly leads workshops for Jews and non-Jews 
  involved with Re-evaluation Counseling.  She is completing a graduate 
  program this year in Counseling and Consulting Psychology at Harvard.



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Very nicely expressed...