Some reflections from studying Jewish-Christian relations
While studying for the MA at the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations in Cambridge, the other students were a significant part of my experience, especially the three with whom I shared a flat - Monika, a Polish Catholic, Stanislav, a Czech Protestant, and Simon, a British Jew from a Masorti background (Masorti is somewhere between Orthodox and Reform). We formed quite a close community, and helped to get each other through some of the more stressful periods. Although the group of students was small, our backgrounds and experiences of Jewish-Christian relations were very diverse, which added an interesting element to our discussions. Another full-time student was a Greek-Catholic priest from Nazareth, and for part of the year there was also another Quaker.
I studied four modules during this year - an overview of the history and themes of Jewish-Christian relations, Israel/Palestine responses to the Holocaust, and Jews and Christians in literature and film. I came into the course with some knowledge of the problematic relationship between Judaism and Christianity. I was aware of historical tendencies to anti-Judaism in Christianity, and of more recent efforts to reverse these, as well as of the mixed attitudes to Christianity in Judaism. Increasingly, the more I studied, the more it seemed to me that in practice "Judaism" and "Christianity" are extremely difficult to define; and that rather than thinking about the relationship between two clearly-defined traditions, it is more helpful to think in terms of two groups of related traditions, resulting in a range of relations between diverse groups of Jews and Christians. Perhaps I like this perspective because it harmonises with my Quakerism - it seems to take the emphasis away from any central authority or attempts to legislate a "Christian view" of Judaism, and it can focus on the possibility for our traditions to develop in response to changed circumstances ( - to be "open to new light"?).
One of the questions of Jewish-Christian dialogue is whether to focus on the similarities or differences between us. The course tended to caution against too-easy assumptions of unity that could gloss over some of the more challenging aspects of dialogue. My own approach has always been to search for an underlying unity, but I have discovered that this can seem inadequate, or even threatening, to some. I used to think that accepting the equality, and ultimate unity, of all faiths was the only "rational" position, but increasingly I have come to see my own position in terms of faith rather than reason. I have faith that at some level there is unity between us, but it is a unity that encompasses a multitude of - at times seemingly insuperable - differences.
I found the module on Israel/Palestine particularly challenging. One book I found interesting was Joshua Klein Halevi's At the Entrance to the Garden of Eden. A religious Israeli Jew, Halevi set out to meet with and learn from Muslims and Christians in Israel, hoping to find common ground in the mystical dimensions of their faiths. His journey culminated in a meeting with a Sufi sheik in a village in Gaza where previously Halevi had been injured while serving in the Israeli army during the intifada. The book describes his journey in terms of confronting and overcoming fear of the other, enabling tentative steps into a deeper dialogue. But while his journey gave him an appreciation of the role which the other faiths played in Israel, the dialogue he created was with those for whom the religious life was a vocation - the sheiks and the monastics. He was not encountering the lives of "ordinary" Palestinians, such as those he would have encountered as a soldier in Gaza. This kind of "religious" dialogue tends to be an exchange about faith, rather than addressing the practical situation in Israel. But is it perhaps a starting point, the kind of dialogue that, for someone like Halevi, seems possible, and a way in to discovering a sense of connection with non-Jewish Israelis? One of the questions I kept coming back to in this part of the course was how, for religious people, religion can become a force for reconciliation rather than fuel for conflict. Small steps and small transformations, I think, are the only answers.
The second half of the course was, for me, the more enjoyable, as I was focusing primarily on literature and film, allowing me to exercise the literary-critical muscles that I developed in my first degree. In the module on the Holocaust also, I chose to write on literary responses. Literature and film is one of the newer areas of study in Jewish-Christian relations, recognising that for many people, literary images of Jews may be equally, if not more significant than Biblical and religious images. (How many people have read The Merchant of Venice or Oliver Twist as set texts at school?) Alongside familiar texts such as Oliver Twist or Daniel Deronda, I was also introduced to some 19th century texts by Jewish writers, Israel Zangwill and Amy Levy, articulating their experience as part of the growing British Jewish community. As well as intersecting with some of the familiar concerns of Jewish-Christian relations (for example in the question of how Jews and Jewishness are presented in films about Jesus), the study of literature and film enabled us to think about different concerns relating to our contemporary situation, such as intermarriage (touched on in many films from The Jazz Singer's successful Jewish/non-Jewish partnership - to the questions raised in Gentleman's Agreement - a 1947 film on antisemitism in America - and the failed relationship of Woody Allen's Annie Hall).
I decided to take the study of film further in my dissertation, in which I am looking at the representation of Jewish identity in films relating to the Holocaust such as Schindler's List and the recent The Pianist. I am thinking about the way in which these films present Jewish identity in relation to ideas of race and nationality; whether/how they use religious images and symbolism (a large proportion of the films portray assimilated, non-religious Jews), whether they distinguish between the experiences of men and women (few seem to feature Jewish women in prominent roles). One of my recurring questions is how these films relate to stereotypes of "the Jew" as "Other", and whether, in attempting to suggest the experience of the Holocaust they question or reproduce this status. Fortunately, the Centre is generous in the amount of time they give us to complete our dissertations, and I am expecting this to keep me occupied at least until the New Year. I am not sure what I will be doing after that, but I hope it will be something that will make use of my experience this year, and allow me to keep reflecting on the questions that I have started to explore.
© C.M. Brewer 2003
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