As Philo-Semitism Rises, Jews Grow Wary Of Christian Intentions
WaPo reports,
“I feel jealous sometimes. This term that keeps coming up in the Old Book — the Chosen, the Chosen,” says the minister, who has made three trips to Israel and named his sons Isaac, Jacob and Joseph. “I’m a pardoned gentile, but I’m not one of the Chosen People. They’re the apple of his eye.”
Scholars of religion call this worldview “philo-Semitism,” the opposite of anti-Semitism. It is a burgeoning phenomenon in evangelical Christian churches across the country, a hot topic in Jewish historical studies and a wellspring of support for Israel.
Yet many Jews are nervous about evangelicals’ intentions. In recent weeks, leaders of three of the nation’s largest Jewish groups — the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and the Union for Reform Judaism — have decried what they see as a mounting threat to the separation of church and state from evangelicals emboldened by the belief that they have an ally in the White House and an opportunity to shift the Supreme Court.
[…] The result is a paradox — warming evangelical attitudes toward Jews at a time of rising Jewish concern about evangelicals — that could be a turning point in the uneasy alliance between Jewish and Christian groups that ardently back Israel but disagree on much else.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see this story on Jewschool. It seems most of the people here are convinced that the Evangelicals have only bad intentions (I think this conclusion is heavily influenced by their disagreements on other, non-Jewish related issues), while I’ve found them to be a mixed bag, ranging from those who have no affinity for Jews at all beyond end-times prophecy fulfilment to those like the minister in the article, with many falling in between.
This being the case, it’s extremely foolish to antagonize these people or to refuse their much-needed help for Israel. Even in the case of the in-between individuals, we would have more success in getting them to be more sincere supporters by cultivating the relationship rather than snubbing them. Foxman should remember that he speaks for a Jewish organization that collects Jewish money to ostensibly support Jewish interests, not liberal interests. If he can’t see the difference…
I think the reason Reform Jews are especially nervous about this is because Christian “philo-Semitism” just highlights the terrible fact that religious Christians hold of more of the essential beliefs of Judaism and are in fact better Jews, c’vichol, than most secular yidden.
To quote one wise man, Reform Judiasm is no longer Judaism. It may be some kind of pseudoacademic ethical discorse, but it is certainly not Judaism.