To judge simply by the responses we have received, a good many readers did not like the editorial in the March issue, “Christians, Jews, and Anti-Semitism.” Some responses, we are sorry to say, gave all the appearances of reflecting the evil that the editors were intending to counter. On the . . . . Continue Reading »
A pall hangs over the American debate about equality. It is becoming difficult for people to speak their minds. College campuses, of all places, are filled with silences, and the discussions that do occur are often awkward and truncated. Racial minorities and women fear being told they are unworthy; . . . . Continue Reading »
The editorial in our May 1991 issue was titled “Christian Mission and the Third Millennium.” It described the complicated connections between the Christian missionary enterprise and the future of an essentially Western civilization that is, in however ambiguous a manner, a product of the . . . . Continue Reading »
In a recently published book, Sergio I. Minerbi, formerly of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, speaks of the Catholic Church as “the chief opponent” of the Zionist movement past and present, and he identifies “the real reasons underlying” this “hostility” as “immutable . . . . Continue Reading »
With the apparent demise of Communism, if not of socialism, the other political pathology of modernity, nationalism, is returning to center stage. If scientific socialism carries the “progressive” idea of human universality to its extreme, nationalism carries the “reactionary” idea of . . . . Continue Reading »
The J of the title was discovered in 1711 by Henning Bernhard Witter, an obscure Lutheran pastor of Hildesheim, so obscure, in fact, that his role in the naming of this source of the Pentateuch was only rediscovered in the present century by the French biblical scholar Adolphe Lods. In the writings . . . . Continue Reading »
The relation between Judaism, Zionism, and Messianism is one that is often hard for Jews to get straight. Needless to say, it is even harder for non-Jews. Nevertheless, current events in Israel urgently require clarification of this relation for both Jews and non-Jews, since it is the subject of . . . . Continue Reading »
Who has been handing out these permission slips?” asks a writer of our acquaintance. He wants to know who determined that it is alright again to tell racist jokes in polite society, or to publish columns suggesting, none too gingerly, that Jews have excessive influence in American life. Who . . . . Continue Reading »
For many Jews and some Christians the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is seen as the fulfillment of biblical prophecy. In particular, they have reference to the oracles in the exilic and post-exilic prophets about the return of the exiles from . . . . Continue Reading »
The U.S. Catholic Bishops' Statement on the Middle East, adopted unanimously during the bishops' fall 1989 bicentennial meeting in Baltimore, is a surprisingly straightforward document. When the U.S. government deals with the Arab-Israeli conflict, its language is often more ambiguous. President . . . . Continue Reading »
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