Recent Literature on Christian-Jewish Relations

Abstract

In that decade, the period under survey, the Holocaust has been a dominating focus. Much of the massive literature on the shoah is written by Jews, who direct their work in smaller measure to the Christian-Jewish relation as such than do Christian writers. Christian materials are addressed primarily to the question of Christendom's responsibility for the anti-Semitism that culminated in the Endldsung as well as for Nazism itself. We are here reminded that Jewish and Christian motivations in the dialogue are at once the same and different. Shared concerns are linked to the need to live with others, extending to those who differ from us culturally and religiously. These concerns derive as well from moral imperatives common to Judaism and Christianity. But Christian participation in the dialogue entails an additional factor: the moral and psychological complexities associated with guilt for centuries of Christian derogation and persecution of Jews. How can it be that so horrible an event as the Final Solution had to take place in order for the Christian world (yet no more than a relatively small part of that world) to acknowledge the evil character and implications of its teaching of contempt (Jules Isaac) for the Jewish people? Recent studies reinforce the finding that the so-called church struggle against Nazi policies was in fact minimal, and that Christian