Winter 1984 - 1985 - Quarterly Review

EDITORIAL
When an Editor Needs an Editor
When you look for a consulting editor, you normally seek an expert
in the field. We had no trouble identifying such an authoritative figure
when we decided to publish an issue with a focus on Jewish-Christian
relations. A. Roy Eckardt has published an enormous number of
books, articles, and reviews on this theme over a period of several
decades, and we were fortunate that he agreed to serve as our
consulting editor for this winter. Roy recently retired from the
Department of Religion Studies at Lehigh University, but he
continues to research and write. Among his many works are Elder and
Younger Brothers: The Encounter of Jews and Christians (Schocken, 1973),
Your People, My People: The Meeting of Jews and Christians (Quadrangle/
New York Times, 1974), and as co-author with his wife, Alice,
Encounter with Israel: A Challenge to Conscience (Association Press/Follett,
1970) and Long Night's Journey into Day: Life and Faith after the
Holocaust (Wayne State, 1982). Of course Roy has done more than
write and teach, and his participation in seminars, symposia, and
various interfaith discussions on this continent and abroad would
take another page or two to describe.
For those who would like to continue to reflect on Jewish-Christian
studies after reading parts of this issue of QR, an excellent resource is
an annotated bibliography Roy prepared for the Journal of the American
Academy of Religion in March, 1981, "Recent Literature on Christian-
Jewish Relations."
As a consulting editor, Roy has helped us locate writers who are
knowledgeable and can write perceptively on sensitive and critical
issues. He has offered his own criticisms and suggestions on the
manuscripts and has used a variety of creative devices to see that
writers produced when they were supposed to and in the way we
asked them to. We hope readers will appreciate the "unseen hand"
behind this special edition, and if they do they should direct their
gratitude to Roy, whose counsel and work we greatly admire.
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