1968_4_arabisraelwar

AMERICAN PUBLIC OPINION / 223
the churches through the contention that the evidence is either lacking or
equivocal."
In the second article ("Christian and Arab Ideology," loc. cit., August 2),
the Eckardts suggested that the pathological collective unconscious of Christendom
had come to the surface:
Whenever original Israel is assailed, certain suppressed, macabre elements in
the Christian soul are stirred to sympathy with the assailants. It is difficult to
account in any other way for the vehemence and mendacity of some of the
current Christian attacks upon Israel.
Quoting from Karl Barth that "in order to be chosen we must, for good
or ill, either be Jews or else be heart and soul on the side of the Jews," the
Eckardts concluded:
It almost seems that the entire history of Christianity, including the churches'
current response to the Middle Eastern crisis, has been an attempt to make
Barth's words as irrelevant as is humanly possible. Writing as Christians who
oppose that attempt, we say to our Jewish brothers: We too have been shocked
by the new silence. And we are greatly saddened. But we have not been surprised.
The causes of the silence lie deep in the Christian soul. Therefore we
can only mourn and pray and hope.
Another thoughtful analysis of the Christian response to Israel's crisis was
written by Dr. Elwyn A. Smith, professor of religion at Temple University
("Did the June War Damage Jewish-Christian Dialogue?" Journal of Ecumenical
Studies, Fall, 1967). Dr. Smith asserted that the American Christian
response was in the main secular rather than religious, since, in his view,
Christian liberals grasped "ancient but not contemporary Jewish reality." The
shift of sympathy among Christians to the Arabs by the end of June, Professor
Smith wrote, "exposed the secular character of the liberal Jewish-Christian
coalition. Only a theological sense of sacredness of Israel could rejoice in a
great victory for God's people and sing his praises, even if muted by the
tragedy of the deaths of so many." The "sharp collision between American
Christianity and the American Jewish community" was, he concluded, evidence
of inadequacy in fundamental understanding; liberal theology, which
had contributed much to the causes of civil liberty and church cooperation,
was not adequate to the new ecumenism after Vatican II.
Jewish Reevaluation of Dialogue
The cool Christian response to Israel's crisis stimulated spirited discussion
among Jews about the value and/or adequacy of Christian-Jewish dialogue.
Many rabbis held that the crisis had revealed great lacunae in Christian
understanding, but concluded that dialogue should be continued, not halted,
in an effort to improve Christian-Jewish communication. Thus, Rabbi Tanenbaum
concluded ("Israel's Hour of Need and the Jewish-Christian Dialogue,"
Conservative Judaism, Winter, 1968) that the rabbis and Jewish teachers had