The Synagogue Council of America will study the significant changes, if any, in Christian views of Judaism and Jews since World War II. The project, announced today by the SCA president, Rabbi Irving Lehrman of Miami Beach, will take special note of the establishment of Israel and of Vatican II, which “we have presumed have had a fundamental impact on Christian-Jewish relations.” In 1968, the SCA and other national and international Jewish agencies established formal relations with the World Council of Churches, and in 1970 with Vatican agencies. These ties will also be studied as to their effect on ecumenism.
Rabbi Henry Siegmann, SCA executive vice-president, noted today that while the Catholic Church has set up a full-time secretariat for relations with the Jewish community, no Protestant denominational or ecumenical unit has done so. The study by the SCA, the central coordinating agency for the three branches of Judaism, will be directed by its Committee on Interreligious Affairs, chaired by Dr. Walter Wurzburger, philosophy professor at Yeshiva University and spiritual leader of Congregation Shaaray Tefila, Far Rockaway, Queens. The SCA, holding its annual meeting, elected Rabbi Lehrman to a second term as president.
In a related development, the Rev. Edward H. Flannery, author of “The Anguish of the Jews,” said on a radio program here that while anti-Semitism in the United States was at a low ebb, he was pessimistic about Christian-Jewish relations. Fr. Flannery, a prominent ecumenist, attributed this situation chiefly to Christian failure to understand the Jews’ historical plight.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
