Christians Warned Friendship with Jews Cannot Coexist with Hatred for Israel

A leading Canadian rabbi warned American Christians today that friendship with Jews cannot coexist with hatred of Israel. Addressing the 41st annual convention of the National Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs of the United Synagogue of America, Rabbi Stuart Rosenberg of Toronto declared that “we Jews must proclaim that we cannot allow others an option to say you can be a friend of the Jews and hate Israel. You cannot be a friend of your neighbors, the Jews, and fight Israel’s survival by aiding and abetting those who destroy us. You cannot have that option, because we will not give it to you.” The Canadian rabbi asserted also that “the present impasse in the Middle East must inevitably challenge our best friends, the Christian West.” They “dare not make peace with anti-Semitism,” he said, especially since “the Holocaust taught sensitive people that there was a connection between what the Church taught about Judaism and what people did to Jews. If there is to be honest Christian-Jewish discussion,” Dr. Rosenberg continued, “it must begin and end with Israel’s vitality, Israel’s security, Israel’s hope.” Morton Tabas of Philadelphia, re-elected as federation president, read to the convention a speech by Yitzhak Rabin. Israeli ambassador to the United States. Mr. Rabin, observing that “Israel has never asked anyone to fight its battles,” stated that “What we do demand is that friendly governments take note of the acute shift in the balance of power” in the Middle East and see to it “that measures be taken swiftly to assure that this imbalance be righted.”