Rabbi, Minister Agree Jews, Christians Share Responsibility for Israel’s Survival

Assuring the survival of the State of Israel and its people is the responsibility of both Christians and Jews, a rabbi and a minister agreed today in a radio discussion program on the National Broadcasting Company Radio Network. They also agreed that to unravel the “tangled skein of claim and counter-claim of Arab and Israeli” it was necessary to “look to the future” rather than to the past. The agreements were voiced by Rabbi Seymour Siegel, professor of Theology at the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, and the Rev. Dr. Ernest Campbell, Preaching Minister of Riverside Church in New York, as they appeared on the weekly Seminary’s produced “Eternal Light” program. Today’s program, “The Church and the State of Israel.” was the third of a series of four Jewish-Christian dialogues. Rabbi Siegel said Jews feel that Christians do not understand “the significance of the State of Israel” for them. “The covenant made with Israel in the Bible is also made with the land of Israel.” he said. They believe, he added, the survival of Judaism as a way of life requires the establishment of a state in “the ancestral homeland” both to “rescue Jews still in danger” and to “rescue Jewish life from assimilation.”

While Jews recognize there are many defects in the political, social, economic and military structure of Israel, Rabbi Siegel said, they react strongly to criticism because Israel’s very existence is threatened, and the distinction between “opposing Israel’s policies and opposing Israel is sometimes a very thin one and difficult to sustain.” The Rev. Dr. Campbell said that Israel was a political reality and should be viewed as a political reality without any theological overtones. “When a religious group forms a nation,” he said, “they must allow themselves to be open to the judgements and reactions of the world community without raising the charge that the people criticizing are anti-Jewish or anti-Israel.” Agreeing with Rabbi Siegel regarding Christian responsibility to secure the survival of Israel, Dr. Campbell spoke of the “enormous guilt” Western Christians feel about “what we did not do during the years of Hitler’s ascendancy,” adding “I just don’t see how we can defend our silence.” Dr. Campbell said the problems of the Middle East are so “interlaced with claims and counter-claims” that to achieve peace it was necessary to “start from where we are and move out from there in good faith.”