Despite heated controversy separating the two groups, representatives of leading Jewish and evangelical Christian organizations will come together for a conference slated for early in the winter.
There have been previous gatherings between representatives of Jewish and evangelical groups, but they have primarily been limited to clergy and academics.
This is believed to be the first time that leaders of some of the top political and communal organizations will convene.
The purpose of the conference, said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, its organizer, is “to shatter stereotypes.”
Eckstein, who is Orthodox, is president of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a group that he founded 11 years ago.
It is important that the two communities know each other, Eckstein said, because “there is a common ground even on moral values between evangelicals and Jews which hasn’t been discerned yet.”
Among the confirmed participants are Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League; Phil Baum, acting executive director of the American Jewish Congress; Ralph Reed, executive director of the Christian Coalition; and Rev. Jerry Falwell of Liberty University.
News of the meeting, which is being called the “Evangelical-Jewish Leadership Congress,” comes on the heels of an imbroglio between the ADL and the Christian Coalition.
The ADL recently published a book critical of Pat Robertson and the Christian Coalition, which he founded in 1989, as being the prime forces in a movement which, according to the book, poses a threat to tolerance and pluralism in America.
A sharply worded correspondence between Robertson and Foxman ensued, with a number of Jewish conservatives springing to the defense of the Christian Coalition.
The debate quickly became framed by hostile rhetoric.
‘THERE ARE PRINCIPLES WE CAN AGREE TO’
While efforts had been under way for some time to bring together representatives of Jewish groups and the politically ascendant evangelical community, the conflict between the ADL and the Christian Coalition made it a priority, according to Eckstein.
He said he expects to have 20 or 30 participants representing Jewish groups and Christian Pentecostal, charismatic and fundamentalist groups.
Eckstein said he believes that “there are principles and applications of principles that we can agree to, like the sanctity of life.”
That could extend to cooperation in public policy-making, he added, if “we can get agreement on certain applications of the principles, like the need for more day care centers, educational facilities or adoption programs.”
Eckstein said that political issues will be on the conference agenda.
But he wants to make the conference itself non-partisan by scheduling it after the 1994 elections and by inviting liberal, as well as conservative, Jewish participation.
Rather than hold the conference in October, as was originally planned, it is now slated for late November or early December, he said.
As the elections near, the Christian right expects to face a concerted attack from the Democratic Party, said Eckstein.
“If we have a conference a week or two before the elections, people on the Christian side might look to the Jewish side for a response, and that would put the Jewish side into a position of having to defend the Christian right, which I’m not sure they would do.
“We’ll also see how the Christian right does in the elections,” he added.
In addition to the confirmed participants, invitees include Jewish political conservatives Marshall Breger and Irving Kristol, and political liberals Arthur Hertzberg and Maynard Wishner.
In its recent history, the Christian religious right has been embraced by many on the Jewish political right.
The two groups have coalesced around a common political and ideological agenda that supports school vouchers and prayer in public schools and opposes abortion, among other public policy issues.
Many on the Christian religious right, who believe that Israel’s strength is a necessary condition in order for the Messiah to return, support Israel financially and politically.
DONATED MONEY TO OPERATION EXODUS
A total of about $600,000 has been donated by evangelical Christians in the past 18 months to the United Jewish Appeal’s Operation Exodus, which resettles immigrants in Israel, according to Eckstein, who spearheads fund-raising for Israel among evangelicals.
Phil Baum, acting executive director of the American Jewish Congress, said that meeting with the evangelicals will be useful because “it’s been difficult to disagree without demonizing” each other.
The AJCongress is a Jewish communal agency which generally takes liberal positions on public policy issues and opposes the positions taken by the religious right.
“We intend to maintain strenuous opposition to many things said by the evangelicals and to protect their right to be heard,” said Baum.
“We have an obligation to oppose them vehemently without implying that access to the forum is to be preserved for the side with which we agree.
“To the extent we can eliminate the canard that somehow our views are anti-Christian, we can benefit from that.
“It doesn’t do us any good for Christians to believe we are trying to stop them from expressing their views,” he said.
Baum alluded to statements made by the Christian Coalition’s Robertson, among others, that liberal Jewish groups work with the media to attack the views of evangelical Christians.
“Those on the Christian right view themselves as a persecuted minority,” said Eckstein.
“Whether or not that perception is one the Jewish community agrees with, that perception is their reality,” he said.
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.
