Dr. Adam Gregerman joins our staff on September 1, 2008 as the new Jewish Scholar. Adam comes to us from Connecti-cut College, where he taught this past year. He has a B.A. in Religion with an emphasis on Judaism and Christianity from Amherst College, a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard University Divinity School, and a Master of Philosophy and Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University. Adam has also been a participant in the ICJS "Reclaiming the Center: Scandal of Particularity" Project for the past two years.

Much work in improving Jewish-Christian relations has focused on understanding and minimizing Christian anti-Judaism. The reasons for this are clear, rooted both in disparities in power (Jews lived under the rule of Christians for centuries) and in-terest (Christianity's roots lie in Judaism and the Hebrew Bible, leading to intense, often hostile speculation by Christians about the status of the Jewish covenant after Jesus). However, in order to encourage the ongoing, remarkable im-provements in relations, there ought to be a fuller understanding and development of Jewish views (both past and present) of Christians and Christianity as well.

This became clear at the March 2008 meeting of ICJS's "Scandal of Particularity" Colloquium in Richmond, Virginia. At this fifth meeting in our six-meeting series, visiting Jewish scholar Lawrence Hoffman of Hebrew Union College asked Christian participants two related questions: "What do you find theologically hurtful in your engagement with the Jewish tradi-tion?" "How do you want to be seen by Jews?" Though the specific answers varied, a common theme in the responses was a desire to be seen as more than simply members of the undifferentiated gentile nations. Christians were saddened not that Jews affirmed their own covenant with God, but that traditionally there was little interest among Jews in recognizing a special status for Christians separate from other non-Jews. As Christians they affirmed a distinctive covenantal relation-ship with God, which, while not superseding or replacing the Jewish covenant with God, nonetheless had an integrity and validity of its own. Some expressed this using Pauline lan-guage, describing Christians as grafted onto the tree of Israel. The God of Israel was their God, too; the Hebrew Bible was their sacred text, too; the prophets were their prophets, too.

There is much that is remarkable about their answers. At the most basic level, they reflect the close and trusting relation-ships that have developed between the Jewish and Christian participants. I believe that by meeting regularly over two years, we have reached a point where participants are comfortable speaking about feelings of pain, sadness, and disappointment.

Furthermore, the comments from the Christian participants dif-fered markedly from the long tradition of Christian claims of a connection to the God of Israel and the Bible that were often anti-Jewish and exclusivist. Historically, such claims simultane-ously affirmed a Christian connection while denying this to (post-biblical) Jews. In Richmond, however, the Christian answers to Prof. Hoffman's questions were thoroughly non-supersessionist, precisely because their starting point was the continuing legitimacy of the Jewish covenant with God. Chris-tian participants sought Jewish acknowledgment that they also have a distinctive covenant with the God of Israel.

It was highly significant, and not a little unsettling, for Jews to hear Christians asking them to consider their (Christian) views of their religious legitimacy vis-à-vis the God of Israel. Some Jewish participants in Richmond struggled to respond in ways that both demonstrated thoughtful consideration of their Christian friends' requests while nonetheless recognizing the overall lack of guidance offered for such a request in the Jewish tradition. While specific responses varied, it was obvi-ous that even non-supersessionist Christian claims pose serious challenges to Jewish identity. First, Jews have long thought of humanity dichotomously, divided into Israel and the nations. The Christian request potentially undermines this traditional division. Second, Jews have historically expressed little interest in Christianity per se. For example, while rabbinic Jews occasionally mocked claims made about Jesus, and a few medieval Jews studied Christian sources and evaluated Chris-tian claims in theological terms, most Jews, even in modern times, ignored Christianity as a religion. Theologically if not politically, they viewed Christianity much as they viewed other religions -- perhaps deprecating them but largely seeing them as fundamentally irrelevant to their covenant with God. (An important exception -- perhaps proving the rule -- is of course Dabru Emet, the ICJS-sponsored "Jewish Statement on Chris-tians and Christianity" from 2000.)

This struggle to respond is as it should be, for it reminds us that Jews and Christians alike find themselves, after centuries of estrangement and mistrust, facing unprecedented questions about religious identity, relationships to outsiders, and, in particular, relationships to each other. There may be ways for Jews to recognize some distinctive status for Christians -- perhaps through adaptation of the idea of the righteous gentiles called "sons of Noah," though that's a topic for another (longer) discussion -- but our work does not depend on complete agreement. Prof. Hoffman, however, broadened the dialogue. As a counterpart to our frequent focus on changing Christian attitudes toward Jews, he encouraged Christians to speak frankly and directly about their hopes for how they might be seen by contemporary Jews. This is important not because we should strive for some abstract parity, but because, I believe, all relationships require both Jews and Christians to strive to see others as others see themselves, and to give some account of how we ourselves see those others. This goes beyond tolerance, which is fundamentally passive, for it requires an acceptance of self-disclosure and a willingness to consider (even critically) the claims of others. Prof. Hoffman's provocative questions remind us of the exciting challenges that lie ahead in interreligious affairs, and the promise they offer for a deeper engagement with our own traditions as well.