Post-Holocaust JewishChristian Dialogue: After the Flood, before the Rainbow [Paperback]

This volume sheds light on the transformed post-Holocaust relationship between Catholics and Jews. Once implacable theological foes, the two traditions have travelled a great distance in coming to view the other with respect and dignity. Responding to the horrors of Auschwitz, the Catholic Church has undergone a reckoning of the soul, beginning with its landmark document Nostra Aetate and embraced a positive theology of Judaism including the ongoing validity of the Jewish covenant. Jews have responded to this unprecedented outreach, especially in the document Dabru Emet. Together, these two Abrahamic traditions have begun seeking a repair of the world. The road has been rocky and certainly obstacles remain. Nevertheless, authentic interfaith dialogue remains a new and promising development in the search for a peace.Alan L. Berger is Raddock Family Eminent Scholar Chair of Holocaust Studies, director of the Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz, and professor of Jewish studies at Florida Atlantic University.

Ever since the Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate (1965), there has been a dramatic positive shift in Catholic perspectives of Jews, a shift nurtured by ecclesiastical declarations seeking common religious ground between the church and the synagogue. Likewise, mainstream Protestant denominations have taken a strong position against the 'teaching of contempt,' projected on Jews by Christians for two millennia, as errant scriptural reading and bad theology. Appreciating what was done, adjudicating what is being done, and conjecturing what must be done between two Abrahamic faith communities is the nexus of this collection. Berger brings together the first ten lectures delivered at FAU's Annual May Smith Lectures in Post-Holocaust Jewish-Christian Dialogue by Jewish and Christian scholars (Elie Wiesel, Irving Greenberg, Alan Berger, David Patterson, Amy-Jill Levine, James Carroll, John Roth, Mary Boys, John Pawlikowski, Donald Dietrich).lcI