Caspari Center Media Review – May 11, 2010
During the week covered by this review, we received 3 articles on the subjects of Messianic Jews and Christian Zionism. Of these:
1 dealt with Messianic Jews
1 dealt with Christian Zionism
2 dealt Jewish-Christian relations
Messianic Jews
Haaretz, May 7, 2010
According to this report, “Ya’akov (Jack) Teitel, accused of murdering two Palestinians and attempting to murder three others, is unfit to stand trial, Jerusalem’s district psychiatrist wrote in an evaluation submitted to the court yesterday … The evaluation does not address the question of whether Teitel was sane at the time he committed the alleged crimes − more than 10 incidents carried out over 12 years. Teitel is expected to remain hospitalized for the time being and if his condition improves following treatment, he will be declared fit to stand trial.”
Christian Zionism
Yediot Ahronot, May 7, 2010
In the wake of the recent ruling by Orthodox Rabbis against receiving funds from Christians, this piece featured Devora Ganani, former head of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews: “Devora Ganani doesn’t quite understand what people want of the IFCJ, at whose head she has stood for the past ten years. It’s true, she says, that a large part of the organization’s funds comes from evangelicals, but in her eyes this fact doesn’t warrant the convention of right-wing Rabbis held two weeks ago in Jerusalem, whence issued the ruling against receipt of contributions from the IFCJ because it ‘gives legitimacy to and furthers missionary activity.’ ‘Throughout my term of office, I always endeavored to institute a conciliatory line that took into account the fears of the Orthodox populace,’ she says, ‘and refrained from exposing all the Jewish organizations which received and receive donations from us. I thought that the cost of harming the thousands of children who receive the food and clothing we provide was too high. In contrast, there were others who thought that we should make public the names of those organizations. In their view, there’s something improper and unjust in a situation in which people accept the money on the one hand and badmouth the donors on the other … Ganani: ‘There are different streams within evangelicalism, some of which are very missionary. Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, the President and founder of the IFCJ, has a very clear red line regarding this issue which says that he will not work with such organizations. Because of this decision, some organizations have declared war on us, and on Rav Eckstein personally. Moreover, as a policy we place a barrier between the donor and the recipient. People can know that they contributed to the building of bomb shelters in Haifa, but they don’t know any more than that. Thus the donors can’t wield an influence on where or how their money is spent. ‘But seriously, what does lie behind these funds?’ ‘From my perspective, unconditional love for the people of Israel alongside the belief that whoever blesses the chosen people is himself blessed.’”
Jewish-Christian Relations
Haaretz, May 7, 2010
The fall-out from the Catholic Church’s serious pedophile problem is not confined to the Church itself but is also affecting the Jewish community. According to an article under the title “A crushing loss of faith” published in Haaretz (May 7, 2010), “along with those who advocate transparency and punishment of the criminals, there is another camp composed of deniers, such as Raniero Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, who not long ago insisted that the pedophile scandal was entirely a case of slander and likened the accused priests to victims of anti-Semitism. Or Giacomo Babini, retired bishop of Grosseto, who recently proclaimed that the pedophile scandal was nothing but a conspiracy of Jews – or, as he described it, ‘deicide’ – who brought the Holocaust upon themselves through ‘exploitation with which they choked Germany.’ Such statements from senior Church officials would almost certainly not have been heard during the time of John Paul II, who referred to the Jews as ‘our elder brothers’ and was the first pope to visit Rome’s Great Synagogue. But the current pope’s tenure is nothing like that of his predecessor … Benedict XVI propounds a more starkly conservative line,” Jerusalem-based Vatican scholar Dr. Sergio Minerbi told Haaretz. ‘And conservatism in the Church is not good for the Jews. In the five years of his tenure there has been a big step backward: Jewish-Vatican relations have worsened considerably; he restored a Latin version of a prayer that was removed more than 40 years ago, which calls upon the Jews to “see the light” and convert; he restored Bishop [Richard] Williamson to the bosom of the Church, without demanding that he recant his Holocaust denial; and he declared that St. Paul did not need to convert to Christianity because he was a Jew, and thereby blurred the boundaries between Judaism and Christianity, which is also not a good thing for the Jews.’”