Leader of Reform Judaism's warns against embracing Christian Zionists

defending the First Amendment against the Christian right ...

... because if Jews don't speak out, they'll think we don't mind

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Leader of Reform Judaism's warns against embracing Christian Zionists

Rabbi Yoffie's speech in Cincinnati underscored the danger to American Jews

By Marji Mendelsohn for JewsOnFirst.org, April 6, 2008

This past Wednesday, April 2 Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, spoke in Cincinnati with great courage and insight at the Annual Central Conference for American Rabbis. Debating Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, Yoffie was unsparing in expressing his concern about the risks and dangers inherent in the thriving Jewish partnerships with-Christian Zionists such as John Hagee, leader of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), and Rod Parsley, who heads the World Harvest megachurch in Columbus, Ohio and the international Breakthrough Ministries.

Though Eckstein was the one who spoke of drawing a line in the sand, the line was Yoffie's to draw, as he did when he said:

Jews should not enter into alliances of any kind with those who do not speak respectfully of other faith communities. We are talking here about attempts by some religious leaders to exploit prejudice to advance their own theological agenda. Islam has been a particular target of these attacks, and no attempt has been made to separate terrorists and extremists from the vast majority of Muslims.

Yoffie's speech left me thinking about the dangers we American Jews face from our embrace of Christian Zionists.

While Christian Zionists' support of Israel is real and unyielding, it is based on a fundamentalist foundation. John Hagee's stated goal is to do whatever it takes to ensure that the biblically mandated geographical borders of the Holy Land be populated with "the Hebrews" in order to bring about the long-awaited Rapture, a prophecy believed by a subset of Christians who eagerly await the End-imes and the return of Jesus.. Hagee's and Parsley's constant fear-mongering and pointed hatred for Muslims, their none-too-subtle push for nuclear confrontation with Iran combines with the political power they have quietly been accruing to create the recipe for a real world Armageddon.

For Jews, the simplistic trope that, "Israel needs all the friends she can get," does not justify allying with bigots like Hagee. . If, as a group, we Jews do not discriminate in our choice of "friends,"" if we do not forcefully and fiercely speak out against the bigotry and war-mongering of these people whose vision of Israel is totally different than our own,, then we are effectively abdicating not only our responsibilities as thinking Jews, but our dignity as well. Furthermore, to continue a friendship with those who seek to end the world for the sake of Jesus' Second Coming will only encourage the very anti-Semitism we fear.

The pressure to welcome funding for Israel from Christian Zionists that individuals such as Yechiel Eckstein and, dare I say, AIPAC [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Israel's Washington lobby] exert upon Jewish leaders has been strident and at times authoritarian. While it is understandable that Jews wish to believe that Christian Zionists' love for us is sincere, its basis is so questionable that we must question: why are we reluctant to look the issue squarely in the face and debate it with the vigor it demands? Could it be that the fear and demonization of Muslims expressed at each and every Hagee event is too ugly for Jews to examine honestly? That such bigotry and wholesale hatred of an entire religion rings a little too close to home?

Those who have taken the time to study the Hagee's and Parlsey's of the world have been saying for years that Jewish alliance with Christian Zionists, be it for money or for the false sense of security promised, is guaranteed to promote widespread anti-Semitism at a level not seen for decades. Once the motives behind Christian Zionism are widely understood -- and they are not yet -- how can we expect non-Jewish Americans, much less people in the Arab world, to ever again see us as the moral beacons we claim to be?

Traditionally, the Jew is supposed to be the one who questions, the one who pushes past propaganda and spin to use his or her intellect to help in leading the world away from disaster. But,if as a people we are seen to self-servingly abandon that role, if we continue to show the world that we accept the support of extremist Christian Zionists, we are relinquishing our right to claim shock when the world finally understands the dangers we have helped to heighten as a result of this alliance.

As a Jew, I can only thank Rabbi Yoffie for holding up the light of self-examination that I am proud to follow. As this great man said this week in Cincinnati:

[I]t is important to remember that Israel's greatest friends and most important defenders are not the fundamentalists or the extremists, or those who, with utter confidence, take their orders directly from God; rather, her greatest friends are those who work for an end to this terrible conflict, and who pray for peace for all who live in the land that we all call holy.

Marji Mendelsohn has been studying the effect of religion on politics and foreign policy.