Christians & Jews: Learning from the Chosen

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Yehoshuah to Jesus. In their lectures, Jewish professors reciprocate by stressing not only Judaism's contemporary relevance but its common links with Christianity. At Georgetown, Rabbi Kraft likes to surprise his stu dents by pointing out that like many a Jewish immigrant's name, Jesus' was changed to fit more comfortably on alien tongues. His real name was Yehoshuah, which was translated as 'Iησοûs in Greek and lesus in Latin; the latter, in turn, be came Jesus. No one expects the campus trend to dispel the doc trinal differences between Judaism and Christianity. But as Michael Zeik, a Jew ish professor at Catholic Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y., puts it, such scholarship will help Christians and Jews "go beyond the sentimental hand-holding stage." Last week Catita Williams, 20, a pretty Episcopal coed at Georgetown, confessed that before she enrolled in her school's new course in Judaism she was "confused" about whether she would marry a Jew. And now? "Yes!"