Religion: Christians and Israel

One of the casualties of the Yom Kippur War was the growing ecumenical spirit between Christians and Jews. In fact, like the 1967 war before it, the war this autumn shocked Christians into sometimes sharp reappraisals of Israel, and shook Jews with the fear of antiSemitism. One Protestant ecumenical expert in Israel, indeed, lamented that Jewish-Christian relations "have never been more seriously threatened."

A case in point: the violently anti-Israeli opinions of Jesuit Radical Daniel Berrigan, once imprisoned foe of the Viet Nam War, longtime champion of the underdog, and soul brother of the late Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel, American Judaism's most poetic Zionist. At a meeting of the Association of Arab University Graduates this fall in Washington, D.C., Berrigan excoriated Israel as "a criminal Jewish community. The creation of millionaires, generals and entrepreneurs... is rapidly evolving into the image of her ancient adversaries." Israel's "historic adventure, which gave her the right to 'judge the nations,' has veered off into imperial misadventure."

To be sure, Berrigan was harsh with Arab leadership as well ("Their capacity for deception, remarkable even for our world ... their contempt for their own poor"). He also tried to soften his criticism by asserting that as "a priest in resistance against Rome" and as "an American in resistance against Nixon," he was "very like a Jew." Berrigan's remarks, his choice of audience, and his pose as an archetypal Jew infuriated Jewish leaders. Historian Arthur Hertzberg, noting that the Jesuit has never been to Israel, ticked off a number of factual errors made by Berrigan in an angry reply in American Report, the journal of Clergy and Laity Concerned, which had published the speech. "Underneath the language of the New Left," he wrote, "it is old-fashioned theological anti-Semitism."

Acerbic Views. Berrigan's speech was still causing trouble last week. The American Jewish Congress protested plans to give Berrigan the Gandhi Peace Prize next month. And the Rev. Donald Harrington of the Community Church of New York withdrew from the presentation. Berrigan "has ceased to be a witness for peace," Harrington said. "His speech was not a prophetic utterance, only an inflammatory one."

Most U.S. Christians do not share Berrigan's acerbic views on Israel. During the Yom Kippur War a nun arrived at the Syrian consulate in Manhattan to offer herself in exchange for an Israeli P.O.W. The First Baptist Church of Dallas took a half-page newspaper ad asking Texans to "support Israel." And hundreds of other church leaders and groups, according to a report by Rabbi

Balfour Brickner, spoke up in outrage against the attack by Egypt and Syria and the profanation of Yom Kippur.

There has, however, been considerably less enthusiasm for the Israeli cause at higher levels of church organizations —especially among liberal Protestants.