Jews and Christians: Conflict and Identity

“Urging a Jew to convert to Christianity is like advising a person to move upstairs while demolishing the ground floor.” This quip by Moses Mendelssohn (1729-1786) epitomizes Christianity’s conflicted attitude to its Jewish origin, affirming it while rejecting it. Yet the relationship is not symmetrical, for the very reason that Judaism precedes Christianity. In this course we examine the fraught relationship between Christians and Jews from antiquity to the present. Readings include Church Fathers, rabbinic texts, polemics, theologians, as well as the Catholic declarations of Vatican II and modern interfaith dialogue. 3 hrs. lect./disc.