Thursday, February 24, 2005
The Presbyterian Minister I blogged about here, talking about the horrors of occupation, caused "the only heated exchange" during a recent Presbyterian-Jewish dialogue when she stepped on the virtual third rail of such discussions and compared - though she provided an unbelievably lame disclaimer - the suffering of Palestinians with what she had seen at Yad Vashem. Such Holocaust comparisons accomplish only two things - either you have no idea about the scope of the Holocaust and are ignorant, or you understand very well what happened in the Holocaust and intentionally want to minimize it.
I'm thinking that Rev. Susan Andrews learned that when criticizing Israel, it is best not to be seen as lecturing Jews about the Holocaust - particularly when you're doing something that could be seen as an attack. Stated another way: The last thing you want to do is be perceived as using the Holocaust as a bludgeon to attack Jews and Israel.
Washington Jewish Week: Area Jews, Presbyterians talk across gulf
The 50 clergy and lay leaders from the two faiths -- brought together to discuss the Presbyterian Church-USA's resolution last summer on divestment from Israel -- had heard Presbyterian ministers review their history of divestment and a rabbi emphasize the importance of Israel to the Jewish people.
Then Rev. Susan Andrews of the Bradley Hills Presbyterian Church in Bethesda recalled a trip she took to the Jewish state eight years ago.
Having visited the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum on the heels of a trip to a Palestinian refugee camp the previous day, she said that while she was not equating the two, she had been able to see some similarities between the stories of suffering she had heard from the Palestinians and what she had seen in the museum displays.
That drew a forceful response from Rabbi Michael Feshbach of Temple Shalom in Chevy Chase.
Identifying himself as one of the most left-wing rabbis in the room, he took exception to the idea that there was any "moral equivalency between [Palestinian] suffering in refugee camps and the deliberate targeting" of the Jewish people in the Holocaust.
After the dialogue, Andrews emphasized that she was "not equating what is happening to the Palestinians to the Holocaust." Nor did she want to "minimize the horror of the Holocaust."
She was "merely commenting on the kind of human suffering" Palestinians face.
"We're trying to give voice to Palestinian Christians" who have no links to terrorists, Andrews said in an interview.
While Jews often view Israeli retaliation for terrorist attacks as "appropriate self-defense," she said, she condemns "violence of any kind" as "abusive to human nature and human dignity."
Afterwards, Feshbach acknowledged pain on the Palestinian side, but called Andrews' view on the issue a "psychological approach and not a moral one."
He stressed that the Holocaust and the situation in the Middle East are "not comparable in any way, shape or form."
But both Andrews and Feshbach said the four-hour dialogue on Thursday of last week at Adas Israel Congregation in the District helped to illuminate the views and assumptions of both sides.
"Would that all communities that have disagreements find ways to approach them in this manner," said Feshbach.
Sponsored by the American Jewish Committee's Washington area chapter, the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, the Washington Board of Rabbis and the National Capital Presbytery, the event included small group discussions, but began with representatives of both religions outlining some major principles of the two groups...
