From startribune.com:
Preparing for my trip to Istanbul for an interfaith meeting, I was nervous about the challenging encounters that awaited me. Convened by the World Council of Churches, the meeting’s focus was, “Christian Self-Understanding in the Context of Judaism.” Two dozen Christian theologians would reflect on how Christians understand themselves and their tradition, with their relationships to Jews and Judaism in mind. I was one of three Jews invited to serve as participant-observers in this intra-Christian conversation – to bring Jewish ears and sensibilities, to identify Christian blind spots, and to reflect back what was unbearably painful.
Many of the Christian participants would be renowned theologians, largely from Europe and the U.S., who had been working on Christian self-understanding in penetrating, self-critical ways for decades. But this meeting, for the first time in the history of the World Council of Churches’ dialogue program, would also include Christian theologians from South America, from Malaysia, and from Israel, Palestine and Lebanon. I sensed that this would be a difficult few days, not a dialogue aimed at “tea and sympathy,” but an honest and painful encounter.
Rabbi Amy Eilberg is the first woman ordained as a Conservative rabbi by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Rabbi Eilberg directs interfaith dialog programs in the Twin Cities, including at the Jay Phillips Center for Jewish-Christian Learning and the St. Paul Interfaith Network.
Read the full story at startribune.com.
