17 Janaury 1789 Birth of Neander (David Mendel) #otdimjh

Posted on January 17, 2016 by richardsh

Johann August Wilhelm Neander (January 17, 1789 – July 14, 1850), was a German theologiaan and church historian.

Bernstein refers to Neander 28 times, in Some Jewish Witnesses for Christ, and gives a fuller report below of this great man’s extensive thought and career:

Johann August Wilhelm Neander belonged to a Jewish family and originally bore the name of David Mendel. He changed his name to Neander when he became a believer in Yeshua in 1806. A German Lutheran, he studied with F D. Schleiermacher (1768-1834) in Berlin, but soon switched his interest from speculative theology to church history.

After a year of teaching in Heidelberg (1812), he returned to Berlin as professor of ecclesiastical history (1813). Here he attracted many students not only by the quality of his scholarship but also by the spirit of piety he brought to his work and the interest he showed in the personal aspects of history. From the first he wrote extensively on historical themes, beginning with biographical studies of significant figures like Julian the Apostate (1812), Bernard of Clairvaux (1813), John Chrysostom (1822), and Tertullian (1824). Turning to a whole movement, he offered a history of Gnosticism in 1818. When F C. Baur and D. F Strauss introduced a rationalistic interpretation of the New Testament and early Christian history, he strongly opposed them. He wrote a Life of Christ (1837) in answer to the theory purported by Strauss in Life of Jesus (1835-1836) that the Gospel record is simply a myth in historical dress. With the maturing of his scholarship, Neander began to put together his more detailed monographs in broader historical works. His history of the apostolic age came out in two volumes under the title History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles (1832-1833). Even before the publication of this work he had launched his most ambitious project, A General History of the Christian Religion and Church, which came out in six volumes beginning in 1826 and ending only after his death in 1852. Both these larger works were translated into English, the latter appearing in five volumes (1882) and the former in two volumes (1887-1888).

Neander had considerable influence not only in his own church and country but also further afield through the combination of scholarly excellence and personal interest that he achieved in his teaching and writing. This influence lived on in the American and English-speaking world through the historical work and writing of Philip Schaff (1819-1893), who studied and taught with Neander in Berlin prior to his appointment to Mercersburg in 1844. A basic conviction of Neander was that church history is not just an academic pursuit but part of the mission and ministry of the church.

Bernstein’s report:

Neander, Auguste.[16] On the 17th of July in the year 1850, an imposing funeralcortège slowly wended its way through the streets of Berlin, attended by a Royal carriage and by numerous Government officials, clergymen, professors and students of the Universities of Berlin and Halle, assembled to pay their last tokens of respect and esteem to the distinguished man who was being carried to his final resting-place. Along the whole route from the residence of the deceased to the cemetery, a distance of two miles, immense crowds of people thronged the streets, filling all windows, doors, and available places of observation. Before the hearse were carried the Bible and Greek Testament of the man who had done more than any of his contemporaries to keep alight in Germany the torch of pure and undiluted Christianity. The whole scene was a striking tribute to the worth and work of the eminent professor and Church historian, Auguste Neander, who for thirty-eight years had exercised unbounded influence in the domain of theology, not only in the University of which he was a distinguished ornament, but also throughout Europe. And this man was a Christian Jew, whose conversion and devotion to Christianity were destined to be fruitful in great results, the end of which we have hardly seen to-day.

David Mendel, to give him his original name, was born at Göttingen of poor Jewish parents on January 10th, 1789. He was a scion of the famous Mendel[390] family, connected by descent with the great Jewish reformer Moses Mendelssohn, whose successful efforts to elevate and uplift his then degraded race ended in all his descendants eventually embracing the Christian faith. In the words of a modern Jewish historian, whose love of truth led her to place on record what must have cost many a regret to avow:—”As we read the story of the wise and liberal philosopher, who broke through the barriers and let in the light of learning and of social countenance on mediæval benighted Judaism, we shall see that the very children of the emancipator were dazzled by the unaccustomed rays, that his sons wavered and his daughters apostatized, and that in the third generation—only the third—the fetters which degraded were called degrading, and the grandchildren of Moses Mendelssohn, the typical Jew, were Jews no longer.”[17]

Young David Mendel received his early education at the gymnasium or public school at Hamburg, it being his parents’ intention to bring him up in the legal profession, in which, there is very little doubt, he would have become distinguished. In 1806, however, having, through the influence of two fellow-students, Chamisso the poet and another named Neumann, embraced the Christian faith, he determined to devote himself to the study of theology, and thenceforth the whole course of his life was altered. At his baptism he had taken the Christian names of Johann Auguste Wilhelm, after those of his two[391] friends, to which he added a new surname, Neander, or the “new man,” and the new aims of his life were thus expressed in a letter which he wrote to the pastor who had baptized him: “My reception into the holy covenant of the higher life is to me the greatest thing for which I have to thank you, and I can only prove my gratitude by striving to let the outward sign of baptism unto a new life become, indeed, the mark of the new life proclaiming the reality of the new birth.”

Auguste Neander, as he was thereafter known, now entered the University of Halle, where he studied Christian dogmatics under the celebrated Professor Schleiermacher, whose speculations in doctrinal theology verged very closely upon heterodoxy, and who is pronounced by an authority to have been “the greatest theological writer that Germany has produced since Luther, and, indeed, he may be called the founder of modern rationalism on its better side.”[18] Intercourse with this erratic and brilliant genius produced no perceptible taint of rationalism in the mind or scholarship of the scarcely less brilliant pupil, whose public teaching contrasted so powerfully with that of his erstwhile master. “It was a sad and singular sight,” wrote the biographer of Neander, “to behold his former teacher, Schleiermacher, a Christian by birth, inculcating in one lecture-room, with all the power of his mighty genius, those doctrines which lead to the denial of the Evangelical attributes of Jesus Christ, whilst in another his pupil Neander,[392] by birth a Jew, preached and taught salvation through faith in Christ the Son of God alone.”[19]

When Neander left Halle he repaired to his birthplace, Göttingen, to pursue his theological studies in the university of which Planck was at that time the leading spirit. It was there that Neander acquired the practice, so conspicuous in his writings, of taking nothing for granted and digging deep to the very origines of things. It was this invariable reliance solely on first hand and primitive information which makes his literary work so valuable. In 1811 Neander became a private “coach” at Heidelberg, in the university of which he was appointed a professor of theology in the following year. Youthful as he still was, his fame had by this time spread far and wide, and within a few months he was elected to a similar position in the recently founded University of Berlin, which the King of Prussia desired to elevate to the foremost rank among the sister universities of his kingdom, and to make a great centre for the teaching of theology. There Neander remained till the day of his death, fully justifying his selection as one of the leading lecturers in that seat of learning.

The foregoing are the chief events in an otherwise uneventful career, entirely passed as scholar and tutor within the sheltered seclusion of university life. It has been said that such an atmosphere makes for self-indulgence. Of course, it may easily[393] degenerate into this state. And yet how many university dons could we name, whose saintly and scholarly lives, long hours spent in teaching, and nightly burnings of the midnight oil give the lie to such a sweeping assertion! That it was far from being the case with Neander the following slight sketch of the man himself, his labours and his writings, will abundantly demonstrate.

Neander was of an exceedingly lovable disposition, humble-minded, retiring, pious and zealous. He was as simple as a child in the ordinary and every-day concerns of life, eccentric and singular beyond description, absent-minded to the last degree, and generous to a fault. His charity was unbounded. His wants being few, he could give the bulk of his income to others. The proceeds from the sale of his numerous works were devoted to philanthropic and missionary purposes. He could never keep any loose cash in his pocket, or turn away his face from any poor man. If he did not part with the well-worn coat off his back it was because he preferred to bestow the new one hanging in his wardrobe.

His industry was prodigious. Being a single man, for he never married, he could devote all his time and energies to his calling—which was that of scholar, writer, and lecturer. He was never ordained, and so never preached in the ministerial sense of the word; but he never lectured without teaching Christianity in its practical as well as doctrinal and historical aspect. Religion was never obscured by theology. His lectures were attended not merely by under-graduates[394] and students, but also by leading professors of his own and other universities—Protestants and Romanists alike sitting at his feet. Three lectures a day he invariably gave, and those on different subjects. To the students he was a father and a counsellor, ever ready to bestow, though never eager to thrust, his advice upon all who sought it. He was universally beloved for his kindness of heart and his gentleness, and respected and admired for his talents, scholarship, and teaching powers.

The supreme object of Neander’s life, studies, and labours, is thus concisely stated by himself in the preface of the first edition of his magnum opus:[20] “To exhibit the history of the Church of Christ as a living witness of the Divine power of Christianity, as a school of Christian experience, a voice sounding through the ages, of instruction, of doctrine and of reproof, for all who are disposed to listen.” Neander was not merely the historian of the dead past or laudator temporis acti. To him the past was indeed great, eloquent, and glorious, but he regarded it chiefly as the beginning of a greater present and a more glorious future, and as the foundation of the stately building of the Church that is being reared throughout the ages. He had unquenchable faith in the abiding presence of Christ in His Church, and of its consequent power to mould and transform the world. The parables of the leaven and of the mustard seed were pregnant with meaning to him, and in his[395] history he elaborately traced the process of development in the past centuries—a process which amounted to a steady and ever forward progress, even furthered by all attempts to hinder it. And this, because Christianity is a Divine power which descended from heaven at the Incarnation of Christ, and gave a new character to the life of the human race.

We can well understand how exhilarating and energising such teaching as this must have been when directed, as it was of set purpose, to counteract the then new-fangled doctrines of Schleiermacher, and more especially of Strauss, who in his “Life of Christ” had sought to eliminate from Christianity all that was Divine, and therefore to destroy its regenerative power on the hearts and lives of mankind.

To Neander, then, a Christian Jew, an immense debt of gratitude is due from all who hold the Catholic faith undefiled. He stemmed for a time the tide of Rationalism which threatened to engulf in its turbid waters not only Germany, but the whole of Christendom. His aid was expressly chartered to undo the harm caused by the speculative teaching of Strauss. When others would have suppressed the latter’s work by force, Neander, discountenancing such carnal weapons, boldly and mercilessly met his heresies by the issue of his own “Life of Christ.”

We have already dwelt upon his two greatest works. We can only barely mention the others. They were, to give them their titles in English—”The History of the Planting and Training of the[396] Christian Church by the Apostles,” “Biographies of Julian the Apostate, St. Bernard and St. Chrysostom,” “Anti-Gnostikus, Development of the Gnostic System,” “Memorabilia from the History of the Christian Life,” “Unity and Variety of the Christian Life,” numerous essays contributed to religious periodicals, and “Memoirs of the Proceedings of the Berlin Royal Academy of Sciences.”

Neander’s restless activity doubtless shortened his life, and death overtook him before the work which he had set himself to do was done. He had completed his “General History” only to the middle of the fourteenth century. He died whilst dictating a page of this unfinished history, with the words, “I am weary; I must sleep; good night;” upon his lips. To another famous historian, Bede, it was granted to see, but only just to see, the completion of his labours. When dying, the amanuensis who wrote for him his translation into Saxon of the Gospel according to St. John, said: “Master, there is but one sentence wanting.” Bede answered: “Write quickly!” and when the sentence was written, he replied: “Thou hast the truth—consummatum est,” and with the Gloria Patri upon his lips, he breathed his last. Neander’s work is like a broken column, and yet who shall say it had been better otherwise? Surely not those who believe that “man is immortal, until his work is done.”

The supreme object of Neander’s life and labors was to tell the story of the Church of Christ, and he produced a work that earned him the title of champion for evangelicalism in Germany. In writing his Life of Christ, he set out to counteract the theology of Schleiermacher. In this work, he demonstrated the validity of the scriptural record in an attempt to stem the tide of higher criticism. He had many other works to his credit, which have been translated into English. Some of them are The History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church by the Apostles and biographies of Julian the Apostate, Bernard, and Chrysostom. An unfinished work, which has not been translated into English, is his Life of the Apostle Paul . It is said that he died while dictating a page of his General History, which had to be completed from his notes after his death. As he died, he said, “I am weary; I must sleep. Good night.”

Prayer: Blessed art thou, O Lord our God, who has given us men and women of wisdom and insight, to show us your ways and help us to understand the true heavenly wisdom of our Messiah Yeshua. Amen,

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37734

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16 January 1802 Politician, philosopher and constitutional lawyer Julius Stahl born #otdimjh

Posted on January 16, 2016 by richardsh

Bernstein gives a summary of this remarkable Jewish believer in Yeshua:

Stahl, Friedrich Julius, son of a banker, jurist and publicist, was born at Munich, January 16, 1802, and died at Bruckenau, Aug. 10, 1861. He became a Christian in [475] his eighteenth year, and was baptized at Erlangen in 1819. Already at the age of fourteen he discussed religious topics with his fellow scholars. The writings of Thiersch had a great influence upon him.

After he had become a Christian, he acted as a missionary to his own family and brought his parents and brothers and sisters to the Saviour. He studied law at the Universities of Wurzburg, Erlangen, and Heidelberg. In 1834 he represented the University of Erlangen in the Bavarian Parliament. In 1840 he became professor of law at the University of Berlin, where his lectures drew an audience of all classes.

His idea of Christianity was that it should pervade the whole life and also the State. According to Lord Acton, Stahl had a more predominant influence and showed more political ability than Lord Beaconsfield (Acton, Letters to Mary Gladstone, p. 103, London, 1904).

His writings are as follows, “Die Philosophie des Rechts nach Geschichtlicher Ansicht,” 2 vols. (Heidelberg, 1830-37); “Ueber die Kirchenzucht” (1845-58); “Das Monarchische Princip” (Heidelberg, 1845); “Der Christliche Staat” (ib., 1847-8); “Die Revolution und die Constitutionelle Monarchie” (1848-9); “Was ist Revolution?” (ib., 1852), of which three editions were issued; “Der Protestantismus als Politisches Princip” (ib., 1853-4); “Die Katholische Widerlegungen” (ib., 1854); “Wider Bunsen” (1856); “Die Lutherische Kirche und die Union” (1859-60). After his death were published, “Siebenzehn Parlamentarishen Reden” (1862), and “Die Gegenwärtigen Partien in Staat und Kirche” (1868).

Amos Elon takes a more nuanced approach, setting Stahl more fully in the context of his day, and adding colour and depth to our understanding of the complex personality and deep thinker.

It is indicative of the growing role of Jews in German life that the three leading political ideologues of the moment were of Jewish origin – Jacoby for the Liberals, Marx for the Socialists and Professor Friedrich Julius Stahl for the Conservatives. Born Joel Golson in 1802, the son of an observant Jewish cattle dealer in Bavaria, Stahl was the chief German ideologue of the Christian state in the post-1848 era. At seventeen, Stahl had converted to Protestantism and changed his name to Stahl (steel). Unless he had already planned his move to Prussia at this early stage, his conversion to Protestantism in deeply Catholic Bavaria may well have been undertaken out of belief.

In 1828, he moved to Berlin, where he eventually succeeded Eduard Gans (Heine’s erstwhile friend) at the Berlin faculty of jurisprudence. His public lectures at the University were social events attended by distinguished audiences, including members of the royal family.

Stahl articulated the rules and needs of the authoritarian Christian state. In his opinion, it went against the divine order to allow Jews any influence; they were entitled to full civil but not political rights – these were a nation’s dearest treasure. To enjoy them Jews had first to adopt the state religion. During the 1848 uprising in Berlin, Stahl fled the democracy-infested city; the events of 1848 were, in his eyes, pure wickedness and crime. Political decisiveness required authoritarian, not majority, rule.

In the aftermath of the ‘year of folly’, Stahle became leader of the conservatives the upper house of the new Prussian state parliament. In the largest German state, where two thirds of the Jewish population lived, he enunciated the ‘philosophical basis’ for continuing discrimination against his former coreligionists. He was not a great thinker but an able propagandist, persuasively articulating the conservative demand for ‘authority’ and the sacred union of church and throne. He preached the virtue of tradition, the infallibility of Christian doctrine, and the right of the monarch to be sole ruler. Christianity was the only antidote to revolution. The crime of the Enlightenment had been to upset the divine order of church and throne. (Amos Elon, The Pity of It All, 180)

Peter Drucker’s study of Stahl is well worth reading:

Of decisive importance to him was the religious experience which in 1819 caused the then 17 year-old Bavarian Jew,born in the ghetto, to convert to Protestantism. His whole life and his whole doctrine are founded on this step and the obligation it imposed. The religious experience opened up the path for him to the Historical School, the one determining force of his doctrine.

It forced him to take issue with the second determining force, the teaching of Hegel, and dictated the lines along which this had to proceed. It is probable that without thisfundamental religious experience Stahl would have become a Hegelian just like Lassalle or Marx, since Hegelian panlogism must have exerted a very great attraction on his mind, clear and averse to everything Romantic. This is also evident from the fact that Stahl wrestled with Hegel for many years, was for a long time unable to distance himself from this great edifice of ideas and took a great deal from it. When he finally did free himself from Hegel, he was only able to do so by drawing an entirely one-sided picture of Hegel, seeing in him no more than the Rationalist who brought the period of the Enlightenment to and end and so by no means did justice to his true greatness.

The critique of Hegel became for him a great intellectual struggle between two eternal forces: irrationalism and rationalism. He recognised that it was impossible to get the measure of rationalism with the tools of the Historical School, which had voluntarily renounced the weapons of reason and of philosophy. The resulting task, the incorporation of philosophy in religion, grounding it in faith, rendering it meaningful through faith, is the starting point of his work and from here he advances step by step to political science and politics, never losing sight of his starting point. He therefore necessarily saw every force and current as issuing from these two highest principles.

That is what gives his system its great cogency and unity. But it is also responsible for its one-sidedness; Stahl paid no attention to the problem of foreign policy nor to the social question. It was just these failings, however, which simplified his system even further and thus increased its effect, admittedly at the cost of its capacity for development.

Reflection: It seems that few Messianic Jews today make such contributions to political thought and the life of their nations as did those like Stahl and Disraeli. Yet they are held up as examples of ‘assimilation’ whereas modern Messianic Judaism sees itself as freed from this “Hebrew Christian” tendency. Father, forgive us the poverty of our imagination and our lack of charity in weighing the contributions of those who have gone before us. Help us to avoid their weaknesses and eccentricities, but help us also to avoid our own. May our contribution be similarly noted, learned from, and benefit others, until the day of your return. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

See also

Ruben Alvarado. Authority Not Majority: The Life and Times of Friedrich Julius Stahl. Aalten: WordBridge Publishing, 2007. ix + 134 pp. $13.99 (paper), ISBN 978-90-76660-04-2.

Friedrich Julius Stahl. Principles of Law: The Doctrine of Law and State on the Basis of the Christian World-View; Book II: Principles of Law. Ruben Alvarado, trans. and ed. Aalten: WordBridge Publishing, 2007. xxix + 140 pp. $13.99 (paper), ISBN 978-90-76660-03-5.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=23076

German jurist and publicist; born at Munich Jan. 16, 1802; died at Brückenau Aug. 10, 1861. In his eighteenth year he took the examination for the position of teacher at the Munich gymnasium, but was confronted by the usual difficulty experienced by Jewish youths seeking government positions, and he adopted Christianity Nov. 6, 1819, in Erlangen.

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/13985-stahl-friedrich-julius

http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=386

The Conservatives: Friedrich Julius Stahl: “What is the Revolution?” (1852)

The German Right, 1860-1920: Political Limits of the Authoritarian Imagination By James N. Retallac

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15 January 2005 Pope John Paul II’s Auschwitz Reflections #otdimjh

Posted on January 15, 2016 by richardsh

Messianic Jews, as both Jews and believers in Yeshua, are challenged to ponder the theological significance of the Holocaust. When I surveyed Messianic Jewish Theology I found only a few had attempted this difficult task, which combines theodicy (how can an all-powerful, loving God allow suffering and evil?), the election of Israel (how can the Jewish people live out their mission of proclaim God’s saving purposes to the nations?), Christology (how is Yeshua present with his people and as Incarnate Son of God in the midst of suffering?) and ecclesiology (how can a Christian Europe of sorts be held responsible for the evil that arose its midst?)

These and other questions require deep reflection, prayer, repentance and willingness to change time-established theological paradigms, and Messianic Jews should be encouraged that in many Jewish and Christian circles such reflection has been developing over the last 70 years. Here today we reproduce John Paul II’s Message, commending it for study and prayer. We also include a link to Zev Garber’s reflection on this statement and other Roman Catholic discussion.

Prayer: Lord, help us to ponder the mystery of evil without losing a sense of who you are, the God who Creates, Saves and Restores all things. Help us in our sorrow for the loss of the Shoah not to respond in anger and bitterness, or react without love. May the truth of Yeshua’s own solidarity with his people, even in the midst of their suffering, both past, present and future, be made known. May all nations acknowledge your justice, mercy and saving power. May our lives be lived today with that assurance and hope. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

MESSAGE OF HIS HOLINESS JOHN PAUL II
ON THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIBERATION
OF THE PRISONERS OF THE AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU DEATH CAMPSixty years have passed since the liberation of the prisoners of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. This anniversary calls us to ponder once again the drama which took place there, the final, tragic outcome of a programme of hatred. In these days we must remember the millions of persons who, through no fault of their own, were forced to endure inhuman suffering and extermination in the gas chambers and ovens. I bow my head before all those who experienced this manifestation of the mysterium iniquitatis.

When, as Pope, I visited the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp in 1979, I halted before the monuments dedicated to the victims. There were inscriptions in many languages: Polish, English, Bulgarian, Romani, Czech, Danish, French, Greek, Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, Flemish, Serbo-Croat, German, Norwegian, Russian, Romanian, Hungarian and Italian. All these languages spoke of the victims of Auschwitz: real, yet in many cases completely anonymous men, women and children. I stood somewhat longer before the inscription written in Hebrew. I said: “This inscription invites us to remember the people whose sons and daughters were doomed to total extermination. This people has its origin in Abraham, our father in faith (cf. Rom 4:11-12), as Paul of Tarsus has said. This, the very people that received from God the commandment, ‘You shall not kill,’ itself experienced in a special measure what killing means. No one is permitted to pass by this inscription with indifference.”

Today I repeat those words. No one is permitted to pass by the tragedy of the Shoah. That attempt at the systematic destruction of an entire people falls like a shadow on the history of Europe and the whole world; it is a crime which will for ever darken the history of humanity. May it serve, today and for the future, as a warning: there must be no yielding to ideologies which justify contempt for human dignity on the basis of race, colour, language or religion. I make this appeal to everyone, and particularly to those who would resort, in the name of religion, to acts of oppression and terrorism.

These reflections have remained with me, especially when, during the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000, the Church celebrated the solemn penitential liturgy in Saint Peter’s, and I journeyed as a pilgrim to the Holy Places and went up to Jerusalem. In Yad Vashem – the memorial to the Shoah – and at the foot of the Western Wall of the Temple I prayed in silence, begging forgiveness and the conversion of hearts.

That day in 1979 I also remember stopping to reflect before two other inscriptions, written in Russian and in Romani. The history of the Soviet Union’s role in that war was complex, yet it must not be forgotten that in it the Russions had the highest number of those who tragically lost their lives. The Roma were also doomed to total extermination in Hitler’s plan. One cannot underestimate the sacrifice of life which was imposed on these, our brothers and sisters in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. For this reason, I insist once more that no one is permitted to pass by those inscriptions with indifference.

Finally I halted before the inscription written in Polish. There I recalled that the experience of Auschwitz represented “yet another stage in the centuries-old struggle of this nation, my nation, for its fundamental rights among the peoples of Europe. Yet another loud cry for the right to have a place of its own on the map of Europe. Yet another painful reckoning with the conscience of humanity”. The statement of this truth was nothing more or less than a call for historical justice for this nation, which had made such great sacrifices in the cause of Europe’s liberation from the infamous Nazi ideology, and which had been sold into slavery to another destructive ideology: that of Soviet Communism. Today I return to those words – without retracting them – in order to thank God that, through the persevering efforts of my countrymen, Poland has taken its proper place on the map of Europe. It is my hope that this tragic historical experience will prove to be a source of mutual spiritual enrichment for all Europeans.

During my visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau, I also said that one should halt before every one of the inscriptions. I myself did so, passing in prayerful meditation from one to the next, and commending to the Divine Mercy all the victims from all those nations which experienced the atrocities of the war. I also prayed that, through their intercession, the gift of peace would be granted to our world. I continue to pray unceasingly, trusting that everywhere, in the end, there will prevail respect for the dignity of the human person and for the right of every man and women to seek the truth in freedom, to follow the moral law, to discharge the duties imposed by justice and to lead a fully human life (Cf. JOHN XXIII, Encyclical Letter Pacem in Terris: AAS 55 [1963], 295-296).

In speaking of the victims of Auschwitz, I cannot fail to recall that, in the midst of that unspeakable concentration of evil, there were also heroic examples of commitment to good. Certainly there were many persons who were willing, in spiritual freedom, to endure suffering and to show love, not only for their fellow prisoners, but also for their tormentors. Many did so out of love for God and for man; others in the name of the highest spiritual values. Their attitude bore clear witness to a truth which is often expressed in the Bible: even though man is capable of evil, and at times boundless evil, evil itself will never have the last word. In the very abyss of suffering, love can triumph. The witness to this love shown in Auschwitz must never be forgotten. It must never cease to rouse consciences, to resolve conflicts, to inspire the building of peace.

Such, then, is the deepest meaning of this anniversary celebration. We remember the tragic sufferings of the victims not for the sake of reopening painful wounds or of stirring up sentiments of hatred and revenge, but rather in order to honour the dead, to acknowledge historical reality and above all to ensure that those terrible events will serve as a summons for the men and women of today to ever greater responsibility for our common history. Never again, in any part of the world, must others experience what was experienced by these men and women whom we have mourned for sixty years!

To those taking part in the anniversary celebrations I send my greetings, and upon all I invoke the blessings of Almighty God.

From the Vatican, 15 January 2005

JOHN PAUL II

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/messages/pont_messages/2005/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_20050127_auschwitz-birkenau_en.html

http://www.bibleinterp.com/opeds/gar358009.shtml

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14 January 1802 Richard Wagner’s Jewish Christian friend Karl Lehrs born #otdimjh

Posted on January 14, 2016 by richardsh

Today we consider two of the sons of Pinkus Kaufmann Levi, who changed his name to Lehrs;

Karl Ludwig Lehrs (January 14, 1802 – June 9, 1878), was a German classical scholar.

Bernstein gives a short note:

Lehrs, Karl, was born in Königsberg in 1802, and died 1878. It is recorded that while studying in Berlin he became a Christian from conviction, and was baptized [331] in 1822. A number of his relatives were influenced by him for Christianity. He was a classical teacher in several schools, and then Professor at the University of Königsberg. He published a book of considerable merit under the title, “De Aristarchi Studiis Homericis,” 1833; “Questiones Epicae,” 1837; “Pindars-scholien,” 1873

Karl Lehrs had a distinguished career as a Classical Scholar pioneering modern critical study of the works of Homer. The Jewish Encyclopedia gives more details:

German philologist; born at Königsberg, East Prussia, Jan. 2, 1802; died there June 9, 1878; brother of the philologist Franz Siegfried Lehrs (1806-43), editor of Didot’s edition of the Greek epic poets. Karl was educated at the Königsberg gymnasium and university (Ph.D. 1823); in 1822, after entering the Protestant Church, he passed the examination for teacher in the gymnasium.

He was successively appointed to positions at Danzig, Marien werder, and Königsberg (1825). In 1831 he established himself as privat-docent at Königsberg University, and in 1835 was appointed assistant professor. Elected in 1845 professor of ancient Greek philology, he resigned his position as teacher at the gymnasium; he held the chair in Greek philology until his death. Among Lehrs’s many works may be mentioned: “De Aristarchi Studiis Homericis,” Königsberg, 1833 (3d ed., by Ludwich, Leipsic, 1882); “Quæstiones Epicæ,” ib. 1837; “Herodiani Scripta Tria Minora,” ib. 1848; “Populäre Aufsätze aus dem Alterthume,” ib. 1856 (2d ed., 1875); “Horatius Flaccus,” ib. 1869; “Die Pindarscholien,” ib. 1873.

What neither Bernstein nor the Jewish Enclyclopedia tell us is that Franz Siegfried Lehrs (who continued to be known as ‘Samuel”) was a significant friend, influence and supporter of a poor young opera composer trying to make his way in Paris at the time – whose name was Richard Wagner. It was Samuel Lehrs who introduced Wagner to philosophy, gave him material from Medieval Literature which became the basis for his operas Tannhäuserand Lohengrin, and would be one of Wagner’s most significant friendships

Wagner in the circle of have-nots in the New Year’s Eve, 1841 in Paris, with the librarian Gottfried Engelbert contrast, the philologist Samuel Lehr, the painter Friedrich Pecht with his wife, and the painter Ernst B. Kietz, who portrayed the circle.

Milton Brener, an expert on Wagner’s relationships with Jewish people and his views on Judaism, writes:

We might begin with one young Jewish man named Samuel Lehrs, a struggling philologist. Lehrs was one of three of Wagner’s close friends during the composer’s two year sojourn in Paris as a young man, beginning almost ten years before his infamous essay. He, like his three friends was battling for recognition and even for basic survival. Wagner, hopelessly in debt, and earning next to nothing, was helped by the labors of his wife Minna. But his empathy for his very sickly friend, Lehrs, was boundless. In April 1842, Wagner and his wife left Paris for Dresden, but his concern for his friends centered most on Lehrs, whom he felt he would not see again. In his autobiography, written about 30 years later, in his mid-50s, he credited Lehrs with his own introduction to and absorption with philosophy, and in large part with his interest in medieval poetry. It was also Lehrs who had furnished him with source material for two of his early operas.

He continued to correspond haltingly with Lehrs, and with his other Paris friends, to whom he eagerly sought news about Lehrs and his condition, chiding them when they sent what he felt to be insufficient information. He ended one of his letters with “I don’t want to know anything about you, only about Lehrs.” He finally heard again from Lehrs directly about a year after leaving Paris. Wagner responded “Be of good courage, my dear brother. Sooner or later we must be together again… enjoy the beautiful spring air which will bring you strength.” Lehrs died a few days after receiving the letter, and Wagner wrote his younger sister that the news left him dumb, speechless for almost 8 days. It was “heartbreaking… This brave wonderful and so unfortunate man will to me be eternally unforgettable.” In his autobiography, begun at age 55, he said his relationship with Lehrs “was one of the most beautiful relationships of my life.”

Wagner’s autobiography mentions Samuel Lehrs 30 times, and records discussions with him on life after death, where Samuel seems to have less than a biblical certainty on the resurrection. Whilst Wagner recognises the worthy character of Lehrs, he reports his annihilationist view of life after death:

I had been astonished at times to hear even the grave and virtuous Lehrs, openly and quite as a matter of course, give expression to grave doubts concerning our individual survival after death. He declared that in many great men this doubt, even though only tacitly held, had been the real incitement to noble deeds. The natural result of such a belief speedily dawned on me without, however, causing me any serious alarm. On the contrary, I found a fascinating stimulus in the fact that boundless regions of meditation and knowledge were thereby opened up which hitherto I had merely skimmed in light-hearted levity.

This is not the place to examine Wagner’s anti-Semitism, which we will explore on another occasion. Here we should note the presence of a Jewish believer in Yeshua in his life and development, one whose influence was significant, despite some of his non-orthodox beliefs. From the perspective of history the younger brother, Samuel, may have left a more lasting influence on Jewish-Christian relations through his friendship with Wagner than the important works of his better known brother on the poetry of Homer.

Prayer: Lord, only you know the part we play in the history of your Church and Israel, and in wider society. We cannot discern our place, nor do we need to. Help us be faithful to your Incarnate Word, our Messiah Yeshua, and be an influence for good, wherever you place us, and whatever you give us to do this day. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen,

Sources and additional material:

https://allegoriesofthering.wordpress.com/how-jews-saved-the-ring/

https://rexvalrexblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/27/sense-wagner-ningu-no-sen-recordaria-de-meyerbeer-ii-samuel-lehrs/

http://miltonbrener.hubpages.com/hub/Richard-Wagner-Jewish-Friends

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/5197 vol 1 wagner my life

From Richard Wagner’s autobiography

To assist us in these discussions Anders called in his friend and housemate Lehrs, a philologist, my acquaintance with whom was soon to develop into one of the most beautiful friendships of my life. Lehrs was the younger brother of a famous scholar at Konigsberg. He had left there to come to Paris some years before, with the object of gaining an independent position by his philological work.

————

What this meant in Paris I learned just about this time from the hapless fate of the worthy Lehrs. Driven by need such as I myself had had to surmount a year before at about the same time, he had been compelled on a broiling hot day in the previous summer to scour the various quarters of the city breathlessly, to get grace for bills he had accepted, and which had fallen due. He foolishly took an iced drink, which he hoped would refresh him in his distressing condition, but it immediately made him lose his voice, and from that day he was the victim of a hoarseness which with terrific rapidity ripened the seeds of consumption, doubtless latent in him, and developed that incurable disease. For months he had been growing weaker and weaker, filling us at last with the gloomiest anxiety: he alone believed the supposed chill would be cured, if he could heat his room better for a time. One day I sought him out in his lodging, where I found him in the icy-cold room, huddled up at his writing-table, and complaining of the difficulty of his work for Didot, which was all the more distressing as his employer was pressing him for advances he had made.

He declared that if he had not had the consolation in those doleful hours of knowing that I had, at any rate, got my Dutchman finished, and that a prospect of success was thus opened to the little circle of friends, his misery would have been hard indeed to bear. Despite my own great trouble, I begged him to share our fire and work in my room. He smiled at my courage in trying to help others, especially as my quarters offered barely space enough for myself and my wife. However, one evening he came to us and silently showed me a letter he had received from Villemain, the Minister of Education at that time, in which the latter expressed in the warmest terms his great regret at having only just learned that so distinguished a scholar, whose able and extensive collaboration in Didot’s issue of the Greek classics had made him participator in a work that was the glory of the nation, should be in such bad health and straitened circumstances. Unfortunately, the amount of public money which he had at his disposal at that moment for subsidising literature only allowed of his offering him the sum of five hundred francs, which he enclosed with apologies, asking him to accept it as a recognition of his merits on the part of the French Government, and adding that it was his intention to give earnest consideration as to how he might materially improve his position.

This filled us with the utmost thankfulness on poor Lehrs’ account, and we looked on the incident almost as a miracle. We could not help assuming, however, that M. Villemain had been influenced by Didot, who had been prompted by his own guilty conscience for his despicable exploitation of Lehrs, and by the prospect of thus relieving himself of the responsibility of helping him. At the same time, from similar cases within our knowledge, which were fully confirmed by my own subsequent experience, we were driven to the conclusion that such prompt and considerate sympathy on the part of a minister would have been impossible in Germany. Lehrs would now have a fire to work by, but alas! our fears as to his declining health could not be allayed. When we left Paris in the following spring, it was the certainty that we should never see our dear friend again that made our parting so painful.

My intercourse with Lehrs had, on the whole, given a decided spur to my former tendency to grapple seriously with my subjects, a tendency which had been counteracted by closer contact with the theatre. This desire now furnished a basis for closer study of philosophical questions. I had been astonished at times to hear even the grave and virtuous Lehrs, openly and quite as a matter of course, give expression to grave doubts concerning our individual survival after death. He declared that in many great men this doubt, even though only tacitly held, had been the real incitement to noble deeds. The natural result of such a belief speedily dawned on me without, however, causing me any serious alarm. On the contrary, I found a fascinating stimulus in the fact that boundless regions of meditation and knowledge were thereby opened up which hitherto I had merely skimmed in light-hearted levity.

In my renewed attempts to study the Greek classics in the original, I received no encouragement from Lehrs. He dissuaded me from doing so with the well-meant consolation, that as I could only be born once, and that with music in me, I should learn to understand this branch of knowledge without the help of grammar or lexicon; whereas if Greek were to be studied with real enjoyment, it was no joke, and would not suffer being relegated to a secondary place.

https://allegoriesofthering.wordpress.com/how-jews-saved-the-ring/

Samuel Lehrs

Wagner considered himself a philosopher first and a composer second. The man who sparked his interest in philosophy was Samuel Lehrs, an indigent Jewish philosopher whose life and early death are reminiscent of a Puccini character out of La Boheme. Lehrs was instrumental in helping Wagner find inspiration for his operas Tannhauser and Lohengrin. Years later, upon learning of Lehrs’ death Wagner was so devastated that he could not speak for over a week. He said his relationship with Lehrs was one of the most beautiful of his life.

Some critics accuse Wagner of saying this so that he wouldn’t appear to be anti-Semitic, but the facts speak otherwise. Wagner had an important, meaningful connection with Lehrs, as he did with many other Jewish artists who helped him when Wagner was putting together The Ring and Parsifal.

http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5144/pg5144.html wagner – my life vol 2

For a long time I had wanted to understand the real value of philosophy. My conversations with Lehrs in Paris in my very young days had awakened my longing for this branch of knowledge, upon which I had first launched when I attended the lectures of several Leipzig professors and in later years by reading Schelling and Hegel.

Levi, Pinkus

Namensvarianten

Lehrs, Pinkus (seit 1812); Levi, Pinkus Kaufmann

Lebensdaten

1760 bis 1833

siB

-Wag

Ernst B. Kietz, who portrayed the circle.

Classical scholar, Hellenist

* 1806 Königsberg / † 13 April 1843, Paris

Lehr was born as the son of manufactured goods merchant Levi Pinkus merchant in Königsberg. Since 1812, the family took the surname Lehrs. At his baptism Lehrs adopted the name Franz Siegfried, among friends he called himself, however, continue to Samuel. Lehr studied like his older brother Karl Ludwig Lehrs classical philology at the University of Königsberg. While Karl Ludwig Lehrs after his conversion to Christianity finally received a full professorship in Königsberg and as one of the most important classical scholars of his time was, Samuel Lehr had to give up his studies because of health problems. After a short time as a private tutor, he worked as a freelance scholar in Paris and earned his living as an editor and translator of ancient Greek authors for the publisher Didot.

Samuel Lehr was, together with the painter Ernst B. Kietz of the closest friends of Richard Wagner in Paris1839-1842. Wagner was encouraged by Lehrs to deal with the Middle High German poetry. In a band of Historical and literary papers of the University of Königsberg, which he had received from Lehr Wagner first read the epic of “Sängerkrieg” in the original text and a summary of the “Lohngrin” seal.

From DresdenWagner wrote in 1842 to the left in Paris Lehrs that he had returned not from patriotism to his home: “I have set aside no preference geographically and my country, its beautiful hills, valleys and forests, I even contrary. This is a cursed people, this Saxony – greasy, dehnig, clumsy, lazy and rude – what have I to do with them? ”

Wagner He has no one among his friends tenderly loved as the Parisian misery Comrade Samuel Lehrs and virtuoso pianist Carl Tausig.

Lehrs died in 1843 in Paris at the consequences of tuberculosis.

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, lehrs, otdimjh, wagner | 4 Comments

13 January 1898 Émile Zola publishes “J’accuse” on Dreyfus trial #otdimjh

Posted on January 13, 2016 by richardsh

Alfred Dreyfus Émile Zola

At this time of increasing anti-Semitism in France, we reflect on events on Zola’s letter published on this day in 1898. In the wake of the Dreyfus affair dramatic changes affected Europe, the Jewish people, the future State of Israel, and continue to impact on Jewish believers in Yeshua. Today also we encounter anti-Semitism and are called to practice peace, conflict resolution and reconciliation, following the example of Yeshua.

“J’accuse …!” (was an open letter published on 13 January 1898 in the newspaper L’Aurore by the influential writer Émile Zola.

Alfred Dreyfus was born in 1859 in the city of Mulhouse, which was then located in the province of Alsace in northeast France. Born into a prosperous Jewish family, he left his native town for Paris in 1871 in response to the annexation of the province by Germany following the Franco-Prussian War. In 1894, while an artillery captain for the General Staff of France, Dreyfus was suspected of providing secret military information to the German government. Based on evidence from waste paper collected by the office cleaning lady, and graphology evidence that Dreyfus had deliberately forged his handwriting to look unfamiliar, he was found guilty of treason in a secret military court-martial, during which he was denied the right to examine the evidence against him. The Army stripped him of his rank in a humiliating ceremony and shipped him off to Devil’s Island, a penal colony located off the coast of French Guiana in South America, with the sentence of life imprisonment.

In the letter, Zola addressed President of France Félix Faure and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Dreyfus. Zola pointed out judicial errors and the lack of serious evidence. He accuses the French government and judiciary of covering up the process, acquitting those known to be guilty, and a lack of transparency and due process.

Zola strongly defends Alfred Dreyfus and all of justice when he states: “These, Sir, are the facts that explain how this miscarriage of justice came about; The evidence of Dreyfus’s character, his affluence, the lack of motive and his continued affirmation of innocence combine to show that he is the victim of the lurid imagination of Major du Paty de Clam, the religious circles surrounding him, and the ‘dirty Jew’ obsession that is the scourge of our time.”

The letter was printed on the front page of the newspaper and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted for and found guilty of libel on 23 February 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.

Despite Zola’s protest, there were many anti-Semitic demonstrations at the time of the trial against Dreyfus and French Jews, convincing journalist Theodor Herzl of the need for a Jewish national homeland.

Prayer: Thank you Lord that you are the God of righteousness and justice, and despite the schemes of weak humanity your truth will one day be known by all. Help us to stand up for the innocent, to challenge prejudice and discrimination, to seek peace and pursue it, wherever we are. We pray for the nation of France and the Jewish community in its midst, to know protection from all evil. We pray for our Jewish people worldwide, that we may give and receive the protection and justice of the your standards wherever we are, and for whoever has need. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Sources: J’accuse – English Translation

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%27accuse

Letter to Mr. Félix Faure,
President of the Republic

Mr. President,

Would you allow me, in my gratitude for the benevolent reception that you gave me one day, to draw the attention of your rightful glory and to tell you that your star, so happy until now, is threatened by the most shameful and most ineffaceable of blemishes?

You have passed healthy and safe through base calumnies; you have conquered hearts. You appear radiant in the apotheosis of this patriotic festival that the Russian alliance was for France, and you prepare to preside over the solemn triumph of ourWorld Fair, which will crown our great century of work, truth and freedom. But what a spot of mud on your name—I was going to say on your reign—is this abominable Dreyfus affair! A council of war, under order, has just dared to acquitEsterhazy, a great blow to all truth, all justice. And it is finished, France has this stain on her cheek, History will write that it was under your presidency that such a social crime could be committed.

Since they dared, I too will dare. The truth I will say, because I promised to say it, if justice, regularly seized, did not do it, full and whole. My duty is to speak, I do not want to be an accomplice. My nights would be haunted by the specter of innocence that suffer there, through the most dreadful of tortures, for a crime it did not commit.

And it is to you, Mr. President, that I will proclaim it, this truth, with all the force of the revulsion of an honest man. For your honor, I am convinced that you are unaware of it. And with whom will I thus denounce the criminal foundation of these guilty truths, if not with you, the first magistrate of the country?

⁂

First, the truth about the lawsuit and the judgment of Dreyfus.

A nefarious man carried it all out, did everything: Lieutenant Colonel Du Paty de Clam, at that time only a Commandant. He is the entirety of the Dreyfus business; it will be known only when one honest investigation clearly establishes his acts and responsibilities. He seems a most complicated and hazy spirit, haunting romantic intrigues, caught up in serialized stories, stolen papers, anonymous letters, appointments in deserted places, mysterious women who sell condemning evidences at night. It is he who imagined dictating the Dreyfus memo; it is he who dreamed to study it in an entirely hidden way, under ice; it is him whom commander Forzinetti describes to us as armed with a dark lantern, wanting to approach the sleeping defendant, to flood his face abruptly with light and to thus surprise his crime, in the agitation of being roused. And I need hardly say that that what one seeks, one will find. I declare simply that commander Du Paty de Clam, charged to investigate the Dreyfus business as a legal officer, is, in date and in responsibility, the first culprit in the appalling miscarriage of justice committed.

The memo was for some time already in the hands of Colonel Sandherr, director of the office of information, who has since died of general paresis. “Escapes” took place, papers disappeared, as they still do today; the author of the memo was sought, when ahead of time one was made aware, little by little, that this author could be only an officer of the High Comman and an artillery officer: a doubly glaring error, showing with which superficial spirit this affair had been studied, because a reasoned examination shows that it could only be a question of an officer of troops. Thus searching the house, examining writings, it was like a family matter, a traitor to be surprised in the same offices, in order to expel him. And, while I do not want to retell a partly known history here, Commander Paty de Clam enters the scene, as soon as first suspicion falls upon Dreyfus. From this moment, it is he who invented Dreyfus, the affair becomes that affair, made actively to confuse the traitor, to bring him to a full confession. There is the Minister of War, General Mercier, whose intelligence seems poor; there are the head of the High Command, General De Boisdeffre, who appears to have yielded to his clerical passion, and the assistant manager of the High Command, General Gonse, whose conscience could put up with many things. But, at the bottom, there is initially only Commander Du Paty de Clam, who carries them all out, who hypnotizes them, because he deals also with spiritism, with occultism, conversing with spirits. One could not conceive of the experiments to which he subjected unhappy Dreyfus, the traps into which he wanted to make him fall, the insane investigations, monstrous imaginations, a whole torturing insanity.

Ah! this first affair is a nightmare for those who know its true details! Commander Du Paty de Clam arrests Dreyfus, in secret. He turns to Mrs. Dreyfus, terrorizes her, says to her that, if she speaks, her husband is lost. During this time, the unhappy one tore his flesh, howled his innocence. And the instructions were made thus, as in a 15th century tale, shrouded in mystery, with a savage complication of circumstances, all based on only one childish charge, this idiotic affair, which was not only a vulgar treason, but was also the most impudent of hoaxes, because the famously delivered secrets were almost all without value. If I insist, it is that the kernel is here, from whence the true crime will later emerge, the terrible denial of justice from which France is sick. I would like to touch with a finger on how this miscarriage of justice could be possible, how it was born from the machinations of Commander Du Paty de Clam, how General Mercier, General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse could be let it happen, to engage little by little their responsibility in this error, that they believed a need, later, to impose like the holy truth, a truth which is not even discussed. At the beginning, there is not this, on their part, this incuriosity and obtuseness. At most, one feels them to yield to an ambiance of religious passions and the prejudices of the physical spirit. They allowed themselves a mistake.

But here Dreyfus is before the council of war. Closed doors are absolutely required. A traitor would have opened the border with the enemy to lead the German emperor to Notre-Dame, without taking measures to maintain narrow silence and mystery. The nation is struck into a stupor, whispering of terrible facts, monstrous treasons which make History indignant; naturally the nation is so inclined. There is no punishment too severe, it will applaud public degradation, it will want the culprit to remain on his rock of infamy, devoured by remorse. Is this then true, the inexpressible things, the dangerous things, capable of plunging Europe into flames, which one must carefully bury behind these closed doors? No! There was behind this, only the romantic and lunatic imaginations of Commander Paty de Clam. All that was done only to hide the most absurd of novella plots. And it suffices, to ensure oneself of this, to study with attention the bill of indictment, read in front of the council of war.

Ah! the nothingness of this bill of indictment! That a man could be condemned for this act, is a wonder of iniquity. I defy decent people to read it, without their hearts leaping in indignation and shouting their revolt, while thinking of the unwarranted suffering, over there, on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus knows several languages, crime; one found at his place no compromising papers, crime; he returns sometimes to his country of origin, crime; he is industrious, he wants to know everything, crime; he is unperturbed, crime; he is perturbed, crime. And the naiveté of drafting formal assertions in a vacuum! One spoke to us of fourteen charges: we find only one in the final analysis, that of the memo; and we even learn that the experts did not agree, than one of them, Mr. Gobert, was coerced militarily, because he did not allow himself to reach a conclusion in the desired direction. One also spoke of twenty-three officers who had come to overpower Dreyfus with their testimonies. We remain unaware of their interrogations, but it is certain that they did not all charge him; and it is to be noticed, moreover, that all belonged to the war offices. It is a family lawsuit, one is there against oneself, and it is necessary to remember this: the High Command wanted the lawsuit, it was judged, and it has just judged it a second time.

Therefore, there remained only the memo, on which the experts had not concurred. It is reported that, in the room of the council, the judges were naturally going to acquit. And consequently, as one includes/understands the despaired obstinacy with which, to justify the judgment, today the existence of a secret part is affirmed, overpowering, the part which cannot be shown, which legitimates all, in front of which we must incline ourselves, the good invisible and unknowable God! I deny it, this part, I deny it with all my strength! A ridiculous part, yes, perhaps the part wherein it is a question of young women, and where a certain D… is spoken of which becomes too demanding: some husband undoubtedly finding that his wife did not pay him dearly enough. But a part interesting the national defense, which one could not produce without war being declared tomorrow, no, no! It is a lie! and it is all the more odious and cynical that they lie with impunity without one being able to convince others of it. They assemble France, they hide behind its legitimate emotion, they close mouths by disturbing hearts, by perverting spirits. I do not know a greater civic crime.

Here then, Mr. President, are the facts which explain how a miscarriage of justice could be made; and the moral evidence, the financial circumstances of Dreyfus, the absence of reason, his continual cry of innocence, completes its demonstration as a victim of the extraordinary imaginations of commander Du Paty de Clam, of the clerical medium in which it was found, of the hunting for the “dirty Jews”, which dishonours our time.

⁂

And we arrive at the Esterhazy affair. Three years passed, many consciences remain deeply disturbed, worry, seek, end up being convinced of Dreyfus’s innocence.

I will not give the history of the doubts and of the conviction of Mr. Scheurer-Kestner. But, while this was excavated on the side, it ignored serious events among the High Command. Colonel Sandherr was dead, and Major Picquart succeeded him as head of the office of the information. And it was for this reason, in the performance of his duties, that the latter one day found in his hands a letter-telegram, addressed to commander Esterhazy, from an agent of a foreign power. His strict duty was to open an investigation. It is certain that he never acted apart from the will of his superiors. He thus submitted his suspicions to his seniors in rank, General Gonse, then General De Boisdeffre, then General Billot, who had succeeded General Mercier as the Minister of War. The infamous Picquart file, about which so much was said, was never more than a Billot file, a file made by a subordinate for his minister, a file which must still exist within the Ministry of War. Investigations ran from May to September 1896, and what should be well affirmed is that General Gonse was convinced of Esterhazy’s guilt, and that Generals De Boisdeffre and Billot did not question that the memo was written by Esterhazy. Major Picquart’s investigation had led to this unquestionable observation. But the agitation was large, because the condemnation of Esterhazy inevitably involved the revision of Dreyfus’s trial; and this, the High Command did not want at any cost.

There must have been a minute full of psychological anguish. Notice that General Billot was in no way compromised, he arrived completely fresh, he could decide the truth. He did not dare, undoubtedly in fear of public opinion, certainly also in fear of betraying all the High Command, General De Boisdeffre, General Gonse, not mentioning those of lower rank. Therefore there was only one minute of conflict between his conscience and what he believed to be the military’s interest. Once this minute had passed, it was already too late. He had engaged, he was compromised. And, since then, his responsibility only grew, he took responsibility for the crimes of others, he became as guilty as the others, he was guiltier than them, because he was the Master of justice, and he did nothing. Understand that! Here for a year General Billot, General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse have known that Dreyfus is innocent, and they kept this appalling thing to themselves! And these people sleep at night, and they have women and children whom they love!

Major Picquart had fulfilled his duty as an honest man. He insisted to his superiors, in the name of justice. He even begged them, he said to them how much their times were ill-advised, in front of the terrible storm which was to pour down, which was to burst, when the truth would be known. It was, later, the language that Mr. Scheurer-Kestner also used with General Billot, entreating him with patriotism to take the affair in hand, not to let it worsen, on the verge of becoming a public disaster. No! The crime had been committed, the High Command could no longer acknowledge its crime. And Major Picquart was sent on a mission, one that took him farther and farther away, as far as Tunisia, where there was not even a day to honour his bravery, charged with a mission which would have surely ended in massacre, in the frontiers where Marquis de Morès met his death. He was not in disgrace, General Gonse maintained a friendly correspondence with him. It is only about secrets he was not good to have discovered.

To Paris, the truth inexorably marched, and it is known how the awaited storm burst. Mr. Mathieu Dreyfus denounced commander Esterhazy as the true author of the memo just as Mr. Scheurer-Kestner demanded a revision of the case to the Minister of Justice. And it is here that commander Esterhazy appears. Testimony shows him initially thrown into a panic, ready for suicide or escape. Then, at a blow, he acted with audacity, astonishing Paris by the violence of his attitude. It is then that help had come to him, he had received an anonymous letter informing him of the work of his enemies, a mysterious lady had come under cover of night to return a stolen evidence against him to the High Command, which would save him. And I cannot help but find Major Paty de Clam here, considering his fertile imagination. His work, Dreyfus’s culpability, was in danger, and he surely wanted to defend his work. The retrial was the collapse of such an extravagant novella, so tragic, whose abominable outcome takes place in Devil’s Island! This is what he could not allow. Consequently, a duel would take place between Major Picquart and Major Du Paty de Clam, one with face uncovered, the other masked. They will soon both be found before civil justice. In the end, it was always the High Command that defended itself, that did not want to acknowledge its crime; the abomination grew hour by hour.

One wondered with astonishment who were protecting commander Esterhazy. It was initially, in the shadows, Major Du Paty de Clam who conspired all and conducted all. His hand was betrayed by its absurd means. Then, it was General De Boisdeffre, it was General Gonse, it was General Billot himself, who were obliged to discharge the commander, since they cannot allow recognition of Dreyfus’s innocence without the department of war collapsing under public contempt. And the beautiful result of this extraordinary situation is that the honest man there, Major Picquart, who only did his duty, became the victim of ridicule and punishment. O justice, what dreadful despair grips the heart! One might just as well say that he was the forger, that he manufactured the carte-télegramme to convict Esterhazy. But, good God! why? with what aim? give a motive. Is he also paid by the Jews? The joke of the story is that he was in fact an anti-Semite. Yes! we attend this infamous spectacle, of the lost men of debts and crimes upon whom one proclaims innocence, while one attacks honor, a man with a spotless life! When a society does this, it falls into decay.

Here is thus, Mr. President, the Esterhazy affair: a culprit whose name it was a question of clearing. For almost two months, we have been able to follow hour by hour the beautiful work. I abbreviate, because it is not here that a summary of the history’s extensive pages will one day be written out in full. We thus saw General De Pellieux, then the commander of Ravary, lead an investigation in which the rascals are transfigured and decent people are dirtied. Then, the council of war was convened.

⁂

How could one hope that a council of war would demolish what a council of war had done?

I do not even mention the always possible choice of judges. Isn’t the higher idea of discipline, which is in the blood of these soldiers, enough to cancel their capacity for equity? Who says discipline breeds obedience? When the Minister of War, the overall chief, established publicly, with the acclamations of the national representation, the authority of the final decision; you want a council of war to give him a formal denial? Hierarchically, that is impossible. General Billot influenced the judges by his declaration, and they judged as they must under fire, without reasoning. The preconceived opinion that they brought to their seats, is obviously this one: “Dreyfus was condemned for crime of treason by a council of war, he is thus guilty; and we, a council of war, cannot declare him innocent, for we know that to recognize Esterhazy’s guilt would be to proclaim the innocence of Dreyfus.” Nothing could make them leave that position.

They delivered an iniquitous sentence that will forever weigh on our councils of war, sullying all their arrests from now with suspicion. The first council of war could have been foolish; the second was inevitably criminal. Its excuse, I repeat it, was that the supreme chief had spoken, declaring the thing considered to be unassailable, holy and higher than men, so that inferiors could not say the opposite. One speaks to us about the honor of the army, that we should like it, respect it. Ah! admittedly, yes, the army which would rise to the first threat, which would defend the French ground, it is all the people, and we have for it only tenderness and respect. But it is not a question of that, for which we precisely want dignity, in our need for justice. It is about the sword, the Master that one will give us tomorrow perhaps. And do not kiss devotedly the handle of the sword, by god!

I have shown in addition: the Dreyfus affair was the affair of the department of war, a High Command officer, denounced by his comrades of the High Command, condemned under the pressure of the heads of the High Command. Once again, it cannot restore his innocence without all the High Command being guilty. Also the offices, by all conceivable means, by press campaigns, by communications, by influences, protected Esterhazy only to convict Dreyfus a second time. What sweeping changes should the republican government should give to this [Jesuitery], as General Billot himself calls it! Where is the truly strong ministry of wise patriotism that will dare to reforge and to renew all? What of people I know who, faced with the possibility of war, tremble of anguish knowing in what hands lies national defense! And what a nest of base intrigues, gossips and dilapidations has this crowned asylum become, where the fate of fatherland is decided! One trembles in face of the terrible day that there has just thrown the Dreyfus affair, this human sacrifice of an unfortunate, a “dirty Jew”! Ah! all that was agitated insanity there and stupidity, imaginations insane, practices of low police force, manners of inquisition and tyranny, good pleasure of some non-commissioned officers putting their boots on the nation, returning in its throat its cry of truth and justice, under the lying pretext and sacrilege of the reason of State.

And it is a yet another crime to have [pressed on ?] the filthy press, to have let itself defend by all the rabble of Paris, so that the rabble triumphs insolently in defeat of law and simple probity. It is a crime to have accused those who wished for a noble France, at the head of free and just nations, of troubling her, when one warps oneself the impudent plot to impose the error, in front of the whole world. It is a crime to mislay the opinion, to use for a spiteful work this opinion, perverted to the point of becoming delirious. It is a crime to poison the small and the humble, to exasperate passions of reaction and intolerance, while taking shelter behind the odious antisemitism, from which, if not cured, the great liberal France of humans rights will die. It is a crime to exploit patriotism for works of hatred, and it is a crime, finally, to turn into to sabre the modern god, when all the social science is with work for the nearest work of truth and justice.

This truth, this justice, that we so passionately wanted, what a distress to see them thus souffletées, more ignored and more darkened! I suspect the collapse which must take place in the heart of Mr. Scheurer-Kestner, and I believe well that he will end up feeling remorse for not having acted revolutionarily, the day of questioning at the Senate, by releasing all the package, [for all to throw to bottom]. He was the great honest man, the man of his honest life, he believed that the truth sufficed for itself, especially when it seemed as bright as the full day. What good is to turn all upside down when the sun was soon to shine? And it is for this trustful neutrality for which he is so cruelly punished. The same for Major Picquart, who, for a feeling of high dignity, did not want to publish the letters of General Gonse. These scruples honour it more especially as, while there remained respectful discipline, its superiors covered it with mud, informed themselves its lawsuit, in the most unexpected and outrageous manner. There are two victims, two good people, two simple hearts, who waited for God while the devil acted. And one even saw, for Major Picquart, this wretched thing: a French court, after having let the rapporteur charge a witness publicly, to show it of all the faults, made the closed door, when this witness was introduced to be explained and defend himself. I say that this is another crime and that this crime will stir up universal conscience. Decidedly, the military tribunals have a singular idea of justice.

Such is thus the simple truth, Mr. President, and it is appalling, it will remain a stain for your presidency. I very much doubt that you have no capacity in this affair, that you are the prisoner of the Constitution and your entourage. You do not have of them less one to have of man, about which you will think, and which you will fulfill. It is not, moreover, which I despair less of the world of the triumph. I repeat it with a more vehement certainty: the truth marches on and nothing will stop it. Today, the affair merely starts, since today only the positions are clear: on the one hand, the culprits who do not want the light to come; the other, the carriers of justice who will give their life to see it come. I said it elsewhere, and I repeat it here: when one locks up the truth under ground, it piles up there, it takes there a force such of explosion, that, the day when it bursts, it makes everything leap out with it. We will see, if we do not prepare for later, the most resounding of disasters.

But this letter is long, Mr. President, and it is time to conclude.

I accuse Major Du Paty de Clam as the diabolic workman of the miscarriage of justice, without knowing, I have wanted to believe it, and of then defending his harmful work, for three years, by the guiltiest and most absurd of machinations.

I accuse General Mercier of being an accomplice, if by weakness of spirit, in one of greatest iniquities of the century.

I accuse General Billot of having held in his hands the unquestionable evidence of Dreyfus’s innocence and of suppressing it, guilty of this crime that injures humanity and justice, with a political aim and to save the compromised Chie of High Command.

I accuse General De Boisdeffre and General Gonse as accomplices of the same crime, one undoubtedly by clerical passion, the other perhaps by this spirit of body which makes offices of the war an infallible archsaint.

I accuse General De Pellieux and commander Ravary of performing a rogue investigation, by which I mean an investigation of the most monstrous partiality, of which we have, in the report of the second, an imperishable monument of naive audacity.

I accuse the three handwriting experts, sirs Belhomme, Varinard and Couard, of submitting untrue and fraudulent reports, unless a medical examination declares them to be affected by a disease of sight and judgment.

I accuse the offices of the war of carrying out an abominable press campaign, particularly in the Flash and the Echo of Paris, to mislead the public and cover their fault.

Finally, I accuse the first council of war of violating the law by condemning a defendant with unrevealed evidence, and I accuse the second council of war of covering up this illegality, by order, by committing in his turn the legal crime of knowingly discharging the culprit.

While proclaiming these charges, I am not unaware of subjecting myself to articles 30 and 31 of the press law of July 29, 1881, which punishes the offense of slander. And it is voluntarily that I expose myself.

As for the people I accuse, I do not know them, I never saw them, I have against them neither resentment nor hatred. To me, they are only entities, spirits of social evil. And the act I am hereby accomplishing is only a revolutionary means to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.

I have only one passion, that of the light, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My ignited protest is nothing more than the cry of my heart. So may one dare bring me to criminal court, and may the investigation take place in broad daylight!

I am waiting.

Please accept, Mr. President, the assurance of my deep respect.

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, dreyfus, france, otdimjh, zola | 1 Comment

12 January 1978 Groundbreaking Jewish-Christian relations declaration in Germany #otdimjh

Posted on January 12, 2016 by richardsh

The Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland, a leading voice within the EKD, proposes steps for the construction of a new relationship between Christians and Jews. These groundbreaking theses lack only one thing – the recognition, invitation and inclusion of Messianic Jews. In terms of their theological depth and sensitivity to the past, their desire to change in asymetric relationship between German Christians and Jews, and their prophetic expectation of a new era of Jewish-Christian relations, they are a landmark on the way to mutual acceptance, understanding and inter-relationships.

Synod of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland, Germany Statement (January 12, 1978/1980) Rhineland, Germany Statement (January 12, 1978/1980)	Synodalbeschluss und Thesenverabschiedet von der Synode der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland 1980

Towards Renovation of the Relationship of Christians and Jews	„Zur Erneuerung des Verhältnisses von Christen und Juden“
Thou bearest not the root, but the root thee (Rom. 11:18b).1. According to its “Message to the Congregations concerning the Dialogue between Christians and Jews” (12 January 1978) the Synod of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland accepts the historical necessity of attaining a new relationship of the church to the Jewish people.	Nicht du trägst die Wurzel, sondern die Wurzel trägt dich. Römer 11,18 bIn Übereinstimmung mit dem “Wort an die Gemeinden zum Gespräch zwischen Christen und Juden” der Landessynode der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland vom 12. Januar 1978 stellt sich die Landessynode der geschichtlichen Notwendigkeit, ein neues Verhältnis der Kirche zum jüdischen Volk zu gewinnen.
2. The church is brought to this by four factors:	Vier Gründe veranlassen die Kirche dazu:

1) The recognition of Christian co-responsibility and guilt for the Holocaust–the defamation, persecution and murder of the Jews in the Third Reich.	Die Erkenntnis christlicher Mitverantwortung und Schuld an dem Holocaust, der Verfemung, Verfolgung und Ermordung der Juden im Dritten Reich.
2) The new biblical insights concerning the continuing significance of the Jewish people within the history of God (e.g. Rom. 9-11), which have been attained in connection with the struggle of the Confessing Church.	Neue biblische Einsichten über die bleibende heilsgeschichtliche Bedeutung Israels (z.B. Röm. 9-11), die im Zusammenhang mit dem Kirchenkampf gewonnnen worden sind.
3) The insight that the continuing existence of the Jewish people, its return to the Land of Promise, and also the foundation of the state of Israel, are signs of the faithfulness of God towards his people (cf. the study “Christians and Jews” III, 2+3).	Die Einsicht, daß die fortdauernde Existenz des jüdischen Volkes, seine Heimkehr in das Land der Verheißung und auch die Errichtung des Staates Israel Zeichen der Treue Gottes gegenüber seinem Volk sind (vgl. Studie “Christen und Juden” III, 2 und 3).
4) The readiness of Jews, in spite of the Holocaust, to (engage in) encounter, common study and cooperation.	Die Bereitschaft von Juden zu Begegnung, gemeinsamem Lernen und Zusammenarbeit trotz des Holocaust.
3. The Synod welcomes the study “Christians and Jews” of the Council of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) and the supplementary and more precise “Theses on the Renewal of the Relationship of Christians and Jews” of the Committee “Christians and Jews” of the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland.	Die Landessynode begrüßt die Studie “Christen und Juden” des Rates der Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland und die ergänzenden und präzisierenden “Thesen zur Erneuerung des Verhältnisses von Christen und Juden” des Ausschusses “Christen und Juden” der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland.

The Synod receives both thankfully and recommends to all congregations that the study and the theses be made the starting point of an intensive work on Judaism and the foundation of a new consciousness of the relationship of the church to the Jewish people.	Die Landessynode nimmt beide dankbar entgegen und empfiehlt allen Gemeinden, die Studie und die Thesen zum Ausgangspunkt einer intensiven Beschäftigung mit dem Judentum und zur Grundlage einer Neubesinnung über das Verhältnis der Kirche zu Israel zu machen.
4. In consequence the Synod declares:	Deshalb erklärt die Landessynode:
1) We confess with dismay the co-responsibility and guilt of German Christendom for the Holocaust (cf. Thesis I).	Wir bekennen betroffen die Mitverantwortung und Schuld der Christenheit in Deutschland am Holocaust (vgl. Thesen I).
2) We confess thankfully the “Scriptures” (Luke 24:32+45; 1 Cor. 15:3f.), our Old Testament, to be the common foundation for the faith and work of Jews and Christians (cf. Thesis II).	Wir bekennen uns dankbar zu den “Schriften” (Lk. 24, 32 und 45; 1. Kor. 15, 3 f.), unserem Alten Testament, als einer gemeinsamen Grundlage für Glauben und Handeln von Juden und Christen (vgl. Thesen II).

3) We confess Jesus Christ the Jew, who as the Messiah of Israel is the Saviour of the world and binds the peoples of the world to the people of God (cf. Thesis III).	Wir bekennen uns zu Jesus Christus, dem Juden, der als Messias Israels der Retter der Welt ist und die Völker der Welt mit dem Volk Gottes verbindet (vgl. Thesen III).
4) We believe the permanent election of the Jewish people as the people of God and realize that through Jesus Christ the church is taken into the covenant of God with his people (cf. Thesis IV).	Wir glauben die bleibende Erwählung des jüdischen Volkes als Gottes Volk underkennen, daß die Kirche durch Jesus Christus in den Bund Gottes mit seinem Volk hineingenommen ist (vgl. Thesen IV).
5) We believe with the Jews that the unity of righteousness and love characterizes God’s work of salvation in history. We believe with the Jews that righteousness and love are the commands of God for our whole life. As Christians we see both rooted and grounded in the work of God withIsraeland in the work of God through Jesus Christ (cf. Thesis V).	Wir glauben mit den Juden, daß die Einheit von Gerechtigkeit und Liebe das geschichtliche Heilshandeln Gottes kennzeichnet. Wir glauben mit den Juden Gerechtigkeit und Liebe als Weisungen Gottes für unser ganzes Leben. Wir sehen als Christen beides im Handeln Gottes in Israel und im Handeln Gottes in Jesus Christus begründet (vgl.Thesen V).
6) We believe that in their respective calling Jews and Christians are witnesses of God before the world and before each other. Therefore we are convinced that the church may not express its witness towards the Jewish people as it does its mission to the peoples of the world (cf. Thesis VI).	Wir glauben, daß Juden und Christen je in ihrer Beerufung Zeugen Gottes vor der Welt und voreinander sind; darum sind wir überzeugt, daß die Kirche ihr Zeugnis dem jüdischen Volk gegenüber nicht wie ihre Mission an die Völkerwelt wahrnehmen kann (vgl. Thesen VI).
7) Therefore we declare: Throughout centuries the word “new” has been used in biblical exegesis against the Jewish people: the new covenant was understood in contrast to the old covenant, the new people of God as replacement of the old people of God. This disrespect to the permanent election of the Jewish people and its condemnation to non-existence marked Christian theology, the preaching and work of the church again and again right to the present day. Thereby we have made ourselves guilty also of the physical elimination of the Jewish people.	Wir stellen darum fest: Durch Jahrhunderte wurde das Wort “neu” in der Bibelauslegung gegen das jüdische Volk gerichtet: Der neue Bund wurde als Gegensatz zum alten Bund, das neue Gottesvolk als Ersetzung des alten Gottesvolkes verstanden. Diese Nichtachtung der bleibenden Erwählung Israels und seine Verurteilung zur Nichtexistenz haben immer wieder christliche Theologie, kirchliche Predigt und kirchliches Handeln bis heute gekennzeichnet. Dadurch haben wir uns auch an der physischen Auslöschung des jüdischen Volkes schuldig gemacht.
Therefore, we want to perceive the unbreakable connection of the New Testament with the Old Testament in a new way, and learn to understand the relationship of the “old” and “new” from the standpoint of the promise: in the framework of the given promise, the fulfilled promise and the confirmed promise. “New” means therefore no replacement of the “old”. Hence we deny that the people Israel has been rejected by God or that it has been superseded by the church.	Wir wollen deshalb den unslösbaren Zusammenhang des Neuen Testaments mit dem Alten Testament neu sehen und das Verhältnis von “alt” und “neu” von der Verheißung her verstehen lernen: als Ergehen der Verheißung, Erfüllen der Verheißung und Bekräftigung der Verheißung; “Neu” bedeutet darum nicht die Ersetzung des “Alten”. Darum verneinen wir, daß das Volk Israel von Gott verworfen oder von der Kirche überholt sei.
8) As we repent and convert we begin to discover the common confession and witness of Christians and Jews:We both confess and witness God as the creator of heaven and earth, and know that we live our everyday life in the world blessed by the same God by means of the blessing of Aaron.We both confess and witness the common hope in a new heaven and a new earth and the spiritual power of this messianic hope for the witness and work of Christians and Jews for justice and peace in the world.	Indem wir umkehren, beginnen wir zu entdecken, was Christen und Juden gemeinsam bekennen:Wir bekennen beide Gott als den Schöpfer des Himmels und der Erde und wissen, daß wir als von demselben Gott durch den aaronitischen Segen Ausgezeichnete im Alltag der Welt leben.Wir bekennen die gemeinsame Hoffnung eines neuen Himmels und einer neuen Erde und die Kraft dieser messianischen Hoffnung für das Zeugnis und das Handeln von Christen und Juden für Gerechtigkeit und Frieden in der Welt.
5. The Synod recommends to all district synods to appoint someone representative of the Synod responsible for Christian-Jewish dialogue The Synod commissions the leading board of the church to constitute anew a committee “Christians and Jews” and to invite Jews to work within this committee. It is to advise the church leadership in all questions concerning the relationship of the church and Jewry and to assist the congregations and church districts towards a deeper understanding of the new standpoint in the relationship of Jews and Christians.	Die Landessynode empfiehlt den Kreissynoden die Berufung eines Synodalbeauftragten für das christlich-jüdische Gespräch.Die Landessynode beauftragt die Kirchenleitung, erneut einen Ausschuß “Christen und Juden” einzurichten und Juden um ihre Mitarbeit in diesem Ausschuß zu bitten. Er soll die Kirchenleitung in allen das Verhältnis von Kirche und Judentum betreffenden Fragen beraten und Gemeinden und Kirchenkreise zu einem vertieften Verständnis des Neuansatzes im Verhältnis von Juden und Christen verhelfen. und bittet die Kirchenleitung, in diesem Sinne mit der Kirchlichen Hochschule Wuppertal und mit der Gesamthochschule Wuppertal zu verhandeln.
The Synod commissions the leading body of the church to consider in what form the Evangelical Church of the Rhineland can undertake a special responsibility for the Christian settlement Nes Ammim in Israel, as other churches (e.g. in the Netherlands and in the German Federal Republic).	Die Landessynode beauftragt die Kirchenleitung, zu prüfen, in welcher Form die Evangelische Kirche im Rheinland eine besondere Mitverantwortung für die christliche Siedlung Nes Ammim in Israel so übernehmen kann, wie dies andere Kirchen (z.B. in den Niederlanden und in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland) bereits tun.
The Synod commissions the leading body of the church to see to it that in the church instruction, in the continuing education, and in the advanced education of the church the matter of “Christians and Jews” shall be appropriately paid attention to.	Die Landessynode beauftragt die Kirchenleitung, dafür zu sorgen, daß das Thema Christen und Juden in der kirchlichen Aus-, Fort- und Weiterbildung angemessen berücksichtigt wird.
The Synod considers it desirable that a regular teaching post (lecture ship) with the thematic “Theology, Philosophy and History of Judaism” shall be established in the Wuppertal Theological Seminary and the University of Wuppertal, and requests the church leadership to negotiate with these institutions to this end	Die Landessynode hält es für wünschenswert, daß an der Kirchlichen Hochschule Wuppertal und an der Gesamthochschule Wuppertal ein regelmäßiger Lehrauftrag mit der Thematik “Theologie, Philosophie und Geschichte des Judentums” wahrgenommen wird, und bittet die Kirchenleitung, in diesem Sinne mit der Kirchlichen Hochschule Wuppertal und mit der Gesamthochschule Wuppertal zu verhandeln

—–
Extract from: Zur Erneuerung des Verhältnisses von Christen und Juden. Handreichung der Evangelischen Kirche im Rheinland, Düsseldorf, 1980. English translation: F. Littell, revised by R. Rendtorff.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the good work that has been done to renew, reconcile and restore Jewish-Christian relationships in Germany since the Holocaust. May that work continue, deepening in love, in prayer and in theological reflection. May Church and Jewish people have courage and faith also to include Messianic Jews, the prophetic sign of the re-uniting of Church and Israel, and the missing link between the two. In our Messiah’s name we pray. Amen.

http://www.ekir.de/ekir/dokumente/LS2005-04AnlageIV-DS02-Christen-und-Juden.pdf

CHRISTIAN ZIONISM AMONG EVANGELICALS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY:Willem Laurens Hornstrahttp://gc.uofn.edu/files/journals/1/Resources/WillemHornstraPhDdissertation.pdf

http://www.sacredheart.edu/faithservice/centerforchristianandjewishunderstanding/documentsandstatements/synodoftheevangelicalchurchoftherhinelandgermanystatementjanuary1219781980/

http://www.ekd.de/international/judentum/index.html

http://www.ekd.de/download/christen_und_juden_I-III.pdf

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, ekd, otdimjh | 1 Comment

11 January 1929 Mortara controversy over Jewish child kidnapped and raised as Roman Catholic #otdimjh

Posted on January 11, 2016 by richardsh

From Simon Mayer’s blog

Cecil Roth, Arthur Day and the Mortara Affair

In June 1929, Father Arthur Day, an English Jesuit, the Vice-President of the Catholic Guild of Israel,and author of several booklets and articles on converting the Jews, published an article on the Mortara Affair in the The Month (the periodical of the English Jesuits). The Mortara Affair was an incident in which a six year old Jewish child, Edgardo Mortara, was forcibly removed from his family in 1858 by the Carabinieri (the military police of the Papal States), placed in the care of the Church, and later adopted by Pius IX. This was because a Catholic maid (Anna Morisi), afraid that Edgardo was about to die, illicitly baptised him – or at least claimed to have done so. Years later she revealed this to Father Feletti, the inquisitor in Bologna. The matter was referred to the Holy Office, which declared that the baptism was valid, and that according to papal law the boy must thus be removed from his family and brought to the House of the Catechumens in Rome. He was raised as a Roman Catholic and later became a Catholic priest. For a detailed examination of the Mortara Affair as it unfolded in the 1850s, see the following excellent book by Professor David Kertzer: The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara. For Arthur Day‘s article in the Month, see: Arthur F. Day, “The Mortara Case,” Month, CLIII (June 1929): 500-509.

Representation of the abduction by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim (1800-1882). See Maya Benton’s article(link)

Father Day wrote his article about the Mortara Affair after a heated altercation on the subject of forced baptisms with the prominent Anglo-Jewish scholar, Cecil Roth, in the pages of the Jewish Guardian. Cecil Roth had presented a lecture at the Jewish Historical Society of England in December 1928 on “the Last Phase in Spain.” According to theJewish Chronicle, Roth discussed the persecution of Jews in Spain at the end of the fourteenth century, the institution of the Spanish Inquisition, and the expulsion from Spain in 1492. Roth explained that a series of massacres in 1391 sapped the will of the Jews in Spain, and that “the number of those killed in these massacres was as nothing compared with the number of those who submitted to mass conversion in order to save their lives.” “Jewish History in Spain,” Jewish Chronicle, 14 December 1928, 10.

Father Day attended Roth’s lecture and a heated debate apparently ensued between them on the subject of forced baptisms (according to the Jewish Guardian, Day raised objections to Roth’s “historiography”; Day denied this, stating that he was not “conscious of having objected to the lecturer’s ‘historiography,’” but rather simply asked Roth a “few questions” which “resulted in a friendly argument”). “Dr. Cecil Roth and Father Day,”Jewish Guardian, 28 December 1928, 12, and Letter from Arthur F. Day to the Editor, dated 31 December 1928, Jewish Guardian, 4 January 1929, 4.

Jewish Guardian: 28 December 1928, p.12 and 4 January 1929, p.4.

After the lecture, Day wrote a letter to Cecil Roth, dated 13 December 1928. His letter explained that whilst under normal circumstances (“cases less urgent”), the permission of the parents must be obtained before baptising Jewish children, in the exceptional circumstance in which “an unbaptized person is in danger of death, baptism, which we regard as of primary importance for salvation, should, if possible, be conferred.” Day argued that the Mortara family had “broken the law in having a Catholic servant in their household, and so to some extent they brought the trouble on themselves.” He also invoked a traditional anti-Masonic narrative, claiming that the opposition to Mortara’s removal from his parents was “to a great extent of the anti-Popery and Continental freemason type.” Cecil Roth subsequently published Father Day’s letter (without first asking Day’s permission) in the Jewish Guardian. Letter from Arthur F. Day to Cecil Roth, dated 13 December 1928, Jewish Guardian, 28 December 1928, 12.

After Roth published Father Day’s letter, Day in turn published the rest of the correspondence between them (two letters from Day, dated 21 December and 26 December 1928, and two letters from Roth, dated 23 December and 28 December 1928) in the next issue of the Jewish Guardian. See “Dr. Roth and Father Day: Further Correspondence on the Mortara Case,” Jewish Guardian, 4 January 1929, 4. See alsoLetter from Arthur F. Day to the Editor, dated 14 January 1929, Jewish Guardian, 18 January 1929, 9.

Roth was not impressed by Day’s arguments. In a letter dated 19 December 1928, he noted that the young Mortara was only two or three years of age at the time he was baptized, and that the “ceremony of baptism was a merest travesty, having been performed with ordinary water and by an uneducated servant girl.” In a letter dated 23 December, he stated that he had “no desire nor intention to protract correspondence upon an episode the facts of which are quite clear. Those who, like myself, respect the noble traditions of the Catholic Church can only look forward to the day when this outrage upon humanity will be buried in oblivion.” Whilst Father Day was eager to keep the conversation alive, Roth correctly observed that Day distorted the facts, and that there was therefore little to be gained in continuing the correspondence. After writing his own short essay on the history of forced baptisms and the Mortara Affair, published on 11 January 1929, Roth concluded with the following statement: “I have no intention to protract the correspondence upon this question between myself and Father Day. But it may be noticeden passant that there are curious discrepancies between the singularly unconvincing facts which he cites in the name of the Jewish Encyclopedia and what is to be found in the ordinary editions of that work.” Letter from Cecil Roth to Arthur Day, dated 19 December 1928, Jewish Guardian, 28 December 1928, 12; Letter from Cecil Roth to Arthur Day, dated 23 December 1928, Jewish Guardian, 4 January 1929, 4; Cecil Roth, “Forced Baptisms: A Chapter of Persecution,” Jewish Guardian, 11 January 1929, page 7 and page 8.

Jewish Guardian, 11 January 1929, pp.7-8.

Day subsequently published his article defending the Mortara abduction in The Month in June 1929, informing his readers that it should not be “impossible for Jews to realize the importance we attach to baptism seeing that they, if at all orthodox, regard circumcision as a religious ordinance of the very first rank.” He rejected Roth’s argument that the baptism was a “ridiculous travesty,” noting that “it should occur to anyone at all experienced in historical research that the Sacred Congregation of the Inquisition is a fairly competent body which may be trusted to decide whether a clinical baptism has been correctly performed.” The crux of Day’s argument was that “if an infant is in serious danger of death, theologians teach that it should be baptised even without the consent of the parents.” He clarified that this “apparent overriding of parental rights” was explained and justified by the Catholic belief that “under such circumstances this sacrament is of eternal importance to the child, and to withhold it, when there is the opportunity of bestowing it, would be a violation of the law of charity.” According to Day, it is laid down as a “general rule” that in the instances where this occurs with “Hebrew infants,” with the child having been “validly” even if “illicitly” baptised, then they must be “separated from their relations and educated in the Christian faith. The parents, even though they may make promises, cannot be trusted in such a matter to fulfil them. The injury done to them is not so great as that which would be done to the dying child if the sacrament which opens heaven were withheld.” Father Day observed that “Dr. Cecil Roth persisted in inveighing against the inhumanity of the papal procedure and refused to consider what we might call for the moment, in deference to his view, the extenuating circumstances.” He described his “duel” with Cecil Roth as a “useful object-lesson regarding Jewish mentality when confronted by the Catholic claim.” As he had in his letter dated 13 December 1928, he suggested that the Mortara outcry and agitation was “set on foot” by “Protestants”, “Freemasons” and the “riffraff of the revolutionary parties.” Arthur F. Day, “The Mortara Case,” Month, CLIII (June 1929): 500-509.

On 18 September 1929, Arthur day visited the nearly 80-year old Edgardo Mortara (by then Father Mortara, a member of the Canons Regular of the Lateran) at his “monastic home” just outside Liège. In 1930, he appended an account of this visit to the article he had written for The Month. This was published as a 28-page Catholic Guild of Israel booklet by the Catholic Truth Society. In this, Arthur Day observed that Father Mortara’s “buoyant and enthusiastic temperament is so prone to exult at the memory of the great deliverance and the many graces and favours that followed it, that it is not easy to get from him the sort of information that is dear to reporters. He is so full of fervour and fire that it is difficult for him to adapt himself to a matter-of-fact enquirer. Nobody could be more obliging: his Prior said to me of him, using a French proverb: ‘If it could give pleasure to anyone he would gladly be cut into four.’” Arthur Day recorded that Father Mortara told him that he became a member of his religious order early in his life because he felt that “God has given me such great graces; I must belong entirely to him.” A. F. Day, The Mortara Mystery (Catholic Truth Society, 1930), 17-19. He also wrote to Cecil Roth to present him with a copy of the booklet, and he noted at the end of the booklet that “it is pleasant to record that Dr. Roth … acknowledged the receipt of a copy in a kindly and friendly tone.” Letter from A. F. Day to Dr Roth, “Cecil Roth Letters,” 19 June 1930, held inSpecial Collections, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, File 26220; A. F. Day, The Mortara Mystery, 28.

In 1936, Cecil Roth published a book presenting a short history of the Jewish people. In this book, he mentioned in passing the Mortara Affair. He stated that in 1858, a “wave of indignation swept through Europe by reason of the kidnapping at Bologna (still under Papal rule) of a six-year-old Jewish child, Edgardo Mortara, on the pretext that he had been submitted to some sort of baptismal ceremony by a servant-girl four years previous.” On 2 June 1936, Father Day wrote to Cecil Roth about his short history of the Jewish people, stating that he “found much to admire, but also some portions distinctly less admirable.” Among the bits that Day found “less admirable” was that relating to the Mortara Affair. Day argued that “‘kidnapping’ is not the right word” because “at that time and in that place it was a legal act.” He also stated that the baptism performed by the young Catholic maid was “a valid clinical baptism” and “not a pretext.” It was, he suggested, not merely a pretext for abduction but a genuine reason. Cecil Roth must have replied to Day (letter not found), because Father Day sent him another letter on 10 June 1936, thanking him for acknowledging his letter. In this second letter, Day suggested that it was not a kidnapping because “the Oxford Dictionary … defines ‘kidnapping’ as ‘carrying off a child by illegal force’” (the emphasis by underlining was Father Day’s). Day concluded that “if a modern incident can be so maltreated, what about the poor old Middle Ages!” Cecil Roth, A Short History of the Jewish People (London: Macmillan and Company, 1936), 378; Letters from A. F. Day to Dr Roth, “Cecil Roth Letters,” 2 June 1936 (with attached note) and 10 June 1936, held in Special Collections, Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, File 26220.

In 1953, Cecil Roth returned to the Mortara Affair. He noted that “Modern apologists endeavoured to justify what occurred by calling attention to the breach of the law committed by the Mortara family in having a Christian servant in their employment at all, and by pointing out that on the capture of Rome twelve years later, after having been sedulously kept away from all Jewish influence during the most impressionable years of his life, Edgardo Mortara neglected the opportunity to return to his ancestral faith.” Roth referred to the controversy with Father Day which began in 1928, observing that Day later wrote to him in response to his A Short History of the Jewish People (i.e. Day’s letter of 2 June 1936), “indignantly protesting against my statement that Edgardo Mortara was ‘kidnapped.’” Roth was understandably surprised and frustrated that Father Day believed it was in any sense a creditable defence of the kidnapping that the six-year-old Edgardo Mortara, as a result of being illicitly baptised as a baby by a servant girl, had been “removed from his parents’ custody by process of the law!” Cecil Roth,Personalities and Events in Jewish History (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1953), 273-274.

Postscript (October 2014): The Tablet‘s Response to the Mortara Affair

Supported by a research grant from the Vidal Sassoon International Centre for the Study of Antisemitism, I have been investigating antisemitic representations of “the Jew” in the main English Catholic newspapers and magazines (e.g. the Tablet, the Rambler, theCatholic Times and the Month) during the second half of the nineteenth century. During this investigation, I discovered several letters, articles and editorials in the Tablet (the most prominent English Catholic newspaper at the time) in 1858 and 1859, and sporadically in subsequent years, which discussed the Mortara case. In these, the Tabletand its readers did not merely fail to protest against the Mortara abduction, they actually supported it. The Tablet agreed with ultramontane journalists in Europe that six year old Edgardo Mortara, having been baptized as a baby, was no longer a Jew but a Christian. The critical issue according to the Tablet was the rights of the child and a Christian soul. It was necessary, the Tabletconcluded, to remove Mortara from his parents in order to protect his body and soul from violence. TheTablet implied that the Jewish parents would imperil a precious Christian soul by raising Edgardo as a Jew, and worse, out of hatred for everything Christian, physically harm and endanger him. Incredibly, theTablet regarded it as entirely plausible that Edgardo, though only six years old, had freely left his parents and embraced Christianity and the Catholic Catechism, and had a right to be protected against his parents in his so-called free “choice” of religion. I have written an essay about the Tablet’s response to the Mortara Affair which has been accepted for publication by the Journal for the Study of Antisemitism(forthcoming).

The above post from Simon Mayers reminds us of the murky circumstances of so much Christian treatment of Jews and Judaism throughout the centuries, and even today. Lord have mercy!

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, mortara, otdimjh | 2 Comments

10 January 1884 Death of Marie-Théodor Ratisbonne, co-founder of the Sisters of Zion #otdimjh

Posted on January 10, 2016 by richardsh

From Catholic Encyclopaedia Online

Marie-Théodor Ratisbonne, N.D.S., (December 28, 1802 – January 10, 1884) was a noted Jewish convert to the Roman Catholic Church, who became a priest and missionary and who later founded the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion. He was the brother of Maria Alphonse Ratisbonne, who joined him in this effort.

Centre Chrétien d’Études Juives (CCEJ)

The Congregation of Our Lady of Sion (French: Congrégation de Notre-Dame de Sion, abbreviated by its members as N.D.S.) is composed of two Roman Catholic religious congregations founded in Paris, France. One is composed of Catholic priests and Religious Brothers, founded in 1852, and another of Religious Sisters, founded in 1843, both by Maria Theodor Ratisbonne, along with his brother Marie-Alphonse Ratisbonne, “to witness in the Church and in the world that God continues to be faithful in his love for the Jewish people and to hasten the fulfilment of the promises concerning the Jews and the Gentiles.” (Constitution, article 2).[1]

A distinguished preacher and writer, and director of the Archconfraternity of Christian Mothers, b. of Jewish parentage at Strasburg, 28 Dec., 1802; d. in Paris, 10 Jan. 1884. He was raised in luxury, was educated at the Royal College of his native city, and at the age of manhood, was considered a leader among his people, who unanimously elected him to replace Samson Libermann when the latter was converted in 1824.

The conversion of his three friends, Emil Dreyfus, Alfred Mayer, and Samson Libermann, caused him to study the Bible and the history of the Church. For two years the work of grace went on within him, and finally he was baptized in 1826. He entered the seminary, and received Holy orders in 1830. He worked in his native diocese until 1840, when he became sub-director of the Confraternity of Notre Dame des Victoires at Paris. It was whilst in this city, in 1842, that his brother Alphonse, a free-thinker animated with greatest hatred against Christianity, was miraculously converted [through a vision of Mary] at Rome, and suggested to him to secure a home for the education of Jewish children.

Providence seemed to design him for the work, and answered his prayer for light by sending him the two daughters of a Jewish lady whom he subsequently converted. During the same summer he went to Rome; Gregory XVI decorated him a Knight of St. Sylvester, complimented him for his “Life of St. Bernard”, and granted his request to labour for the conversion of the Jews. Houses were opened under the patronage of “Our Lady of Sion” for the Christian education of Jewish boys and girls. Pius IX gave Ratisbonne many marks of his affection, and Leo XIII appointed him proto-notary Apostolic. At his death he received the last Sacraments from the Archbishop of Paris, and the final blessing from Leo XIII.

His chief works are: “Essai sur l’Education Morale” (1828); “Histoire de Saint-Bernard” (1841); “Méditations de Saint-Bernard sur le Présent et Futur” (1853); “Le Manuel de la Mère Chrétienne” (1860); “Questions Juives” (1868); “Nouveau Manuel des Mères Chrétiennes” (1870); “Le Pape” (1870); “Miettes Evangéliques” (1872); “Réponse aux Questions d’un Israélite de Notre Temps” (1878).

The Sisters of Sion changed their position and theology in the light of the Shoah, anticipating the changes in the Catholic Church in Vatican 2. This is described below by Emma Green, and the articles of Charlotte Klein. This change in the position of the order does not minimise or ignore the vision and contribution of the original founders, but seeks to build on it in more appropriate ways, which Messianic Jews will find both positive and negative, as has been the experience of this writer. For the life, vision, calling and works of service of the Ratisbonne brothers we give thanks.

“Rejoice, O daughter of Zion: for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord.

“And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people: and I will dwell in the midst of thee, and thou shalt know that the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto thee.” [Zech. 2:10–11]

Thank you Lord for the calling and commitment of the Ratisbonne brothers to the Messiah and his people. Help us to learn to serve as they did, and to explore ways today in which we can be relevant and servant hearted among your people Israel. In our Messiah’s name we pray. Amen.

Sources

The Jewish Encyclopedia, X; Currier, History of Religious Orders; Vapereau, Dictionnaire des Contemporains; Larousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel; Hogan, Irish Monthly, XII; M. Th. Ratisbonne (Paris, 1904)

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12659b.htm

http://www.notredamedesion.org/en/page.php?id=3&T=1

http://www.ndsion.edu/mission/faith-life.cfml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marie_Theodor_Ratisbonne

http://www.sistersofourladyofsion.org/

http://www.liberius.net/livres/Les_Peres_Ratisbonne_et_Notre-Dame_de_Sion_000000211.pdf

The name of the institute, which is rather long – Christian Centre for Jewish Studies; St. Pierre de Sion (Ratisbonne) – describes its aim. The last part “St.Pierre de Sion (Ratisbonne)” expresses its continuity with the original foundation – the Religious of Notre Dame de Sion. The Fathers of Notre Dame de Sion together with the Sisters founded the institute St. Pierre de Sion, which is now a centre for Jewish Studies. The name “Ratisbonne” recalls the founding fathers of the two religious communities. It is well known that they were Jews who became Catholic priests and founded the Congregations of Our Lady of Sion whose apostolic thrust was originally the conversion of the Jews. However, keeping the name Ratisbonne does not mean carrying on the original aim of conversions. This has been explicitly removed from the Constitutions of both groups and, precisely because they have rejected it, they do not wish either to forget or disguise that original aim which has undergone radical change. It is a question of recognising that we are heirs of a past of which we accept the consequences in order to make amends for mistakes, retain its values and adapt them for a new era. These include an esteem for the Word of God in Scripture, love for the Jewish People, participating in their sorrows and joy, struggling against anti-Semitism. Absent in the past was an appreciation of Jewish religious life, of the mission and witness of the Jewish people, of their fidelity to the covenant, of their authentic seeking after God through study, prayer and the commandments, of their return to God and to Zion in repentance and their expectation of the Messiah. We are constantly reminded of this past and of. the need to change at Ratisbonne. We much prefer a few difficulties from time to time with some Jewish friends rather than to forget or disown the past (1).

http://www.notredamedesion.org/en/dialogue_docs.php?a=3b&id=671

English – PDF – 80 KB – NDS – Notre Dame de Sion

http://www.notredamedesion.org/doc/EmmaGreen.docx

Charlotte Klein, NDS, “From Conversion to Dialogue – The Sisters of Sion and the Jews: A Paradigm of Catholic-Jewish Relations?”, Journal of Ecumenical …

Developing Dialogue: The Congregation of Our Lady of Sion and Nostra Aetate, 1945-1969 By Emma Green

The Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Sion was founded in France in 1843 by Theodore Ratisbonne, a Jewish convert to Catholicism. Started as a small teaching community of women in Paris, the Congregation had established a community of women in Jerusalem within a decade and a corresponding men’s congregation in France. The heart of the Jerusalem community still lies in the Ecce Homo convent and Basilica, purposefully built on the Via Dolorosa, along which Jesus is believed to have walked to his crucifixion. At Ecce Homo and all over the world, the sisters fulfill their unique vocation: fostering dialogue between the Jewish people and the Catholic Church.

From the beginning, the main work of the sisters was educating young Muslim, Christian, and Jewish girls, while much of their prayer focused on the conversion of the Jewish people and reparation for their refusal to accept Jesus as the Messiah. However, their approach toward the Jewish people was one of sympathy and understanding, a less common trait in the Church in the nineteenth century. After the Holocaust, internal shifts moved the Order toward their present focus on dialogue. Many of the Sisters were involved in rescue work during the Holocaust, and in the two decades following this heroic effort, the Sisters re-articulated their mission based on their experiences in the rapidly changing 20th century.

Sion’s shift is remarkable, because it pre-dated the Church’s own document on Jewish relations and dialogue, Nostra Aetate, by at least a decade.1 Indeed, in his speech to the Congregation of Our Lady of Sion in January 1964, Cardinal Augustin Bea spoke of the first drafts of Nostra Aetate and the “particular vocation” of Sion that was “more urgently needed than ever.”2 The Congregation of Our Lady of Sion held a distinctive vocation in the Church during a time of significant doctrinal change, and their work for and with the Jewish people is an excellent illustration of efforts at Catholic-Jewish dialogue in the years leading up to the Second Vatican Council.

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9 January 1880 The Jewish Chronicle calls for a History of Jewish believers in Jesus #otdimjh

Posted on January 9, 2016 by richardsh

The Jewish Chronicle calls for a History of Jewish believers in Jesus:

The day has arrived when the history of converted Jews must be written before it is too late to remember the necessary data. Rewards should be granted, the power of money and of science, societies and individuals, should go hand in hand to work for this purpose, and to produce proofs with regard to the amount of Jewish blood which flows through the veins of the present generation.

The full article is to be found here:

My transcription below:

It seems that the time has gone by when a prominent missionary in a large town could become a fruitful topic for conversation. Paul Cassell, who came to this city from Berlin in order to teach the heathen and convert the Jew will therefore pass away very quietly from the minds of our townsmen. His name was not sufficiently powerful to fill the small reformed Church in the Monde Gasse.

Though it was Sunday and the people have no business to keep them away, the attendance was so sparse, that a large number of seats remained unoccupied, and most of the congregation consisted of women belonging to the lower classes. Had such a man as Cassell preached in a Synagogue before a Jewish congregation the building would not have been large enough to hold the crowds who would have flocked thither to hear him, for the Jews have always shown a greater appreciation of religious zeal than the Christians.

It is true it is exceedingly painful for a Jew with a sincerely Jewish heart, to hear a man, who was formally his co-religionist, declare himself to be a true Christian and to see him labouring as a missionary for the Christian religion. Nevertheless it must be acknowledged that a genius like Cassell is always an honour to his former brethren in faith.

Certainly the most important chapter of this history would be that which, concerning Germany, contain the lives of such men has Benfey, Bernhardy and Lehrs as philologists: and of Neander and Emanuel Veith. After these men should be mentioned him who has become a pillar of the reformed Church though he was until the last period of his life a favourite pupil of Ranke the great German historian, and observed the Jewish ceremonial laws. He ate at the table of Jacob Joseph Ettinger, the Rabbi of Berlin and was an ardent admirer of Michael Sacks. How he has altered he, the renowned author of the article, “History of the Jews” in Ersch and Grüber’s great Encyclopaedia of Science. How has his sleak and well-fed appearance changed to that of a sneaking Jesuit. Even his voice is altered, and has become soft and Jesuitical like that of a Protestant preacher. His metamorphosis is simply perfect.

We will return to these 19th century figures on other occasions:

Gottfried Bernhardy (20 March 1800 – 14 May 1875), German philologist and literary historian, was born at Landsberg an der Warthe (now Poland) in the Neumark.

Karl Ludwig Lehrs (January 14, 1802 – June 9, 1878), was a German classical scholar.
Born at Königsberg, he was of Jewish extraction, but in 1822 he converted to Christianity. In 1845 he was appointed professor of ancient Greek philology in Königsberg University, which post he held till his death.

For us today, there is a need to understand the history of Jewish believers in Yeshua, both in the 19th and 20th centuries, as much as in the early centuries of the Messianic movement of antiquity. Who will continue the work of Bernstein and Schonfield today?

Lord, we thank you for the existence of Jewish believers in Yeshua throughout the centuries, but we are often not conscious of the tradition we have received from them. We try to reinvent the wheel, failing to understand the past well enough to avoid making the same mistakes, or prepare adequately for the future. Teach us to number our days, and the days of others, and give us a heart of wisdom to know your will and your plan in our lives. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, jewish chronicle, otdimjh | 2 Comments

8 January 1917 Woodrow Wilson Acknowledges Self-Determination in Middle East #otdimjh

Posted on January 8, 2016 by richardsh

In 1917-18, combined British and Arab forces ended over 400 years of Turkis administration in various parts of the Arab world, including Palestine. The nationalities in these territories, stated Wilson in his famous “Fourteen Points” speech of January 1917, “should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development.”

Wilson’s speech was a triumph of international diplomacy, political rhetoric, and policy-making. By putting on the table of open discussion the aims of the USA in entering the First World War, Wilson created a new environment and process for post-war reconstruction. Whilst the European powers were locked in conflict, and had not stated their real agendas for territorial acquisition, reparations to be imposed on Germany, and their intentions for the dismantling of the Ottoman empire, Woodrow Wilson occupied the high moral ground by linking USA involvement to principles of open agreements, free trade, egalitarianism and self-determination rather than the realpolitik of nation-state competition. His speech paved the way for the formation of the League of Nations and the United Nations.

His opponents thought this both reckless and unrealistic. They had kept their war aims secret and their agreements with one another private. Georges Clémenceau, the French leader, on hearing of the Fourteen points, was said to have sarcastically claimed The good Lord only had ten! (Le bon Dieu n’en avait que dix!). But as a propaganda device it was dropped into Germany, and to encourage the Central Powers to surrender in the expectation of a just settlement. As the only public statement of war aims, it became the basis for the terms of the German surrender at the end of the First World War. In 1919 Wilson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace-making efforts.

In regards to the Middle East and Israel’s (and Arab and Armenian) national aspirations, the 12^th point implied but did not explicitly state a future recognition of such projects:

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of an autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

Who knows the real agenda behind such a statement? The 150-strong team of experts who helped draft the statement left it sufficiently unclear that all or none could claim it referred to them, and the occupying powers could claim they were acting in the interests of such ‘nationalities’ when in reality they were consolidating their own power-bases and interests in the region,

Nevertheless, for the future State of Israel, for a Jewish national homeland in Palestine, and for the future development of Jewish believers in Yeshua and the presence of Messianic Jews back in the Land 2,000 years after the birth of the early church, this was a step in the right direction, and gave encouragement to those seeking a return to the Land to make Aliyah. Of course, as Zionist thinkers such as Ahad Ha’am and Haim Arlosoroffwere already aware, it would compound the problems of Jews and Arabs living alongside one another in Palestine, and create the conditions for inter-generational conflict which both the British mandate and the UN Partition plan failed to solve, and contine up to the present day.

Prayer: Lord, the times and seasons of world history are in your hands. You alone allot the nations their territories, and the whole earth is yours. You laugh at the devices and schemes of kings and powers. Your will cannot be overturned, and you will accomplish your purposes for Israel and all nations. In a world that continues to exhibit violent conflict, denial of justice, and lack of freedom of individual conscience, community identity and reconciliation of nations, creeds and faiths, have mercy upon us, we pray. Help us to seek peace and pursue it, to be instruments of reconciliation, and to show the self-giving and sacrificial love of Yeshua to all. In his name we pray. Amen.

Sources:

http://www.niu.edu/phil/~kapitan/pdf/Self-DeterminationintheIsraeli-PalestinianConflict1995.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Points#Reaction_by_the_Allies

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/wilson14.asp

President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points

8 January, 1918:
President Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points

It will be our wish and purpose that the processes of peace, when they are begun, shall be absolutely open and that they shall involve and permit henceforth no secret understandings of any kind. The day of conquest and aggrandizement is gone by; so is also the day of secret covenants entered into in the interest of particular governments and likely at some unlooked-for moment to upset the peace of the world. It is this happy fact, now clear to the view of every public man whose thoughts do not still linger in an age that is dead and gone, which makes it possible for every nation whose purposes are consistent with justice and the peace of the world to avow nor or at any other time the objects it has in view.

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secure once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealing by the other peoples of the world as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest, and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world’s peace, therefore, is our programme; and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.
A free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity to autonomous development.
Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea; and the relations of the several Balkan states to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan states should be entered into.

XII. The turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small states alike.

In regard to these essential rectifications of wrong and assertions of right we feel ourselves to be intimate partners of all the governments and peoples associated together against the Imperialists. We cannot be separated in interest or divided in purpose. We stand together until the end.

For such arrangements and covenants we are willing to fight and to continue to fight until they are achieved; but only because we wish the right to prevail and desire a just and stable peace such as can be secured only by removing the chief provocations to war, which this programme does remove. We have no jealousy of German greatness, and there is nothing in this programme that impairs it. We grudge her no achievement or distinction of learning or of pacific enterprise such as have made her record very bright and very enviable. We do not wish to injure her or to block in any way her legitimate influence or power. We do not wish to fight her either with arms or with hostile arrangements of trade if she is willing to associate herself with us and the other peace- loving nations of the world in covenants of justice and law and fair dealing. We wish her only to accept a place of equality among the peoples of the world, — the new world in which we now live, — instead of a place of mastery.

Posted in otdimjh | Tagged article, otdimjh, wilson | 3 Comments

On This Day In Messianic Jewish History

17 Janaury 1789 Birth of Neander (David Mendel) #otdimjh

Like this:

16 January 1802 Politician, philosopher and constitutional lawyer Julius Stahl born #otdimjh

Like this:

15 January 2005 Pope John Paul II’s Auschwitz Reflections #otdimjh

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14 January 1802 Richard Wagner’s Jewish Christian friend Karl Lehrs born #otdimjh

Like this:

13 January 1898 Émile Zola publishes “J’accuse” on Dreyfus trial #otdimjh

Like this:

12 January 1978 Groundbreaking Jewish-Christian relations declaration in Germany #otdimjh

Like this:

11 January 1929 Mortara controversy over Jewish child kidnapped and raised as Roman Catholic #otdimjh

From Simon Mayer’s blog

Cecil Roth, Arthur Day and the Mortara Affair

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10 January 1884 Death of Marie-Théodor Ratisbonne, co-founder of the Sisters of Zion #otdimjh

Centre Chrétien d’Études Juives (CCEJ)

Sources

English – PDF – 80 KB – NDS – Notre Dame de Sion

Like this:

9 January 1880 The Jewish Chronicle calls for a History of Jewish believers in Jesus #otdimjh

The Jewish Chronicle calls for a History of Jewish believers in Jesus:

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8 January 1917 Woodrow Wilson Acknowledges Self-Determination in Middle East #otdimjh

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On this day in Messianic Jewish History

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From Simon Mayer’s blog

Cecil Roth, Arthur Day and the Mortara Affair

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Centre Chrétien d’Études Juives (CCEJ)

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The Jewish Chronicle calls for a History of Jewish believers in Jesus:

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