Did you know that Judah Maccabee, the hero of the story of Chanukah, is a significant figure in some forms of Christianity?
His story — in the books of I and II Maccabees — is not included in today’s Jewish Bible. Those books — the primary ancient sources for the second century B.C.E. revolt against the Seleucid Greek empire, which resulted in the creation of the second Jewish state in the land of Israel — are grouped with a series of other, non-sacred Jewish books, called the Apocrypha.
But the ancient Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt, did include all the Apocrypha books in its Greek translation of the Jewish Bible, the Septuagint.
Early Christianity adopted the Septuagint as the “Old Testament” of the Christian Bible (in which the “New Testament” comprises the purely Christian books). Today, I and II Maccabees are sacred books to both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
Knowing this, one may ask, so what? Is it important for Jews to know about not just this, but also the many other ways that Christianity — and Islam — have taken ideas, texts, history, rituals, and personages from Judaism?
In fact, should Jews know anything at all about other religions, even if we happen to live among, or at odds with, people who practice and believe in them? If so, what should we learn about them, and how, when and where should we learn it?
The Chronicle asked several Wisconsin Jewish community figures these questions, and answers varied widely.
Interfaith workers
Two Milwaukee-area Jews who engage professionally in community relations, particularly interacting with other religious communities, feel strongly that Jews do need to learn about other religions.
Kathy Heilbronner is assistant director of the Milwaukee Jewish Council for Community Relations, and she does “a lot of the interfaith work” for the agency. Among other things, she is co-chair of the Catholic-Jewish Conference and is a member of the steering committee for the Milwaukee Association for Interfaith Relations.
Harriet Schachter McKinney is executive director of the American Jewish Committee-Milwaukee Chapter. Among her organization’s projects is a Children of Abraham Muslim Jewish Study Group, which started in 2001.
They emphasized that “we live in a pluralistic society” — a sentence both of them said — which requires that Jews know at least something about their neighbors’ religions.
“As Jews today, we are a very small and declining minority in this country,” said Heilbronner. “So it’s especially critical that we try to overcome some of our stereotypes and misperceptions about others and begin to learn as much as we can about them.”
And McKinney added, “The multiplicity of religious groups and increased polarization in the country and around the world and the debate about religious voices in the public square demand greater Jewish involvement with other American faith and ethnic communities. In order to do that, you have to know who these folks are and where they’re coming from.”
Both agreed that this doesn’t mean all Jews should have detailed or expert knowledge of other religions, but just “the basic tenets” of other faiths, said Heilbronner.
“We don’t need to know all the differences between the Presbyterians and the Methodists,” said McKinney, referring to two different denominations of Protestant Christianity. But Jews “ought to know which are the monotheistic religions” and answers to such questions as “What does Christianity say about Moshiach [the Messiah] or about belief in God?”
Both also said that this knowledge should ideally “be part of childhood education” for Jews, as Heilbronner said. But they differ somewhat on when Jews should be learning such things.
Heilbronner said such teachings might not be for elementary school kids, but for the middle school and high school years, when children may begin to question such matters as God’s existence.
But McKinney said such education “has to be done all the way through, in some particular ways.” She recalled that when she was attending a Jewish day school as a child in Chicago, she rode the bus past a Catholic school with many statues in front of it, and she felt “fearful of all those Catholic images…. To get some of that demystified would have been helpful.”
‘Basic respect’
When The Chronicle asked these questions of Jewish religious leaders, on the other hand, the answers fell along a spectrum. Three rabbis leading synagogues in liberal Jewish movements tended to agree strongly with Heilbronner and McKinney.
Rabbi Laurie Zimmerman of Madison is spiritual leader of Congregation Shaarei Shamayim, which calls itself “Madison’s Reconstructionist and Renewal Community.”
“It’s a really bad idea to sequester ourselves off into our own communities and not be familiar with the religious beliefs all around us,” she said. “If we’re going to interact in a positive way [with people of other religions], creating mutual understanding, it behooves us to learn about what other people believe.”
Zimmerman also believes that such learning should begin in childhood. “When kids are really little, they can learn that people believe many different things” and learn “basic respect” for other religions, she said. Then in junior high and high school, they can learn more details and some critical thinking skills.
However, “I certainly don’t think learning about other religions should come at the expense of learning about Judaism,” she said. Her synagogue’s religious school does not teach much about other religions, both for lack of time and because the Madison public schools “do a decent job” of that.
Rabbi Marc Berkson is spiritual leader of the Milwaukee-area Reform synagogue Congregation Emanu-El B’ne Jeshurun. He, too, strongly advocates Jews learning about other religions.
Doing so is part of learning about “the richness and diversity of America,” he said. Moreover, “How can I ask someone to dialogue with me and be my neighbor if I don’t make the same effort toward him or her?” he said.
And “even as we move beyond the American experience, which is unique in world history,” learning about other religions is necessary to understand the world, in which “we live as a tiny minority.”
He said he believes that comparative religion should be taught in Jewish day and supplementary schools in ways that are “age appropriate and grade appropriate.”
His own synagogue has made efforts toward this in its religious education program for its middle school and high school age students, including taking them to view different churches’ services, he said.
Rabbi Shaina Bacharach is spiritual leader of Congregation Cnesses Israel, a Conservative and the only synagogue in Green Bay. She agrees that “we have to know about our neighbors, as well as they have to know about us” and that “it is important for our kids to know the differences and similarities” between Judaism and other religions.
However, her synagogue’s religious school does not have any formal instruction in comparative religion. “There is so much Torah, and so little time,” she said. Instead, the school treats issues as the students raise them in discussion.
She has found that “Jewish kids pick up on Christianity from living in a non-Jewish world,” particularly in the “heavily Catholic culture” of Green Bay. Moreover, the area public schools teach about different religions; in fact, Bacharach has had “several [non-Jewish] high school students” interview her to complete an assignment.
‘Know his own stuff’
Orthodox Judaism, on the other hand, appears to be more dubious about the idea of Jews learning about other faiths, to judge from two Milwaukee-area Orthodox rabbis.
Rabbi Shlomo Levin is spiritual leader of the Modern Orthodox Lake Park Synagogue. He said that there is a Jewish religious law against unnecessarily taking time away from Torah study.
However, that does not necessarily mean that learning about other religions is prohibited, he said. Rather, the purpose for such study needs to be considered.
“If the purpose is to help Jewish people feel more secure and knowledgeable in their own beliefs, it is hard to see it as being prohibited,” Levin said.
As for the assertion that such knowledge is needed to help Jews relate to non-Jews, Levin is “not so sure” about that. Suppose, he said, one works in an office with people of many different faiths. “I don’t need to study their religions in order to do my job,” he said.
Rabbi Avner Zarmi, vice president of the Wisconsin chapter of the haredi Orthodox Agudath Israel of America, actually is in that situation. He works as contract administrator for Astronautics Corporation of America and is responsible for much that company’s foreign exporting business.
In that company, his fellow employees have included not only Christians, but also Muslims and at least one Hindu person. Moreover, because he takes public transportation and is so visibly Jewish, Zarmi has had encounters with Christians trying to convert him.
Zarmi pointed out that the great medieval rabbi and philosopher Moses Maimonides wrote in his Mishna Torah that “he himself had to master various books on foreign religions in order to decide halachic [Jewish legal] questions.”
“Our modern day poskim [halachic decision-makers] are in the same situation,” said Zarmi. “They have to know more than the average person does.”
Moreover, Jews involved in organizations that combat missionizing efforts or that are trying to do religious outreach to Jews who may have explored or even joined another religion or a cult “have to know what they’re doing,” and so may need greater knowledge about other religions, Zarmi said.
Zarmi said he became friends with a Muslim former colleague, an engineer from Egypt who eventually left Astronautics, and “we had some interesting conversations” about each other’s religions. He also has done some reading on his own about other religions because “I’m an insatiably curious person.”
“But I don’t necessarily recommend what I’ve done,” he said. “Most Jews need to spend time learning about themselves, their own culture, first…. The ordinary [Jewish] person just needs to know his own stuff.”
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