Jacob’s Younger Brother: Christian–Jewish Relations after Vatican II

Ben-Johanan, a professor of religion at Humboldt University of Berlin, debuts with a scholarly survey of “the paradoxes, asymmetries, and discrepancies of the Christian-Jewish relationship” since the Second Vatican Council in 1965. Contending that the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel forced a reckoning over Christianity’s failure “to save Europe from the abyss of cruelty” and brought into question whether Jews must “play by the rules formulated by those who had only yesterday been their murderers,” Ben-Johanan focuses on the “internal discourses” of Roman Catholics and Orthodox Jews. She notes that Vatican II repudiated the belief that Jews were collectively responsible for Jesus’s crucifixion, but left unresolved the question of whether “Jews need the church to be saved,” and documents the differing approaches Pope John Paul II and his successor, Benedict XVI, took to the Christian-Jewish relationship. Elsewhere, Ben-Johanan discusses the revitalization of “ancient anti-Christian polemics” by modern-day followers of Rabbi Avraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) and describes debates within Modern Orthodox circles over the implications of interfaith dialogue. Though Ben-Johanan incisively analyzes the sticking points to rapprochement, readers without a deep background in Christian and Jewish theology may find themselves at sea. Still, this is an astute and evenhanded study of how both faiths view themselves and each other. (Apr.)

Correction: An earlier version of this review referred to the author with an incorrect pronoun.