The International Council of Jews and Christians
Marcus and Mary Braybrooke have just got back from Vienna.
posted by Worldfaiths @ Thursday, July 06, 2006
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World Congress of Faiths
WCF works to develop better understanding, co-operation and respect between people of different faiths
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To Vienna for the ICCJ
Mary and I spent last weekend in the beautiful city. No, not on holiday but for the thirty-first conference of the International Council of Christians and Jews, although there was time for some sight-seeing.
Austria, rather belatedly, is now facing its tragic past with courage and honesty. The importance of the event was highlighted by the welcome from the President of the country. Before the Second World War, the Jewish community in Vienna was the third largest in Europe, but it was devastated by the Holocaust and now only numbers a few thousand.
Today Jewish sites are being identified and, if possible, restored and monuments erected – so that the Holocaust is never forgotten and never repeated. Particularly moving was the visit to ‘Art Against Oblivion’ an exhibition of the haunting work of the survivor Adolf Frankl, where his son Thomas met us and told us the story of the pictures. Attempts are being made to support survivors, both in Austria and in over sixty countries to which Jews fled after the war. Not that ‘compensation’ is ever possible. ‘Who can give me back my mother or my lost childhood?’ one survivor asked.
Israel – now the most difficult issue in Christian-Jewish dialogue - was discussed with passion but also with a shared conviction that Israel has the right to live with security and that Palestinians have a right to justice and to their own state. It was a pity no Palestinian was there to put his or her point of view. I took part with a Rabbi in a Bible study of Mark 5, 21-43, which got onto questions about purity and how we see life and death. Studying texts together is I think always useful as it pins us down where as some interfaith discussion is too general.
There is a growing Muslim community in Vienna. A spokesperson told us of their wish, as Muslims, to play a full part in Austrian society. A taxi driver from Iran, however, told us of the racist attitudes that he had experienced.
Multifaith dialogue is important, but there is still a special agenda for Christians and Jews to tackle together. As I wrote in my Christian-Jewish Dialogue: the Next Steps Forward., I think the Church has still a long way to go in re-thinking its theology in thelight of its new appreciation of Judaism.
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