Book Talk – Interfaith Friends and Ideological Foes

Join author Amy Weiss as she discusses her new book, Interfaith Friends and Ideological Foes: American Jews, Evangelicals, and Israel, 1963 – 2018.

Interfaith Friends and Ideological Foes examines the evolution of the relationship between American Jews and evangelicals. Amy Weiss argues that Jewish interfaith partnerships with evangelicals developed as a necessary, adaptive strategy to deal with the shifting American political landscape. As evangelicals moved from a subculture to the mainstream, and as their political influence grew, their steadfast defense of Israel made them attractive partners for Jewish communal organizations. Jewish groups acknowledged-and accepted-a certain amount of ideological inconsistency to secure broad political support for Israel.

This book speaks directly to today’s challenges regarding polarization and the difficulty of coalition-building. Pundits and the public tend to describe the present as an especially divided time in history. Intensified support for white Christian nationalism, the rise of antisemitism, and debates surrounding Israeli governmental policies have all created a divisive American landscape. Support for Israel, at almost any cost, has shaped the policies of major American Jewish organizations, sometimes leading them to act in profound tension with the views of their constituents and their own longstanding commitments to American democracy and religious pluralism. Th evidence presented in this book upends established claims about Jewish organizations’ commitments to promoting religious pluralism. It also helps to explain how support for Israel has become increasingly associated with the American political right.

AUTHOR:

Amy Wiess is an Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and History at the University of Hartford, where she also holds the Maurice Greenberg Chair in Judaica Studies. Her work has appeared in American Jewish History, Israel Studies, and Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

MODERATOR:

Adam Gregerman is Professor of Jewish Studies in the Dept. of Theology and Religious Studies and Director of the Institute for Jewish-Catholic Relations at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He studies and teaches about Judaism and Christian-Jewish relations and has published widely on topics such as evangelical theologies of Judaism, mission and conversion, biblical interpretation, and Christian views of the land and state of Israel. He has a Ph.D. in Religion from Columbia University.