OPINION | LITVAK AFFAIRS | ANTISEMITISM | VILNIUS | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS
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by Dovid Katz
VILNIUS—For centuries, missionaries have cunningly preyed on small, weak, fractured and vulnerable Jewish communities, cleverly roping in widely known and respected figures to lend a veneer of academic or intellectual legitimacy. At issue is whether the majority Christian culture is prepared to accept as equals a minority whose theology differs, without campaigns to “recruit souls” which implies the worst about the faith and people whose souls need to be “saved.” Indeed, the necessary conclusion about the inherent evil (in the case at hand historically including the charge of deicide) of the unconverted played its role in the mindset that was among the conceptual prerequisites for the Holocaust. Around 96% of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens were massacred.
This is not to be confused with Christian-Jewish partnership and mutual love and respect, as exemplified by the many Christian and Jewish authors who have contributed to Defending History and joined forces in the cause of historic truth, tolerance and respect for all faiths (see for example DH’s recent Persons of the Year).
For many years, there has been a large investment in Judaic studies and activities here, sometimes with ulterior motives of covering for Holocaust revisionism, glorification of local perpetrators, antisemitism, and to serve to delegitimize via exclusion bona fide Jewish critics. This new conference, “Yachad beYeshua Theology Conference” sponsored by the de facto (though perhaps in-denial) missionary movement Yachad BeYeshua is scheduled for 8-10 November (conference announcement and program; online registration).
UPDATE OF 1 OCT. 2024:
The office of Rabbi Elchonon Baron today released Rabbi Baron’s letter to the conference organizers, noting plans for a peaceful protest outside the event.
The use of the Hebrew name alone on top (translation: “Together in Jesus”) in the title serves, at once, to (a) obfuscate the content, and (b) sound like any good old wholesome Jewish organization down the block. But deception is neither a Christian nor a Jewish virtue, a deception compounded by (c) abuse of the term “theology” to mask crass and underhanded missionary activity. But the last line is revealing, including the two juxtaposed words Jesus and — Mission (as in “Mission to the Jews”).
Happily, there are no serious Lithuanian theologians among the speakers. Serious theologians would not touch this with a bargepole. If this were verily a theology conference, there would be some bona fide rabbis and Jewish theologians invited to explain the view that Judaism ipso facto believes in the future messiah to come rather than one who came. But when artful propaganda is dressed up as academia, as we know from so many Holocaust conferences in Vilnius, the genuine “other opinion” is nowhere to be found, not on the program, not in the conference hall.
Lithuanian Jews have been shocked to see among the speakers two leading Lithuanian intellectuals who have made for themselves prominent careers, with many genuine significant accomplishments, in the realm of Jewish affairs. There are Vilnius University’s leading professor in Judaic studies, Prof. Dr. Jurgita Verbickienė, and master educator and author Vytautas Toleikis. To be sure, both eminent scholars have had their “scrapes” over Jewish issues. Toleikis, in a secret Facebook forum, once accused the editor of Defending History of being a Russian Jewish lackey who uses his black arts powers to hypnotize Lithuania’s Jewish community on matters of Holocaust history and antisemitism (for the “sins” of defending Fania Brantovsky and Rachel Margolis, and protesting city-center neo-Nazi marches). By contrast, Verbickienė, a member of the recent state Working Group convened to decide the fate of the Old Vilna Jewish Cemetery, very publicly made clear to Lithuanian television news just a few months ago that the legacy of the basketball games and rock concerts of her Soviet youth were just as important to commemorate as the five hundred year old cemetery, which would be forever defiled if the Soviet dump in its center is restored to a conference and memorial center with seating for thousands (as recommended by her Working Group). Will the Hebrew-named “United in Jesus” movement coming to town publicly protest plans to desecrate and defile the Old Vilnius Jewish Cemetery?
Jewish life here is never boring. One thing is crystal clear. Modern, democratic, peaceful and delightful Lithuania — with its Christians, Jews, and many others in ongoing friendly dialogue — needs this new conference, especially now during an interval of rising antisemitism, like a hole in the head. Jesus himself would be the first to say so.
Moreover, the local intellectuals who make such fine hay of the tragic Litvak heritage might in the future be a trifle more sensitive to Jewish sensibilities.
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