Passover Helping Christians Value Their Jewish Roots

Hinda Beral remembers her grandmother describing how she felt at the sound of Easter church bells. It was a feeling of terror. The grandmother had grown up in Eastern Europe, learning that Easter was a time of danger for Jews like herself.

Back then, everybody knew about the persecution and massacres of the Jews since the Middle Ages by Christians inflamed by Good Friday sermons, Beral said. That suffering remained imprinted in a “collective memory” hundreds of years later, said Beral, area director for the Orange County Chapter of the American Jewish Committee.

“Jews were afraid that time of the year.”

But this season--in which Good Friday and the start of Passover coincided--many Jews and Christians are working to further mutual understanding. For example:

* Sixty Catholics held a Seder--a Passover dinner--at Our Lady Queen of Angels Roman Catholic Church in Newport Beach.

* Jews and Christians will take turns baby-sitting each others’ children while the parents attend services at St. Mark Presbyterian Church and Temple Shir Ha-Ma’Alot, which share a building in Newport Beach.

* Rabbi Leonard Beerman, recently retired rabbi of Leo Baeck Temple in West Los Angeles, was to speak at Easter sunrise services in the Hollywood Bowl this morning.

But the Jewish community is split over how involved Jews and Christians should become in each others’ rituals.

“I think it’s inappropriate for a Jewish religious figure to appear in an Easter religious service,” said Rabbi David Eliezrie, a Hasidic rabbi with the Chabad Community Center in Anaheim.

Also, he said, “I don’t see any connection between the Passover Seder and Christianity, and any effort to try and use Passover as a Christian observance is a distortion of historical roots of the holiday.”

Last week, he said, both Time and Newsweek published “deeply offensive” ads placed by Jews for Jesus promoting a connection between Passover and Christianity. This week, Jews for Judaism will publish counter ads, he said.

“Judaism does not believe everyone has to be a Jew to fulfill God’s will in this world and be a good person,” he said. “Judaism believes in diversity of religion.”

However, he said, Jewish leaders need to “get our own house straight before we resolve the problems of the world.” Rather than pursuing ecumenical understanding, Jews need to focus on problems of intermarriage, a 25% affiliation rate with Orange County temples and a lack of in-depth education in Jewish ideals and pride, he said.

On the other hand, said Rabbi Bernard King, head of the Jewish congregation that has coexisted with the Presbyterians for 10 years, “since Judaism serves as the background historically and spiritually for the evolution of Christianity, it makes sense to search out one’s Jewish past and make connection with it to more authenticate one’s past.”

King’s congregation and the Presbyterians each have about 250 families. On Sundays, the chancel piece has a cross; on Jewish service days, it revolves to reveal the doors containing the Jewish ark and Torah.

Contrary to fears that close contact might dilute the authenticity of Jewish tradition, King said, “the Jewish congregation has become more Jewish and the Presbyterian Church more Christian. . . . We can step on each other’s toes and rub elbows and maintain our authenticity and work together for maybe God’s greater goals.”

Easter Sunday, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, represents the theological dividing line between Jews and Christians, the latter believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ.

Passover, the oldest festival of the Hebrew liturgical calendar, commemorates the deliverance of Jews from Egyptian bondage and signifies political and spiritual freedom. It starts on the first month of the Hebrew year and lasts eight days. This weekend, Passover began Friday night--the same day that Christians observe Good Friday.

Recognizing Roots

“It gives us a special occasion for remembering the significance of the Seder and the Passover,” said the Rev. William McQuoid, pastor of St. Mark Presbyterian Church, which also held a Seder. “For us, it has a significance in that we recognize our Jewish roots, and we recognize the Passover Seder as having a significance for the liberation of all peoples.

“We count the Exodus as part of our Bible, and so we recognize it at this time of the year.”

Wednesday in the community hall of Our Lady Queen of Angels, a figure of Jesus on the cross looked down on Catholic participants in their Seder. They repeated a Haggada (a written ritual), and ate symbolic lamb, matzo bread, fruits and vegetables.

True to Jewish tradition, a child began the Seder, asking, “Why is this night different from all other nights?” Also following tradition, Peter Tennyson, a Newport Beach lawyer wearing the traditional yarmulke, replied “. . . On this night we celebrate the going forth of Israel from slavery into freedom and redemption, from a time of hardship to a time of blessing.”

Jewish partners in his law firm taught him how to sing the Hebrew songs, he said.

The past two decades, Jews and Christians have been making attempts to reconcile historical hostilities, ever since Vatican II concluded that “no foundation remains for any theory or practice that sanctifies discrimination, prejudice and racial hatred,” Beral said.

Rabbi King said that when he moved to Orange County in 1968, he was not welcome as part of the Harbor Council of Churches, the local interfaith organization, which he described as an inter-Christian organization. But when the group was reorganized as the Newport Mesa Interfaith Council in 1978, “they elected me as their first president,” he said. “From then on, it was a truly interfaith religious organization.

Members now meet to discuss community and human relations issues, such as the problem of immigrant dayworkers in Orange and the homeless. They also hold breakfasts to celebrate religious pluralism in the country.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Diocese of Orange, the Jewish Federation of Orange County, the Board of Rabbis and the American Jewish Committee have sponsored the Catholic Jewish Dialogue the past four years. In living room meetings and retreats, participants share beliefs and differences, “learning to be sensitive to each other’s beliefs,” Beral said. For her, the encounters have been eye-opening and rewarding.

Identical Experiences

“I think it’s amazing to learn that although you may have different beliefs, that what you experienced, in this case, we as Catholics and Jews, as minorities were virtually identical.”

Throughout the year, said Robert Shepard, senior minister of Anaheim United Methodist Church, he tries to remind Christians of their Jewish heritage.

Good Friday texts that include the biblical verse from Matthew 27:25, “His blood be on us and our children,” serve only to “fan the flames of anti-Semitism,” he said.

Shepard said he explains to his parishioners that Jesus was sentenced by Pontius Pilate, a Roman, to a Roman--not a Jewish--punishment. “There’s no collective guilt that can be passed along to the children of those people.

“Jesus himself was a Jew.”