“The Emotive Layer in Jewish-Christian Relations: Pride and Humiliation in Jewish Reactions to Vatican II”

Recent trends in scholarship have disclosed and analyzed the role of emotions in historical, political, and cultural processes. This article suggests that approaching Jewish-Christian relations through this perspective can lead to great insight, taking Jewish attitudes toward Vatican II as its test case. Drawing on much unknown archival material, it argues that while it is common to approach Jewish-Catholic relations in the Council through the prism of ideas, doctrines, and traditions, there is an equally crucial dimension that should not be obscured: the emotive dimension, guided primarily by the nexus of pride, dignity, humiliation, and shame. It demonstrates that Jewish theological, conceptual, and behavioral responses to the Council cannot be understood solely doctrinally but must also be perceived as attempts to negotiate collective dignity marked by a reality or memory of a humiliated minority. Was the Catholic attempt to rethink its teachings on Jews and Judaism a continuation of past disgraces and did all Jewish cooperation with the Vatican constitute an unbecoming form of “begging”? Or was the petitioning for a stronger statement an act of Jewish self-dignity? Was the document on the Jews—soon to be known as Nostra Aetate—another instance of the millennia-long embarrassment of Synagoga in the hands of Ecclesia, or was it an opportunity to establish a new relationship on the basis of mutual respect?.

Duke Scholars

Author Daniel M Herskowitz Religious Studies