At Temple B’nai Abraham March 21 with the Rev. Robert Stearns of Christians United for Israel, center, are, from left, Robert Judovits, chair of the temple’s Israel Committee; B.J. Reisberg, congregation president; Merle Kalishman, chair, Community Relations Committee of MetroWest; Rabbi Clifford Kulwin; and Jim Daniels, event chair and member of the CRC and B’nai Abraham.
March 27, 2008
The Rev. Robert Stearns addressed Shabbat services at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston on Friday evening, March 21, telling congregants that “evangelical Christians are absolutely committed to the security of the Jewish people everywhere and the State of Israel.”
Stearns, a native of Buffalo, NY, is director of a five-state region of Christians United for Israel, whose Web site states that “as Christians we have a biblical obligation to defend Israel and the Jewish people in their time of need.”
As in other appearances before Jewish audiences by CUFI principals, Stearns’ talk in Livingston drew a familiar mix of favorable and wary responses from Jewish observers. While many welcome the Christian group’s enthusiastic lobbying for Israel, others fret about the organization’s attachments to the Religious Right.
In a phone interview with NJ Jewish News prior to his boarding a plane for Newark last Friday afternoon, Stearns related what he planned to tell his synagogue audience.
“The stain of European anti-Semitism that has been a part of the history of some mainline churches is not a part of evangelical Christianity,” he said.
The minister, raised in an evangelical church called Assemblies of God, said he “absolutely believes there can be peace between Israelis and Palestinians. That is what we pray for and that is what we work for. It will come when people are aware that God is a God of love, and that serving the God of love leads us to value life and not death.”
On the issue of Israeli settlement building on the West Bank, Sterns said, “My position is to stand in support of Israel and the Jewish people and to allow the Israelis to work out their governmental issues in a democratic way. We do not take political stances on these issues. We do not comment or get involved in internal political affairs in Israel.
“Israel is not a perfect country,” he added. “There are no perfect countries. Our message is not a message that is seeking to get involved in political dialogue.”
Stearns’ appearance was sponsored jointly by the synagogue’s Israel Committee and the Community Relations Committee of United Jewish Communities of MetroWest NJ.
Ethan Felson, associate executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella group for CRCs, said it is up to local organizations to set policy on dealing with Zionists on the Christian Right.
“It is a local decision, and there are different dynamics everywhere,” he told NJJN. “We’ve seen in many places that CUFI comes in and the Jewish community has decided it is something they can live with.”
But other leaders in the Jewish community disagree. Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, took note of statements made by CUFI’s founder and national chair, the Rev. John Hagee.
Hagee, a televangelist who leads the 19,000-member Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, has been quoted as saying that Hurricane Katrina was an act of God sent to punish New Orleans for its “homosexual parade” and for “a level of sin that was offensive to God.”
He has described Catholicism as a “bastard religion” and said the Jews’ “own rebellion had birthed the seed of anti-Semitism that would arise and bring destruction to them for centuries to come.”
“I think we need to be leery of defining as Israel’s best friends those who have interests to the right on the political spectrum,” said Pelavin. “What does it say for the next generation of Jewish kids that these are the people we are lionizing when we disagree on almost everything else, as do most American Jews?”
In response, Stearns said he and the wider Jewish community agree on a “host of issues” beyond Israel.
“We believe in freedom of the press. We believe in democratic government. We believe in rights for women. We believe in rights for religious minorities. These are things that Evangelicals and the majority of the Jewish people do agree on,” he argued.
“I do not agree with everything John Hagee says,” Stearns continued. “I believe many of his comments are often lifted from context, and at the end of the day, I know Pastor Hagee to be a fervent and dedicated supporter of Israel. So I unite with him and his organization in that regard. I am not going to go through every statement he may or may not have made.”
To Larry Lerner, a Warren resident, attorney, and former chair of the State Association of Jewish Federations, “the Jewish community deserves better than to give voice to a political operative. That’s what CUFI is.”
Lerner is also president of Meretz USA, an organization that describes itself as “supporting genuine peace between Israel and its neighbors, including the Palestinian people, based on a negotiated land-for-peace solution.”
“Jews have more things than just Israel,” he said. “We have a broader agenda as Jews, a moral agenda. We are not a one-issue religion and we never have been. I am a rabid Zionist, but I just don’t see CUFI as in my best interest.”
But B’nai Abraham’s religious leader, Rabbi Clifford M. Kulwin (see related story) said the core of Stearns’ message “was simple: We have a commonality of interests. Though the motivation may be different, Jews and Evangelicals are both ohevei tzion, lovers of Zion, and there should be no impediment to their working together on Israel’s behalf.”
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