Mitchell Rocklin on Jewish-Christian Relations
The Tikvah Podcast
Tikvah
4.6 • 620 Ratings
🗓️ 30 June 2017
⏱️ 34 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why don’t Jews like the Christians who like them? That’s the question James Q. Wilson, one of the America’s most influential political scientists, posed in the pages of City Journal in 2008. Evangelical Christians are, by and large, enthusiastic supporters of Israel, and their goodwill extends beyond sympathy for the Jewish state. American Evangelicals even harbor affection for the Jewish people themselves. Yet, these positive attitudes go largely unreciprocated by the American Jewish community, which continues to view conservative Christians with suspicion.
In this podcast, Jonathan Silver sits down with Rabbi Mitchell Rocklin, a chaplain with the New Jersey Army National Guard and a Resident Fellow at the Tikvah Fund to discuss Wilson’s essay. Silver and Rocklin explore the theological and sociological reasons behind Evangelical support for Israel as well as the nature of the historical memory that keeps many Jews wary of this Christian support. The two also touch on the hostility of mainline Christian churches toward Israel, American Jews’ habit of viewing enemies as allies, and the future of American Jewish politics.
Musical selections in this podcast are drawn from the Quintet for Clarinet and Strings, op. 31a, composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the ARC Ensemble, as well as Ich Grolle Nicht, by Ron Meixsell and Wahneta Meixsell.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | When James Hugh Wilson died in 2012, most every newspaper in the United States published |
| 0:12.6 | a piece memorializing the political scientist's life. |
| 0:16.0 | The author of defining books on character and crime, on bureaucracy, on regulation, Wilson was the preeminent |
| 0:22.1 | political scientist of his generation, the president of the American Political Science |
| 0:26.1 | Association, Harvard professor, the recipient of awards from, and the advisor to American presidents |
| 0:32.0 | of both parties. In 2008, Wilson published a short essay in the pages of City Journal, entitled, Why Don't Jews |
| 0:38.7 | like the Christians who like them? I'm your host, Jonathan Silver, and Wilson's essays are |
| 0:43.4 | focused this week on the Tikva podcast on great Jewish essays and ideas. If you like listening |
| 0:48.4 | to our podcast, I invite you to subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and leave us a rating and a review. |
| 0:53.3 | If you want to learn more about our work |
| 0:54.7 | at Tikva, visit our website, tikfafund.org, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook. To help us understand |
| 1:01.0 | Wilson's argument and essay, I'm joined by Rabbi Mitch Rocklin, a resident, research fellow here at the |
| 1:06.6 | Tikva Fund, and a chaplain in the U.S. Army Reserve with the rank of captain. |
| 1:15.4 | Rabbi Rocklin is active in the Rabbinical Council of America and works closely with a variety of Christian friends and partners, many of whom have asked him Wilson's very question. |
| 1:20.1 | Before we answer the question, let's get a sense of Wilson's essay itself. |
| 1:24.3 | He opens the essay with three puzzles. |
| 1:26.7 | Why evangelical Christians like American Jews in the |
| 1:29.6 | first place, why Jews, by and large and for the most part, are uncomfortable with that evangelical |
| 1:35.7 | support and affection. And the third, why American Jews do tend to look favorably upon, |
| 1:42.2 | as allies and friends, communities that don't much like them |
| 1:45.8 | in return. It seems like consulting Jewish interests has not been a reliable way to predict |
| 1:50.7 | Jewish behavior. Mitch, do you think he does a good job of describing exactly what these |
... |
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