As contemporaries and co-workers for increased dialogue between Christians and Jews, a Paulist priest on the staff of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity, Father Thomas Stransky, and the Director of Interreligious Affairs for the American Jewish Committee, Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum, often engaged in activities that offered mutual support, particularly during the Second Vatican Council. Most of their work, however, remained out of the limelight, especially with respect to the development of the final text of the Declaration on the Church in Relation to Non-Christians (Nostra Aetate). My paper divides into two parts—one historical and the other, a constructive assessment on the qualities of Catholic-Jewish dialogue that sprang up from the efforts of Stransky and Tanenbaum. Part one attempts to explore their relationship through an examination of their correspondence, published writings, and some of the memoranda they exchanged that were vital to the Council’s text on the Catholic Church and non-Christian religions. The materials are mostly found in the archives of the Paulist Fathers in Washington, D.C. and the American Jewish Committee in New York. Their cooperation was judicious and circumspect, but offers a model for how to foment, conduct and further solid partnerships in dialogue. Part two suggests that the Stransky-Tanenbaum dialogue operated at the level of a) best intentions, b) solid commitment to their own faith traditions, c) attention to the cultural and political forces of the day, and d) hope for genuine progress.

I. History of Dialogue
Thomas F. Stransky was born in Milwaukee in 1930. Educated at American, German, and Roman universities, he was ordained in 1957. Between 1960 and 1970, he was a staff member of the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity where he was an assistant to Cardinals Bea and Willebrands. He held teaching positions and worked in various international ecumenical dialogues, including international dialogues with the Anglicans, the Methodists, and the Evangelicals. He has been the Vatican’s delegate to the World Council of Churches and has taught and lectured at ecumenical institutes from Switzerland to Japan.[1] From 1970 to 1977 he was President of the Paulist Fathers and later director of their novitiate. From 1980-1992 he was the rector at Tantur, where he continues to reside.

Marc Tanenbaum was born in 1925. His parents were Ukrainian émigrés, who had settled in Baltimore. He was educated in the Talmudic Academy of Baltimore and later won a scholarship—at age fourteen and a half—to Yeshiva University, from which he graduated at the tender age of 19. After working briefly as a writer and assistant editor, he entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, a rabbinical school for Conservative Judaism. It is there he met and began a longstanding friendship with Abraham Joshua Heschel. In 1952 he became the director of the Synagogue Council of America and used his position as the semi-official spokesperson for religious Judaism to begin reaching out to members of the Christian community. He began to see how public policy could be influenced by inter-religious cooperation, a fact that he underscored as the new head of the American Jewish Committee’s office for inter-religious affairs, a position he began in 1961, just as the Second Vatican Council was getting underway. I will say more about his activities during the conciliar moment. In the 1970s and 1980s, Rabbi Tanenbaum continued to cultivate dialogue with the churches and in 1983 he assumed the directorship of the AJC’s office for International Affairs. During this decade he also served in a number of public capacities, was a regular commentator for Westinghouse Radio in New York, and advised Presidents Carter, Reagan, and Bush. By the time of his death at age 66 in 1992, Rabbi Tanenbaum had established himself as a champion of human and civil rights and left an inspirational legacy of humanitarian endeavors too long to mention here.[2]

Shortly after joining the AJC, Tanenbaum used his American contacts to gain access to certain key members of the hierarchy and through them, to the Vatican office handling a draft text on the Jews. In this he was ably assisted by the AJC’s European representative, Zach Shuster, who relayed information on the progress of the draft text and conveyed the sentiments of Tanenbaum and the AJC leadership in New York to the officials in the Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity, which was then charged with developing the draft text. Tanenbaum knew that the SPCU’s head, Cardinal Augustin Bea, was going to be the most important person with whom to make contact, but he relied on Shuster to cultivate as many allies in the newly constructed Secretariat as possible. That included Fr. Stransky who had come on board in June 1960. Yet it would not be until October 1962 that the two would finally make contact, albeit by letter, through their mutual friend, Father Gerard Rooney, the Provincial of the Passionist Fathers.[3] No one, including the pope, had foreseen any discussion by the Secretariat on Judaism or anti-semitism, but that changed on June 13, 1960, when Jules Isaac met with John XXIII, whose awareness and motivations were heightened to include some statement on Judaism.[4] In September of that year, Pope John communicated to Cardinal Bea that a declaration should be drawn up dealing with the Jewish people and the staff set to work.[5]

During this period, the meetings on the draft text were considered secretly and members of the Secretariat could not divulge information on the text or the proceedings. A confidential note circulated among the leadership at the AJC indicating that Fr. Stransky had informed his American superiors that as of December 21, 1960, “absolutely no formula has been established for ‘dialogue’ with Jewish groups.” Two weeks prior, however, Cardinal Bea had told Stransky to stay in touch with Jewish groups “without any publicity at this time,”[6] and this included the AJC. When Tanenbaum began to work there in early 1961, he moved quickly to allay any reservations among those in Rome who were meeting behind closed doors. He contributed the AJC’s own research to these private discussions as a friendly gesture. The first of several large memoranda sent by the AJC to Cardinal Bea was entitled “The Image of the Jews in Catholic Teaching,” dated July 13, 1961, and presented to him by representatives of the AJC on that date. The second was “Anti-Jewish Elements in Catholic Liturgy,” and dated November 17, 1961.[7] On November 26, a meeting that was weeks in the making between Bea and Abraham Heschel took place in Rome. Tanenbaum had a hand in all of this activity.[8]

The Heschel-Bea parley opened the doors wider to dialogue, particularly given the great rapport established between them, no doubt arising from the fact that it was conducted in German. However, the year 1962 was a period in which little transpired at the Secretariat beyond the sifting of thousands of suggestions submitted by the world’s bishops for the deliberations that would take place in the Council’s second session the following year. The Secretariat went into a kind of lock down and the staff did an enormous amount of traveling to consult with various ecclesial communions about sending observers to the Council. But in the spring of 1963, the level of cooperation between Stransky and Tanenbaum in particular changed when Stransky invited Tanenbaum to address the annual convention of the National Council of Catholic Men on present goals of interreligious dialogue. On May 7, Tanenbaum wrote to Stransky about how grateful he was to “get a first-hand impression of the magnitude of the problem that Cardinal Bea, the members of the Secretariat, including your good self are facing trying to bring the Church into the twentieth Century before it is too late. . . .In truth, I have a growing sense of despair over the resistance among so many members of your community, not to speak of my own, over their unbelievable resistance to face the terrible realities of living in a nuclear-missile age with all the attending social, cultural, and technological revolutions.”[10] Tanenbaum informed Stransky that he would be making a speaking tour at Catholic universities over the next three months and intended to “take my head in my hand and challenge Catholics to be faithful to the magisterium of the Church and Pope John.” The bonds between the two prompted Tanenbaum to venture that if the occasion arose, they should each “feel free to communicate in those instances in which we feel we can be mutually helpful.” He went on to inquire about Stransky’s thinking on the sending of a Jewish observer to the Council, a subject that had already been broached between Tanenbaum, Heschel, and Cardinal Bea, at a meeting in Boston. For Tanenbaum, he hoped such an observer would “symbolize vividly that a turning point [had] taken place in fact as much as in theory.” Tanenbaum closed by indicating his willingness to keep any communication from Stransky confidential.

Nearly two months passed before a confidential letter from Stransky arrived on Tanenbaum’s desk. In it, Stransky hoped to clear up some off hand remarks made on June 29 before the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council by Fr. Gustave Weigel, SJ, who was a consulter for the Secretariat. Weigel’s comments pertained to the intention of the Secretariat in withdrawing the draft text on the Jews from consideration in the Council aula. He suggested that their motivation was driven by the concern among Arab nations that a Vatican statement on Judaism would be a tacit endorsement of Israel. These remarks appeared on the front page of the New York Times, much to Weigel’s embarrassment, and were quickly followed up by denunciations from the AJC and an official clarification from the Vatican.[11]

Stransky’s letter is apologetic, but it also helps to set Weigel’s remarks in some context. Not only does he delineate the reasons why the initial draft was tabled, he lays bare the mind of the Secretariat officials on seeing the document through. Briefly, the reasons are these. The draft document was to be presented before the Central Preparatory Commission prior to the first session of the Council at a meeting in June 1962. Shortly beforehand, however, the Secretariat learned through press reports that Dr. Chaim Wardi, a former employee of the Israeli government, had been appointed by the World Jewish Congress as an observer at Vatican II without consulting any office of the Holy See. The Foreign Minister of Israel, Golda Meir, publicly praised the selection.[12] Stransky wrote: “This act was misinterpreted to mean the sending of an official observer upon a prior official invitation by the Vatican. Immediate political implications were seen vis-à-vis Arab governments. . . . It was assumed by many that the Vatican was using the religious event of a Council for indirect political purposes; as a result, some here considered that the publicized announcement of a draft on Catholic-Jewish relations would cause at that time added bewilderment.”[13] Tabling the draft may have been prudential, but it should not be considered the death knell for the text. Rather, Stransky maintained, “the Secretariat never had the intention to avoid the relation of Catholics to the Jewish people of old and of today. Nor did the Secretariat ever intend to have the Council pass over the problem of anti-semitism, although it believed that a positive statement is far more beneficial than the negative one or condemnation.”[14]

A week later, a letter arrived for Stransky in Rome.[15] In it, Tanenbaum related how he spoke with Father Weigel the morning after The New York Times ran the story. Weigel supplied a statement for the AJC to distribute to the press disavowing his earlier comments. For his part, Tanenbaum looked upon the whole stir as something that “in the last analysis served a useful purpose. The fact that the Arab Information Office, the anti-Zionist American Council for Judaism, and various Arab bishops in the Middle East have indicated that they would strongly support a statement clarifying the religious and theological relationships between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people are developments, it seems to me, of significance. It would appear that the general atmosphere,” he went on, “is much clearer as a result of this episode, and all of us hope that His Eminence Cardinal Bea and those like yourself associated with him read the reaction to the Father Weigel matter in this light.”[16]

The twists and turns of the declaration went on from there. The schematic text was prepared several months prior to the beginning of the second session in September 1963 in order for there to be discussion on the text among the world’s bishops when they assembled in St. Peter’s Basilica. It contained an explicit denunciation of the “Jews as Christ-killers” canard. Suddenly, rumors began to crop up that the text would undergo major modifications, prompted by Arab interests, including the elimination of the deicide language.[17] No vote was taken at the second session. In August 1964, barely a month before the opening of the Council’s third session, Tanenbaum expressed “considerable concern and anxiety” over the fate of the schema on the Jews and non-Christians.[18] Stransky once noted: “no draft had a more unplanned, tortuous and threatened journey than did Nostra Aetate.”[19]

Stransky and Tanenbaum continued their communications, albeit largely through the good offices of Zach Shuster, the AJC’s “man on the ground.” All showed what dialogue can achieve. As the bishops’ votes were cast, there was some unease with the final document, both on the part of Jews and many of the Council fathers. Of these latter, there was a concern that Nostra Aetate was weakened in its final form by the omission of the word “deicide” as this concept was frequently used to refer to Jesus’ crucifixion and Jewish culpability.[20] Even Cardinal Bea in a meeting in May 1965, noted how the Church’s biblical theology had not yet developed in order to make a statement on the deicide charge.[21] The American Bishop Ernest Primeau of New Hampshire said that removing the word ‘deicide’ would have “watered down substantially [the text] for world opinion.”[22] On the day of the vote, in October 1965, Stransky went before the American press and acknowledged that the declaration “provides only a starting point for the improvement and development of relations between the Church and non-Christian religions. . . . What is said in the declaration may seem naïve in centuries to come, but at the present, … it would be difficult for the Council to come up with any more than it has.”[23]

This realism is important for dialogue. The signs of the times were free and open in some respects, closed and prohibitive in others. Nevertheless, the declaration engendered a spirit of optimism, irrespective of shifting political winds, and was given sanction by the AJC through a statement released by Zach Shuster and worked over by Tanenbaum. Nostra Aetate’s acceptance by the Council, they wrote, was “a significant event in the history of Christian-Jewish relations and cannot fail to have an impact.”[24]

II. Lessons of Dialogue
Barely three months after the Council’s close, a major conference on its legacy was held in March, 1966, at the University of Notre Dame. Both Stransky and Tanenbaum expressed their views on the conciliar process and how it could enable future generations to enhance dialogue. Stransky wrote that “through the Conciliar process there developed an existential concern for people as people, whether within or without the Roman Church, whether Christian or not. Dialogue becomes more than a cliché, and by dialogue I mean every relation with another as an ‘other,’ in which we accept to receive from the ‘other’ in order that we ourselves may grow religiously, and thus grow together with others.”[25]

In the remainder of the paper, I will outline how the Stransky-Tanenbaum dialogue operated at the level of a) best intentions, b) solid commitment to their own faith traditions, c) attention to the cultural and political forces of the day, and d) hope for genuine progress.

a. Best Intentions
The first of these categories may be assessed rather quickly because it is based on a fundamental presupposition, namely, that one cannot assume that dialogue will be fruitful or at all productive unless it is believed that the other party is serious and the reasons for their differences are sound. Expecting less would lead to weakness in dialogue. In my view, both men exhibited a set of best intentions to learn from one another and to grow in esteem for one another. That implies the ability to stay open to new experiences and attitudes, even if it means changing one’s deepest convictions. For his part, Tanenbaum is said to have remarked that he was “haunted for some years by the contradiction that the Catholic Church presented. It proclaimed its message as the Gospel of Love, but in the experience of my people, the people from whom Jesus sprang, it had become the Gospel of Hatred. It took years of study, and above all, my coming to know Catholic men and women who were warm, loving and caring people, that converted me from my early childhood fears of Catholics.”[26]

Tanenbaum also admired the courage of the Catholic leadership, which he often took occasion to praise.[27] The Church’s hierarchy became the subject of admiration especially in its dialogue with contemporary society on some of the most troublesome and complex issues of the day. For instance, Tanenbaum called Pope Paul’s 1965 speech at the United Nations, in which the pontiff not only decried modern warfare but also ratified a “formula of equality” for all peoples, “the emergence from behind something of a Maginot line and the joining of a dialogue with the world.”[28] In this he saw the possibility of mutual cooperation and a foundation for trust. He lamented that previous popes had not taken such a vociferous position. Jewish lives could have been spared. But Pope Paul’s “newly articulated humanitarian mentality” gave rise to the Church’s involvement in the struggle for civil rights, a struggle not merely defined along racial lines, but one that cut through indifference itself.[29]

As admirable as these moves were, the Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christians still fell short for many Jews. Tanenbaum noted how some in the Jewish community were disappointed that there was “no note of contrition or repentance for the incredible sufferings and persecutions Jews have undergone in the Christian West.”[30] For him the tremendous advance occasioned by Nostra Aetate created a new set of circumstances by which dialogue could take place. “I am persuaded,” he wrote, “that we are now going through a period of transition which will find both Jews and Catholics fumbling and stumbling as they seek to find appropriate new modes of relating to each other in a growing climate of tolerance and esteem.”[31] Stransky used similar language nearly two decades later: “Given the pre-Vatican II Catholic-Jewish estrangements, the dialogue understandably remains an infant, new and unique, learning to take its first steps, often fumbling, often whining, a little too impatient, not too trusting….Despite the stumblings, the child is learning to walk—forward.”[32]

b. Commitment to faith
Just as there has been a correct denial of supercessionist tendencies in recent Christian-Jewish dialogue, there has also been a newfound appreciation for the other with a view toward greater self-understanding.[33] Especially for Catholics, self-affirmation of one’s personal identity, precisely as Catholics, can only be enhanced by the encounter with Judaism. Jesus cannot be adequately understood apart from God’s covenant with Israel. The Church itself, together with its sacraments and liturgical life, cannot find maximal expression if it lacks reference to the Hebrew scriptures. In a twenty-year retrospective, Stransky wrote that Vatican II made a quantum leap in arriving at its own self-understanding: “first understand the others as they understand themselves to be, and only then evaluate the convictions and actions of others with criteria from the Roman Catholic tradition. Furthermore, in that very dialogue, the Roman Catholic Church begins to understand itself more authentically. Through Vatican II the Church began to appreciate that dialogue helps also to foster its own integrity.”[34] Additionally, those who enter dialogue must guard against assimilationism. Stransky has outlined a set of sharp differences between Catholics and Jews that seem to define the course of dialogue and suggests that we ought to understand these differences, not adopt them:

The centrality of Jesus in the mystery of the triune God is as much outside the Jewish experience as the relationship of covenant to land, and of the Jews to Israel, is outside the Christian experience. The Catholic consciousness in faith of the church as a new covenant that transcends every ethnic designation is far removed from the Jewish experience of themselves as a religious people. And the Catholic experience of the Eucharist is not identical with the Jewish one of the Seder. Nor should it be. In fact, the most difficult hurdle in true dialogue is to grasp the other’s pieties.[35]

One of the differences which Stransky has been conscious of these last four decades, is the dual effort at the Church’s being in mission to the world, as a light to the nations, but also giving space to religious freedom.[36] These tensions co-exist within Catholicism, but we have come to learn about the particular case of the Jewish people as largely falling outside the missionary task of the Church. This should not imply that Jewish converts to Catholicism are not welcome or that they are somehow different than any other person who comes into the Church. But according to the Guidelines on Religious Relations with the Jews: “Lest the witness of Catholics to Jesus Christ should give offense to the Jews, they must take care to live and spread their Christian faith, while maintaining the strictest respect for religious freedom in line with the teaching of the Second Vatican Council.”[37] This would exclude proselytization, but it would include a mission of presence, living and working in a Christian manner among and with the world’s Jews.

c. Attention to Political and Cultural Forces
Tanenbaum’s reading of the signs of the times did not only concentrate on those positive elements that arose from interreligious dialogue, but was considered alongside his interests in nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament and racial and civil rights. His attention to these cultural and political forces only signaled for him the great urgency of coming to the table with Christians to discuss areas of common concern. Not to do so would be disastrous for future generations. Tanenbaum believed “the issue of relations between Christians and Jews [had] reached the point of ripeness, a point of maturation,” precisely because the need in the political-cultural field was so pressing.[38]

Stransky also noted that the Church itself was undergoing significant cultural shifts in its thinking, which might do wonders for ecclesial renewal in the post-Vatican II era, but which may also leave the Church’s dialogue partners somewhat perplexed. An example of this was the move away from Western traditions toward what he has called, borrowing from Walbert Buhlmann, the “emergence of the Third Church” within the southern hemisphere.[39] Quite apart from the internal transformations currently underway, the relation between Catholics and Jews is continually forced to confront the political elephant in the room—the Vatican’s relationship to the State of Israel. This is one symbolically laden issue that quickly becomes the object of discussion whenever Catholics and Jews get together at the local level, which is where the real rubber hits the road. Still more practical issues are confronting this dialogue, such as the increasing number of so-called “mixed marriages” that continue to knit Jewish and Catholic families together, but that can be strained owing to religious differences. What sort of pastoral solutions can these dialogues produce? Greater attention to political and cultural winds can assist.

Finally, a word may be said as a kind of long footnote on cooperation in reading these same cultural forces. It illumines a portion of the internal dynamics of the AJC’s dialogue with the Secretariat for the Promotion of Christian Unity and its Sub-commission for the Jews, particularly in view of the AJC’s own role within the wider Jewish community. In a very revealing letter to Fr. Harold Gardiner, SJ, a former editor at America magazine and then publisher of Corpus Books, Stransky indicated that the Secretariat often received memoranda from the AJC—many of which included Tanenbaum as co-author or principle redactor.[40] But the input of these documents did not seem to have any determinable effect upon the final text of Nostra Aetate. “The American Jewish Committee,” Stransky wrote, “especially through Rabbi Tanenbaum, has consistently given the impression that the Secretariat took the initiative in asking the AJC for memoranda before and during the drafting of the Declaration. But in fact, the AJC, as well as other Jewish organizations and individuals, asked if such information could be submitted; of course, an affirmative answer was always given. The contrary impression has even created among some, especially among rabbinical groups, that the Secretariat intended to consult, and had consulted, only, Jewish social service organizations. For understandable reasons, most rabbinical groups never initiated contacts with the Secretariat during the conciliar proceedings. Many of these groups still think that the Secretariat’s Number One contact had been the AJC, and I am not so sure that the AJC is not content with this impression.” But Stransky also noted that the AJC memoranda formed “only a part of a vast amount of preparatory material, and, to be honest, it is impossible to determine the influence of the AJC documents on the actual deliberations and the final text.” He concluded, after reviewing all his notes, that at no time did the memoranda enter the deliberations held in the Secretariat’s plenary sessions.

The context of this letter was Gardiner’s request to publish a book related to the drafting process of Nostra Aetate, in which Stransky (on behalf of the Secretariat) declined to participate. That did not preclude the AJC from publishing its version of the facts, however, and Stransky called upon Gardiner’s good offices to pre-empt a potentially embarrassing situation—one which would force the Secretariat to disclaim the AJC’s version if it were to project a more influential role than it actually had.

The reason I mention this letter is not to drudge up a thorny issue, but to demonstrate how volatile the AJC’s stance had once been in relation to the entire Jewish community. The delicacy of the matter was apparent to Stransky and he hoped to defuse the situation with all due tact. In my view, this showed real care for the dialogue partner and underscored the value of that partner to the whole enterprise.

d. Hope for Progress
Both men were consistent in their mutual hope for progress between all religions, but especially between Catholics and Jews. In one of the earliest letters between them, Tanenbaum wrote Stransky about how “deeply impressive and heartening has been the opening of the Ecumenical Council – in particular the profoundly moving and spiritually challenging pronouncements of His Holiness Pope John XXIII. I join with many other Jews in thanking Almighty God for His gracious Providence in bringing to spiritual leadership at this critical hour the great soul, heart, and intelligence of Pope John XXIII.”[41] As politic as these words were, their sentiments were borne out time and again through many years of correspondence and writing long after the Council’s conclusion. Hope for progress is given foundation in the gratitude of mind and will that is to be found in the other.

Stransky, too, has written of his own hopefulness, which bordered on elation at the prospects that were opening up between Christians and Jews as a result of Nostra Aetate. And yet, hopefulness must be tempered by realism, too. In a retrospective on his work at Vatican II, he recalled a conversation with the theologian René Laurentin in which Father Laurentin noted Stransky’s apparent glee in the aftermath of Nostra Aetate’s approval. Laurentin asked him if he had ever read the last page of Camus’ The Plague. There, the villagers are joyous over the defeat of the plague, but Rieux knows that the disease is never completely eradicated, but lurks patiently for a chance to stir a new cadre of rats to spread its poison. For Stransky, the lesson was plain. “Twenty years ago I learned from Camus that with the promulgation of Nostra Aetate, Catholics, indeed all Christians, should go ahead, but be more vigilant than ever.”[42]

If dialogue is to remain hopeful and the bonds of partnership are to continue to progress, then it seems fair to acknowledge just how tenuous and fragile such relationships can be. Dialogue must be nurtured with care and the persons who are involved must be cognizant that outside pressures of a political nature are never more important than the possibilities for mutual understanding that their work helps realize.[43] Finally, joint hope for progress should emerge patiently—allowing for fits and starts—and without rancor when these arise, but with fraternal correction. “According to the effort, so is the reward,” say the rabbis of old. These four lessons outlined briefly here are, of course, hardly exhaustive of the kind of instruction supplied by their genial correspondence and individual work. The lessons learned from both Tanenbaum and Stransky are still germane for future generations who would take up these challenges and enter upon the virtues of dialogue.