A Jubilee for All Time: The Copernican Revolution in Jewish-Christian Relations

In 1965 the Second Vatican Council formally issued a historic document titled Nostra Aetate (In Our Time). It was an attempt to frame the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and the Jewish people. Never before had an ecumenical council attempted such a task. The landmark document issued by the Council and proclaimed by Pope Paul VI precipitated a Copernican revolution in Catholic-Jewish relations and started a process that has spread to the Protestant and Orthodox worlds as well. This volume consisting of essays and reflections by Catholic Protestant Orthodox and Jewish scholars and theologians by pastors and professors from the United States Canada Ireland Great Britain and Israel is an evaluation of what Nostra Aetate has accomplished thus far and how Christian-Jewish relations must proceed in building bridges of respect understanding and trust between the faith groups. A Jubilee for All Times serves as a source of discussion learning and dialogue for scholars students and intelligent laypersons who believe that we must create a positive relationship between Judaism and Christianity. The document Nostra Aetate issued at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council changed the relationship of Jews and Christians more profoundly than any event in the two-thousand-year encounter of those two communities of faith. Now as we near the fiftieth anniversary of that document Gilbert Rosenthal offers us a veritable banquet in the form of A Jubilee for All Time. Like any good celebration it offers us significant food for thought and the company of some of the foremost thinkers about Jewish-Christian relations. This is an invitation well worth accepting. --Daniel Polish rabbi Congregation Shir Chadash Poughkeepsie NY Combining personal reflections historical observations practical pedagogy and theological sensitivity the authors of this marvelous collection celebrate Nostra Aetate even as they continue its work. --Amy-Jill Levine Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies Divinity School and College of Arts and Science Vanderbilt University Nashville TN This jubilee volume by reflecting back to such a transformative chapter of modern religious history will give inspiration and hope to many for the interfaith journey ahead . . . a vital educational resource for Christians and Jews. --Marvin R. Wilson H. J. Ockenga Professor of Biblical and Theological Studies Gordon College Wenham MA Fifty years after the Second Vatican Councils promulgation of Nostra Aetate A Jubilee for all Time carefully edited by Rabbi Gilbert Rosenthal is an invaluable assessment of the theological Copernican Revolution it engendered. Twenty-five scholars and thinkers from five different nations reflect on the past present and future of Jewish-Christian dialogue while pointing to this dialogue as a potential model for interreligious dialogue on a broader plane. --Alan L. Berger Director Center for the Study of Values and Violence after Auschwitz Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton FL Gilbert S. Rosenthal is the Director of the National Council of Synagogues a partnership of the Reform Conservative and Reconstructionist movements in Judaism dealing with interfaith matters nationally. He served as a congregational rabbi for thirty-three years and was Executive Vice President of the New York Board of Rabbis. He has written articles and essays in English and Hebrew and has authored more than twelve books including What Can a Modern Jew Believe? (Wipf & Stock 2007) and The Many Faces of Judaism (1978).