Reconciliation or supersessionism?

This is a sobering book. It says that a lot of Christians professing pluralistic openness to Jews and contemporary Judaism are perhaps more interested in alleviating their guilt than anything else, and many Jewish leaders are less than enthusiastic about being suddenly accepted by religionists who until quite recently sang a different tune. While Christians want to claim quick friendship with Jewish counterparts, the latter can’t help but sense identity politics and virtue signaling in the air.

Focusing on Orthodox rabbis and Catholic priests, German-Jewish historian Karma Ben-Johanan tells a story that hasn’t been widely told before. As she explains in her introduction, “I am interested mainly in the closed conversations in which one community discusses the other without diplomatic considerations.”

Jacob’s Younger Brother was published in Hebrew in 2020 and is now available in English. The work focuses on relations between Jews and Christians during what Ben-Johanan calls “the age of reconciliation,” from the Second Vatican Council’s pivotal 1965 declaration Nostra aetate through the 2013 resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.