by Rabbi Josh Stanton

September-October 2024
“The Torah of Travel: Reflections from spiritual journeys by our educators and clergy” 

Part I: Interfaith Mission to Poland 
I had never seen a Christian cry for Jews at a gas chamber. But in front of the still-operable gas chambers at the Majdanek concentration camp in Poland, I saw several burst into tears at the fate that had befallen our people and others who were enslaved there. It was part of an interfaith mission to Poland with 24 Evangelical Christian leaders and 6 Jewish professionals this July. It was convened by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago in collaboration with Wheaton College, perhaps the premier Christian college or university in the United States.   

A unique aspect of the trip was the extent to which it emphasized difference, rather than creating a superficial sense of commonality. Christian and Jewish theologies are fundamentally different. Jews are not just a faith but a “faith that became a family that stayed a faith.” There are 80 million American Evangelicals and perhaps 7.5 million American Jews. Evangelical Christianity celebrates resurrection and redemption; Judaism tries to balance notions of redemption with those of exile and uncertainty.   

What was clear was the extent to which stereotypes that many Jews — and especially progressive Jews — have about Evangelicals do not hold true, at least not across the entirety of a community so vast. These Christian leaders were college presidents and foundation executives and were as well-read and intellectually curious as many New York Jews.  

Further, they did not associate with the antisemitic foundations of many European Christian streams. As such, they seemed genuinely surprised that Christians would kill Jews and not to understand why antisemitism could still exist in Poland, which now has a Jewish population of 5,000 (down from 3 million before World War II). 

The trip was filled with learning — as much for me as a rabbi as for my Christian counterparts. There is much potential for collaboration with moderate Evangelicals in the effort to combat antisemitism, and we would do well not to overlook such an important community, especially one guided more than we may realize by insightful professors than unctuous televangelists.