Those who are interested in Jewish history and the birth of PEP (Progressive except Palestine) should check out Colin Greer’s play called “Imagining Heschel.” It’s at the Cherry Lane Theatre in the West Village, and it stars Richard Dreyfuss and Rinde Eckert in an imaginary 45-years-ago dialogue between Rabbi Abraham Heschel, a “warrior for justice,” and Cardinal Augustin Bea, an emissary of the Pope.
Writes the producer, the Culture Project:
Imagining Heschel explores private conversations between Cardinal Augustin Bea and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel from 1962-1973, when Heschel was asked to aid the Vatican Council in formally exonerating the Jews for the death of Christ — a crucial repudiation of anti-Semitism. Heschel resists, demanding the Vatican apologize for their acquiescence to the Holocaust, and an ideological test of wills ensues. Colin Greer’s imagined discussions between these philosophical giants in the midst of the numerous struggles of the late 1960s — including the war in Vietnam which Heschel strenuously opposed, and the 1967 Arab-Israeli War, which he supported — lend enormous insight into contemporary issues of peaceful resolution in the Middle East. Imagining Heschel raises important questions about the justification of violence by any faith, and the limits of forgiveness.”
I saw it and found it fascinating, particularly Heschel’s fervent opposition to the Vietnam war and support for the civil rights movement and the Selma march– the “fight against racist savagery” he calls it– and then his inability to criticize Israel when it launched the ’67 war. The cardinal urges Heschel to criticize Israel’s murders. He can’t do it. Adam Horowitz also saw it and said it reminded him of Marc Ellis’s statement that Jewish authorities and Christian ones cut an “ecumenical deal” (a religious-not-spiritual deal), the understanding that developed between Jewish and Christians leaders in the US following 1967 that Christians would be forgiven for anti-Semitism as long as they refrained from criticizing Israel. Marc Ellis wrote:
The ecumenical dialogue, once an avenue for Christian renewal, has become the ecumenical deal. The ecumenical deal is simple yet with profound implications: Jews demand that Christians in the West repent for the sin of anti- Jewishness; the main vehicle for Christian repentance is uncritical support for the state of Israel and its policies. Uncritical support for Israel renders Palestinians and Palestine invisible. Critique of Israel’s policies vis-à-vis the Palestinian people is deemed anti-Jewish and a return to the previous understanding of Jews within Christian theology and practice. Conservative, moderate and radical Christian academics uphold this ecumenical deal. Though in private they may be critics of Israel, yet even amid the resentment and pressure exerted to enforce the ecumenical deal, they remain in public silent.
The issue is latent in the play, which manages to bring two cerebral personalities and a spiritual reckoning to life.
