​Jewish diplomacy began in biblical times, when Abraham negotiated with King Abimelech over possession of precious wells in an arid land. In order to protect their vulnerable communities and ensure Jewish continuity, generations of Jewish leaders have developed effective negotiation strategies in dealing with powerful kings, emperors, sultans, popes, dictators, prime ministers, and presidents.

In his new book The Star and the Scepter: A Diplomatic History of Israel (Jewish Publication Society), Emmanuel Navon, a lecturer at Tel Aviv University and a fellow of the Israeli Institute for Strategy and Security, begins with the biblical period, including the kingdoms of David and Solomon, and concludes with U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2020 “Deal of the Century,” intended to settle the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
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For Navon, a French-born academic who later moved to Israel, “the star” represents the spiritual faith and destiny of the Jewish people, while “the scepter” symbolizes the eternal quest for Jewish national sovereignty in the Land of Israel.

(RNS) — In a year dominated by the miseries of COVID-19, not all the news in the Jewish world was about the virus — and even some events driven by the pandemic were not without a silver lining. Herewith, a subjective look at the most important news stories of the year:

Anti-Semitism continues to surge

​Seventy-five years after the end of the Holocaust, the continuing upsurge of virulent, often lethal anti-Semitism, especially in the United States and Europe, led all other news for Jews in 2020. The rise of the extremist group the Proud Boys, the spreading influence of the vile QAnon conspiracy that now includes members of the U.S. Congress, and the constant, unfounded anti-Jewish attacks on Hungarian American philanthropist George Soros provided anecdotal evidence that anti-Jewish attacks will again be the most common religious hate crime, as they were in 2019.

(RNS) — Four overarching realities will define relations between Christians and Jews in the coming years.

The first two, demography and geography, are linked. Since the fifth century, Europe and, more recently, North America, have been the centers of Christian population, clerical leadership and religious thought. Today, thanks to rapid population growth in South America, Africa and Asia, most of the world’s Christians reside in the Southern Hemisphere.

This trend is accelerating even as the number of Christians is holding steady or actually declining in Europe and North America, where Christians and Jews are older and fewer in number than their co-religionists in the rest of the world.
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Recent figures report that since 2000, the Catholic population grew by 33% in Asia, by 15.6% in Africa, and by 10.9% in Central and South America. The increase in the European Catholic population since 2000 was only 1%.

Rabbi James Rudin returns to discuss the history leading up to, and Judeo Christian relations since, Nostra aetate (Latin: In our time), the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council.

Rabbi A. James Rudin has served on the American Jewish Committee’s professional staff for thirty-two years and served as the AJC’s Interreligious Affairs Director. He is currently the AJC’s Senior Interreligious Adviser and a member of the organization’s Board of Governors.
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Rabbi Rudin is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Judaica at Saint Leo University and teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University Renaissance Academy.

Rabbi James Rudin joins Common Threads joins us to discuss the history leading up to, and Judeo Christian relations since, Nostra aetate (Latin: In our time), the Declaration on the Relation of the Church with Non-Christian Religions of the Second Vatican Council.

Rabbi A. James Rudin has served on the American Jewish Committee’s professional staff for thirty-two years and served as the AJC’s Interreligious Affairs Director. He is currently the AJC’s Senior Interreligious Adviser and a member of the organization’s Board of Governors.

​Rabbi Rudin is Distinguished Visiting Professor of Religion and Judaica at Saint Leo University and teaches at Florida Gulf Coast University Renaissance Academy.
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He served congregations in Kansas City, Missouri and Champaign-Urbana, Illinois and was a United States Air Force Chaplain stationed in Japan and Korea.

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