Pictures
Date: September 9, 2001 Location: Univ. of Dayton Alumni Hall Room 101 Meeting Topic: Report on Paths to the Holy, A
Christian-Jewish Chautauqua, Held in Lakeside Ohio, Aug 19-24, 2001 Speakers: Lou Vera, Robin Smith, and Ken Rosenzweig Hosts: Robin Smith and Lou Vera PRESENT: Robin Smith, Acting Chair, Presiding; Donna Bealer,
Bert Buby, Candy Davidson, Ruth Precker, Bill Rain, Ken Rosenzweig, Sophie
Rubenstein, Phillis Straka, Lou Vera. Robin Called the meeting to order at 7:55 PM. Lou Vera read
Psalm 136 as the opening prayer Ken announced that Eugene Hannahs is recovering from heart
surgery, and Erika Garfunkel is recovering from hip surgery. Robin then began the reflections on the Christian-Jewish
Chautauqua by turning the floor over to Lou. Lou said that she has been working
on the statewide committee that organized this event and prior ones--including
Chautauqua I, dialogues and statewide events for Jewish and Christian religious
educators since 1995. The objective of the committee which generally met in
Columbus was to bring the Christian statements of recent years about new
approaches to Jews and Judaism closer to ordinary Roman Catholic and Protestant
congregations in Ohio. A long process of trial and error organizing on Lou’s
part and that of others led up to Chautauqua II. Another challenge has been
teaching people about the Dialogue process, which Lou pioneered in 1996, drawing
on the work of Leonard Swidler and adding insights from her own experience. Few
Dioceses in the U.S. actually teach people about the dialogue process itself..
Another inspiration for this process was a Cincinnati Jewish author, David
Schwartz, who wrote a book about his experiences of dialogue in light of
contemporary scholarship, A Jewish Appraisal of Dialogue. Dave is a
longtime friend of Lou’s and a former participant in a living room dialogue in
Cincinnati which lasted for 11 years. Dave Schwartz took initiative with the
growth of the internet and organized Seed House, which is now defunct because
Dave had a serious heart attack. But Dave was present at the Chautauqua, as were
people he had gathered in on the Internet in Ohio: Alyza Shapiro, an Orthodox
Jewish teacher in an Orthodox Jewish girls high school in Cleveland, now on the
statewide committee, and Harriet Warnock Graham, Episcopalian chair of the
committee, who has extensive contacts with Jews and Muslims in dialogue and
trialogue on the Internet. Years ago Dave drove Lou all the way to Toledo to
meet Harriet, who has worked to promote ecumenical, face-to-face dialogue ever
since. After trying out various formats in the last six years, the
Christian-Jewish Task Force of the Ohio Council of Churches stumbled onto an
understanding that people who spend longer than a few hours together in a
setting which emphasizes retreat, learning and recreation will bond together and
commit more wholeheartedly as future organizers devoted to Christian-Jewish
reconciliation. Lou displayed a number of pictures from the Chautauqua,
including one of Ken’s Jewish music presentation and several of the Lakeside
facilities and the Chautauqua events. Lou also discussed her own presentation at
the Chautauqua entitled "Introduction to Dialogue" which covered the
skills necessary for effective dialogue. Along with the many other marvelous
presenters at the Chautauqua, Lou noted the wonderful contribution of Imam A.M.
Khattab of the Toledo Islamic Center. She noted that she as well as many of the
Chautauqua participants found the Imam to be knowledgeable, open, and respectful
of the viewpoints of others (Note: Imam Khattab died of liver cancer on
September 16). Along with the many other splendid presentations, Dr. Rod Hutton
of Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Bexley (Columbus, Ohio) delivered an excellent
series of presentations on Hebrew and the development of Semitic languages in
the ancient Near East. Lou also commented on the excellent presentations by
George Wilkes, Director of the Cambridge Center for Jewish-Christian Relations
in Cambridge, England. George, who is Jewish, spoke about Jewish-Christian
relations in Central Europe and Dabru Emet (Speak the Truth), a statement
issued last year by 175 Jewish scholars and rabbis which responded to the
numerous Christian denominational statements about Judaism in recent years.
George characterized Dabru Emet as a fairly conservative statement, and
critiqued it extensively. Lou thinks that next year, a future Chautauqua should
hear from someone who has a more positive view of the statement. Another event at the Chautauqua that Lou discussed was the
playing of a video about Open House. Open House is a house in Ramle,
Israel, that was owned by an Arab family. The family was later expelled by the
Israeli army. Later, a Bulgarian Jewish family who were refugees from the Nazis
occupied the home. When members of the Arab family returned to view the home
after the 1967 war, the two families began a long process of reconciliation,
which had definite ups and downs. Many years later, the Jewish family wanted to
sell the house and give the proceeds to the former Arab owners, because Israeli
law did not permit repossession of the home. The Arab family, however, settled
on a compromise--the establishment of a daycare center for Arab Children who
generally have separate schools; Arab children also tend to have a high
school-drop-out-rate. The Arab family decided to dedicate their house as an Open
House and to include among its tasks the formation of an Arab-Jewish Cultural
Center. The house now has two co-directors--one Christian Arab and the other
Jewish--and it has such programs as a summer peace camp, a daycare center, a
Jewish-Arab parents’ network, and an international outreach program. Robin then made the following comments. At both the National
Workshop on Christian-Jewish Relations held in Houston in the year 1999 and at
the statewide Chautauqua, there were people who said that they thought our
Dayton Dialogue should host a national conference and/or help start a national
organization which would actually be a network of local Christian-Jewish
dialogues. In planning a national dialogue organization, it might be helpful to
base it upon the Quaker model of meetings. Quakers have a hierarchy of meetings;
not a hierarchy of people. Every three months a Quarterly Meeting would be held
in which members of all the local dialogues in a state would meet to discuss
issues of common concern. Every year a regional meeting would be held, every two
to three years a national meeting would be held, and every three to five years
an international meeting would be held. The main idea is for dialogue groups to
have the opportunity to discover what other Christian-Jewish dialogue groups are
out there and how we can support one another and work together for common goals
and reach and express a collective opinion on matters of common concern. People
interested in starting Dialogue groups would have access to experienced Dialogue
members whom they could call upon for assistance and guidance. And in this era
of high-tech, we would not always have to meet physically; we could also
"meet" via e-mail and conference calls and online chat rooms. Ken then made some comments about the great experience he had
during the three days he spent at the Chautauqua. He found the programs to be
fascinating, the attendees and presenters to be wonderfully interesting, and the
Lakeside surroundings to be beautiful and atmospheric. In the area of programs,
Ken commented favorably on Dr. Rod Hutton’s series of programs on the
evolution of languages, the home/family ritual & spirituality panel
discussion, Lou Vera’s Introduction to Dialogue, the bereavement seminar, and
the tour of local churches. With respect to the attendees, Ken noted that there
were many ministers and people employed by religious institutions or performing
religious-related duties in other institutions. Ken found the attendees to be
earnest people, committed to the improvement of society. Ken felt the Lakeside
community was very interesting. It is on the Marblehead Peninsula which juts out
into Lake Erie. The community was founded in the 19th century as an educational
retreat center for United Methodists, and many of the houses and buildings were
built in the 19th century. It is now interdenominational but retains one United
Methodist characteristic of being alcohol free. The atmosphere is slow-paced;
people tend to walk rather than travel by auto. There is an educational
atmosphere, including regular concerts and lectures. The people are friendly,
greeting oneanother as if they knew each other previously. Ken also enjoyed delivering his two one-hour Jewish music
presentations. The location was a building with windows providing a panoramic
view of Lake Erie. The music included recorded tracks of Jewish cantorial,
klezmer, Yiddish, and Broadway music. Much of the music was emotional in nature
and Ken, as well as some of the participants, had difficulty holding back tears. Phillis asked for a discussion of the rules of Dialogue. Lou’s
response was that there is a wisdom tradition rather than a set of hard and fast
rules. Eileen suggested that there are guidelines and skills that facilitate the
development of better understanding between the parties in dialogue. Lou passed
out a brochure, Using the Dialogue Tradition in Everyday Life. Eileen
suggested that the Dialogue Decalogue provided an appropriate set of principles
of dialogue, and she offered to run it off for the members. Lou discussed possible locations for a future Ohio
Chautauqua. There was some discussion that it would be nice to hold it at
Bergamo or some other location easily accessible to people residing in the
Dayton area. The meeting concluded with some general discussion of
developments in Christian Jewish dialogue. Respectfully submitted, Ken Rosenzweig, Secretary