@Surasanji

Thank you for your interesting and thoughtful response to my posting. I would like to respond to it in a measured, non-adversarial way. I don't do - or try not to do - point scoring, There are huge number of issues in the frame. However, it's getting late here and I've had a tiring day. If you would welcome my own thoughts in this area, I would certainly be happy to oblige. Just let me know...

@iankenway Go for it. I'm here for the theme. Questioning and Teaching. :D

@Surasanji

Thanks. Will get back to you in the next few days. Yes QOTO indeed.

@Surasanji

Apologies for the delay in getting back to you.

Currently I’m living on the island of Symi in the Greek Dodocenese. Symi experienced occupation under the Ottomans, the Italians, the Germans, the British (for a short time) and was the last island to re-join Greece after WW11.

From 1993-99, I was Director of Studies at the Centre for the Study of Theology at the University of Essex. The Centre hosted an Annual Sacks Lecture on Jewish Theology and Inter-Faith Understanding (named after Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth from 1991-2013) and I was privileged not only to listen to but also to engage with a number of prominent Jewish scholars not only in that particular context but also through the Centre’s Wednesday seminars. See https://louisjacobs.org/articles/via-negativa-jewish-christian-thought-zohar-cloud-unknowing-compared/

While at Essex, my Guyanese-born wife and I frequently attended the Colchester synagogue. One of my wife’s sisters-law, who lives in Canada, converted to Judaism. While at Essex, I was invited to give a lecture on the Ten Commandments by the curate of Halstead Parish Church during an interregnum. Later he applied (successfully) to become my Chaplaincy Assistant. I discovered subsequently that he’d led a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and had used parts of my Lecture as they’d journeyed up Mount Sinai! I’ve never visited Israel, but my brother (who is also ordained), did so in the early 1980s.

I think the point I’m making here is that I’ve been incredibly privileged as a Christian to encounter Judaism in a wide variety of ways. (My taste in music is extremely wide ranging but it includes Mahler as well as Dylan, Simon and Cohen!) I’ve always been appalled by anti-Semitism in whatever form it takes and the story of the relationship between Christians and Jews has often been a dark and dismal one (apart from the various pogroms later in Europe, the massacre of Jews in York and their expulsion from Lincoln and other cities during the middle ages was appalling.)

Prejudice can take many different forms. I spent two-and-a-half years living in Red Rock Mountains area of Las Vegas (where I got to know the proprietor of the Las Vegas Review Journal but also journeyed to San Diego, San Francisco, Sacramento and Yuma. I’ve also spent time in Miami. One of my neighbours who now lives three months of the year in Symi is based in Cape Cod. It’s always important in my opinion to make a clear distinction between the people and their governments. More often than not, I cannot defend US foreign policy just as more often than not I cannot defend UK foreign policy. The same also goes for Israel and indeed many other countries. And it’s not just foreign policy, but also internal, domestic stuff e.g. China’s treatment of their Muslim population. However, I’ve never been anti-American or anti-Israeli or, indeed, anti-Anyone. And whenever I’ve encountered such prejudice, I’ve always tried to counter it as swiftly and as courteously as I can.

Revenons à nos moutons (as the French put it), I think it was right that Jewish people (given their persecution in Europe and elsewhere) were encouraged to assert their inalienable right to return to their ancestral land and that proper provision be made for that return. In this sense, I have no problem with ‘Zionism’. The real issue for me is how effective and sustainable the implementation has been. The relationship between the three Abrahamic faiths - Judaism, Christianity and Islam - has never been easy, but there have been certain periods where there has been genuine respect and courtesy, along with intellectual and culture flourishing, within the perimeters of realpolitik e.g. Spain in the early Middle Ages.

In addition, there’s the question of how Zionism relates to Judaism more generally. This is a huge subject and way beyond my competence. The best that can be said is that there is huge range of opinion between people who self-identify as Jewish.

Ultimately, I have serious misgivings about the concept of sovereign or national states. Do we actually need or want a world with passports and border controls? Does this make sense in the 21st century? One of the reasons of coming to Symi was to explore new political paradigms which go beyond the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, now somewhat long in the tooth.

Benny Shanon’s 2006 paper Biblical Entheogens: a Speculative Hypothesis is not widely known. However, I find it persuasive in the light of my own theological and philosophical interests as well as my own personal experience. Interestingly (and I think this is telling) it has not to my knowledge been subject to any serious rabbinical refutation. In my view all the world’s great religions (think Moses, Lao Tzu, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus and others) probably emerge from some kind of psychedelic experience experienced by their founders. I’m not saying here that all religions are the same or advocating some perennial philosophy, rather I’m merely suggesting that in the 21st century theology and philosophy need to engage seriously with neuroscience and probably ethnobotany as well!

Finally, let me address Roger Water’s recent call for Madonna to boycott Eurovision in Tel Aviv. I’m not particularly a fan of Madonna’s, but I did buy Ray of Light (when she was projecting herself as a forty-year-old earth mother and a serious student of the Kabballah) and rather enjoyed it. My experience of Pink Floyd goes back much earlier to 1967. Water’s experience with LSD (which was relatively limited) goes back to the mid-60s and indeed to the Greek islands including Patmos (The Revelation of St John) about 76 miles from Symi.

Like you, I have misgivings about cultural boycotts. Engagement is better if you can be certain you’re not being used by the system. And that, I guess, lies at heart of the problem. Rogers is a hard cookie (just ask David Gilmour) but he’s not a one-trick pony re Israel having made statements recently about Venezuela and Julian Assange. Taking into account my earlier comments, is Roger Waters anti-American? I don’t think so. Is he anti-Semitic? I don’t think so, though using the star of David on the flying pig in 2013 (the prop in 1976 had absolutely nothing to do Israeli politics) was, I believe, singularly unwise.

I think I must bring this to a close. Feel free to come back to me if you want. However, I may not be able to respond in depth because of time constraints. It’s good to QOTO (two-way street of course!)

IMK

@iankenway I think I'm going to need to read this carefully to respond correctly, so give me a day or two to find the time and I'll certainly be glad to respond. :)

@Surasanji

No problem. Take your time and don't feel obliged There's so much else going on - at least here!

(PS I hope people take your 'No Ads' warning seriously!)