“Jews and Protestants, between complicity and incomprehension, what future for our relations?” is the theme of a conference held in Paris in recent weeks, as part of the programme “Church and Israel”. “I am disturbed whenever the fundamental right to existence of the State of Israel is placed in doubt – observed rabbi Rivon Krygier -. It is the duty of the Churches to struggle for the coexistence of the State of Israel and of Palestine”. The Protestant theologian Elisabeth Parmentier for her part explained that the doctrinal text “Church and Israel” of the Communion of Protestant Churches in Europe (CEPE) “does not deal with socio-political actuality, but proposes a strictly theological reflection on the relation with Israel understood in the sense of the Jewish people” and pointed out that “the history of Christianity is strongly rooted in Judaism”. This means, she explained, that “the Protestant Churches renounce the missionary spirit” and recognise “Judaism as an autonomous path of salvation, hence without Christ”. The question of the doctrine of the salvation through grace alone however remains open: according to rabbi Krygier, “if the human being depends wholly on the grace of God and is unable to achieve salvation with his own forces, Judaism cannot but be discredited”. “Salvation – he concluded – is achieved through the works of the Jewish Law and through the grace of faith”.
