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Home , Amulo, Kurt Burnette

Edward Flannery's “The Anguish of the Jews”: A forgotten feat

Ari Belenkiy

The book, which my sister Helen ran across in the library while pursuing her degree at a Boston college, became the center of our family life for the next decade. The author of the book subtitled “Twenty Three Centuries of anti-Semitism” was a priest of high standing. My father, Mark Belenkiy, a retired physician and author some 100 papers on medicine, decided to translate the book into Russian. He finished the first draft in 2-3 years and asked me whether the author might still be alive. It was 1995 and I was finishing my degree at the University of California at Irvine, where I befriended another Catholic priest, mathematician Kurt Burnette. I re-addressed my father’s request and the next day Kurt brought a thick directory and pointed to an entry somewhere in its middle: Reverend Edward Flannery, Providence, Rhode Island, address, telephone… The same evening I called the number and had a short talk with the author. In a few days my father got a letter bearing the return address of the of Providence.

In the letter, the first of a dozen, Reverend Flannery warmly encouraged us to publish the Russian translation - the book was already translated into French, Spanish and Portuguese. Flannery warned, however, that the first American 1965 edition was followed in 1985 by a second one with two new chapters; the first supplying his theme by events from the mid-1960s to mid-1980s, the second analyzing the roots of anti-Semitism (Christian in particular) more profoundly than before. There were also multiple corrections throughout, so my father started translation anew and finished it sometime in 2000. I took the editing upon myself and worked for a year or so more. We added an afterword with discussion on newly discovered facts and evidence which had surfaced in the 16 years since the 1985 edition: Stalinist and post-Stalinist Russia, the aftermath of the Oslo accords of 1993, the contemporary position of the Catholic Church, the heroes and anti-heroes of the Holocaust. In the course of the editing a brief dictionary was appended, explaining special Christian and Jewish terms. Some footnotes were added to the text, clarifying or commenting on a series of imprecise statements by the author. Flannery was not interested in Jewish history in general but only in the documented history of anti-Semitism. He gave his own “narrow” definition of anti-Semitism (hatred to and derision of the Jews as such and attempts to stereotype them) and strictly followed it, analyzing all conflicts between Jews on one side and the Greek- Roman world, the Church, national European and American states on the other. That’s why he does not consider the Exodus out of Egypt an anti-Semitic act (considering Pharaoh’s behavior as simply xenophobic) and starts from the 3rd century BC, from the anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria mentioned by Flavius.

The first 13 chapters of Flannery's book describe more or less known events, however each episode is followed by analysis and kind of moral evaluation. Flannery was not a historian per se and though he often used primary sources, like ’s bulls of different epochs and codexes of Roman emperors, he also relied on works by his predecessors (Th. Reinach, J. Juster, James Parkes) and contemporaries (Leon Polyakov, M. Margolis and A. Marx); his bibliography is impressive and includes about two hundred volumes.

The first three centuries BC are of special importance for Flannery - one of his objectives is to prove that anti-Semitism was not a Christian invention. His exposition is a real tour de force through different countries and epochs. Not one single well- known event in Europe or America has escaped his attention and analysis. (Islamic countries were less interesting to him.) The most sensitive is a description of the events of the first three centuries CE, when Jews joined the pagan persecutions against Christians. Flannery is trying to mitigate the impression of Jewish participation, showing that many facts, still used by Church, have no documentary support. Still, he unambiguously points to this root of bitterness and hatred that soon became dominant in the relation between Jews and Christians. And yet, he made clear that these roots, no matter how bitter they were, couldn’t justify all the following Church practice toward Jews. With sadness Flannery describes theories and sermons by leading Churchmen: St. Augustin, John Chrysostom, French and Amulo, Pope Innocent III. He juxtaposes these theories against St. Paul’s conciliatory doctrine. His sympathy clearly is with those Christians who tried to mitigate Jewish tribulations: Pope Gregory the Great, , Martin V and Clement VII, scientist Johannes Reuchlin.

Flannery singled out five types of anti-Semitism. Political and economical anti- Semitism - the first represented by people of no lesser stature than Cicero and Seneca in ancient times and Charles Lindberg in modern - was not his major concern. His main task was to explain how it could happen that Nazi (racial) anti-Semitism historically sprouted in place of Church (theological) anti-Semitism. For a believing Christian this is the number one question. The last half-century bore a corpus of literature where authors found parallels for every single Nazi law in Church anti- Jewish legislation. Flannery argues that this comparison “limps” - what was maximum, an upper bar, for the Church, for Nazis became minimum, a starting point. For the “theological” anti-Semite a Jew, a “God-killer,” was not a “lost” case, condemned to death - after becoming a Christian his past sins were forgotten. However, in Nazi Germany would not lengthen Jewish life even for an hour.

Flannery also disputes the fact that Nazi anti-Semitism took the historical baton from the Church. He points to the 18th century, to the and the , when Church influence significantly languished. His major discovery was that Voltaire and other leaders of Enlightenment repeated all the anti- Semitic invectives from the Golden Age of Greece and Rome, quoting Apion and Tacitus and some figures of lesser importance. This was nationalistic anti-Semitism which targeted allegedly specific Jewish characteristics (greediness, arrogance) and customs (Shabbat, kashrut). Flannery claims that nationalistic anti-Semitism - together with Church theological anti-Semitism - is the second major root of Nazi racial anti-Semitism. Though it does not call for killing Jews and is even ready to accept a Jew (after reeducation and intermarriage), its role throughout history was crucial. At first nationalistic anti-Semitism fired up a resurgence of the violent Church anti-Semitism of the 4th century that blurred the milder Paulist doctrine toward Jews. Later, in the era of the Enlightenment, it gave new force to faded theological anti- Semitism, enriched its maliciousness and bred a new species - racial anti-Semitism - which announced that Jewish blood is pernicious and thus for a Jew there is only one place in human evolution - to die. Moreover, Flannery claims that Nazi anti-Semitism was anti-Christian as well, because at its foundation lay hatred toward everything Jewish in origin, in particular toward that Jewish invention - Christianity - with its inherited notions of morality, conscience, sin and repentance. He strongly believes that Christians would be the next Hitler’s target. His next major concern was to explain Christian anti-Semitism. Here he gives a deep psychological explanation - the Jews are hated because they gave Christ to the world. Saying this, Flannery finishes his book with an appeal for unconditional Christian repentance.

The first edition of the book came out of the printing house during the (1963-5), when Pope John XXIII tried to change the Christian attitude toward Jews: many anti-Jewish remarks in prayers were going to be omitted, new textbooks for children were prepared. Flannery was one of the vehicles of that movement. The freshly published book was presented to each and every delegate of that Council. Unfortunately, the Pope died during the Council and his successor, Paul VI, prevented many of the intended reforms from taking place. Still, the book was noticed by American Jews and got many awards from American Jewish and Catholic organizations. The two last chapters of the 2nd edition made the book complete. In them Flannery describes mainly modern phenomena: anti-Semitism which hides under the name anti-Zionism, leftist anti-Semitism, and Arab anti-Semitism.

Flannery devotes some pages to Arab-Jewish relations and Arab terror. He does not hide behind the euphemisms popular in the West and in the Avoda and Meretz parties; he calls a spade a spade and terror - terror. He says that terror is a religious Islamic principle transplanted to the sphere of politics. [Recalling that some leaders of Avoda and Meretz have doctorates in politics, one would suggest sending them back to the student benches.] Flannery warns churches not to stand by preaching “neutrality” while Israel is threatened by its Arab neighbors and pins down some seemingly neutral remarks from several European churches during the '67 and '73 war crises as latent anti-Semitism.

Flannery warns about anti-Semitism hiding in anti-Zionist attire; his examples include stormy applause in the Assembly of the UN when cannibal Idi Amin asked the UN to eradicate Israel as a “collaborator to US imperialism.” He writes that “thanks to an automatic coalition of Arab, Soviet, and Third World countries, the world body representative (UN) has been turned into what appears at times to be no more than an anti-Semitic world forum.” [When one sees the recent anti-Semitic gathering in Durban, South Africa, one cannot but think that history is a story told twice.] Agreeing that anti-Semitism still lives in the programs of neo-nazi parties in the West, Flannery describes post-war anti-Semitism as mainly a phenomenon of the political “left” with its outcry about “Israeli imperialism,” and says that one should counter- argue with the simple and firm argument that “Israel, sole democracy in the Middle East, is an independent, egalitarian, and moderately socialist [the year was 1985!] state that has offered and provided technological and agricultural aid to Third World countries whenever asked to do so, and that seeks a lasting peace and mutual cooperation with its Arab neighbors.”

Flannery points to new, encouraging developments in Church theology, which recognize Jewish doctrine as an equally valid way to personal . [Recently this became an official position of the American Catholic Church.] He was happy to see that the present pope, John-Paul II, marked the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by condemning anti-Semitism and nationalism of all sorts within Christianity. In a personal letter to us Flannery discussed the possibilities for sincere Jewish-Christian dialogue and described how a group of churchmen, headed by Cardinal Willebrand of Rome, had a long discussion with Rav Soloveitchik, once a leading Jewish spokesman and an opponent of any such dialogue. Despite theological differences, Flannery writes, the personal contact was warm and encouraging. [Seeing the present-day position of the American Catholic Church one can see that the meeting bore fruit.]

Flannery’s major feat was in defending Judaism against Jews themselves, those who, like Hanna Arendt, an intimate friend of German pro-Nazi philosopher Heidegger, accused Holocaust Jews of cowardliness while fighting with all her strength against the creation of the Jewish state. Flannery firmly answers Arendt’s denunciations of the “cowardice” of ghetto Jews repeating the words of Norman Podhoretz: “The truth is - must be - that the Jews under Hitler acted as men will act when they are set upon by murderers, no better and no worse: the Final Solution reveals nothing about the victims except that they were mortal beings and hopelessly vulnerable in their powerlessness.” Fortunately, Flannery was not aware about the background of Arendt’s anti-Jewish hysteria, which goes back to the Hebrew University humanity professor’s ceaseless struggle against the State of Israel. [A recent scandal with a history textbook for schoolchildren degrading the founders of our State is another example of the same struggle.].

Reverend Edward Flannery passed away in 1998, not seeing the Russian translation. Our efforts to publish the book with the help of official organizations failed. Christian organizations which yesterday willingly took upon themselves the task of publishing books on anti-Semitism, after the Oslo accords simply “closed” the theme as non- existent. The Christian repentance appeared to be short-lived. Seeing recent initiatives and remarks of the leaders of some European countries (France, Belgium, Norway) one discerns the signs of the old incurable disease. Renowned historian and keen student of the problem, James Parkes, once answered the question of when anti- Semitism would die: in three hundred years. Flannery says in his book that 23 centuries of experience forces us agree with this estimate.

The spiritual evolution made by Flannery astonishes. Unusual is the very fact that a Catholic priest could understand the problem and with such tact and courage (his was not so eager to hear his sermons) discuss it. But a real awe awaits everyone who compares the two American editions. In the last line of the first edition Flannery appeals for repentance to both parties - Jews (recalling the events of the first three centuries CE) and Christians. In the second the appeal to Jews was entirely dropped and he directs his appeal only to Christians. A drop of one word - this twenty-year spiritual growth is astonishing. I see there that spiritual work upon oneself about which one often hears and reads (for example, in synagogues). One can think that in the wake of grief and sorrows given us by the Church, we Jews conveniently forgot about the injustice done with our help to the Church in the first three centuries CE. One can understand that firm reconciliation cannot be without similar spiritual work from our side and that Jewish refusal to recognize our own mistakes earlier or later will bring new disasters, as it has many times in history. The most powerful example is a split in Spanish Jewry after a group of Rabbanim denounced Maimonides’ book “More Nevuchim” to the local . The book was burnt in 1232, after which an inescapable punishment followed - the burning of Talmud. Rabbi Jonah of Herona, a primary mover behind the denunciation, repented too late. This story usually kept silent (it is recalled in synagogues only to point to Rabbi Jonah’s repentance) but the latter was not alone and the followers of Maimonides celebrated (!) the burning of the Talmud as a just revenge. It means that deep repentance did not happen as it did not happen in many other cases, and one can surely expect that the story will repeat itself, though in other attire. In this light the position of official Jewish organizations, unwilling to hear about Flannery’s book, is absolutely clear. Unwillingness to learn from History of course will not pass in vain. The successes of the young State of Israel can turn, as in the time of the Hashmonaim, first into a loss of independence and then into a self-destructive splash of despair.

My father, who passed away a half a year ago, fortunately saw his book published. In erudition and thoroughness the book competes with other Russian classics of the genre - books by Simon Dubnow or Leon Polyakov. In depth of analysis and penetration in the subconscious of anti-Semitism the volume will have a special place on the library shelf.

January 2002, Bar-Ilan University, Israel