Faydra Shapiro

Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border Wipf and Stock, Cascade Books 2015.

“It is an honor to be asked to write a foreword to this amazing book by Dr. Shapiro, who has pioneered a fresh approach. Her creative and original book will prove to be a classic in the discipline of Jewish and Christian relations.”

--Brad Young, Professor of Biblical Literature, Oral Roberts University

''Dr. Faydra Shapiro has given the reader an in- depth look into the world of Christian Zionism, showing that the movement which crosses denominational lines is not a monolith. This remnant within is still trying to grapple the full sense of their 'calling' for Israel in the context of their Christian identity. Christian Zionism is a must-read for Jews who still have a medieval era understanding of Christianity and accept the media's portrayal that many of these sincere people have a hidden conversion agenda.''

--, Executive Director for the Center for Jewish-Christian Understanding and Cooperation (CJCUC), Israel

''Few could be better positioned than Faydra Shapiro to write so sensitively, honestly, and courageously about navigating the Jewish-Christian border. Christian Zionism is an incredible read from an insightful mind!''

--Robert Stearns, Executive Director, Eagles' Wings, Clarence, NY

''Christian Zionism offers a fresh and valuable perspective on an important contemporary religious and political movement. Faydra Shapiro should be commended for presenting Christian Zionism in an even and engaging manner. Her manuscript is a pleasure to read.''

--Yaakov Ariel, Professor of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Dr. Faydra Shapiro Award-Winning Writing, Engaging Speaking, Inspiring Teaching

About the Author Dr. Faydra Shapiro is an Orthodox Jew with a lifelong interest in Christianity. As the founding director of the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations, with a PhD in Religious Studies, she has years of valuable insight into the challenges and possibilities of Jewish-Christian engagement.

Faydra began her career as a university professor in Canada in a department of Religion and Culture, where she worked for 13 years. Her first book Building Jewish Roots: The Israel Experience won a National Jewish Book Award in 2006. Faydra also writes regular academic articles and popular op-eds on Jewish-Christian relations.

After immigrating to Israel with her family in 2008, Faydra was eager to bring her academic expertise, unique experience, warmth and charismatic teaching together to have an impact on the ground, for Israel. And thus the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations at Yezreel Valley College was born.

While Faydra is passionate about her mission of creating greater understanding between Jews and Christians, she is first and foremost a committed wife and mother. She and her husband Shaul, together with their six children live in a tiny little community on a hilltop in the Galilee.

Dr. Faydra Shapiro Award-Winning Writing, Engaging Speaking, Inspiring Teaching

Teaching and Speaking

Dr. Shapiro has a great deal of experience teaching classes, giving talks and engaging audiences about Israel. She speaks regularly to Jewish and Christian audiences, and would be delighted to speak on any of the following topics, and more:

 What’s a Nice Jewish Girl Like You Doing At Church? Tales from the Jewish-Christian Border  A Jewish Perspective on Christian Support for Israel  Christian Anti-Zionism: Its Roots and its Threat  Jewish-Christian Relations: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly  Aliyah to Israel, and the role of the Nations in Bringing the Jews Home  The Messiah or Rabbi Jesus?  Jesus and the Synagogue  Jewish and Christian Family Values  Jesus and Jewish Leadership  Report from Israel Today: The Facts, the Fears, the Future

Contact Information

Dr. Faydra Shapiro can be reached for speaking engagements and media requests at [email protected] or at +972.55.661.9700 Linkedin Facebook (Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations)

Table of Contents for Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border

Foreword by Brad H. Young Preface: On borders (a true story) 1 Introduction 2 Fieldwork in the Jewish-Christian Zone: Three Scenes 3 Standing with Israel: Religion and Politics 4 Ambivalent Love: Christian Zionists on Jews and 5 Jewish and Christian Responses to Christian Zionism 6 I Walk the Line: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border 7 Mapping the No-Man’s Zone: Noahides, Ephraimites, Messianic Jews 8 Conclusion: Riffing off Torah Bibliography Dr. Faydra Shapiro Award-Winning Writing, Engaging Speaking, Inspiring Teaching

Excerpt from Christian Zionism: Navigating the Jewish-Christian Border

It would seem a truism to assert that Judaism and Christianity are different, and quite distinct, religions. There are Jewish holidays (Hannukah) and Christian holidays (Christmas), Jewish names (“Abraham”) and Christian names (“Christopher”), Jewish symbols (Star of David) and Christian symbols (the Cross). A person labels him or herself as either Jewish or Christian, while the notion of “both” is reserved for the product of an “intermarriage” or “mixed family” in which one parent is a Jew, and one a gentile. The field of religious studies itself presumes this difference, enough so that Judaism and Christianity are individually considered “World Religions”, and if taught together are done so as part of “comparative” religion, in the same way that any two distinct religious traditions might be compared. Yet for all their ostensible difference and separateness, Judaism and Christianity have a long history of mutual engagement and entanglement. The matter of how to delineate the appropriate border between Judaism and Christianity, particularly in terms of practice, is one that Christianity has struggled with since its inception. Controversies over Saturday/Sunday Sabbath observance and the dating of Easter relative to the Jewish calendar rocked the early church. And indeed there have been Christian churches and movements who located their Christian proximity to Judaism differently than did the mainstream. There have been many Sabbatarian movements that celebrate a seventh-day Sabbath, including the Ethiopian church, the Transylvanian Sabbath- keepers of the 16th century, and Seventh-Day Adventists. These are just some examples of those who would place the line between Judaism and Christianity somewhat closer to Jewish practice than did the Roman Catholic Church. Christianity is beleaguered by a basic challenge in dealing with its Jewish roots. That the beliefs and practices of its adherents (Christians) are not the same as the beliefs and practice of its founder and exemplar (Second Temple Judaism), presents a fundamental dilemma. While not eager advocates of classic interfaith dialogue, evangelical Christianity has found its search for an authentic, first-century Jesus faith has lead straight to Judaism, however anachronistic, in a movement that has come to be called the Hebrew (or Hebraic) Roots movement. The Hebrew Roots impulse is one that emphasizes the Jewishness of Christianity, and Christianity’s debt to Jewish texts, ideas, practices and culture. It is an impulse that has been shaped by many things, including changing attitudes toward Jews both after WWII and relative to other late 20th century immigration to America, desires to productively mobilize a “Judeo-Christian” concept in society, and developing scholarly paradigms that similarly emphasize the Jewish context of Jesus, Paul and the New Testament. There is, unsurprisingly, significant overlap between the Hebrew Roots trend in contemporary and Christian Zionism. This work takes seriously Daniel Boyarin's assertion that “. . . the borders between Christianity and Judaism are as constructed and imposed, as artificial and political as any of the borders of the earth.” But what Boyarin sees as an ongoing process of differentiation between Judaism and Christianity and distinct identity building in late antiquity, I look for still today in Christian Zionism. The busy border crossing continues to separate people and ideas at the same time as it serves as the meeting place between them, the uncomfortable place where Judaism and Christianity rub up against each other. Borders, we are reminded, “whether physical or conceptual – have been considered as demarcations of ‘us and them’, of delineating difference, of civilized from barbarian…” Yet that Jewish-Christian border – fence, if you prefer – is both still alive and still being undermined: scaled, dug under, peered through, gaped at and crossed over.

Dr. Faydra Shapiro Award-Winning Writing, Engaging Speaking, Inspiring Teaching

Interview Questions

How did you get interested in Christian Zionism, specifically? I got a phone call from a friend who is a Jewish community professional, telling me that an evangelical Christian had volunteered to serve on the board of the Jewish organization she worked for. She wanted to know if I thought that was “kosher”, and could I help her to make sense of this strange request. Well, there’s nothing an academic likes better than something she can’t make sense of. I started reading and realized that in order to really understand what was going on here, I was going to have to spend time with Christian Zionists and take seriously their own accounts of why they love Israel and the Jewish people.

Are you yourself a Christian Zionist? No – I’m not even a Christian. And that was important for helping me to keep an objective perspective. I am a Zionist, inasmuch as I am a Jew living in Israel who believes that the Jews have a right to an independent state in their ancestral homeland. But neither my politics nor my religious beliefs really line up with those of most Christian Zionists. That said, I’ve also learned that there’s a wide range of theological and political beliefs in the movement, despite the monolithic image we tend to get in the media.

What are some of the ways that Christian Zionists show their support for Israel? There are many different ways that they support Israel – through prayer, by visiting Israel, sending money to worthy Israeli causes, writing to elected officials, sharing information about Israel, buying Israeli products, packing food parcels for the needy in Israel, and more.

What do Jews think about Christian Zionism? That’s not a simple question to answer, and I do address this in the book extensively. In short, there is on the one hand a deep appreciation for the Christian Zionist support and enthusiasm for Israel, especially at a time when Jews feel that the Jewish state is unfairly criticized and isolated by many others around the world. There is also a cautiously gratitude for the seemingly positive attitude of Christian Zionists toward Jews and Jewish practice. But together with those positive feelings there is also a deep reservoir of suspicion and mistrust on the Jewish side, born of history and fears of missionary agendas.

What are the things you learned about Christian Zionism that most surprised you? I guess first I was startled to see how little of the anticipated End Times/Armageddon/Second Coming kind of emphasis I encountered in my interviews and field work. I was also surprised to note a healthy diversity in the movement in terms of goals, theology, organization and politics. Perhaps most important is that I was shocked by how little Christian Zionists understood about the complexity of Jewish feelings about their love and support for Israel. And of course I was surprised by how much it meant to Christian supporters of Israel to be invited to speak for themselves - and be taken seriously rather than just dismissed as some crazed cult.

Dr. Faydra Shapiro Award-Winning Writing, Engaging Speaking, Inspiring Teaching

The subtitle of your book refers to the “Jewish-Christian border”. What does that mean? Rather than reading Christian Zionism simply as another story of a dominant Christianity using Jews and Judaism to further its own ends, I found it useful to think about Christian Zionism as a space where Jews and Christians, Judaism and Christianity, were coming into contact in some interesting ways. So while it is undoubtedly a Christian movement, there are many Jews involved in the world of Christian Zionism who are working to facilitate relationships. Increasingly popular efforts to unearth the Jewish roots of Christianity have also produced a new interest in Jewish practice, texts and material culture among many evangelical Christians. It is also a movement that has stimulated a new level of Jewish conversation about the risks and benefits, content and limits of our relationships with Christians and Christianity.

What do other Orthodox Jews think about your work and research with Christians? It can be problematic within my religious community, no question. Many people don’t understand why a “nice Jewish girl” would want to spend her topics that are felt to be at best irrelevant and at worst dangerous for Jews. That said, there are also some people who feel that someone has to engage with other religions, so at least I am secure and educated in my own religious tradition. Generally speaking – and there are exceptions of course – Orthodox Jews have trouble making sense of it. They don’t always grasp that there is simply no way to appreciate Western history, philosophy, literature, film, art, culture, and more without understanding Christianity.

About the Galilee Center for Studies in Jewish-Christian Relations at Yezreel Valley College

The mission of the Center is to expand knowledge about and stimulate wider interest in Jewish- Christian relations. We strive for excellence in three core areas:   Encouraging academic research in Jewish-Christian relations  Teaching about Jewish-Christian relations  Supporting Jewish-Christian engagement in Israel

At the Galilee CSJCR we recognize that Jewish-Christian relations are about far more than just theological differences. Jews and Christians share a unique relationship, both as distinct religious traditions that are inextricably linked, and as communities with a long and complex history of interaction. Drawing on many fields of study, including theology, scripture, language, history and sociology, we aim to empower and equip Jews and Christians with the tools to engage each other and the complex world we face. What