Sometimes when contentious issues come up between the Jewish community and other faith groups, the discussions that follow can lead to closer and more positive relations.  That is the assessment of Rabbi Noam Marans, director of interreligious and intergroup relations for the national American Jewish Committee. He was due to be in St. Louis Wednesday, June 12 to address the annual meeting of the St. Louis Regional Chapter of  the AJC.

Marans, 54, who joined the national staff of AJC in 2001 as associate director of Contemporary Jewish Life, had previously served for 16 years as the rabbi of Temple Israel in Ridgeway, N.J., where he did extensive interfaith and intergroup work.  As director of interreligious and intergroup relations for AJC, Marans is responsible for overseeing national interfaith outreach, dialogue and advocacy.  In his multifaith work, Marans develops and strengthens relationships with a wide variety of religious groups, including the Roman Catholic Church, Protestant denominations and the Church of  Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

Marans played a key role in AJC’s engagement with the directors of the controversial Oberammergau Passion Play, long seen as anti-Jewish in content and tone, which resulted in significant changes that mitigated the production’s historic anti-Jewish elements.  Marans also has had extensive contacts with the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (the Mormons).

The Jewish Light caught up with Marans in Washington, D.C. for a phone interview before his arrival in St. Louis.

Among your many duties with AJC is overseeing national interfaith outreach and advocacy in interfaith work.  Despite years of such work by AJC and other Jewish organizations, every year one of the mainstream Protestant churches continues to support some form of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the State of Israel. Are you disheartened by this consistent phenomenon?

Although it is disturbing that some mainline Protestant denominations continue with consideration of BDS initiatives against the State of Israel, the AJC has played a leadership role in defeating denominational divestment (from corporations doing business with Israel) resolutions in recent years.  These initiatives are led by minority groups within denominations, often with the explicit or implicit support of some denominational leaders, but are defeated when they are revealed as judgments against Israel masquerading as peace-making.  This complicated conflict requires complex analysis in lieu of simplified slogans.  Most mainline Protestants, like most Americans, 75 percent of whom are Christians, are supportive of Israel and understand that Israel has long supported and aggressively worked for a two-state solution leading to a future Palestinian state side-by side-in peace and security with the Jewish State of Israel.

Some of the strongest Christian support for the State of Israel continues to be the Evangelical Christian community, many of whose adherents also support very conservative views on social issues, gun control, etc., which a majority of American Jews oppose.  How do you and other interfaith advocates deal with this issue?

We welcome Evangelical support for the State of Israel and acknowledge that there are significant differences between most Evangelicals and most Jews on several salient domestic issues. Evangelicals, like Jews, are not a monolith. This is increasingly true as Evangelical America becomes more ethnically and racially diverse, notably with the growth of Latino Evangelicals. For example, the National Association of Evangelicals is a key partner in pushing for a comprehensive immigration reform and AJC is an activist interfaith partner advocating for sound immigration legislation in concert with the Interfaith Immigration Coalition, among others.

In your successful effort to bring about constructive changes in the traditionally anti-Jewish text of the Oberammergau Passion Play, you made several trips to Bavaria to view the play, the last of which was in the company of Cardinal (then Archbishop) Timothy Dolan of New York, whom I understand you have befriended. Did you have any expectation that Cardinal Dolan, a native of the St. Louis area, might become the first American Pope?

Given the extraordinary combination of skills that Cardinal Dolan possesses, it is not surprising that he appeared on many short lists for the papacy, but it was not realistic to suggest that there would be an American Pope.  It is notable that Cardinal Bergoglio had rarely been mentioned in this election as a possible Pope, and is now Pope Francis I.  The prognosticators were confounded.  I do enjoy a wonderful friendship with Cardinal Dolan and he is very proud to display his red Cardinals hat right next to his St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap.

What can world Jewry expect from Pope Francis I?

Pope Francis is unique among his predecessors because he rose in the Catholic Church within a community that had a large and vibrant Jewish community, active in interfaith relations.  This is unprecedented in papal history.  Francis is well-known and appreciated by the Argentinian Jewish community, and has significant personal relationships with Jewish leaders.  Francis will, no doubt, further the advances of Catholic-Jewish relations to date as we prepare to celebrate the 50th anniversary in 205 of “Notrae Aetate” (“In Our Time”), the Second Vatican Council document that transformed Catholic attitudes towards Judaism and the Jewish people.

You have done extensive work in Jewish-Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) relations.  How would you assess those relations at the present time?

We recently took part in a major national leadership mission to Salt Lake City to meet with LDS leadership of the church and to learn about its humanitarian work and to discuss some challenging issues.  Often when there are some challenging issues, the dialogue that follows results in a more positive relationship and that has certainly been the case with the LDS.  There have been two potentially divisive issues over the past several years, both of which have been positively resolved.  First, some years back, when the LDS wanted to build an academic and religious center in Jerusalem, AJC played a role in gaining official assurance that the facility, a beautiful structure on the Mount of Olives, would not use that facility to prosyletise.  Second, and more recently, was the practice of LDS posthumous baptisms of Jewish Holocaust victims. After much back and forth discussion, the LDS leadership agreed that this practice is now prohibited and violations are subject of church discipline.