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Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum - 1925-1992
Judith Hershcopf Banki
Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum was one of the true pioneers of interreligious dialogue, and one of a small group of devoted activists whose work defined and shaped the field that has come to be known as interreligious affairs. He would have considered it a fitting tribute to say that he made a difference in the world. He made a difference not only in his lifetime, but in the lives of succeeding generations. There are young Christian and Jewish men and women who have grown up free of poisonous religious bigotry, free from fear of the other, respectful of one another's spiritual legacy, involved in collaborative efforts across religious lines on behalf of human and civil rights who do not know how much of the groundwork he laid. His initiatives on behalf of a fair and accurate portrayal of Jews and Judaism in Christian teaching and preaching, the creative energy he brought to this task in pursuit of a vision of reconciliation based on justice, his persistence and resiliency in face of setbacks and disappointments, left a rich legacy for those who followed.
Moreover, there are Africans and Southeast Asians - Biafrans, Vietnamese and Cambodians - alive today because of his activism and mobilization of interreligious resources on behalf of refugees and against world hunger. 'If I were to die tomorrow,' he told an interviewer in 1980, 'I have the sense that I've done something useful with the time I've had here.' At that time it was estimated that his actions had literally helped save tens of thousands of lives.
We can only speculate on whether he would have made as great a contribution had he chosen another field - medicine or law or commerce - instead of the rabbinate, had he pursued profit instead of service, had he found his niche as a congregational rabbi rather than as a leader in interreligious and international relations. His talents could have been put to many uses. But they seemed particularly apt for the field in which he gained the most distinction, the field he helped create and then led for more
than three decades: the field of interreligious affairs.
Still, it would have been difficult to predict the distinction of Marc H. Tanenbaum's achievements and the range of his influence. The commanding presence that moved presidents and popes alike; the resonant voice, eloquent in defense of Jewish dignity and human rights, recognized in every part of the world; the writer and radio personality whose weekly comments reached hundreds of thousands of readers and listeners for more than a quarter of a century, a man designated in a national poll as "one of the ten most influential and respected religious leaders in America," and by New York magazine as "one of the foremost Jewish ecumenical leaders in the world today," came from humble and pious beginnings.
He was born in 1925 of Russian/Polish parents who had immigrated from the Ukraine and who operated a small grocery store in Baltimore, Maryland. He grew up in grinding poverty in the only Jewish home in a heavily ethnic Irish, Italian and German neighborhood. His parents were practicing Orthodox Jews, and so was his early upbringing and education. He attended the Talmudic Academy of Baltimore, won a scholarship to Yeshiva University at the age of 14 and a half, started college at 15 and graduated at 19. After a brief flirtation with medical school and some experience as writer-editor of a publication dealing with current events, he entered the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, the rabbinic school of Conservative Judaism. Here, and later writing for several Jewish journals, he honed the communication skills that distinguished his career.
One important relationship forged in the seminary that would profoundly influence the shape and direction of interreligious dialogue in the years ahead, was that between the young rabbinical student and Abraham Joshua Heschel. Tanenbaum had just learned that morning that his father had suffered a heart attack. Overcome with grief, concern and guilt that his mother and sister were left alone in Baltimore to cope, he encountered Heschel in the elevator. Heschel, recently arrived from Europe and already famous as a scholar and teacher, noted his distress, determined its cause, and immediately called his mother, offering solace and support. Tanenbaum never forgot that act of kindness. A genuine friendship and affection developed between the two. Later, Tanenbaum arranged for the publication in the United States of Heschel's first book, which launched Heschel's reputation in America.
In 1952, Marc Tanenbaum became director of the Synagogue Council of America, the coordinating body of Orthodox, Conservative and Reform rabbinic and congregational associations in the United States. He set out to make it a vital organization, and, despite resistance from many in his own community, he began reaching out to the Christian community. He arranged for dialogues between the National Council of Churches and the Synagogue Council. He befriended Bishop Fulton Sheen, the immensely popular television evangelist, and later, Dr. Billy Graham. The contacts with Christian leaders broadened into Washington connections, and in 1960, he served as vice president of the White House Conference on Children and Youth, where he invited Rabbi Heschel to deliver a major paper. The intersection of religion and public policy had a particular appeal for him, and he saw it as a fertile field for interreligious cooperation.
What were his motivations in cultivating and extending Jewish-Christian relations? In his judgment, Jews "had an obligation to really move in and be present as a major force in American life," to play a more active role in defining national values and priorities. He was also concerned about Jewish security. His own experience of anti-Semitism in the streets of Baltimore, his encounter with social and educational quotas, his conviction that a long-entrenched Christian hostility to Jews and Judaism helped prepare the way for the holocaust, his discovery that "Judaism was an unknown religion to most Christians," and that much of what was "known" was negative stereotype - these persuaded him of the importance of the interfaith encounter.
Two vivid recollections from his childhood also undoubtedly shaped these directions of his later life. One was a story passed on to him from his parents, about an uncle in the Ukraine who had been attacked by a mob on Good Friday, forced into a river and drowned. The mob, his parents told him, was led by an Orthodox priest carrying a cross. The other was the memory of his mother preparing Christmas baskets for Christian neighbors even poorer than his own family, because she wanted them to have something with which to celebrate their holy day. As a small boy, he accompanied her on these excursions of charity. At one pole, anti-Semitic violence, at the other, neighborly outreach; his family experience encompassed both.
In 1959 Pope John XXIII called for an Ecumenical Council - the first in nearly a century - to renew the Roman Catholic Church and reach out to other religions. Tanenbaum saw the forthcoming Council as a historic opportunity for the Church to mend its troubled relationship with the Jewish people. The American Jewish Committee was one of the few Jewish organizations that took the Ecumenical Council seriously, and had already mounted an active program based on scholarly research into religion textbooks that the Committee had initiated over many years. In 1961 Marc Tanenbaum became its director of Interreligious Affairs in a situation where his inclinations and creative energy found organizational respect and support. He had found his niche!
In his 29 years at the American Jewish Committee (1961-1990), he forged a career that gave expression to his particular and outstanding skills: rhetorical (he was a gripping and eloquent speaker), analytical (he had the ability to penetrate to the heart of a conflict or problem while others were skating around its edges), conceptual (he could envision solutions or paths to solutions and make them seem achievable through a rich and vivid vocabulary and an impassioned imagination); and diplomatic (he could express difficult, even painful disagreements and tensions without alienating the other, and he not only made friends in unlikely quarters, he brought others of differing viewpoints together to enhance their mutual understanding).
Rabbi Tanenbaum threw himself into the American Jewish Committee's initiative on behalf of what eventually emerged from the Second Vatican Council as Nostra Aetate. He supervised an active program that included three AJC memoranda sent to Cardinal Augustine Bea, documenting the negative and hostile portrayal of Jews and Judaism in Catholic textbooks, noting anti-Jewish elements in the liturgy, and the last (written by Heschel), suggesting concrete steps that the Church could take to redress past injustices. When Cardinal Bea visited the United States Tanenbaum arranged for him to meet with a group of Jewish religious leaders including Heschel. The two biblical scholars struck off a personal friendship which withstood the tensions of the months to come. One of the crowning moments of his professional life was that he was present when the Council Fathers voted to adopt Nostra Aetate after many delays and some watering down of the original text.
He was instrumental in the establishment of the International Jewish Committee for Interreligious Consultations - acronym IJCIC - formed to represent the Jewish community in dialogues with international Christian church bodies such as the Holy See and the World Council of Churches. He was the first rabbi to address the latter organization. He was critically, but always diplomatically, responsive to documents such as the 1975 Guidelines and the 1985 "Notes" and was quick to criticize anti-Israel bias in various churches when he encountered it. When, in 1985, he moved from Interreligious to International Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee, his horizons broadened but his concerns remained constant.
He was a trailblazer and activist on behalf of the human rights of immigrants and refugees, and of religious liberty for all people, but always in defense of his own people. Many Jews and Christians have been nourished by the fruits of his labors. May his memory be for all a blessing.
* This biographical essay is drawn in part from the Introduction to an anthology of the writings of the late Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum. The anthology, funded by a grant from the Milstein Family Foundation, is being co-edited by Judith Hershcopf Banki, Program Director of the Rabbi Marc H. Tanenbaum Foundation in New York City, and Eugene J. Fisher, Secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Secretariat for Catholic-Jewish Relations.
