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Reply to the Protestant theologian Karl Ludwig Schmidt who saw the destiny of the Jewish People in its unification with the "Church"
Martin Buber

"I do not live far from the city of Worms, to which I am also attached by a tradition of my ancestors; and from time to time I go over there. When I do, I always visit the cathedral first. It represents a visible harmony of components, a wholeness of which no part disturbs the perfection. I walk around the cathedral, gazing at it with perfect joy. Then I go over to the Jewish cemetery. It consists of crooked, split, formless stones, without direction. I stand in their midst, looking from this confusion up to the beautiful harmony above, andl have the feeling of looking up from Israel to the Church. Down here, you are without any form or shape; all you have are the stones and the ashes under the stones. You have the ashes, no matter how disintegrated ... here I have stood, connected with the ashes and through them with the forefathers. This is remembrance of the happenings with God, which is given to all Jews. The perfection of the Christian Space-of-God cannot lead me away from this, nothing can lead me away from Israel's Timeof-God. I have stood there, and I have experienced everything myself, all this soundless misery is mine; but the covenant has not been revoked. lam on the ground, thrown down like these stones. But I have not been rejected. The cathedral is as it is. The cemetery is as it is. But we have not been rejected." (Theol. Blutter 12, 1933, 272 f.)