Tucked away in the cultural district of Atlanta is an educational and edifying museum on Anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, and Jewish culture and spirituality known as the Bremen Museum. It is of manageable size, and the more graphic and intense sections of the museum which detail Anti-Semitism in the twentieth century and beyond are presented in a sensitive, instructive, and reflective manner.
On staff is Rabbi Joe, the engaging resident expert on the Tanak for those interested in that aspect of Judaism. My brief conversation with him was very enlightening, and left me wanting more.
Christians as a whole need to be much more conversant with Jewish perspectives on the Tanak, or what Christians refer to as the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament. Scholars and the Vatican in particular recognize this, but unfortunately sensitivity to this neglected aspect of biblical catechesis tends to elude most Christians.
The background a rabbi or Tanak or Talmudic scholar can bring to the biblical text is invaluable for arriving at a proper literal / contextual understanding. I take every available opportunity to engage in inter-religious biblical dialogue, and reference a Jewish biblical commentary in my daily reading of the Catholic lectionary cycle, which is essentially an offshoot of the Jewish liturgical readings.
I was able to view an exhibit on a recent book of Robert Weingarten that used imaginative and interpretive collages to present a portrait of famous persons. It was very aesthetically and intellectually pleasing because of its spacious layout and the informative descriptions that accompanied the artwork. The book is entitled “The Portrait Unbound: Photographs by Robert Weingarten”, and was published by the High Museum of Atlanta, which likewise featured an exhibit on the work.
I also attended a Sunday lecture program featuring the artist and Smithsonian curator Shannon Perich, which was likewise very enlightening. The artist’s reflections tend to be the highlight of such programs because the curator naturally will tend towards a more technical presentation that might border on the dry for persons not well informed on the subject. However, the audience for the program was obviously interested in the artistic details, and thus the contrast between the two talks was stimulating.
For persons such as myself who have not directly experienced or witnessed anti-Semitism, I found the chronicle of such educational and convicting on a number of levels. We live in a world where religious and ethnic discrimination and persecution continues to exist, and often beyond the radar of the mainstream media, so it is necessary to take stock of what happens and continues to proliferate in various forms.
Other groups and religions were likewise persecuted during the Shoah, and thus it is incumbent upon persons of every religious tradition or belief system, as well as those who identify themselves as independent of such, to reflect on the hatred and violence that we are tempted to project and act upon when confronted with those different from us, whose diversity we should celebrate rather than resent.
Karl A. Schultz's Blog 