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May 1946

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Abstract –

The question in my title will perhaps seem odd; that I ask it at this time is the result of a cobbler not having stuck to his last. A theologian by training, I have been in fact more concerned with history than theology; a Christian by belief, I have, for more than ten years, been occupied with the attempt to understand Judaism; and a parson by calling, I have been concerned with political and international rather than with parochial or ecclesiastical matters. And, as a result of these three peculiar interests, the question I have here asked has come to assume for me a completely unexpected importance.

Nor is the question here posed from the standpoint of that modem eclecticism which puts all religions more or less on an equal footing, so that I might equally have asked the question of Christianity and Islam, or any other pair of the historic faiths of mankind. Rather the question only arises because there is an intimacy of relation between these two which is not paralleled elsewhere. And it arises in the particular form in which I have put it because the conventional explanations given by either side as to the position of the other seems to me partly untrue and partly untenable.


About the Author

The Reverend Dr. James William Parkes is a liberal theologian of the Church of England who has devoted much of his life and his written works to an intensive study of Judaism and Jewish problems. During the war years, Dr. Parkes assisted in refugee and evacuation work; he served at the same time as an official of the Common Wealth party—an independent socialist group, with a strong ethical emphasis, which grew up during the war. His active concern with anti-Semitism was first aroused in the 1920's, and stemmed from his work with the International Student Service. While traveling on the continent with groups of students, be learned of discrimination against Jewish students who applied for admission to Polish universities, and became deeply interested in the problem. His first book on the subject, The Jew and his Neighbor, was published in 1930, and was followed by numerous other books and articles, among them, Jesus, Paul and the Jews; God in a World at War; and Between God and Man. Dr. Parkes was born in Guernsey, in 1896, went to school there, and later attended Exeter College. He resides at present in East Anglia, in the county of Herfordshire.

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