In light of the Second Vatican Council in 1965, the Dabru Emet was first published on 10 September 2000, in The New York Times, and has since been used in Jewish education programs across the U.S.
While affirming that there are theological differences between these two religions, the purpose of Dabru Emet is to point out common ground and a legitimacy of Christianity, for non-Jews, from the Jewish perspective.
I agree with much of it, including the controversial but carefully balanced passage denying that Nazism was a Christian phenomenon.
While intended for the laudable purpose of discouraging missionizing, this assertion conveys an uncomfortably relativistic message.
disagree with the section in Dabru Emet which holds that Christian theology is not in any way to blame for most of the last 2,000 years of anti-Semitism, or the Holocaust.
Rabbis Irving Greenberg, David Rosen, and Shlomo Riskin are prominent among them in the interfaith movement.
We see in this statement a confirmation of our own work of these past years… We know that we must reexamine themes in Lutheran theology that in the past have repeatedly given rise to enmity towards Jews… Fully aware that Dabru Emet is in the first instance an intra-Jewish invitation to conversation, we see in this statement also an aid to us in expressing and living out our faith in such a way that we do not denigrate Jews, but rather respect them in their otherness, and are enabled to give an account of our own identity more clearly as we scrutinize it in the light of how others see us.