Abstract
This book can be highly recommended as doing what it sets out to do – namely, help Christians understand Judaism. It does this in two ways: first, by describing the many different forms that Judaism takes in the modern world; and second, by focusing on some of the main issues on which there are differences of opinion. It does this aware that this is a book for Christians, and therefore Christian positions are set out and discussed in relation to Jewish ones. The book is written in a clear style, in an eirenic manner, and is the fruit of the author’s teaching at Notre Dame, where he is a professor.
One of the key issues is obviously supersessionism. While punishment supersession is no longer held by the mainstream churches, economic supersession still casts a shadow. Novick defines this as ‘God’s intention from the beginning to maintain a covenantal relationship with Israel only until the time of Christ’. After that the covenant is dissolved to make way for a different relationship of God and the world through Christ and the Church (p. 22). But if Christians are to hold both to the truth given in Christ and to Paul’s statement in Romans 11.29 that God’s gifts and his calling are irrevocable, we have a mystery that cannot be easily resolved. Rowan Williams is someone who affirms the irrevocable nature of the calling of Israel and who says that Israel ‘is called to be the paradigm nation, the example held up to all nations of how a people lives in obedience to God and justice with one another’ (p. 278). Novick, while praising Rowan Williams for his post-supersessionist theology and his affirmation of the state of Israel, criticizes him for regarding Israel as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. But this is a false antithesis. For we can equally say that God loves Christians as an end in itself and urge that we too are meant to be a paradigm people.
There is much in this book with which most Christians will be unfamiliar, especially the varieties of ultra-Orthodoxy and the highly revered Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994 and has a huge following, many of whom believe he was the Messiah. Novick criticizes this view for the same reason that Christianity was rejected by most Jews – the fact that the promised messianic age has clearly not yet come. Moral issues are considered as well as theological ones, including same-sex relationships, where the argument is a bit thin on the reasons why Christians today might affirm them. There are useful discussions on approaches to suffering and understandings of spirituality. He notes that spiritual seekers do not usually find help in mainstream forms of Judaism but look to Kabbalah, especially mystical readings of the Song of Songs and longing for the Sabbath. The book is inevitably more focused on the situation in the USA rather than the UK, where in a highly significant move Liberal and Reform Judaism came together at the start of 2026 to form one united body, Progressive Judaism.
Like a good teacher, Novick ends each chapter with a section entitled ‘Further inquiry’, which suggests questions rather than delivering answers.