Council of Christians and Jews - International Council of Christians and Jews

International Council of Christians and Jews

During the blitz of 1942 some British Christians and Jews met with members of the American National Conference of Christians and Jews (NCCJ) who were visiting London. It was agreed that after the war an international conference should be held for all the bodies who were active in the field of Christian-Jewish relationships. This was held in Oxford in 1946 and over one hundred delegates from fifteen countries attended. A public meeting held on the eve of the conference included as guest speakers the Archbishop of Canterbury, Reinhold Niebuhr, R. A. Butler and Rabbi Leo Baeck, a survivor of Theresienstadt concentration camp. Various commissions were set up, a resolution was sent to the Paris Peace Conference, an agreement reached to hold an emergency conference dealing with anti-Semitism in Europe, and that a committee should research the possibility of forming an International Council of Christians and Jews which would bring together all the various national bodies.

The emergency conference took place in Seelisberg Switzerland in 1947. "The Ten Points of Seelisberg" agreed at the conference became a reference for many future statements by various Churches regarding new approaches to Judaism. The need for an International Council of Christians and Jews was affirmed by the conference but due to differences regarding how it should be implemented this plan did not come to fruition until 1974.