Falwell Attempts to Mend Interfaith Fences

Despite His Ties to Israel, Many Jews See Moral Majority Leader as Nemesis

In the last month, television evangelist Jerry Falwell has broadcast a satellite television show from Jerusalem featuring Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, denounced a proposal by Egypt's president that the Palestine Liberation Organization be included in a U.S.-sponsored peace initiative and apologized to a Miami gathering of rabbis for "excesses" by conservative Christians.

Falwell's activities present a paradox. He remains the nemesis of many American Jews, the point man of what they consider an intolerable right-wing threat to America's unique religious pluralism and a major reason that 71 percent of them voted for President Reagan's opponent last November.

To the chagrin of his U.S. critics, however, Falwell is received as an ex-officio ambassador of America's new Christian right by Israeli leaders who, despite pressure from some Jewish liberals, dare not turn away such a staunch supporter. At home, Falwell is making a major effort to mend fences with the Jewish community -- a political mission that some critics charge has a frightening theological motivation.

"I'm going to be their friend whether they want me to or not," Falwell said in an interview.

He remains bent on building a political coalition with conservative Catholics (on opposition to abortion) and with conservative Jews (on support for Israel), creating tension in the traditionally noncoalition-minded fundamentalist Christian movement.

Falwell told the conservative Rabbinical Assembly at their March 13 Miami session, "Twenty-five years ago many of us were saying this is a Christian republic . . . Now we say Judeo-Christian republic. There is a spirit of pluralism that did not exist then.

"We have had our excesses," Falwell said, "and we can only say we're sorry and we'll try and do better." He promised to "mobilize 70 million conservative Christians for Israel and against anti-Semitism."

Administration officials say that they are comfortable with his activities as an increasingly influential political ally and have made no effort to persuade him to lower his profile.

"If he wants to mend fences with the Jewish community, I'd encourage him to do that," said a White House aide. "It has no relation to our relationship with that community . . . . For a Republican, it's very, very good. We've been very supportive of Israel, and our opposition to affirmative action and quotas has been pretty popular."

While no one is betting that Falwell will win the Jewish vote for the Republicans in 1988, some Jewish leaders and other observers say that he is at least lowering the temperature of the debate.

Rabbi Marc Tanenbaum of the American Jewish Committee commented after the Miami session, in which he participated, "It was thrilling to watch Jerry Falwell become a born-again American."

Henry Siegman, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, was less sanguine. "I take Falwell at his word that he's a friend of Israel," he said, "and I don't believe he's an anti-Semite . . . . But he misses the point completely. It is not a tolerance for unorthodoxy that the American system is all about. It's that the government is not identified with any one group."