A lot of the early church fathers were anti-Semitic. They wrote all manner of trash against the Jews, shunned the biblical Jewish holidays, and "Christianized" existing pagan holiday in an effort to lure pagans to Christianity. The Puritans were one group along the way who knew the importance of Israel and studied the Jewish roots of Christianity.
I think Mr. Olasky is wrong to imply that the teachings and teaching methods of Jesus were not similar to those of the Pharisees. He didn't have any use for the traditions of men when they made the Law of no effect, it's true, but He was not completely out of step with them.
Apparently one of the first things one does when starting a different sect is to differentiate it from others. The admonishion not to eat milk and meat at the same meal comes from the Jews differentiating from another sect at the time that did cook the meat in its mother's milk. Thus a whole second set of cookware is needed in a Jewish house. (And what about circumcision, that made one different too.) So it is not surprising that many things in early Christianity are different from the similar things in Judaism. Different Sabbath, different food protocols, new set of holidays...
And Mohammand came later and did the same thing, differentiate. And the Mormons...
I'm hesitant to throw this in, because it can be highly flammable with the wrong people, but religious hatred cut both ways in those early days. NOT that Christian anti-semitism is thereby justified. But it is also true that very early on the Jewish Christians were villified and cursed by the rabbinic establishment.
The adoption of pagan practices into the church happened over centuries of time, as the Jewish component of the church shriveled in comparison to the huge influx of Gentiles. At the Council of Nicea, the Christian Jews were finally squeezed out, forbidden to celebrate Passover.
It is well worth noting, that at the first Jerusalem Council (sometime after Paul's ministry was well underway) the main controversey was over the issue of whether it was possible for a GENTILE to be a Christian, or whether only Jews could be Christians.
Just one correction in your terminology. Many of the
ante-Nicene Fathers were anti-Jewish, not anti-Semitic.
Anti-Semitism implies the racism and ethnic intolerance
of modern fascism. There was none of that in the early
Church. St. Paul was anti-Jewish but boasted of his
Hebraic background. The examples can be multiplied but
the term "anti-Semitism" is so loaded with its ugly
modern connotations that it's best not used at all.