Posted on 06/11/2019 8:45:31 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
For several decades, I have drawn attention to the Church’s historic persecution of the Jews in Jesus’ name. It is one of the ugliest and longest chapters in Church history, and it cannot be downplayed, forgotten, or ignored. With God’s help, I will continue to call out “Christian” antisemitism wherever I see it today. But I will not ignore Jewish persecution of Christians. It too must be called out.
In the Gospels, Jesus and His followers, all of them Jews, were persecuted by hypocritical Jewish leaders, ultimately leading to the Lord’s death on the cross. And that pattern continued in the Book of Acts, where the Jewish leadership stood in opposition to the message of Jesus the Messiah, sometimes persecuting His Jewish followers to the death (see Acts 7).
Some even stirred up trouble wherever these Messianic Jewish emissaries went to share the good news (see Acts 17), and this continued in the centuries that followed, with some documented cases of Jewish leaders siding with local efforts to persecute Christians.
Of course, no amount of Jewish persecution of Christians can justify the horrors inflicted on the Jewish people by professing Christians, including torture, exile, being forced into ghettos, being burned at the stake, being offered baptism or death, and much more.
And it is an open secret that the Nazis drew on Martin Luther’s antisemitic writings to help enflame German hatred against the Jews.
None of this can be denied, nor should it be denied. To the contrary, we must be ever mindful of this tragic history lest we repeat it in our day.
But, to say it again, when there is Jewish persecution of followers of Jesus, that must be called out as well, especially when it takes place in Israel.
It was a radical Jew who delivered a bomb, disguised as a holiday gift, to the house of Ami Ortiz, the son of Jewish Christian parents. He miraculously survived the bomb blast, which took place in 2008.
But this act, extreme as it was, was not in isolation.
As reported by Time Magazine in 2008, “Messianic Jews, as these Jews who believe in Jesus are called, number just a few in Israel — anywhere between 6,000 and 15,000 — but they provoke hatred all out of proportion to their meager numbers. Many orthodox Jews view them as traitors for joining the Christian faith, which for centuries has persecuted Jews. One Messianic Jew, Tzvi Sadan, a teacher and editor, recalls telling his father, a Holocaust survivor, that he had accepted Jesus as his savior. ‘My dad flipped out. He said that the SS guards in the camp had 'God Is With Us' written on their belts. He told me, “You've joined the enemy.” But he calmed down a bit when he saw my prayer shawl.’” (What Sadan means is that he didn’t stop being a Jew by following Jesus.)
Over the years, Messianic Jews have suffered different levels of persecution within Israel, although none so violent as the bomb attack on Ami Ortiz.
But there have been protests and even vandalism at Messianic Jewish meeting places, attempts to get some believers deported, and various threats and harassments.
Virtually all these acts are carried out by ultra-Orthodox Jews, who view “missionary” activity as diabolical, destructive, and dishonest. As some of these protestors once chanted outside of a large Messianic Jewish gathering I was attending in Israel, “Hitler wanted our bodies. You want our souls!”
Today, as the number of Messianic Jews in Israel has risen to about 30,000 and as the society at large is much more open to these Jewish believers in Jesus, opposition from ultra-Orthodox Jews continues to rise. (For my little run-in with some ultra-Orthodox protesters last year, see here and here.)
As my friend and colleague Ron Cantor reports from Israel (with a video link worth watching), “Believers attending a Messianic concert last week in Jerusalem were accosted by dozens of Orthodox Jewish protestors, who held a violent and chaotic riot for hours, calling the people ‘missionaries’ and ‘Nazis,’ and telling them to get out of Israel. They held up several signs saying, ‘Beware, Missionaries!’ in Hebrew. In Hebrew the world Missionary is a slur. Of course, we are not missionaries, but citizens of Israel.”
Again, I understand how these protesters view us. As a rabbi said to me decades ago, “Our ancestors died rather than believe what you believe. Yet, without coercion or pressure, you not only believe in Jesus, but you try to proselytize as well.”
But, to say this yet again, none of this justifies the actions of these protesters, who were held back by police.
Ron writes that, “Jenya Lempert and his teenage daughter were accosted by swarms of young men blowing whistles at excruciating pitches and linking arms to block the entrance into the concert hall.”
As Lampert told KNI News, “It was a pure act of hatred. They hate us, they were standing against us, they brought their minors as human shields.”
Indeed, Ron explains, “Orthodox protesters have been known to bring teens, who have more liberties than adults to break the law.”
But his response to all this is right on: “It is important to not get angry but pray. At the same time, understand that this is pure fanaticism and brainwashing of children. However, it only represents a tiny minority of Israelis.”
And how should Christians around the world respond to these harassing acts?
First, they should pray for the believers being persecuted, sending them a message that they are not alone.
Second, they should pray for the repentance of the persecutors, believing that there are many Sauls of Tarsus among them.
Third, as friends of Israel who appreciate the liberties that the nation affords its citizens, they should encourage the government to stand with those who are being persecuted to send a message the government will not tolerate this kind of behavior.
All that being said, my personal expectation is that the final generation – whenever that will be – will look a lot like the Gospels and Acts, except that in the end, there will be mass acceptance of Jesus by His own people, rather than mass rejection.
May the Lord turn the hearts of His people Israel!
> The Talmud1 focuses in particular
No thanks. The Talmud is the touchstone of heretics. Every damn time I see someone proclaiming to be Jewish justifying something against spirit of the Torah, they refer to the Talmud.
But the Talmud is the work of men, not of God. Treating it as a text of definitive weight is deceptive.
From his bio:
> Zalman Nelson is a licensed therapist, online counselor, and freelance writer/editor. His private practice fuses modern therapeutic techniques with the ancient Jewish wisdom of Kabbalah and Chassidic thought.
Kabbalah too? Not an actual rabbi? And a New Age social worker? Triple no thanks.
> But the Talmud most certainly IS trash that needs to be destroyed.
While I don’t think your source gives fair treatment to the subject - almost every time I see a non-Jew refer to the Talmud, the quotes they use are almost always made-up ones, usually by Muslims - as a Jew I could not agree more with this conclusion. Every time I see something introduced as Jewish in nature, but that thing is not in accord with the spirit of the Torah, the Talmud is the source. Every f-ing time.
It’s the point where a person definitively holds a belief in contradiction with the Torah, and decides his own judgment is the greater of the two sources, where he is definitively no longer a Jew.
If people want to play deceptive word games about ethnicity, though, they can do it with someone else. I’m sick of the double-meaning word games and will not play along.
There is not one Christian claim against the Talmud that is correct. I am speaking literally.
When a gentile brings a “proof” from the Talmud about a Jew’s negative treatment or beliefs about gentiles it is always 100% the opposite intent of the passage or conversation. I challenge you to find the websites and bring the proofs. They have all already been categorized and refuted.
Why are you challenging me? I said the same thing.
No, providing ammo. Easier to tag you than every “blah blah...Talmud” post in the thread.
I’m under no illusions. I’ve gone down the “Talmud quotes” rabbit hole before, attempted to source all the quotes, and surprise surprise they all originate from some jihadi.
Oh really? Thanks for taking up a bunch of bandwidth with a bunch of baloney. Replacement theology much? I'll file this under "Cat Litter", although frankly, Tidy Cat is much more useful.
Crawl back to whatever trailer park you came from.
Your baby mamma wants her check.
No apology needed and nothing to be sorry about.
Heck, if you thought I was offended, my tone was probably too strident. Danger of text and no vocal intonation. So I’m sorry!
Oh, believe me, I’ve seen plenty of Jewish sources, actual Jewish sources mind you, cite those exact things. Heck, I linked a video to Yossi Gurvitz exposing some rather hair-raising elements of the Torah earlier, and last I checked, he was Jewish. And that Angelfire link I gave earlier was written by a Rabbi. I’ve got plenty more if you’re interested:
*http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/2863-ben-dama
*http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10846-min
Origin of Jesus’s name being Yeshua in Talmud.
*http://www.v-a.com/bible/jesus.html
*https://askdrbrown.org/library/what-original-hebrew-name-jesus-and-it-true-name-jesus-really
*https://jewsforjesus.org/newsletter-mar-2008/y-shua-or-yeshu
*http://www.halakhah.com/gittin/gittin_57.html
The last two sources, BTW, come from actual Jewish people.
I can also cite to you Nicholas Donin (Nicolas Donin) of La Rochelle, who was responsible for all Talmudic Manuscripts that were available to be burned in Paris.
And just as an FYI, common sense question, do you really think I’d condemn the Quran and denounce both the Talmud and the Quran as being no different or even much better if I had been muslim? As a matter of fact, I’m actually Catholic, the only other religion I even belonged to was Anglican when I was a kid.
I’m not from a Trailer park, and just so you know, I just cited sources from actual Jewish people that exposed certain elements from the Talmud, so I would rethink saying that (besides, resorting to personal insults instead of addressing the argument means you automatically lost the argument).
Well, it is. Why else would Jesus predict the destruction of the Jewish Temple by the Romans in 40 years time in the Gospels?
Seriously? You’re going to use faithweb as a source? By that same token, I could easily use faithweb as a source for how the Quran is not as bad as people make it out to be, even when it actually is. Either way, plenty of other sources, written by actual Jewish people, no less, contradict that claim. When Jewish people comment on the Talmud’s negative stuff and make clear it is true (and those who actually studied it, I should add), I’d guess that’s actually true (why would they mention it otherwise?).
Aha! We have another scholar....
I hope that’s not sarcastic, because I did try to find those sources, with help no less.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.