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!
I’m against Islam, and yes, I even support Israel over the Middle East. I even condemn Communists of all stripes, not just Nazis, for trying to exterminate Jewish people. So I am definitely not anti-Semitic. Just because I’m against the Talmud doesn’t mean that I’m anti-Semitic. Jesus is a Jew, so I have no quarrel with Jewish people.
Wow! you are knowledgeable. I would appreciate any suggestions from you on where to start about the Talmud and other learnings. either here or via personal message
Well, you can go to Jewish Encyclopedia for one thing, that contains a LOT of unadulterated quotes from the Talmud, including the infamous passage where Jesus is boiling in hot excrement in Hell. You can also look up Nicholas of Donin, who exposed a large amount of what the Talmud actually says (which led to the Talmud burnings in Paris). You could also look for Tikkun: A Bi-Monthly Jewish Critique May-June, 1994, which has Rabbi Tzvi Marx explaining they use two Talmuds; one for authentic use, another for public consumption. I think Yossi Gurvitz has a video explaining what’s actually in the Talmud as well.
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/
There’s also this website as well:
http://www.halakhah.com/gittin/index.html
Yossi Gurvitz is a former Talmud student as well.
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.
I didn’t “jump” to that conclusion. I looked up the author.
Anyway, I’m done playing “this word means two contradictory things at the very same time” games, so if you want to discuss the topic, I require you to differentiate one use of the word “Jew” from the very distinct other use.
How is that different from Matthew 18:18?
See Deut 30: 12
Neither one of those involved a mere mortal beating God in a debate or a group of mortals restraining God to such an extent that he is unable to do anything without a majority vote from those groups. The first one dealt with whatever sins were forgiven or unforgiven, and the second one dealt with how to effectively gain immortal life of the immortal soul, and how it isn’t all that difficult.
That’s leagues different than a rabbi outright beating God in a debate, or a group of rabbis restraining him (not to mention any similar entities doing so to God).
> religiously Christian, but ethnically Jewish.
If people would attach the “religiously” or “ethnically” qualifiers appropriately as you do, there would be much less confusion on the subject.
tell that to my wife - she accuses me (rightly) of being pedantic and overly logical when i don’t need to be.... sigh...
“See the way this works on FR...”
Spare me the condescension. You didn’t quote that part in your comment that I replied to, so what you were referring to was ambiguous.
See, the way it works on FR is if you want someone to know what you are referring to specifically, you might want to quote the exact section of the article you are taking issue with, instead of trying to quote it later after other people reply to you, and then pretend that you made it clear in the first place.
It’s absolutely necessary in this case to be pedantic.
Historical antisemitism is considered to be a special kind of evil, because of the motivation behind it. Jews have been persecuted because they refuse to give allegiance to earthly kings before God - many Christians are also persecuted on this basis, but with Jews there’s thousands of years more of it, and Jews have never had the strength-in-numbers necessary for self-defense in those situations.
So when some radical Communist who happens to be Ashkenazi claims antisemitism on the basis that he is a Jew, I reject that deceitful tactic. He doesn’t believe in God, and therefore the special type of evil in question cannot apply, no matter how malicious the attacks on him may be.
> The bottom line is he wrote that according to Jewish law a Jew remains a Jew despite any conversion(s).
The bottom line is that I need not respect his opinion, which relies on a logical fallacy (that the word Jew means two distinct and separate ideas at the same time) that is not part of the Torah.
Old Testament Jews might have been that, but unfortunately, by the time of the Talmud, the Talmudic Jews clearly worship themselves over God or earthly kings. Heck, if anything, Bava Metzia 59b indicates that they can ignore God after Mt. Sinai, and that if anything God is their slave who can’t do anything without a majority vote by the Rabbinic council. As far as I’m concerned, thanks to that passage in particular, the Talmudic Jews are not much different than radical Communists who use the Jew card.
Sorry for sounding very cold regarding that, but when the chosen people explicitly backstab God the Father like that by making him weak and dumb, show him that kind of disrespect, that is a really special evil there, even moreso than anti-Semitism. Heck, if it were me in God’s position and the Jews did exactly that, I’d probably remove their chosen status and even eliminate them in anger for that, viewing them has flagrantly broken their covenant with me when they did that. That’s a kind of treachery that I simply cannot forgive.
You call him a Jew, which you would understand if you understood Judaism.
You appear to be imposing a Catholic viewpoint on Judaism, with its heirarchical systems and earthly proxies for the divine.
This conversation is staggeringly similar in nature to when I have tried to explain principles of liberty to Communists. All they seem to understand is authority.
You’re just as off base as the folks on the other side.
The reality is that most Jews will never pick up, open, or receive guidance from the Talmud. You can attend services regularly your whole life and never hear of it.
So any obsession with Talmud as an effort to characterize Jews in general is completely wrong-headed.
This self-worship phenomenon you observe is a) not at all specific to Jews; and b) the very element that makes them something other than Jewish.
Communists pretending to be Jews are no more authentic than Christians pretending to be Jews.
> Which returns to the starting point; What does one call a Jew who rejects Halacha in favor of one’s own interpretations of Torah?
One more response to this and then we’re done talking about this subject forever.
On the one hand, you assert materials that claim any descendant of the tribes of Israel, or convert, or descendant of a convert, is Jewish.
On the other you imply that failure to treat materials other than the Torah itself as divine law is a disqualifier for being a Jew.
You’ve gone full Alinsky on me in this conversation and I don’t appreciate it at all.
Your understanding of Judaism is so wrong that you should never comment on it again because you will only mislead yourself and others.
> according to Halacha
Halacha is not an authority. End of story. We are done with this conversation now.
I'm laughing so hard, that I'm running tears. Oh my goodness - funny!!
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