Posted on 09/15/2002 5:20:45 PM PDT by jstone78
Does the Messianic Jew give up his ethnicity, too?
Maybe I have it wrong. I don't know. But this is just how conservative blacks are treated by other blacks. Somehow, according to them at least, being a conservative erases "blackness." How does being Christian erase the ethnicity of being Jewish?
I have a hard time with that one.
As for "Jewish ethnicity" it is a vague enough term. I think people use that term as a "weak form" cultural signifier. In other words if you have no particular cultural identity other then "American" or "New Yorker", but you want to give someone a clue of where you fit in to the American Pageant, it can help them, even if you are an Atheist to say that, "my granparents were Lutheran farmers in Minnesota" or "my grandparents were Russian Jews." It tells people some clues about where you are coming from culturally. If I had to state the "ethnicity" of a Jew for Jesus whose grandparents were Russian Jews, I would say "He was born Jewish, but he joined a cult."
I have a hard time with that one.
You bring up a good point. Of course there are plenty of people who are ethnically (or "racially") and halachiclly (according to Torah law) Jewish because there was a Jewish woman somewhere down the female ancestral path. They might not even know it, but they are still Jews. But there is more to being Jewish than DNA. There is a religion called "Judaism" which "(racial) Jews for Jesus" do not practice or believe in.
If the "Jews for Jesus" could actually trace their ancestry in an unbroken progression all the way back to the days of Jesus himself, meticulous observing all the laws of Judaism and also Christianity, then they could legitimately claim to be a "Jewish sect." However, they are a gentile missionary society that targets the assimilated and the religiously illiterate. They have no schools or seminaries of their own, they get all their training from Christian evangelical institutions.
As for "Jewish ethnicity" it is a vague enough term. I think people use that term as a "weak form" cultural signifier. In other words if you have no particular cultural identity other then "American" or "New Yorker", but you want to give someone a clue of where you fit in to the American Pageant, it can help them, even if you are an Atheist to say that, "my granparents were Lutheran farmers in Minnesota" or "my grandparents were Russian Jews." It tells people some clues about where you are coming from culturally. If I had to state the "ethnicity" of a Jew for Jesus whose grandparents were Russian Jews, I would say "He was born Jewish, but he joined a cult."
Huh? So, I was born black, but have joined a political "cult?" This sounds very similar to what you are saying.
I don't get it.
I thought I was specifically differentiating between the Jewish religion and the Jewish ethnicity. I could be wrong, but I thought that the one doesn't necessarily follow the other.
For instance, Sammy Davis, Jr. became a Jew. Therefore, was he in fact Jewish, or did that not count?
On the other hand, if this same professor one day accepted Jesus as his Savior and became a new-born holy roller Christian, that would become his primary cultural identity. People who went on a blind date with him would be hearing about the word of God, and not about whatever it is that City College professors talk about. In other words, if he wanted to advertise in the personals and give someone a sense of who he was, his strongest cultural signifier would be "Christian" regardless of what Mordechai of Lvov thought about it all. I don't think he would call himself a Jew anymore in any context. Of course if he went on to win a Nobel Prize, the Jews would be winking at eachother, but that is a different story.
That was an unwarranted, unappreciated jab at my faith. Watch it. It's not "new-born." It's "born again."
Have I disrespected the Jewish faith? I think not. Nor will I under any circumstance. I ask for the same respect.
Also, there is no such thing as a Christian culture.
Lastly, I haven't seen anything yet that disproves me, but, either you are ethnically Jewish or you are not. It's like being "a little bit pregnant." You either are or are not. And if you wish to deny the Jewishness of a Jew who professes faith in Jesus, how is that not blatant bigotry?
In your last paragraph I think I now see your confusion. You want Jewishness to be a "race." It is not, it is a religion first and foremost. I would call Sammy Davis Jr. a Jew without any reservations, and the CCNY professor who converts to Christianity is not a Jew. His grandparents might have been, but he is not. Jewishness really is not a "race", even as vague as that term is. Jews have certain cultural characteristics that serve to group them, which is why the "ethically" Jewish term is useful in conversation, but there is no way that there is a Jewish race.
Conversion to Judaism is certainly possible, although Sammy Davis is probably not a good example. The Black Israelis of Dimona are probably a better example. They were originally African-American Christians who converted to Judaism en masse and moved to Israel in the 1970's. There was some controversy about the validity of the Reform or Conservative conversions they allegedly had, and they were required to convert again, each one individually, in order to conform to halachah.
Probably the most striking interracial pair I ever saw in my life were "Ovadya" and "Ruth" an ultra-Orthodox couple in Jerusalem. He was a very black African-American, she was a very blonde, blue-eyed Scandinavian. Both were converts. All their offspring, of course, are Jews.
Jews who convert to another religion (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, whatever) do not lose their ethnicity, but they are not perpetuating their identity as Jews. If they should decide at some future time to resume their ancestral faith, they are not required to re-convert.
"Jews for Jesus" is a Christian missionary society that targets Jews. It is not a denomination or a sect of Judaism, no matter how many illiterates with a Jewish grandmother it signs up. They have no schools or seminaries of their own and no doctrine other than mainline Protestant Evangelical Christianity. All their preachers (who are NOT rabbis) are trained at Christian theological institutions.
Interesting article about the "Jews for Jesus" written in 1849 when they were known as the "Society For Meliorating the Condition of the Jews."
Does that make sense?
No.
Then what?
"And if they were ordained by God by being therein, how do Rabbinic authorities change them? "
Did you mean "OR if they were ordained by God by being therein, how do Rabbinic authorities change them? "
"And" or "Or" makes no difference to the question. Let's just say "if they were ordained by God by being therein, how do Rabbinic authorities change them?"
Why did you not answer the question?
(note to self - why am I engaging in a disputation with a Lost Tribe acolyte on a thread about the coercive garbage of jfj?)
Since you bring it up, you never responded to my question, what is so threatening to you about the prospect of having millions of brothers and sisters in the covenant of Abraham?
(One request, please. You may have a hangup about God not wanting people to spell out His name, but I don't. You don't change the spelling in my posts and I won't change it in your's. If you have a problem in seeing God's name spelled in my posts, get over it.)
Amen! This kind of thing is reminiscent of what happened to Christians who brought the message of the gospel to the Jews in the first century.
I understand your statement about it being a religion "first and foremost," but I in no way intended to intimate that it's a racial thing. I don't believe that at all. What I'm speaking towards is the ethnicity of being Jewish. And, of course, ethnicity can encompass all races at once yet remain a true ethnicity.
I would call Sammy Davis Jr. a Jew without any reservations, and the CCNY professor who converts to Christianity is not a Jew. His grandparents might have been, but he is not.
As for the City College professor no longer being of the Jewish faith is correct. But that does not speak towards the professor's ethnicity, which would still be Jewish.
So the fulcrum of your argument is the Jewish faith. But this totally leaves out the ethnic composition which is also valid, is it not? Also, since the Jewish faith is your sticking point, is a Jew who is an atheist still a Jew?
It's very circular in my mind.
And their children are a lovely shade of brown, I'm sure. Interracial children always have looked good to me for some reason.
Jews who convert to another religion (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Scientology, whatever) do not lose their ethnicity, but they are not perpetuating their identity as Jews.
Right. They wouldn't be perpetuating the Jewish faith, but they can indeed perpetuate the Jewish ethnicity, no?
Does that make sense?
Yes it does. I just wanted to ensure that we were all viewing this from the same reference point. That's why I puzzled over "erasing" of Jewish ethnicity which is inbred. I figure that an ethnically Jewish person could no more erase his or her ethnicity than I can erase my skin color. Just can't happen.
Oh, don't get me started on these types. They say they are this, they say they are that. But they are nothing more than Satan himself.
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