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From: ktw@whuxi.UUCP (WOLMAN)
Newsgroups: net.religion.jewish
Subject: Re: Jews for Jesus
Message-ID: <246@whuxi.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 7-Jan-85 08:39:16 EST
Article-I.D.: whuxi.246
Posted: Mon Jan  7 08:39:16 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 9-Jan-85 05:50:48 EST
References: <186@teklds.UUCP>
Organization: Bell Labs, Whippany, N.J.
Lines: 59

"Why the fear of such an organization?"

Others will probably explain this better than me, but I will
take a stab at it anyway.  Part of the problem Jews have with such
an organization as Jews for Jesus stems from the Christian stance
toward their prophet/messiah.  But the weight of the problem, I
suspect, derives from the history of the Jews in the Christian
(or post-Christian) European and (to a lesser extent) American
worlds.

First of all, Jesus is generally regarded by believing Christians
as the fulfillment of the Davidic prophecies supposedly peppered
throughout the Tanach, especially in Isaiah.  He is believed to be
the messiah.  No Jew accepts this.  NO Jew: and I include here not
only the Orthodox voices that are the majority on this net, but
also Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist-identifying Jews.
The historical Jesus may have been a practicing, devout Jew; but
what he has become in the hands of his followers renders him totally
beyond the realm of Yiddishkeit or Judizmo.  It is the creation of
a figure called "Jesus Christ" from a tortured Jew who may have
lived in Palestine 2000 years ago that presents the next part of
the problem.

At some point in the so-called Middle Ages, probably around the
fifth or sixth centuries CE (I rely on historians for corrections
here), the Jews attained pariah status in Western civilization.  No
need to recount the restrictive laws passed in the Teutonic states,
in France, in England, in the Byzantine empire.  No need to give
ghastly details of the persecutions, murders, "trials of the
Talmud," and expulsions from country to country.  Jews were an on-
going source of horror to believing Christians because their in-
sistence on holding to their faith and ways undercut the essential
Christian belief that the life of "Jesus Christ" ended the "old
law" and obviated the need for the Jews to remain Jews.  Here was
a nation of men and women who said "No.  It wasn't him."  This, I
suspect, lies at the heart of the official and unofficial anti-
Jewish history of Medieval and Renaissance Europe.  When it was
transformed into outright racism in the 19th century (anti-
semitism as opposed to anti-Jewishness), the road to Auschwitz and
Majdanek was already being built in the hearts and minds of Western
Europe's Christian community.  

So why our fear of Jew for Jesus?  Why our disgust?  Why do you
have to ask?  Do you believe that there are Christian sects that
have given up on us, officially or unofficially?  Do you believe that
the supposed "friends" of the Jews such as Revs. Falwell and
Robertson support the state of Israel from altruistic motives, or
because they believe that the restoration of the Jews to their
land is the first step toward the CONVERSION of those same Jews to
acceptance of "Jesus Christ" as the messiah?  Do you believe that
if they fail--as they will--their wrath at the Jews' "stubborness"
will be any less palpable than that of a Medieval Bishop or
Cardinal in Mainz, Paris, or Cologne?  Finally, do you believe that
today's Jews--observant or not--can tolerate a group whose motives
are at best suspect, and at worst directed toward our extinction?

Ken Wolman
[now at] lcuxc!kenw
Bellcore @ Livingston