Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site whuxi.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!whuxl!whuxi!ktw 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