www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall Ich bin Judeten

Actualy there's an enormous difference between the Judaism of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the Judaism of our times.

People in the West think that the most holy book of Judaism is the Torah (the Old Testament) but this is not quite true. The basis of modern Judaism are traced in the Talmud (Rabbinical tradition), which was developped after Jesus Christ and contains exactly all the Pharisaic tradition that He himself condemned.

The Talmud is a big archive of comments on the Old Testament, but they also contain non Biblical tradition and a code of behaviour about how the conduct of Jews toward non jews must be.

The Talmud contains horrible blasphemies against Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, and recommends bad conduct, rejection, and hate against Christians in particular. In several parts of the Talmud the name Jesus is used as a way to curse other leaders of history and they continue to do so in our times ("Yeshu Arafat", "Yeshu Clinton", etc).

The authentic branches of Judaism which have rejected the false Talmudic views, have suffered horrible persecutions under the others. And in our times they're despised by their brothers. This is clearly the case of the falashas of ethiopia who have a non-Talmudic religion.

One of the dilemmas is that while it is unfair to cry "anti-Semitism" every time anyone criticizes Israel, it is also true that real anti-Semites hide behind such legitimate criticisms. One must tread carefully in this area unless one end up in weird alliances. I found this to be true in earlier efforts, as an editor of a small, "countercultural" Catholic journal, to criticize both capitalism and communism: often those who oppose both these forms of oppression are secretly proposing some sort of fascist tyranny.
But to get back on topic, might not the origins of European anti-Jewish bias lie in the common human resentment toward prosperous minorities? We saw how horrid this phenomenon can be in Rwanda, and the same thing manifests itself in different ways around the world. Heck, I can see it in Ohio: the Amish are a highly visible religious minority which holds itself rather aloof from the "English" majority. They are also pretty prosperous, while local farmers are folding or barely holding their heads above water. And there is a good bit of resentment and prejudice around here. If some Amishmen somewhere is dishonest in a business deal, or someone named Yoder is convicted of molesting a child, well then, the stereotypes start...
If they were not only highly visible, perceived to be aloof, but also moneylenders it's not hard to imagine how nasty the bigotry could get.
And the whole situation in the Middle East is a vicious cycle of atrocities which justify our acts [which are qualitatively different from our enemys'] and so on. It is truly hopeless, outside of the grace of God, which sometimes seems hard for even Christians to access...
St Michael, guardian of the Church and of Israel, pray for us.

Friends,

I don't know how to distinguish Talmudic Jews from Jews that follow the Torah. I'm not sure it makes much difference. What I do know is that evil men have justified the butchery of modern day Jews upon the basis of their supposed murder of the Logos. This was usually just an excuse but at least the butchers saw the Jews of their day the same way they viewed first century Jews.

daniel,

I think your analogy is apt. Jealousy is a powerful force to justify evil. During the Enlightenment Mendelsohn led an effort to Reform Judaism in Europe so that they would melt into their surroundings. They did this to stop the persecutions in the 18th century. When the pogroms continued anyway Theodore Hertzl established the idea of Zionism. Stating, correctly as it turned out, that the only way Jews can escape the worst of the persecutions is to have its own state. Only a trickle migrated from the late 19th century until the Holocaust. Then the trickle became a flood. Even then the Brits turned their boats back from Palestine to Europe where many met their death.

I don't know what the world expects the Jews to do. I doubt that their really is a safe place for them on the face of the earth. I know, I know, South America or North America but why not Israel? Why when there was a chance at coexistence did the Palestinians decide to attack? They left the Jews only one choice: Segregation.

I don't know why the UN didn't carve out a piece of Germany for a state in which Jews could live peacefully. All I do know is that as long as we persecute anyone, or as long as people claiming to be Christians persecute minorities, those people doing the persecuting don't deserve a place on earth themselves.

Dan Lauffer

Dear Administrator,

My own further contribution here is to ask if this thread could be closed as it is going nowhere with respect to the original point raised by Professor Dan.

A number of responses here could constitute separate threads in and of themselves.

Unless, of course, we may somehow return to the issue of commenting on the world-wide attacks on innocent Jews simply because they are Jews.

Alex

Alex- Like you're never guilty of wandering off topic? Spare me; at least we were still talking about Jews and the roots of the hatred they suffer!

Surely it is possible to hold the conviction that Zionism is horrific, unwarranted, and involves hideous injustice to the Palestinians and to others, without simultaneously advocating the extermination of the Jewish people? Incognitus

Dear Danieln,

Yes, I'm guilty as charged!

But I'm a bit disturbed by the posts of some here who SEEM to be suggesting that all that they believe is wrong with the state of Israel is somehow related to attacks on innocent Jews around the world.

We should condemn those attacks without APPEARING to justify them by trying to connect them to political and military actions in the Middle East.

Alex

I did a search on most of the anti Jewish incidents mentioned in Dan's original post, and found that all the attacks that occured in Belgium, almost all the ones that took place in France, and the stabbing of the Yeshiva student in London, were the work of Moslems. The ones in Germany, Ukraine and the rest of Eastern Europe appear to be the work of extreme Nationalists.

If I sound like I'am being defensive regarding this matter, that's only because I've heard too many accusations in my lifetime that anti-semitism is a direct outgrowth of traditional Catholic (and I've also heard Orthodox on occasion) teaching, and that we've never come to grips with our Anti-Jewish past. This is absolute nonsense, my mother and myself have never heard a single anti-Jewish utterance from the pulpit of a Catholic Church in our lives, but we have heard anti-semitism repeatedly condemned. Yet we're subjected to the disgusting and offensive comments of the late Cardinal Bernardin of Chicago of how the Gospel of St John is responsible for anti semitism, how the Oberramagau Passion Play and others need to be toned down, and why Mel Gibson's movie should edit offensive Scriptural passages.

We should always defend anyone who is unjustly attacked. But I'll go on record as saying the Church has not been responsible for any of these attacks.

Dear Lawrence,

I agree!

A logical outgrowth of the New Testament is that the Jews are a precious gift to us Christians as the Saviour and the Church are from them, as St Paul says.

To attack the Jews in any way, and in any place is to truly attack Christ Himself.

We to be guardians of the Jews, God's People, in history, now and always.

Shalom!

Alex

Lawrence,

Could you give some links to your research. I am not surprised at your findings. After all, I've read the study that 37 of the 39 wars that are going on now involve Muslims. Why should we be surprised if we find that Muslims are behind attacks against Jews around the world? If you could give some links it would be appreciated.

Was Palestine a nation before 1948? If so, in what sense? Is there any connection between Palestine and the attacks upon Jews outside of that country? If the attacks upon Jews are attributable to Islam why is this so? If Islam is really can be seen as a religion of peace in any way, why are they at the heart of so many wars?

Dan Lauffer

TIME OUT!

Let's not condemn anti-Semitism by attributing it to the work of Moslems. Anti-____(you fill the blank) is usually the work of extremists as Lawrence has rightly pointed out. Moslems/Muslims in general cannot be blamed for the terrorist acts of a few.

OK, let us resume with our discussion.

Well, there WAS in both Catholic and Orthodox cultures , some terrible examples of anti-Semitism.. This cannot be denied. History must be faced (as the Pope has) and progress has been made. May it continue!

Dear Father Deacon John,

But if the Arabs are Semites too, then how can their attacks be called "Anti-Semitic?"

Alex

"Anti-Semitism " is a word widely misused as a sort of shorthand for anti-Jewish bigotry. Technically, as I have noted elsewhere on this thread, it is a racialist term denoting the "Aryan" ranking of Semites as being inferior to Aryans. Most of the persecution Jews have suffered at the hands of Christians and Muslims were not racialist and when Jews converted they were accepted.

Anti-Semitism does not only denote racial hatred of the Jews as with the Nazis but also religiously based hatred such as the Blood Libel