(((I Will Outlive)))

Something I think a lot of xians don’t get is that while Judaism and Tanakh are absolutely essential to xianity and it making any kind of sense, Judaism in no way needs anything xianity has to offer, nor is modern rabbinic Judaism dependent on the existence of xianity. We exist entirely outside of and independent of xianity and Judaism (both as it was before the fall of the Second Temple as well as modern rabbinic Judaism) would have continued just fine without xianity. If xianity somehow disappears from the earth entirely, Judaism will still be here and will still make sense. 

On the other hand, if Judaism and all of its texts were to disappear, xianity is no longer intelligible. And that is what I mean when I say that xianity is parasitic on Judaism. This is not a mutual or symbiotic relationship, no matter how hard xians seem to want to think it is. 

Oh, and in before I get any xians in my inbox shouting about how xianity is the “completion” of Judaism: 

The only reason you think that is because you don’t understand how the korbanot (that is, sacrifices) during the Temple era, and how teshuva in the post-exilic era, work in terms of forgiveness. 

The central tenet of any form of xianity is that Jesus died for the sins of humanity, and therefore we are all “saved” through (and only through) him. This assumes as a baseline that human beings can’t just take the matter up with G-d directly. 

We can. 

And Jews do. We absolutely have a process called “teshuva” (which can roughly be translated as “repentance,” but means both something a bit more and slightly different than that.) This is how we obtain forgiveness, and it is a direct human-to-Hashem kind of connection. We don’t need an intermediary. That’s not how it works in Judaism. Full forgiveness can be obtained directly from G-d by engaging in this process. Granted, it involves work and genuine behavioral change, but it can be done - and is done by Jews all the time (and especially around Yom Kippur.) 

We don’t need a savior to repair our relationship with G-d, and we also don’t believe in original sin. There’s a prayer we say every morning, called Elokai Neshama that literally is a prayer thanking G-d for giving us a pure soul and renewing it every day. While it’s true that our behavior can tarnish our souls, we are born pure, G-d helps us to become pure and start over each day, and we can also repent and purify ourselves by doing teshuva. 

In his comments on another prayer we say daily, Rabbi Freeman says: 

So, in conclusion: 

Xianity views itself as the completion or fulfillment of Judaism, but must willfully misunderstand core theological tenets of Judaism in order to do so. Meanwhile, Judaism is the baseline reality from which all xianity draws from and cannot exist without. The whole “completion” or supersessionism thing is really projection. 

I can’t even count how many times xians have asked me what Judaism teaches about Jesus only to be mildly to super offended when I tell that that it doesn’t.

Not just because they want to hear that we also admire Jesus, but often because they are fed this narrative that Jews hate Jesus, that our existence is rooted in the opposition of him, and when they hear that actually Jews really don’t give a single flying fuck about Jesus, they are not happy.

Since this is going around again, I just wanted to clarify a few things and interject some further thoughts on this, particularly due to some of the comments I’ve read in the tags. (Yes, I read your talking in the tags, lol.) 

First of all, I think an important clarification here is that I was raised Protestant and converted to Judaism. I am now a Jew, full stop. But because of my upbringing, I do in fact actually understand xian theology from a personal vantage point. (The reasons why I rejected it are many and personal, so I am not going to get into them on an already way-too-public post.) 

Second, I type it as “xian,” because (1) it’s shorter, and (2) typing out the full word is something that some religious Jews try to avoid, because it is a somewhat tacit acceptance of Jesus as being Moshiach. 

A few of you mentioned in your tags that the Jewish form of forgiveness is basically the same as the xian one. Let me assure you that it is absolutely not. I didn’t get into it in my second reblog because it was already too long, but now that it’s been brought up I’ll lay it out for you: 

Forgiveness in xianity is predicated on the idea that Jesus’ crucifixion was a necessary sacrifice in order for all humanity to have our eternal souls saved. Salvation is necessary in order for the soul to go to heaven eternally because we are born into sin. Many (most?) xians believe that accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior is necessary (but depending on the sect, may or may not be sufficient) for every single human being, and anyone who fails to do this is going to hell for eternity. Some liberal/pluralistic xians temper this a bit, believing that other religions are valid for their adherents, however. The whole virgin birth + death + resurrection = salvation belief is the xian definition of what a messiah is/is supposed to be, and consequently Jesus fulfills that role for them. 

Naturally, all beliefs regarding sin and repentance flow from these beliefs, leading to: 

As for how sin, forgiveness, and the Moshiach operate in Jewish theology?Couldn’t be more different. 

This is something I did not understand as a child, and the reason why I posted this in the first place is because I wanted to help close that knowledge gap. You’ll have to excuse my irritated tone - I had been seeing a lot of particularly ignorant xian tomfoolery that day, which is the other reason I posted it. 

Basically, growing up, I did not understand how the ancient Israelites and their spiritual descendants (rabbinic Jews) were able to obtain forgiveness without Jesus. Were all of the Israelites before Jesus doomed to languish in hell for eternity? How was that fair!? (And, y’know, modern Jews also?) 

(Side note: I was specifically concerned about the ancient Israelites and Jews because of our shared texts. I incorrectly believed that Jews were essentially “old testament xians” and therefore read these texts the way I was taught to read them. I assumed other groups, whose religious texts were different, did not have this problem because what they were doing was valid by their holy texts.) 

The answer(s) I got were . .  … . unenlightening, to say the least. They all essentially amounted to the doctrine of the unlearned, but simplified for me due to my age. (Basically: they’ll get another chance in the end times.) 

Why am I laying out the fundamentals of xianity? Aren’t most people familiar with this theology whether they want to be or not? Yes, but I’m doing it because it’s important to point out that every single point is different in Judaism. 

Let me repeat that: Judaism differs on every. single. point. mentioned above.

Literally even the very concept of what religion is, is different in Judaism. 

So let’s go over that, point by point. 

What is Sin?

I honestly really don’t like using the word “sin” to describe any Jewish concept, because I feel like it really, well, misses the mark (…sorry not sorry guys.)

Partially this is because there are multiple words to describe different kinds of behavior. Moreover, there are different remedies based on whether it was a wrong committed against one’s fellow, or a wrong committed against G-d. 

Sin in Judaism is conceived of differently by different movements, but regardless of the movement in question, while human beings are acknowledged as imperfect beings, we are also viewed as fundamentally pure. Here are two essays I found insightful about the Jewish understanding of sin from two very different viewpoints: Reconstructing Judaism (liberal); Chabad (orthodox/chassidic). 

Universalism vs. Particularism

As mentioned above, xianity is a universalist religion because it is viewed as applying to all peoples throughout the world essentially equally (with some caveats.) The goal for many (if not most) xians is for everyone, eventually, someday, to all be xian. Conversion is therefore actively sought out with missionaries and proselytizing. 

By contrast, Judaism is particularist, meaning that the 613 mitzvot only apply to Jews and no one else. There are some basic moral rules (the Noahide laws) that apply to everyone, but they don’t require anything remotely in the vicinity of conversion to Judaism. While conversion to Judaism is allowed, it is a BFD. You spend at least a year studying, learning Jewish culture, assimilating into a Jewish community, turning your whole life upside down, and are typically driven by some underlying homesickness for your people, because you feel in your soul that you should have been/are Jewish. 

Needless to say, it is not actively encouraged. It is, in fact, in some ways actively discouraged. We not only don’t care that you aren’t Jewish, but generally prefer that people stay non-Jewish unless they are driven to conversion by a serious commitment to Judaism and Jewish life. 

Xianity’s Original Sin vs. Judaism’s Pure Neshama

Jews do not believe we are born into sin as xians do. [1], [2], [3]. Instead, Jews believe that we are born with a pure soul (neshama) that can be made impure through the all-too-human iniquity but can never be permanently tainted. 

Teshuvah, not Salvation/Repentance:

What happens when we inevitably commit wrongdoing? How do we obtain forgiveness? As mentioned in my second post on this, teshuva — often translated as repentance, but more literally means return — is our process for obtaining forgiveness from G-d. It requires that you: 

Repentance in a xian sense, however, centers on Jesus as a sacrifice. Without Jesus, repentance is entirely in vain. With belief in Jesus and his sacrifice, repentance is effective. This requires an underlying assumption that we can’t achieve forgiveness on our own. Since Jews do not have this assumption, we consequently do not have the same process. 

Heaven and Hell are Quite Different in Judaism

While Judaism does have a variety of beliefs on the afterlife, we differ from xians in how we view it, especially with regards to hell. 

Xians are generally very motivated by avoidance of hell, both in terms of their own souls and having concern for others’ in their lives. This is because hell is viewed as permanent. (But see: this article, for a more nuanced xian view of hell.) 

The Jewish concept of Gehinnom is a lot more analogous to purgatory than to hell. It’s a temporary place intended to purify the soul rather than to punish it, and only lasts a year. 

The Jewish concept of heaven is also different: 

[Source: Jewish FAQ]

Long story short, while it’s true that the reward of Olam Ha-Ba is based on your actions during your life, it’s honestly not something most Jews think much about and many don’t believe in it literally. We are way, way more focused on what this life has to offer in terms of opportunities to be good and do mitzvot. 

[For more perspectives: [1], [2].]

The Jewish vs. Xian Concept of Moshiach/the Messiah

One final obligatory aspect: the criteria for being the moshiach. Jews hold that Jesus did not meet these criteria. Why? 

Well, according to traditional Judaism, the Moshiah must: 

Jesus…. didn’t do any of those things, unfortunately. Assuming he existed at all, as one person (historically debatable, but we’ll assume it arguendo), he: 

Now, if you accept the xian view of what a messiah is - and in particular, if you accept that Jesus was actually God, then xianity makes perfect sense. But you have to realize that, by Jewish standards, he was not and did not even come close to being our vision of the Moshiach. Furthermore, Jews did not buy into the idea that the Moshiach would come back after …….? amount of years to finish the job. Again, by xian standards, Jesus can be the messiah. But not by Jewish theological standards. 

Here’s some more links for the curious: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6]. 

I hope that clears some things up for folks. 

This is a fantastic guide, but just to add: 

If you’re Christian and reading this and you think you get it and understand Judaism now, trust me, you’re still misinterpreting things left and right.

Judaism is a lifetime of study, and for those who are Jews by choice or baalei teshuva (secular Jews who choose return to their Jewish roots, despite not having a Jewish upbringing), a huge portion of that study involves unlearning Christian ideology. The degree to which Christianity and Judaism are different cannot be understated, and even the above, wonderful and thorough though it is, is barely scratching the surface.

For example:

 The word “confession” seems pretty self-explanatory. Sure, one might naively assume that “confession” is done before a priest – but I think that most people know enough about Judaism to be aware that we don’t confess to our rabbis (or even our kohens). So, how far off could a Christian interpretation of the word “confession” possibly be, right?

Well, let me blow your mind a little: In Judaism, confession is communal. All of us routinely confess to all sins (“We have incurred guilt, we have betrayed, we have stolen, we have spoken falsely, etc.”). This is because we are judged by Hashem not merely as individuals, but as a community. Judaism teaches that we must all take responsibility for being part of a society where murderers and thieves and other wrongdoers exist, regardless of whether or not we have personally done those things. It’s not enough to be personally innocent – your obligation is to repair the world, and help others to do better as well.

Let’s try another:

Olam ha-ba literally means the World to Come. Seems pretty clear, yes?

Olam ha-ba is not a place, it is a time. Judaism teaches that very little happens metaphysically after death at all. In fact, in Jewish tradition, the dead do not even praise Hashem - they exist in what might be closer to the Christian conception of Limbo than that of Heaven. The World to Come, in contrast, is the Messianic age. Once the world has been completely perfected (and once the Moshiach arrives to let us know that we’ve made it), Judaism teaches that all the dead will be reborn (either literally or metaphorically), and everyone, Jewish and non-Jewish alike, will enjoy the paradise which the living have created – a paradise here on Earth.

When Jews say that Christians don’t understand Judaism, this is the extent of what we mean. It’s not just that you don’t understand out theology. It’s not just that you don’t understand the basic terms that are used to explain our theology. It’s that you don’t even understand the terms used to explain the basic terms that we use to explain our theology.

Christianity and Judaism may share texts, but we’re about as theologically distinct as Christianity and Daoism are, and I’m not even joking.

I really appreciate this really in-depth post!

There’s one thing I wanted to add about the Christian conceptualization of hell, though, from a Christian with a non-standard view on hell. I know you said “generally” Christians are motivated by an avoidance of hell (of course leaving room for those who don’t) but I wanted to add a caveat—some Christians don’t believe in hell at all. Like, that it’s not real, but heaven and Earth are. My episcopal priest very very firmly told me that she thinks the idea of hell is bs (she swears, it’s great) and that it doesn’t exist. I’m not going to go into her whole theological argument, but I had to say it had me thinking about it.

I’m actually extremely interested in her theological argument if you’re up for sharing!

i don't know who needs to hear this, but guilt, self-hatred and shame are not sustainable sources of growth and healing. you can't hate yourself into feeling better, or being better. you can't repeatedly punish yourself for your flawed humanity and expect wholesome results.

For the record: just because a child is planned, just because a child is fought for, just because a child is wanted does not mean they will never be abused.

Abusive parents can plan to have kids and fight for the right to have children. Mothers can be abusive. Parents of mentally ill kids can be abusive. Adoptive parents, lgbt+ parents, and mentally ill parents can be abusive. 

This doesn’t negate the struggles of adoptive, lgbt+, or mentally ill parents who have to fight for their children. It doesn’t mean that most lgbt+ or mentally parents are abusive. 

But pretending like there’s some trait that automatically makes you a good parent shelters abusers. If it’s unthinkable that so-and-so would hurt their kids because they’re “a good Christian” or because “they adopted six children” or “they’re lgbt+, they had to fight for their kids!”, you can wind up with dead children on your hands. 

For those of you out there who have rejected Christianity as a religion and want to fully break with it, you have to understand that it's not just a religion, no matter how much it tries to say it is - there's a whole culture to it, too. Or, perhaps another way of understanding it is this: religion and culture used to be entirely inseparable and "faith" or "religion" were not coherent identities by themselves. Christianity changed that on a widespread level by pushing the idea of universal religion and evangelism.

Essentially, Christianity styled itself as the one singular truth that must be known and adopted by all peoples everywhere. By doing so, it necessarily severed any ties to one specific people, culture, land, or language, so that it could be practiced by all groups. Not only did this make it easier to sell to people because they didn't have to give up their whole identity, culture, language, and even certain belief systems, but it served the practical purpose of making it portable to every land and adaptable to become palatable to [almost] any demographic. [Jews are a little unique in this particular situation, because since Christianity appropriates from us so heavily, we already know how much of it doesn't work within its original framework.]

The problem is that this separation is, even in the case of Christianity, untrue. Having been raised in a Christian culture (especially if you were raised religiously Christian, but even if your connection to the religious tenets was minimal or non-existent) it creates a whole world view and value system that must be addressed in addition to faith in the religious tenets recognized internally by Christians.

If you view faith in the religious tenets of your assigned religion as being the only or even primary aspect of divorcing yourself from a particular religious outlook, then you are still using a Christian framework that is very obvious to those of us outside of it. There are a lot of things that cultural Christians might call "religious" that we view as simply being "cultural," and vice versa, because the separation is neither as sharp nor particularly important to us in the same way.

If you are truly looking to leave Christianity behind, you need to stop telling us your truth about faith is the only truth and start looking at the broader ways in which Christianity has filtered into your world view in order to root it out, if that is truly your goal.

(And if it's not? That's fine! You can be a cultural Christian who doesn't believe in the faith elements even if you take your culture and values from a Christian-based culture. But don't deny that's what you're doing because at that point you may have stopped evangelizing religious Christianity but you are still actively proselytizing for cultural Christianity by doing so.)

Maya Lyubomirsky

Your trauma from Christianity isn’t an excuse to be antisemitic, you just suck. Judaism and Christianity are nothing alike. Just because you’re pagan now doesn’t mean you get to be a bigot.

I grew up largely being told that we read the Bible and Christians also read the Bible, but that Christians have another book they call the “New Testament” and that they misunderstand our Bible.

Then I kept hearing “the Bible says this,” “the Bible says that” from Christians, and they were either talking about the “NT” or misinterpreting the “Jewish Bible” - OK, checks out. And I kept hearing from atheists “the Bible says this” in a disparaging fashion, or “the Bible says that.” And I’d say “no, actually, you’re talking about the Christian Bible,” and they would say “oh the Jewish Bible is even worse, Old Testament God etc.,” and I’d explain to them they were talking about the Christian misunderstanding of the Jewish Bible, and this would end up being completely unproductive. The assumption among all of these atheists remained that Christianity was right about Judaism.

Then I learned that in Yiddish, bibl refers to the Christian Bible, and we only use the term tanakh. I knew the word tanakh, but I always thought it was just something people said for no reason when they could just as easily say Bible or Jewish Bible. But suddenly I understood completely the importance of the distinction.

@neil-gaiman you're a saint

Anything can be canon if you’re brave enough, Neil 💀

With the greatest respect, that’s not how canon works. Canon is what’s on the pages of the book, or what’s on the TV screen. If I were to answer questions about things that aren’t ever told on the page or the screen it wouldn’t be canon. It would be my headcanon (and has been occasionally noted as such) unless or until it’s in a story and on screen or on the page.

If someone asks if fictional character X met real life character Y, if it’s not on the page or the screen, my answer is pretty much always going to be “write it yourself and find out”. (The same rule applies to non fictional and for other fictional characters. Crowley’s shenanigans convincing Arthur Conan Doyle that there are fairies at the bottom of his garden is as much not my story as Aziraphale’s asking Holmes and Watson for assistance after being accused of stealing a rare book from the British Museum.)

Can we talk about how funny it is that the popular social media trope of “Biblically Accurate Angels” are almost never Biblically accurate?

I absolutely love them. This isn’t a diss at any artist, I really do love almost all of the illustrations people have done across many platforms. But there’s definitely a distinct aesthetic style that’s employed in the “Biblically Accurate Angels” trope, and it isn’t…. wholly accurate.

The trend seems to be about rejecting popular images of angels in western art (winged women, chubby babies, white men with swords, etc), and instead basing images of angels on descriptions found in the prophetic books like Ezekiel and Isaiah.

What I want to say though, is that… often, those descriptions are VERY detailed, but people’s artistic expressions rarely “accurately” convey the specific details and features described in these passages.

Which is interesting. And not necessarily “inaccurate,” since many Biblical accounts of angels and composite heavenly creatures conflict in details. So you could argue that variation is expected within the genre.

However, I would love to see more illustrations where instead of just reading the Biblical account and gleaning a few details, people really dug in and committed to depicting those scenes and entities in a way that’s faithful to the WHOLE of the description. Not just a few features like “has lots of eyes” or “has many wings over the body.”

I also want to point out that the Biblical account doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You can get a much more “accurate” picture of Biblical angels by.

The emergence of the “inaccurate” angel tropes we have in our cultural milieu today come from centuries of… interpreting only a few details about angels from translations of Hebrew texts.

If your reaction to that is that you want a MORE accurate picture of angels, you should dig deeper than just the surface levels of detail in the texts, because those details have a context and that context will help your concept/imagery get closer and closer to accuracy.

Because the Bible itself was also written over hundreds of years in a variety of cultural contexts and even languages (the Tanakh is written in various stages of Hebrew and some Aramaic) As a brief example:

If you only look at Isaiah, a Saraf is a heavenly being with 6 wings and a body that burns like amber/fire/lighting. But if you study the etymology, commentary, body of literature, and artistic depictions of serafim in the archeological record… You’d know they are snakes. Winged snakes. And if you studied Enoch, you would know that even later conceptions of them as humanoid often retain snake-like attributes, and that probably forms part of the implicit context for Isaiah.

Similarly. If you only read Ezekiel, a Cherub is a four headed being (man, ox, lion, eagle/vulture) with four wings, four arms, and one single leg with a large hoof, associated with being God’s chariot bearers, their spirits linked to Ophanim, the turning many eyed wheels. However, again, if you study the etymology, the commentary, the contemporary literature, and the archeological record… cherubim are sphinxes, and don’t always appear in the same configuration. Sometimes they have male heads, sometimes female. Sometimes they have animal heads - ram, eagle, lion, bull, even snake. They almost always have wings. But instead of humanoid bodies, they are usually quadropedal. And they’re not ONLY associated with being divine chariot bearers, but also with thrones, gates/doors, tombs, and generally as guardians of civil, royal, and sacred spaces. Ezekiel himself even later describes cherubim as winged lions with both a lion and human head, so we KNOW that his concept of cherubim was centered in a time and culture when cherub meant sphinx.

So. What I’m saying is.

If you want to accurately depict the literal beings described in prophetic visions, you have a LOT more at your disposal than just “these are a few of the details in the text translation I read.”

This is no one’s fault - not everyone has time to research angels in bronze age art, not everyone reads Hebrew and Aramaic or even realizes we have millenia of commentary. Ultimately, we are all working from our current cultural context. But, I’m saying, the more you immerse yourself in the context of the TEXT, the more “accurate” your angel depictions will become TO the text.

Repeat - I LOVE the biblically accurate angels trope! I love to see them. They are factually more accurate than the fat winged babies. What I’m saying is, I would love to see MORE of this trend, I would love to see it deepen and instead of being about using Biblical details of angels as inspiration for new images of angels, using the whole context to get a clearer idea of what angels were to the original authors.

“The people who cling most tightly to this “punching up vs punching down” paradigm are those who really, really want to punch people, and want to know which people it’s okay to punch. Remember, this was originally a moral principle for regulating comedy. Insofar as comedy involves ridicule and mockery, comedy is “punching” as an art form – as entertainment – and “punching up vs punching down” is a professional ethic for comedians, people who “punch” others for a living. As such, comedians have an a priori desire to get on with the punching, and thus a need to identify which targets are fair game. But there’s plenty of other people who just want to get their “punching” on, and are delighted to have this “punching up vs punching down” principle because otherwise they didn’t have any principle at all which said that punching was ever acceptable. As far as they knew, being mean was always morally bad, which is a total bummer if you really, really, really want to be mean but also want to not think of yourself as someone who does morally bad things – or don’t want other people to think you’re bad for being mean. For people nursing this kind of covert aggressive impulse, this moral principle, that it is totally licit to “punch” people of more privilege, was like a declaration of open season. I expect there will be a lot of yowling and hissing about this post from people whose favorite toy I just took away, like cats protesting being deprived of their half-dead mice. Yowling from people who aren’t actually standing up for social justice - just getting their vicious jollies on.”

—from “The Problem with Punching Up”, siderea

Where’s that post that’s like ‘tumblr is populated by people who wanted to be middle school bullies when they grew up’ cause yeah

An even more important section, IMO:

I can never get over the fact that Catholicism has defined its most fundamental tenets with such excruciating specificity that even most Catholic priests can’t explain the basic thing that their religion is about without unwittingly committing some obscure heresy or other. It sounds like a fake religion that you’d make up for a satirical cautionary tale about the perils of pedantry, and yet.

“Christianity Bashing”

That, right there in the title?  That’s the number one complaint I get in one form or another for A Thing Of Vikings, even more than I’ve gotten complaints about the LGBT characters.  I get complaints that I am “bashing” Christianity in my fic, ranging from public comments where the reviewer clarified that they view the mere inclusion of LGBT characters as “an ultra-liberal agenda”, to guest reviewers on FFnet, and private messages that say that they have no problems with me being a Jew… but that I should shut up about the Jewish experience with Christianity.  I had one ask when the “True Christians” will be showing up, the ones who missionize with zeal and love for Jesus, and cited as examples Billy Graham and Richard Wurmbrand of the sort of people he’d like to see–both of them vile antisemites, Wurmbrand even worse than Graham’s “Synagogue of Satan” comments, because Wurmbrand was born a Jew and converted, and joined a group that wanted to destroy the Jewish people.  I can say, without hyperbole, that this is literally the single most common complaint I get.

But the thing of it is, I’m not “bashing” Christianity, despite temptation.  I’m just not handling it with silk gloves.  And these people are so used to being coddled that, as usual with any privileged person, it’s easier to tell the minority to shut up and be quiet than it is to engage in retrospection. 

But let me give an example here; I don’t know how many people follow my main tumblr, but the other week, there was this incredibly tone-deaf post by @catholic-living, and then, in their attempts to apologize, they managed to victim-blame the Jews for the suffering we’ve endured at the hands of Catholics, saying that it was the fault of both sides.  It then got worse when other Christians chimed in.  But the thing is, this is normal.  This is how relations between Jews and Christians are.  Some are polite, sure, but #NotAllChristians falls flat as a protest for the same reason #NotAllMen does–because we don’t know which of these privileged people are safe, or will remain safe.  As I commented in that last post I linked, it’s actually almost a relief to see the hatred out front-and-center, as a reminder not to fall into a false sense of security.  

But still, after that, I made my own venting post on how, to these people, my sole value is “Jesus was a Jew!” and not as a person in my own right.  

That attracted more angry Christians who proceeded to prove me right.  I’ll spare you all the link spam and just give you all this highlight. 

So when I hear accusations of “Christianity bashing”, I just think of stuff like this.  Because this is my normal; that stuff I linked above?  That’s not exceptional.  This behavior–of calling me “Satanic” and insisting that it’s love, of saying that I need to convert or else–that’s my normal experience in interacting with self-professed Christians.  I was stalked in college by three Baptists who believed that converting a Jew was guaranteed admission into Heaven and wouldn’t take no for an answer.  I don’t go out wearing my headcovering or anything else that could identify me as Jewish, because I don’t feel safe, because I’ve been harassed.  I’ve been asked where my horns and tail are.  I’ve been told, to my face, that my sole use in Christian theology is as part of a mass blood sacrifice to bring back Jesus.  

And the thing is?  The thing that really brings home “#NotAllChristians” to me?

I can count on one hand, with fingers left over, the number of times I’ve had another Christian intercede when I’m being harassed, either online or in public.  My first personal interaction with Christian antisemitism was when I was nine and a kid came running up to me and screamed at me that “You killed Jesus!” and I’ve had routine encounters with hate-filled Christians since then.  I’m now 34.  So in a quarter century of dealing with hate, I’ve had less than five times of someone else who is also “Christian” attempt to put a stop to it. 

Instead, when I cite incidents like this, I’m told that the malefactors are “Not True Christians”.  Every single time.  Which is laughable.  (My favorites, speaking as hyperbole, are the Protestants who try to pull that “Any Christian who hates Jews is ‘No True Christian’.”  Oh, buddy, I ‘hate’ to burst your bubble, but you might want to see who you’re defining as “Not A True Christian”!)

The thing with the No True Christian arguments is that it lets them wash their hands of misbehaving Christians, instead of accepting that such behavior is rampant among their own community.  And, hey, I get it.  Nobody wants to have monsters in their community.  Imagine how I feel about Jared, Ivanka, Miller and Shapiro!  They’re all Jews, and they’re monsters who should be treated as such.  

But I don’t have the luxury of disowning them, as antisemites of all stripes won’t let me.  So we have to police my own community, and that’s something we Jews do (to greater or lesser effectiveness).  We actually have multiple terms for such people: Shonde fir de goyim (literally “A Shame before the Nations”), Chilhul Hashem (”A Stain on the Name of G-d”), Judenrat and Kapo  (from the terms for the Jews who collaborated with the Nazis during the Holocaust), and more.  Because, thanks to that history that @catholic-living was so ignorant of and that others tried to say was irrelevant, we’re deeply aware of how we’re judged by our worst members, and don’t have the luxury of being able to say “they’re not ‘True Jews’”.  

And with no Christians calling out their fellows for their bad behavior, or at least interceding against harassment, I feel justified in judging the community of Christians by their worst members, at least on a personal level.

But, like I said, while I feel that I could justify engaging in “Christianity bashing” in my writing, I’m not.  I’m doing my best to show the difference between what the religion says and what the practitioners actually do.  I’m not coddling them.  I’m holding up a mirror to show how they treat others from an outsider’s perspective–the hate, the atrocities, the monstrousness committed in the name of Jesus.

And to those reviewers, that’s “bashing”. 

To them, I say, “Matthew 7:5″.

I’ve had a few Christians get defensive over this–and in the two months since I’ve written this, I’ve gotten six more accusations of “Christianity bashing”.

So let me clarify something here.

If I was going to bash Christianity, I could.  I could draw from my upbringing where I was literally warned as a child to behave in public or “The Christians will come and kill us all!”  Christians are literally used as boogeymen for Jewish children–with examples from real history, like the Strasbourg massacre in 1349, where the Jewish community (save for the pretty ones and the children who were forcibly baptized) were herded into a building, barred inside, and the building was set on fire.  

I could easily paint Christians as bloodthirsty monsters who need to regularly consume Jewish lives in order to stay placated.  

I could write about the mass burnings, the Inquisition, the expulsions where my ancestors were thrown out with only what they could carry (if that!) by Christians interested in looting their possessions (on that note?  My family’s bakery in Lodz, Poland, is still standing after it was taken from us during WWII.  It is now city “property”, but we have the papers that show it was ours.  We inquired once about 20 years ago about possibly getting it back, and the city government basically threatened our lives if we were to try).  I could write about the pogroms, the atmosphere of fear.  Of ritual public humiliation enforced by law.  Of our people being murdered and their bones being used for playthings by Christian children, rather than being allowed to be buried with respect.

I could use all of that, and it would only be scratching the surface of the treatment my people have suffered at the hands of Christians over the last two thousand years.  

But I’m not.  

I’m just presenting Christianity fairly from an outsider perspective.  As good, bad, or indifferent.  

And I’m getting lectured and having lengthy essays written at me–but when I get attacked by Christian missionaries (like I was last week), Christians don’t speak up to police their own.

And, look, I get it.  Reacting defensively when your people get criticized–especially when you’ve never experienced serious criticism–is the natural reflex.  But it’s hypocrisy of the highest order to demand that an outsider, one whose personal and cultural experiences with Christianity is overwhelmingly negative, instead paint Christianity positively while doing absolutely nothing to present to that outsider any evidence that they themselves are different.  

The question is not “Why is the author presenting Christianity as negatively as they are?”

The question is, “Why is the author presenting Christianity positively at all?”  

Because it’s not like I have reason to–aside from my own integrity, knowledge of history, and personal experience that at least some of you aren’t bloodthirsty monsters who hunger for Jewish lives and treasure.  Some of you actually live up to the moral lessons in your “New Testament”.  Just a few.

But not many.

Not in my experience.

And rather than challenge my accumulated experience, I’m just getting it reinforced with every accusation of “bashing”.

“god will curse you for this” implying that I have somehow reached this point of my existence without yet being cursed by the gods? buddy you are so late to the fucking program the end credits have started rolling