Why the Jews Didn't Accept Jesus

This article is about why the Jewish community doesn't become Hebrew Christian "completed Jews" as some people would like to call them. I will focus on doctrinal refutations, and the history of the Jewish people as living in exile in the non-Jewish world, I will also focus on how the Christian community treated itself all through the ages.

Some years ago, I was reading The Catholic Encyclopedia and I came across an entry in it detailing the nature of the war between the Synagogue and The Church. The article claimed that it was the Jewish community that struck the first blow by its treatment of Jesus and the First Christians who were Jews.

I would like to refute that above claim. The first blow was actually struck by Jesus Christ himself, both literally and figuratively, as he railed on about calling the Pharisees and Sadducees corrupt and how they made "the outsides of the vessels clean, while the insides were filthy," and similar charges.

Jesus drove the moneychangers from the Temple out by striking them, literally, with whips. He called the socrai behama ("animal dealers") all crooks and made horrible accusations against them, not taking into account, the effects of economics on the prices of the sale of animals for slaughter if a person didn't have an animal to bring with him to sacrifice as a korban. The topic of "fairness" in economics is called "normative economics." I know I took 6 courses in the subject in college, it s a matter of supply and demand and market forces at work.

After what happened under the Grecian occupation of Israel, the Romans showed up next and they worked out a more convenient deal. The Greeks wanted the Jews to also worship the pagan gods like Zeus and Hera, the Jews couldn't do that at all. But the Romans didn't ask the Jews to worship their Roman equivalents Jupiter and Juno. They just wanted some money and control out of the Jews and they got that.

The Jews got out of the missionary mode as we kept getting clobbered trying to teach people how to be proper people. And Jesus rocked the boat. He made the convenient deal with Rome obsolete and hence, the Jews had him executed.

Now, all through the middle Ages, the Jews were usually very poorly treated as strangers in foreign lands. As "People of the Book," we were given secondary citizen status and were accorded some degree of honor, but usually it was short lived and we were at first welcomed in and then thrown out.

The Jews had been accepted into Spain and thrown out of Spain so many times, they needed to install a revolving door to let us enter and exit. And this isn't all.

All through the ages, we were rounded up into churches and forced to listen to conversionary sermons. We were forced to clap to the sermons. Jews, who didn't convert, had dunce caps placed on their heads. We were tortured during the Inquisition, stretched out on racks and burned at the stake.
We were also forced into debates called "disputations" and a prominent Rabbi named Nachmanides (not to be confused with the Rambam or Maimonides) was made to debate a Catholic priest. It was judged, by "an impartial king." It was claimed that this rabbi lost the debate but he was applauded as per being noble in his defense and he was sent away with gifts.

You can also buy a book containing the transcript of the above disputation and the book is appropriately called, "The Disputation" When I became a Hebrew Christian as a teenager, my father made me read a copy of that book.

Another major reason for the lack of conversion en masse is due to the way the Christian rulers treated each other. Kings who were actually kinsmen like cousins, were killing their relatives and the Jewish community observed all this madness and certainly as such we were not impressed by the legitimacy of the effect of what Christian doctrine was doing for leader of so-called "Christian" countries.

Some people might claim that all these people were "bad Christians." So, OK, where were the good ones and why didn't they stand up and make themselves heard as true disciples of Jesus? Reading books isn't sufficient. You need to see tangible results of what a system produces.

And when the Holocaust happened, how many good Christians appeared to fight Hitler and help the Jews? Very few Christians surfaced and Corrie Ten Boom covered one good family in her movie about it. Ask you local Christian church if they even know about that movie, it was called The Hiding Place.

My first brush with Christian anti-Semitism came when I was in the 4th grade. My teacher had me light a Chanukah menorah. All of a sudden a girl yelled at me saying, "I'm Catholic and I am damned proud of it. You can go and get your filthy religion the Hell out of here!" Well, her religion was based on mine, and Jesus himself was Jewish.

If Judaism is bad, Christianity can be any good either according to Jesus Himself as He said, "A good tree can't bear evil fruit." And I would imagine that a bad tree can't bear good fruit.

It seems to me that Christian anti-Semitism is an oxymoron. How can any good Christian feel justified in trying to kill everyone on Jesus' mother's side of the family?

I came to my current hometown almost 5 years ago. A local church helped me out and I went back to Christianity. I told some Jews about t his at a local supermarket and they were appalled. They said, "The Christians killed more of us than Adolph Hitler did!"

Well, I don't know about the number but the Jews certainly were subject a pogroms, blood libel accusations, untrue things like claims that Jews used Christian blood in making matzo for Passover. All of this galvanized the Jews to try to free itself of Christendom and move back to Israel or at least to stick together.

Yes, the Jewish community does appreciate the support we get from the Christian community. (Remember, I am a Hebrew Christian and belong to both communities). But you also have to take into account that the structure of civilization as we know it, specifically Western Civilization, is based on a fusion of the teachings of Jesus and Aristotle. Jesus was educated and influenced by the Hebrew prophets and scriptures. My community impacted the entire world. As a result of this, the world owes us a lot.

We need to realize that the Christian community is doing a lot to make amends to the Jews for the abuses of the past. In the recent past, some Jewish leaders had an audience with the previous Pope. But they weren't satisfied at the Pope's concessions to them.
It seems to me that both sides need to own up to their shortcomings.

The Jewish prayer book or siddur has a benediction called the Shemonah Esrai or 18 benedictions. It's a trick. There's a 19th benediction called the "Curse of the Slanderers" or the Birchat Haminim. The curse reads that slanderers should have no hope. Well, I know that I got slandered in Yeshivat D'var Yerushalayim 30 years ago and look at the mess Israel is in. I am pushing for the removal of that curse.

And the Holocaust didn't help interfaith dialogue either. Germany was a Catholic country and when times got tough the Germans reverted to their ancestral, Hun like ways. It seems that their faith in G-d really lacked.

Some rabbis claim that Nazism grew up in a Christian culture but I counterclaim that that Nazism is the rejection of the lofty teachings of Jesus. See what I mean, Christianity didn't fail Germany and the USA also had problems with our economy too but we didn't go bonkers over here.

I had video that Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach was on that Shlomo was lamenting how Judaism had some poor representatives. He said that in Israel, every one who can't get a job as a shoeshine boy gets a position in the Israeli government. He laments that Coca Cola has good representatives and as a result, Coke is enjoyed all over the world. He said, "Where do we get all these misfits to be our delegates?"

Well, Christianity has the same problem. Many Jews and Christians, even leaders, are really very ordinary people. I don't' see where many of them are really doing such a great job.

Shlomo gave an interview to Tikkun magazine years ago, it was published in '97. He said that the leaders are standing idly by while the whole generation is being ruined.
He said that we need to fire all these bad leaders and replace them with good ones.

People are always in awe at how the Orthodox Jews stick together and help each other out. It is the stuff that legends are made of.

Orthodox children in the better communities study day and night, are respectful of the law and don't cause trouble in general. And there is no "Generation Gap" at all. And many of them don't have TVs to be impacted with all the decadence in the media. Furthermore, they police their use of the Internet. When the Christian community can produce people of this high order, then we will be impressed.

A short time ago, I was talking to an acquaintance of mine about the high cost of Catholic education. "Yes, I told her, but you get a good education in a Catholic school."

Well, a short time later on that day, I went to a local restaurant and a whole bunch of Catholic schoolgirls came in dancing around many of them wearing really short dresses. I really took back what I said. The Torah says, "The L-rd corrects who he loves."

Several years ago, I was at a Bible study run by some people who live in town. The leader wanted to do outreach to the Jewish community.

I told her, "You want to go to

She was wearing a skirt that didn't cover her knee and it was slit up the side. That's a Moshe no-no in Jewish circles. See what I am driving at here?

I went on telling her that if we visited that area together, I would point out the nature of their standards. Later on, her husband came home and we picked up the conversation from there. He had no feeling for my erudition.

I really didn't want to be snooty but I told all of them, "Yeah, right!" I lived in the most Ultra-Orthodox sections of Israel and Brooklyn, and I don't know a thing about Jewish customs!"

You see, when the Catholic Church takes over a community, they just retrofit the belief in Jesus on top of the culture. They leave the modes of behavior intact. They know what they are doing.

There are also doctrinal reasons why Jews don't become Christians. There is a whole body of literature on it.

One of the major issues in contention is the idea that a man can be an incarnate god. Judaism maintains that one of the major differences between the Torah true beliefs and paganism, is that the Jews always denied the idea of kings, like Nimrod, Nebuchadnezzer and the Pharaoh to be incarnate lords of the universe.

Jews consider missionaries to be "soul snatchers." Organizations like Jews for Judaism have tons of anti-missionary literature. And when I told my friends in my local church they were amazed. Well, I told them, "You actually think that the Jewish community will allow its people to leave without trying to stop that from happening?"

My father eventually found out about my being a Messianic Jew years ago and he was astounded and mortified. He related that in England, where his father was from, the missionary societies spent several million dollars per year (this was when a million bucks was "a million bucks") and they couldn't even convert one Jew. "And then there was me." He also didn't know yet that my church had a very sizeable Jewish community.

And when I was in my first church over 35 years ago, the minister there retailored the church to become a Messianic Congregation. We had a lot of Jewish believers in that ministry but it went sour.

The first thing the church did was initiate a "Prayer of Intercession," to ask God to bring Jews to Jesus or as we were calling him, Yeshua Hamashiach. It worked and we had quite a large Jewish contingent.

Rabbi Shea Hecht wrote in Confessions of a Jewish Cultbuster in the story "Hank and the Hebrew Christians", that Pastor Jack Hickman aka "Abba Yaakov Abensur," was really slick. The missionaries in his cult would approach someone who was Jewish and ask, "Are you Jewish?" So, they would answer in the affirmative. Next, the missionary would say, "Well, just how Jewish are you? Do you keep the Sabbath, do you keep kosher and do you keep the Jewish laws of Taharat Mishpockhe or "Family Purity?" They would usually answer back "No!" The missionary would say, "Well, I do all of this and I also believe in Jesus (or more so, Yeshua)."

I got into a conversation with a wealthy Orthodox Jew I have known for a few yeas and I convinced him that I can worship Jesus Christ and it isn't Avodah Zara or "Idol Worship." He was so confused. Yeah, and the great thing is so can he. You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.

As time passes and things move forward, the New Testament maintains that a large number of Jews will become Jews for Jesus. It will be a sign of the messianic redemption and the imminent return of Jesus Christ. What will happen in the future? Let's keep our minds open to changes.