Facebook post about the Pittsburgh synagogue martyrs
Because it is fundamentally impossible to keep a Facebook post indefinitely, I'm going to copy over a couple posts I made there to here; they've gotten lots of discussion, and might be useful in the future, and Dreamwidth is actually USABLE.
***
It occurred to me that not all my Facebook friends are Jewish, or know a lot of Jews, so I thought I'd take a moment to talk about Vice President Pence's deplorable and hideous action in having a Jews for Jesus "rabbi" speak at a memorial for the Tree of Life martyrs.
See, "Messianic Jews" aren't Jews. In fact, they're not that much better than the person who killed the martyrs. Oh, they're not physically violent the way the murderer was, and if I could snap my fingers and get rid of either racist/homophobic/anti-semitic/etc murderers or Jews for Jesus, I'd certainly go for the murderers, but I'd REALLY try to negotiate for second finger-snap.
There aren't a whole lot of things most Jews agree on. We disagree on the most fundamental issues you could possibly imagine, like the role of Jewish law, and whether G-d exists, what women can and can't do, the roles of gay people and transgender people and all SORTS of things. We have the most fundamental and loud and angry disagreements among ourselves about what is right and wrong.
But one thing we all agree on is that Jews for Jesus are vile.
Look. If you are a Christian, and you want to come to our services, attend a Seder with us, sit with us in the Sukkah, all sorts of things, you are welcome. You are SO welcome. We would LOVE to have you. If you want to see what sorts of things Jews do, because your religion has a historical connection to ours, please, come, enjoy, celebrate with us. If you have Jewish family, through intermarriage or conversion, and you want to be part of our community, we want you here. There are parts of our services that you could participate in, like poetry readings, singing psalms, all sorts of things. Sure, you won't be counted in the minyan, and you can't be called to the Torah, but there are a whole lot of parts, a whole lot of roles, a whole lot of honors that we would be happy to give you.
If you are a Christian, and you want to assume Jewish trappings in your own Christian services -- wearing talitot, holding your own "Seders", things like that, okay, now you're getting into some weird shit. We're definitely into "cultural appropriation" territory. But, y'know, still -- I can understand it. Syncretism is a real thing, and it's not like Judaism hasn't picked up stuff from OUR religious neighbors. Like, I'm creeped out by it a little, but only to the level of eye-rolling, and I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. If it makes you happy, well... I mean, I'd RATHER you didn't, but it's not really my place to say, y'know?
But if you're going to worship Jesus and claim to be a Jew -- now you've crossed a line.
It's hard to express just how wrong this is, just how horrifying Jews for Jesus are. Back when they were just a fringe cult, we could ignore them. But now that they are sharing the stage with the Vice President of the United States, they are attempting to be a genuine existential threat to Judaism, attempting to exterminate us. Oh, they're trying to use methods that are more polite than an AR-15, but not all that much less hateful.
Oh, there's not all that much we can do to stop them, certainly not as much as we would like to. In the Western world, we believe in freedom of expression, freedom of religion, even of hateful ideas. And while we can probably get enough people to understand that swastikas are hate speech, it would take a lot of doing to explain that Jews for Jesus are pretty much the same thing. And so we just let them be.
But by having a Jews for Jesus "rabbi" speak, Mike Pence was fighting on the same side as the murderer. I don't think most people realize that.
But I want you to know. I want you to know that, after eleven of our our people were martyred for the sanctification of Hashem, our government followed by trying to blaspheme in their names.
May his name be blotted out.
Posted at https://xiphias.dreamwidth.org/803093.html; you can comment there or here. There are
comments over there.
***
It occurred to me that not all my Facebook friends are Jewish, or know a lot of Jews, so I thought I'd take a moment to talk about Vice President Pence's deplorable and hideous action in having a Jews for Jesus "rabbi" speak at a memorial for the Tree of Life martyrs.
See, "Messianic Jews" aren't Jews. In fact, they're not that much better than the person who killed the martyrs. Oh, they're not physically violent the way the murderer was, and if I could snap my fingers and get rid of either racist/homophobic/anti-semitic/etc murderers or Jews for Jesus, I'd certainly go for the murderers, but I'd REALLY try to negotiate for second finger-snap.
There aren't a whole lot of things most Jews agree on. We disagree on the most fundamental issues you could possibly imagine, like the role of Jewish law, and whether G-d exists, what women can and can't do, the roles of gay people and transgender people and all SORTS of things. We have the most fundamental and loud and angry disagreements among ourselves about what is right and wrong.
But one thing we all agree on is that Jews for Jesus are vile.
Look. If you are a Christian, and you want to come to our services, attend a Seder with us, sit with us in the Sukkah, all sorts of things, you are welcome. You are SO welcome. We would LOVE to have you. If you want to see what sorts of things Jews do, because your religion has a historical connection to ours, please, come, enjoy, celebrate with us. If you have Jewish family, through intermarriage or conversion, and you want to be part of our community, we want you here. There are parts of our services that you could participate in, like poetry readings, singing psalms, all sorts of things. Sure, you won't be counted in the minyan, and you can't be called to the Torah, but there are a whole lot of parts, a whole lot of roles, a whole lot of honors that we would be happy to give you.
If you are a Christian, and you want to assume Jewish trappings in your own Christian services -- wearing talitot, holding your own "Seders", things like that, okay, now you're getting into some weird shit. We're definitely into "cultural appropriation" territory. But, y'know, still -- I can understand it. Syncretism is a real thing, and it's not like Judaism hasn't picked up stuff from OUR religious neighbors. Like, I'm creeped out by it a little, but only to the level of eye-rolling, and I'm not going to make a big deal out of it. If it makes you happy, well... I mean, I'd RATHER you didn't, but it's not really my place to say, y'know?
But if you're going to worship Jesus and claim to be a Jew -- now you've crossed a line.
It's hard to express just how wrong this is, just how horrifying Jews for Jesus are. Back when they were just a fringe cult, we could ignore them. But now that they are sharing the stage with the Vice President of the United States, they are attempting to be a genuine existential threat to Judaism, attempting to exterminate us. Oh, they're trying to use methods that are more polite than an AR-15, but not all that much less hateful.
Oh, there's not all that much we can do to stop them, certainly not as much as we would like to. In the Western world, we believe in freedom of expression, freedom of religion, even of hateful ideas. And while we can probably get enough people to understand that swastikas are hate speech, it would take a lot of doing to explain that Jews for Jesus are pretty much the same thing. And so we just let them be.
But by having a Jews for Jesus "rabbi" speak, Mike Pence was fighting on the same side as the murderer. I don't think most people realize that.
But I want you to know. I want you to know that, after eleven of our our people were martyred for the sanctification of Hashem, our government followed by trying to blaspheme in their names.
May his name be blotted out.
Posted at https://xiphias.dreamwidth.org/803093.html; you can comment there or here. There are
comments over there.