Jesus 'Used to Be Jewish'? That's Not What the Gospels Say

by Bernard Starr for The Huffington Post

When I interviewed Christians and Jews for my book "Jesus Uncensored: Restoring the Authentic Jew," I heard over and over "everyone knows Jesus was Jewish." But when I dug a little deeper I discovered that "everyone knows he was Jewish" really means "he used to be Jewish." Then I found that many still believe that Jesus was born Christian and that he launched a new religion.

For example, Jane, educated in Catholic grade schools, agreed that Jesus was Jewish. But when I followed up with, "Did he remain Jewish throughout his life?" she said, "Oh, no. He became a Christian and started Christianity." "When did that happen?" I asked. "When he was baptized by John the Baptist," she answered confidently. "It says so right in the Bible."

Noah, a young Jewish college student, who attends a small New England college, asked his Christian fraternity brothers, "What was Jesus' religion?" They stared at him as if he were an idiot. He pressed for an answer. Unanimously they declared, "Christian, of course."

The fact is, Jesus was born into a family of practicing Jews dedicated to Judaism. As prescribed in the Torah, he was circumcised on the eighth day after his birth. Throughout his life he was thoroughly committed to Judaism, the Torah and Jewish practices. He prayed in synagogues and taught Torah to "multitudes" of fellow Jews. And John the Baptist only baptized Jews to purify them for the expected arrival of the Jewish Messiah. All this is stated clearly in the Gospels; Jane's quote is not.

Christians are astonished when I inform them that the word "Jew" appears 202 times in the New Testament and 82 times in the Gospels, while "Christian" does not show up at all in the Gospels and is mentioned only three times in later parts of the New Testament -- the first mention is when Paul is preaching in Antioch years after the crucifixion (Acts 11:26). Why is "Christian" absent from the Gospels, which span Jesus' life and ministry? Because there was no Christianity during Jesus' life.

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Graduation! And it Feels So…

THE CONSPIRACY BY H. B. RUBIN for newvoices.org

I went to my graduation. It was about as anti-climactic as I expected it to be: my gown was the same obscene shade of red as everyone else’s, I didn’t have enough time to shower before the ceremony, and the rain forced me to wear shoes.

I know, these are all material concerns. But in twenty years, they are the ones I’ll remember, right?

But in all honesty, graduation wasn’t so bad. It was actually kind of funny. All 800 of us graduates shivering slightly in the May rain, bound together by our shared… varieties of hangovers and sleep-deprivation. Some, I am pretty sure, were still drunk. The surrounding jittery faces made it clear that my friends and I weren’t the only ones that had attempted to stay up all night. I guess we had all thought that by not going to sleep, somehow, the night would never end, and in that way, our lives as we knew them would never end as well.

As we waited to begin the walking procession, I breathed in slowly, in the effort to clear my head and take it in, all of it. Restless, scared, excited, tired, loud. There was a lot of laughing, and a lot of silence. We began to walk. Today I Am Graduating. I said to myself, over and over, trying to imbue the words with some sense of meaning or finality. Today Is The Day I Am Graduating. But they just felt like words. I didn’t feel any different; there was no magical Disney woosh going through my insides. It was overcast and cold and I discreetly ate handfuls of Peanut Butter Puffins to stay the growling of my insides. Today. Graduating. As we walked in rows of two through the center of campus, with hordes of cameras and families grinning at us, I felt small pinpricks flutter at the edges of my eyes, but then they were gone.

What was my biggest take-away from graduation (other than the firm handshake I received along with my blank diploma holder)? The assurance that it is okay to have no idea what I am going to do with my life. This was corroborated enthusiastically by all of our graduation speakers, even the ones who seemed to have a semblance of what they were doing with their lives. One of my favorite professors, Elvin Lim, put it a bit more eloquently than I can. He spoke about uncertainty, contingency, and unpredictability.

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Sarah Silverman’s Better Half

The comedian’s sister’s protest of gender inequality at the Western Wall makes a case for holiness, not against 

By Rachel Shukert 

After more than a decade of rape jokes, d*** jokes, and sly inversion of all forms of racism, we’re all pretty used to Sarah Silverman and her comedy, which in this era of Girls, “hipster racism,” and hundreds of YouTube videos of the aspiring stars of tomorrow strumming folksy songs about their various bodily functions can seem both oddly prescient and oddly quaint in its resolve to shock.

So, it’s only fitting that another Silverman has emerged on the scene, intent on breaking down a set of very different boundaries: Susan, the comedian’s rabbi sister, who along with her teenage daughter Hallel Abramowitz was among the latest group of women to be detained by Israeli authorities to appease the unbending ire of a bunch of absurdly powerful men dressed as John Galliano. Their transgressions, committed as part of the social action group Women of the Wall, seem to be the usual ones of wearing tallit, reading Torah, and other acts of “gender-bending” that the ultra-Orthodox seem to think will turn the entire Temple Mount into something resembling an extra-fierce episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race (we should be so lucky). The comedian herself was quick to Tweet her support: “So proud of my amazing sister @rabbisusan & niece @purplelettuce95 for their ballsout civil disobedience. Ur the t*&s! #womenofthewall.”

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Academic Freedom Restricted in Name of Academic Freedom

NEW VOICES EDITORIAL, OPINION

It takes a lot for the Association For Asian American Studies to make international headlines. The AAAS is a group of academics within the fields of Asian and Asian-American Studies who work to advance the fields of Asian Studies and Asian-American Studies. Not exactly the kind of organization regularly covered by CNN. A quick Google search of that organization, however, turns up myriad articles from the past few weeks. Last month, they became the first academic organization in the United States to endorse an academic boycott of Israeli universities — and they did so unanimously.

We have a few questions:

• Why is an organization whose mission is to promote better understanding of “Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Hawai’ian, Southeast Asian, South Asian, Pacific Islander, and other groups,” according to their website, taking a stance on Israel-Palestine?
• How did a large group of scholars unanimously agree on anything, let alone something so controversial?
• And how does the AAAS reconcile support for “the protected rights of students and scholars everywhere to engage in research and public speaking about Israel-Palestine” with advocacy work making that engagement more difficult for students and scholars in at Israeli universities (which, last we checked, are part of “everywhere”)?

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Jewz in the Newz

By Nate Bloom

Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star

JewishWorldReview.com | ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF FAME The 2013 induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was held on April 18 and, on Saturday, May 18, at 9PM, HBO will broadcast ceremony highlights (many encore showings). Three tribe members were inducted: RANDY NEWMAN, 69; GEDDY LEE, 59 (as a member of the three-man Canadian rock band, "Rush"); and LOU ADLER, 79.


Newman, who began as a singer-songwriter, has mostly been a film score composer since 1981. He's been nominated for twenty Oscars (won twice)-- and while he has only had one pop hit ("Short People"), his songs (like "I Think It's Going to Rain Today") have been recorded by a who's who of pop/rock singers. His 1974 song, "Louisiana 1927," about a great flood, became virtually the theme song for Hurricane Katrina (2005) benefits.


Lee, the band's bassist and lead vocalist, is an icon for progressive rock devotees and there's been much grumbling about the band's wait to get into the Hall. Lee was born Gary Lee Weinrib, the son of two concentration camp survivors. He's referenced his parents' experience in a couple of "Rush" songs. In 1995, he accompanied his mother on a trip to Bergen-Belsen to mark the 50th anniversary of the camp's liberation.


Adler, inducted as a non-performer, has worn many hats. His record company discovered the Mamas and the Papas. He was a mentor to CAROLE KING, 71, who sang a song in his honor at the ceremony. He produced the great (for-charity) 1967 Monterey Pop festival, which showcased incredibly talented new faces in rock music, like Jimi Hendrix. On top of all this, Adler had the great sense (and great mazel) to buy up the rights to the stage version of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and turn it into a movie. Adler, by the way, is the guy who always sits courtside at Lakers' games, next to Jack Nicholson, and Nicholson was at the HOF ceremony.

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From Amy to Aviva: My Journey From Bullying Target to School Faculty

Two months ago, New Voices published an article about childhood bullying and its life-long effects. We put out a call for our readers to send in their own stories, of bullying and of what that bullying means to them now; of these stories, we chose the one that resonated with us most strongly. That story is what follows.  by Aviva Perlman

Then:

I can’t recall when or how the bullying started. I know something changed when I was nine and I had to start another school for fourth grade. I was finding it difficult to make friends. I was never wanted at lunch tables and in classrooms groups; I was rarely invited to birthday parties and rarely had play dates.  At first, none of this really bothered me.  I figured it was simply from being a new kid and that sooner or later things would fall into place.  But then the whispering started, and the laugh, and then the stares.  I don’t exactly know about of what they were making fun of me, but it didn’t matter.  My sentence had been written. I was marked. Once you are marked, it’s very hard to change that status.

My confidence and self-esteem—things I didn’t even know existed—plummeted, and my paranoia grew.  I no longer wanted to put myself out there or volunteer for anything, and whenever I saw someone whisper, I always thought it was about me.

Along came fifth grade; the whispers and sneering followed me. One summer away from school can’t erase the mark.  I quickly pounced on making friends with the new kids—being nice and offering them a place to sit at lunch.  However, once the other classmates deemed these new kids cool, they disappeared, having learned that being friends with me was social suicide.  I found myself wandering around the playground by myself during recess looking for people to play with.


By this point, the school administration was quite familiar with me, as I frequented their office, constantly expressing the troubles I was having with my classmates, in hopes that something would be done about it.  All I got was a figurative pat on the head and a sympathy smile.  And so, I reached a breaking point that year, writing a letter to my teacher, saying I couldn’t handle it and I didn’t know what else to do.  Naturally, it sounded an alarm and the school’s guidance department ordered me to see a psychologist.

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A House Divided

At apartheid’s end, the dorms of the University
of the Free State in Bloemfontein were integrated.At first it went well, then the students chose to resegregate. A story of the continuing battle against racism in South Africa.

Billyboy Ramahlele heard the riot before he saw it. It was a February evening in 1996, autumn in South Africa, when cooling breezes from the Cape of Good Hope push north and turn the hot days of the country’s agricultural heartland into sweet nights, when the city of Bloemfontein’s moonlit trees and cornfields rustle sultrily beneath a vast sky glittering with stars. The 32-year-old dormitory manager at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein was relaxing in front of a wildlife program on the TV with his door open.

Suddenly, he became aware of a new noise. Could it be the trees, rustling in a gust? No, it was heavier, more like trampling. Could it be his TV? He switched it off. The noise grew louder.

Ramahlele got up and poked his head out the door. There he saw the students of the dorm he managed, which housed about 100 black males, some of the first blacks to attend the historically white university since it had integrated four years earlier. And he immediately saw the source of the noise: His boys were stampeding out of the dorm entryway and running toward central campus. Some of them were singing militant songs from an earlier era, when blacks fought against apartheid rule, including one that went Kill the Boer, a nickname for white Afrikaners. Many were holding sticks or cricket bats.

They said they wanted to confront the white boys on campus. The whites, they claimed, refused to treat them as they should be treated in South Africa’s new democracy, and they wanted to put an end to their insolence once and for all. More than one boy opened up his jacket to show Ramahlele a gun tucked inside.

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