19 June 1269: Louis IX issues fine against Jews found not wearing identifying badge

France. (Saint) Louis IX of France orders all Jews found in public without a badge (French: rouelle or roue, Latin: rota) to be fined ten livres of silver. The enforcement of wearing the badge is repeated by local councils, with varying degrees of fines, at Arles 1234 and 1260, Béziers 1246, Albi 1254, Nîmes 1284 and 1365, Avignon 1326 and 1337, Rodez 1336, and Vanves 1368.

On June 19, 1269, King Louis IX of France ordered all Jews to wear a badge identifying themselves as Jewish whenever they were in public. Those found not wearing the badge, a red or yellow circle known as a “rouelle”, were fined ten livres of silver. Similar edicts, requiring Jewish Europeans to wear distinctive badges, clothing, or hats, were common in medieval Europe; the Fourth Lateran Council offered as a justification the fear that Jewish people were passing themselves off as Christian and seducing Christians. Similar acts included a 1274 edict requiring English Jews to wear a badge shaped like the Ten Commandments, various laws in German-speaking lands requiring Jews to wear distinctive conical hats, and the requirement of red robes in 14th-century Rome. These types of forced emblematic distinction from non-Jewish Europeans subsided in later centuries, but were famously revived in Nazi Germany and occupied lands, where Jewish residents were forced to wear yellow Stars of David with the local word for “Jew” emblazoned on them in a pseudo-Hebrew script.

June 19. 1320. Pope John XXII issues Bull “Cum sit absurdum” which orders that converted Jews need not be despoiled.

June 19, 1948 Jews again accused of poisoning wells

Jews living at the time of the Black Death in 1348-1350 were accused of poisoning the wells in order to kill Christians, and Jews living in Israel at the time of its rebirth would have the same accusation hurled at them: the semi-official Vatican newspaper, Civilta Cattolica, reported on June 19, 1948, that “the Zionists have poisoned the municipal wells at Gaza and spread typhoid and diarrhea by putting germs in feeding troughs.”

19 June 2003 Rabbis Re- Issue “Messianic Jews, Jews for Jesus – A Bibliography” #otdimjh

This is a bibliography put together in December 1996 by Rabbis Roderick Young, David Adelson and Jennifer Krause. It is intended to help people understand, and guard against, the troubling phenomenon of those Jews who leave Judaism by converting to a particular brand of Evangelical Christianity that its adherents call “Messianic Judaism.” It is not a definitive bibliography, but is a good beginning for those who want to make a serious study of “Messianic Jews.”

1. Beiser, Vince, “For the love of Jesus: The Ominous Rise of Messianic Judaism.” Jerusalem Report, January 26, 1995
2. Berger, David and Michael Wyschogrod, Jews and ‘Jewish Christianity’, Hoboken: Ktav, 1978.
3. Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (Conservative Movement), Tshuvot on Synagogue Membership, numbers 090181 and 091481.
4. Cryderman, Lyn, “Who is a Jew?” Christianity Today vol. 34, June 18, 1990.
5. Edelstein, Alan, “Let Us Prey: Jews Who Choose Jesus.” Moment August 1994.
6. Feher, Shoshana, Passing Over Easter. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1995.
7. Fischer, John, “Messianic Jews Are Still Jews.” Christianity Today vol 26, no. 7, April 1981.
8. Gager, John G., “Jews, Christians and the Dangerous Ones in Between” in Shlomo Biderman and Ben-Ami Scharfstein eds. Interpretation in Religion, Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1992.
9. Harris-Shapiro, Carol, Syncretism or Struggle: The Case of Messianic Judaism. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1992.
10. Hurvitz, Mark & Aron Manheimer, Davka, Vol. II, No. 2, March-April 1972.
    We published it with a caveat (and, I almost lost the editorship because of it (the material, not the caveat)… thanks to Richard and others who stood up for us): “Due to the controversial nature of some of the articles contained herein, this issue of DAVKA is copyright 1972.”
    Partial contents:

• Adler, Rachel, The Concept of Messiah in Jewish Tradition
• Mitchell, Elichai & Shira Lindsay, Jews do Believe in Jesus
• Garber, Zev, The synoptic Jesus: A Jewish Approach
• Rembaum, Rabbi Joel, A Polemic by Rashi Against Christian Theology
• Mitchell, Janet B., Going Home
• Levy, Rabbi Richard N. Passion & Passivity: Three Musical Crucifictions
• Bruce, Lenny, A Jew (from “The Essential Lenny Bruce”)
• Meltzer, David, YHShWH
• And my own editorial, which I later put Online explains some of the thought behind the materials published

11. Jones, L. Gregory, et al, ed., Modern Theology, vol 11, no. 2, April 1995.
12. Juster, Daniel C. and Daniel W. Pawley, “A Messianic Jew Pleads His Case.” Christianity Today vol. 26 no. 7, April 24, 1981.
13. Lipson, Juliene G. Jews For Jesus: An Anthropological Study. New York: AMS Press,1990.
14. Novak, David, “When Jews become Christians”, First Things 17, November 1991.
15. Rausch, David, Communities in Conflict. Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1991
16. Rausch, David, Messianic Judaism: Its History, Theology and Polity. Lewiston, NY: The Edward Mellen Press, 1982.
17. Reform Responsa Committee, #67 “Burial of a ‘Messianic Jew’,” Sept. 1983
18. Reform Responsa Committee, #66 “Children of ‘Messianic Jews’,” July 1984.
19. Reform Responsa Committee, #150 “Marriage with a ‘Messianic Jew’,” 1981.
20. Reform Responsa Committee, #68 “Status of a ‘Completed Jew’ in the Jewish Community,” Sept. 1983.
21. Rottenberg, Isaac C., Jewish Christians in an Age of Christian-Jewish Dialogue. Published privately. (Donated to HUC Library in 1995).
22. Sidey, Ken, “Messianic Jews Seek Visibility, Respect.” Christianity Today vol. 34, Fall 1990.
23. Stokes, H. Bruce, Messianic Judaism: Ethnicity in Revitalization. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1994.
24. Washofsky, Mark, “Why We Reject ‘Messianic Jews’,” Reform Judaism, Winter 1996.

© Rabbis Roderick Young, David Adelson and Jennifer Krause, June 19, 2003

Prayer: History repeats itself, and anti-Semitism is a recurring theme. Lord have mercy!

Read more: http://forward.com/news/142154/last-ethiopian-jews-finally-make-exodus-to-israel/#ixzz3dUQMHR77

http://www.davka.org/what/text/publishing/messianics.html

http://www.shc.edu/theolibrary/resources/01Teaching.htm

http://forward.com/news/142154/last-ethiopian-jews-finally-make-exodus-to-israel/

http://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Yellow_badge

Gerson, Rev. Marks [Max?], was born in Kovno, Poland, in 1879. His father died when he was four, and his mother when he was thirteen. Up to that age he received the usual Jewish education and his elder brother kept him at school for another year, but then he had to make a start to earn his own living. [Bernstein 233]

He worked with relatives for five years, and then came to London, where the “Hebrew Christian Testimony” was instrumental in leading him to Christ. In 1898 he was admitted into the Operative Jewish Converts’ Institution, and in December of the same year was baptized by the Rev. G. H. Händler in Christ Church, Stepney.

In June, 1899, he was confirmed by the Bishop of Stepney, and in 1901 he was accepted by the Church Missionary Society for training first at Clapham Common, then at Blackheath, and subsequently at the College in Islington. On the 18th of June, 1905, he was ordained in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and since then he has laboured with good success in India: being stationed at present in Calcutta.

Missionary Review of the World, JANUARY TO DECEMBER, 1917

Another notable Church Missionary Society missionary was the Rev. Max Gerson, “one of the ablest missionaries we had in Bengal,” whose sudden death after an operation was an untold loss in the evangelization of both Hindus and Moslems.

CMS history also reports his death

A very able man of singular linguistic attainments, a Polish Jew, the Rev. Max Gerson, was at Bhagaipur for a time for Mohammedan work ;but he died after an operation for appendicitis in 1911.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the life, gifts and service of Max Gerson. Help us to find the place you want us to be, and to serve you with all our hearts. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Memorials of the Rev. Max Gerson Unknown Binding – 1911

https://archive.org/stream/missionaryrevie01unkngoog/missionaryrevie01unkngoog_djvu.txt

The Disputation of Paris took place in 1240 in the court of the reigning king of France, Louis IX (St. Louis). The forced disputation had four rabbis defending the Talmud against the accusations of a Franciscan Order member.

Nicholas Donin represented the Christian side of the debate and four of the most distinguished rabbis of France, Yechiel of Paris, Moses of Coucy, Judah of Melun, and Samuel ben Solomon of Château-Thierry, represented the Jewish side of the debate. Donin was a member of the Franciscan Order and a Jewish convert to Christianity. He had persuaded Pope Gregory IX to issue a bill ordering the burning of the Talmud. Louis IX, who sponsored the debate, was a sworn enemy of Judaism, at one time mentioning that the best way to conduct a disputation with a Jew was to plunge a sword into him.

The terms of the disputation demanded that the four rabbis defend the Talmud against Donin’s accusations that the Talmud contains blasphemies against the Christian religion, attacks on Christians themselves, blasphemies against God, and obscene folklore. The attacks on Christianity were from passages referencing Jesus and Mary. There is a passage, for example, of someone named Jesus who was sent to Hell to be boiled in excrement for eternity. The Jews denied that this is the Jesus of the Bible, stating “not every Louis born in France is king.”

A commission of Christian theologians condemned the Talmud to be burned and on June 17, 1244 twenty-four carriage loads of Jewish religious manuscripts were burnt in the streets of Paris.

Rabbi Meir was an eyewitness to this public, and he bewailed this tragedy in his celebrated “Kina” (elegy, mournful poem) Shaali serufah which we say on Tisha b’Av.

Prayer: Lord, have mercy on your church, and may your people Israel forgive. In Yeshua’s name. Amen.

http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/749351/Rabbi_Ira_Wallach/Kinah_41-_Shaali_Serufah_B-Aish

When confronted with tragedy, a person usually responds with strong emotions. These feelings can make it difficult to organize one’s thoughts and think logically. The solution in such a situation would be to write down one’s thoughts. Similarly, On Tisha b’Av, a day of national tragedy, it is difficult to recall and lament the many different misfortunes that befell the Jewish people throughout the generations. Therefore, throughout the ages, different paytanim have composed the kinos that we recite on Tisha b’Av in order to help us direct our emotions.

This kinah, Shaali Serufah B’Aish, was composed by R’ Meir ben Baruch who was also known as the Maharam of Rothenberg. During his lifetime, Nicholas Donin of La Rochelle, an apostate who was quite vicious in his hatred towards the Jews, suggested to the French king, King Louis IX, that the way to eradicate the Jews was to destroy the Talmud and its commentaries. He lodged a formal complaint against the Talmud, arguing that it contained sacrilegious statements towards Christianity. On March 3, 1240, the Pope ordered all of the copies of the Talmud to be collected from the Jewish homes and for a public debate to be held between Donin and four eminent rabbis of the time in order to determine the validity of these charges. The fate of these holy sefarim was sealed even before the debate began, and two years later, twenty four wagon loads of sefarim were burnt. This occurred two centuries before the invention of the printing press, so these copies of the Talmud were quite expensive and took years to write. In addition, many of the commentaries were one of a kind as they had not yet been disseminated around the world. It would take years to replenish this loss, and this tragic incident left France bereft of any written Torah. The Maharam actually witnessed this terrible tragedy and composed this kinah commemorating it.

The Gemara in Moed Katan states that one who is in the presence of a Jew who has died is obligated to rend his garment. Similarly, one who witnesses the burning of a Sefer Torah must also tear kriah. The Ramban, in his work Toras Haadam, explains that a person’s soul in his body is analogous to Hashem’s name on the parchment of a Sefer Torah. We are eternally connected to the Torah, it is what gives our lives meaning and purpose. Without the Torah, we are simply bodies without souls. Ironically, being an apostate, Donin knew the value of Torah, and recognized its destruction as a catalyst towards the obliteration of Jewish life in France.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/this-day-in-jewish-history/.premium-1.530276

The debate about who killed Arlosoroff and why continues to this day. The fact remains that the nascent State of Israel lost one of its most far-sighted and realistic political thinkers. Had he lived, a more humane Zionism typified by Ahad Ha’am, Hannah Arendt and Martin Buber might have led to a very different political landscape to that in which contemporary Israel is situated today. Can Messianic Jews provide an alternative?

Haim Arlosoroff (sitting, center) at a meeting with Arab leaders at the King David Hotel, Jerusalem, 1933. Also pictured are Chaim Weizmann (to Arlosoroff’s right), Moshe Shertok (Sharett) (standing, right) and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi(standing, to Shertok’s right).

From The Tablet

Eighty years ago this month, Haim Arlosoroff, one of the most prominent leaders of the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine, was murdered on the beach in Tel Aviv. The crime remains unsolved and has spawned any number of conspiracy theories: To hear different people tell it, Arlosoroff was shot by the far right, the far left, the Arabs, or the Nazis, with each of these theories revealing not only facts about a specific crime but also much about the still unstable political psyche of a young nation. Eighty years and one political assassination later, Arlosoroff’s unsolved murder continues to haunt Israel.

Arlosoroff’s grave in Trumpeldor Cemetery, Tel Aviv

“It took the Zionist movement some time to realize that the very processes which helped establish the Jewish community in the land of Israel as a national and were also bringing about the emergence of an Arab national movement in the country and that both movements were dialectically related to each other. While there had been isolated Zionist thinkers before – notably Ahad Ha’am and Yitzak Epstein – who expressed similar views, Arlosoroff was one of the first Zionist leaders to recognize the fact that Zionism was facing a Palestinian- Arab national movement. It was his historical and sociological knowledge which added an extra edge to this realization. Because Arlosoroff’s Zionism was anchored in a set of universalist principles and was not just an expression of Jewish agony it was easier for him to address the issue most Zionist leaders – and this includes many within the Socialist Zionist parties – reacted to Arab opposition to the Zionist enterprise emotionally and highly charged ethnocentric self-righteousness. Nor were many of them intellectually equipped to deal with the issue adequately and still make such a dispassionate discourse difficult.” (Shlomo Avineri, Arlosoroff, 1989: 60)

Haim Arlosoroff, one of the most prominent leaders of the pre-state Jewish community in Palestine, was murdered on the beach in Tel Aviv. The crime remains unsolved and has spawned any number of conspiracy theories: To hear different people tell it, Arlosoroff was shot by the far right, the far left, the Arabs, or the Nazis, with each of these theories revealing not only facts about a specific crime but also much about the still unstable political psyche of a young nation. Eighty years and one political assassination later, Arlosoroff’s unsolved murder continues to haunt Israel.

On Saturday night, June 16, 1933, Haim Arlosoroff and his wife Sima were sipping coffee at the Kate Dan hotel overlooking the Mediterranean, unwinding after what had been an exhausting week. Two days earlier, Arlosoroff had returned from a long trip to Europe that took him to London, Brussels, and Berlin. He was there to try and negotiate with the newly ascendant National Socialist Party and arrange for the safe passage of Germany’s Jews and their property to Palestine. It was a doomed mission—the Nazis would not meet directly with a Jew, and Arlosoroff’s efforts to find a British interlocutor failed. More poignantly, political opponents back home did not take kindly to the idea of an official representative of the Jewish community negotiating with Hitler. Arolosoroff, declared the newspaper of the right-wing Revisionist movement, was selling out to Hitler because he was greedy; he was a traitor to boot, an internationalist agitator, a knife in the back of the Jewish nation. “The Jewish people,” read one typically ominous bit of criticism, “have always known how to treat those who betrayed their dignity and the dignity of the Torah, and we will know how to respond now that such a travesty is being committed in full view of the entire world.”

These were harsh words, but Arlosoroff was unmoved. At 34, he was one of the youngest and fastest-rising leaders of the leading Mapai party, the political director of the Jewish Agency, and no stranger to controversy. In 1933 alone he had clashed bitterly with David Ben Gurion over whether or not the Zionist movement ought to increase its influence in the British Parliament and organized a rare and heatedly criticized meeting between Arab and Jewish leaders in the hopes of facilitating peace. When he sat down for a late coffee at the hotel, then, a crowd of onlookers gathered nearby, gawking at him and making catcalls. Arlosoroff, after all, was the biggest celebrity in the tiny town.

Miffed by all the unwelcome attention, Haim and Sima Arlosoroff decided to seek privacy by taking a stroll on the beach. Soon, however, Sima noticed that they were being trailed by two men, one short and the other tall. To shake off the stalkers, the couple left the beach and dashed for a while into a nearby neighborhood. When they felt safe, they returned to the beach and resumed their leisurely stroll. Soon, however, the two men reappeared. They walked toward the Arlosoroffs. One of them shined a light in Haim Arlosoroff’s face.

“Why are you bothering us?” asked Arlosoroff, and Sima, annoyed, pleaded with the men to leave them alone.

“How much is the time?” asked the tall one, cryptically.

“It’s none of your business,” replied Arlosoroff.

“How much is the time?” came the question, so awkwardly worded, once again. Haim and Sima Arlosoroff began to walk away. The short stalker drew out a gun and fired it once, hitting Haim Arlosoroff in his stomach. Then the two men ran away. Sima called for help, and a car soon materialized to rush Arlosoroff to the hospital. He died there three hours later. The next day, his coffin was publicly displayed, wrapped in a tallit, a Hebrew flag, a red flag, and a stripe of black cloth. Then the accusations started flying.

To give each of them its merit would take decades, and did: As late as 1982, then-Prime Minister Menachem Begin, eager to clear his Revisionist movement from all accusations of historical wrongdoing, took the unlikely step of appointing an official committee to investigate a crime cold for 49 years. The committee reviewed the facts, interviewed all living witnesses, and determined that it was impossible to conclude who had pulled the trigger and why. The main culprits at the time, a small band of right-wing activists affiliated with Ze’ev Jabotinsky’s Beitar movement, were tried by the British mandatory court and released for lack of evidence. Going another route, many at the time of the murder were moved by the testimony of Abdul Majid, a local Arab man who confessed, of his own accord, to having committed the crime. He later retracted this story and then retracted the retraction and said he’d shot Arlosoroff, but only because he was promised a fortune by the right. Those who believed he was the shooter pointed out that the assassin’s seeming lack of command of Hebrew—asking “how much is the time” rather than “what time is it”—suggested he was not Jewish.

The most prominent suspect, however, if the least credible one, was Magda Goebbels, the wife of the Nazi minister of propaganda. As a recently published novel—written by a former French cultural attaché in Israel and based largely on facts—claims, Magda Goebbels had reason to want Arlosoroff dead. Growing up next to the Arlosoroffs in Berlin in the 1910s, Goebbels, then named Magda Friedlander, was the adopted daughter of the Jewish man who had married her mother and a close friend of Lisa Arlosoroff, Haim’s sister. She was also friendly was Haim himself, although just how friendly is a matter of speculation. The book’s author, Tobie Nathan, imagines the two as lovers: eloquent, charismatic, intelligent, and ambitious, Arlosoroff was just the sort of man to whom the future Mrs. Goebbels was clearly drawn. In his book, Nathan speculates that Arlosoroff, upon arriving in Berlin in 1933, tried to schedule a meeting with his former lover. Incensed, and terrified that her past romantic entanglement with a prominent Jew might destroy her standing as Nazi Germany’s de facto first lady, Madame Goebbels secretly traveled to Palestine and contracted local killers to do her bidding.

It’s a wild story, of course, but no wilder than all the others.

**

In a way, though, it’s not the answers to the riddle Israelis are interested in but the question itself. In popular culture, “Who killed Arlosoroff?” is still a common phrase, presented not as a plea for answers but as an invitation to a discussion. A nation whose political discourse is so heavily predicated on certainties—on the strong belief in a particular and immovable worldview—couldn’t have asked for a better therapeutic device than an unsolved—and seemingly unsolvable—mystery that invites each person to speculate and by speculating to turn his or her own biases, prejudices, and fears into wild but still plausible theories.

This cathartic function was intensified in 1995, when an Orthodox right-winger named Yigal Amir assassinated Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. Even though the Rabin assassination, unlike Arlosoroff’s, was an open-and-shut case, it didn’t take long for wild conspiracy theories to circulate: A poll conducted as recently as 2010 proves that only two-thirds of Israelis believe with certainty that Amir was the assassin, with the rest placing the blame with the secret service, the Labor Party, and a host of other improbable culprits. In 1995 as in 1933, an attempt to use an assassination in order to vilify the right failed miserably.

And that’s a good thing. While there could be little doubt that Amir was motivated in large part by the preaching of fundamentalist rabbis and encouraged, perhaps, by the inflammatory declarations of right-wing politicians, a state as small and a society as intricately woven as Israel’s might not have survived the blow that was sure to come, had the outrage continued to escalate and the mad grief caused by the assassination led to a full-fledged civil war pitting right against left and secular against religious. In 1995, Israel, in part, turned on its Arlosoroff safety valve and engaged in a tradition of floating around conspiracy theories, some knowingly silly, in order to exorcise its demons in a nondestructive way. In a sense, it still does: The Arlosoroff assassination is still hotly debated, consuming energy otherwise traditionally reserved for real violence. Eighty years after he was shot to death on the beach in Tel Aviv, Haim Arlosoroff continues to be Israel’s most instrumental politician.

Prayer: Lord, help us to learn from the life, principles and untimely end of Haim Arlosoroff. Bring justice and peace to Israel and her neighbours, we pray. In Yeshua’s name, Amen.

http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/136391/arlosoroff-was-murdered

June 15, 1994, the Holy See and the Israeli government jointly announced the formal establishment of diplomatic relations as a result of ongoing negotiations that began with the signing of the Fundamental Agreement the previous December.

PRESS BRIEFING BY DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER YOSSI BEILIN JERUSALEM, JUNE 15, 1994

DEPUTY FOREIGN MINISTER YOSSI BEILIN: I am very glad to announce this morning, simultaneously with the Vatican, full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Israel, as of today. In both states, we will have full embassies, and the ambassadors will begin their functions once there is the ‘agrement’ on both sides.

In this very room, we signed the Fundamental Agreement between the Holy See and Israel on December 30, 1993. One of the main issues on our agenda during the one and a half years of negotiations was the question of diplomatic relations between the Vatican and Israel.

There were many skeptics who said that it would be very difficult, maybe even impossible, to have full diplomatic relations with the Vatican as long as do not have comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The suggestions on the Vatican side, during those years, were of exchanging representatives on the level of ambassadors who represent the heads of the state or the governments, while Israel insisted upon having full, normal diplomatic relations between the two countries.

In the Fundamental Agreement, which was signed six months ago, we agreed to exchange immediately representatives of government of the rank of ambassadors, and that we did already. We also agreed informally to have full diplomatic relations no later than four months after the ratification of the agreement on both sides, and with the beginning of the implementation of the Fundamental Agreement.

Yesterday, Archbishop Montezemlo and myself signed the agreement on behalf of the Holy See and Israel to exchange full ambassadors between the two states and to establish two sub-commissions: one on the legal issues – the juridical commission; and the economic commission. They will deal both with the status of the Catholic Church in Israel and with the economic issues, taxes, duties and so on. Those issues are very complicated, they include many details, and the expectation is that they will have to negotiate about two years from now. The head of the economic commission is Dr. Ehud Kaufman, and the head of the juridical commission is Mr. Zvi Terlo.

My assumption is that the criticism of the Vatican on the signing of the agreement was much less than expected by the Vatican itself, and that there are already very important fruits of the agreement between the two states. One very interesting one is that we are going to have the first exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Vatican itself this month, on June 29, and that will be the first exhibition of the Dead Sea Scrolls in Europe.

RABBI DAVID ROSEN (Member of Israel-Vatican negotiating committee): Thank you to Deputy Foreign Minister Dr. Beilin for the privilege of being able to say a few words to you about the significance of this event. As one who has been involved in other areas that relate to relations between the Catholic Church and the Jewish people, it has been a special privilege for me to be part of this delegation that has negotiated the full normalization of diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Holy See. I think one could call that the real summit of those changes that have taken place in a process of 30 years since the promulgation of a document coming out of the Second Vatican Council called ‘Nostra Etate:, which really was a revolution in terms of the Church’s attitude towards the Jewish people.

From our perspective, until there was a real normalization with the State of Israel, there was always a question mark over how genuine and complete that revolution really was. Because Israel is central not just to the identity of the Jewish people that lives in the State of Israel, but to Jews wherever they are throughout the world. That is why this agreement now and the exchange of ambassadors, and thus the full process of normalization that we are celebrating today, has significance not only for the State of Israel but for the Jewish world as a whole. It will affect the way Jews are viewed within the Catholic world, it will affect the way Jews feel that they are viewed within the Catholic world. Of course, this significant commitment on the part of the Holy See to fighting anti-semitism and working together with Israel to that end will impact, I think, in a way of great consequence upon the interests of the Jewish people throughout the world.

Dr. Beilin, when he spoke at the signing at the end of December, referred to the signing as a triumph for Zionism and for the Jewish people, and I don’t think there is any more eloquent way of describing its significance as really a very historic event in a very historic year.

Prayer. Lord, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We pray for all men and women of good will to find a peaceful solution to the Middle East conflict, that Israel and her neighbours may dwell in peace, justice and security. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/pdf/Cohen2010Article.pdf

https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/files/research_sites/cjl/pdf/Pawlikowski%20JPII%20Lecture_Booklet.pdf

http://mfa.gov.il/MFA/PressRoom/1994/Pages/PRESS%20BRIEFING-%20ESTABLISHMENT%20OF%20DIPLOMATIC%20RELATI.aspx

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

Q: In this context, we hear that there was a document drafted by Catholic officials in Germany which acknowledged Catholic guilt for 2,000 years of anti-semitism, and the Holy See distanced itself from this. To what extent does the Catholic Church acknowledge this kind of responsibility? Also, you talked about a change of attitude. Will this filter down to Catholic priests in many places in the world who we hear today are still preaching anti-semitism? Lastly, are these reservations of the Holy See reflected on the fact that they were not keen on you yourself, a rabbi, as Israeli ambassador?

RABBI ROSEN: With regard to your last question, I am not in a position to give you any information whatsoever. This was speculation, and therefore I am not the address for such an inquiry.

With regards to your second question, I think that you can see the effect of even the visit of the Pope to the synagogue in Rome, quite demonstrably in the way it affects Catholic attitudes even in areas where there are no Jews, like in South America. In many Catholic countries, there was a great recognition of the significance of this accord, and I think that clearly filters down in terms of attitudes.

With regards to you first question, I am very glad of the opportunity to make things clear, because they were distorted in initial reportage. At the meeting here between the representatives of the Vatican Commission for Relations with the Jews, which is not with states but with the Jewish people, that took place for the first time here in Jerusalem with representatives of the Jewish people, there was a report on a draft document that had been commissioned by the Vatican.

The origins of this document go back to the Pope’s commitment in 1987 in Miami to produce a document on the Shoah, anti-semitism and the Church. This was his commitment. In 1990, the Commission for Relations with the Jews commissioned Prof. Henricks of Aachen to form a working committee to produce that document. At this meeting here in Jerusalem, we received a report on the draft of the working committee working for the Commission for Relations with the Jews. This was portrayed internationally as if there was already a document that had been formulated. This therefore led the Vatican to try to clarify that this was only a report on a draft. People then reported that as if the Vatican was distancing itself from it, which is not the case. It was simply trying to put things within context. So, to cut a long story short, this is another very important step in a very constructive process, but we don’t have to expect that everything automatically happens overnight.

Q: (On the possibility of a visit by the Pope to the region; and on the location of the Vatican embassy.)

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: As the question of a possible visit of the Pope in this region, I don’t have any information further than the information which was already given in the past about a general intention to follow the steps of Abraham. Since then, and that was several months ago, there was nothing new about it.

Speaking about the embassy, I presume that it will be located in Jaffa, but most of the affairs of the new ambassador have been and will be in Jerusalem.

Q: (On the question of responsibility over the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem.

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: As to the first question about whom are we going to deal with when we speak about the holy places in Jerusalem, it will not be the Palestinians only. It will be the representatives of all the other religions. That was clarified. Despite the fact that the Vatican did not refer to the letter which was published last week from our Foreign Minister Mr. Peres to the late Norwegian Foreign Minister about Jerusalem, there is an interest on the part of the Holy See to be part of the religious solution for Jerusalem when this issue is on the agenda for the permanent solution.

Q: (On the plan for quarters in Jerusalem)

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: Speaking about the self-administration in Jerusalem, I believe that if we want to implement our plan for Jerusalem, which means that Jerusalem will never be redivided and will be under Israeli sovereignty, with one municipality, it will be vital for us to take into consideration the special interests of the Palestinians who live in Jerusalem. One of the ideas which may serve this objective is the self-administration, an idea which was suggested by Teddy Kollek about six years ago in an article in ‘Foreign Affairs’.

Q: Can we say that from now on you recognize the role of the Vatican on the future of the city, and did you already talk about a plan which looks like being now issued by the Vatican about the possibility of international supervision, with the Vatican, on the Old City only?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: I wouldn’t subscribe to what you said about acknowledging the role of the Vatican, but what we can say is that we registered the wish of the Vatican to take place in the talks about the future of the holy places, and we acknowledge of course that there is an interest of the Christians, and among them of the Catholic Church, speaking about the holy places of Jerusalem.

Q: I would like to ask whether there are any side letters concerning the agreement with the Vatican that will not be made public or have not been made public, and I refer especially to Jerusalem? Did the Vatican know, for example, of the Holst letter?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: No, the Vatican did not know about the Holst letter, despite the fact that, as you know, it wasn’t a secret and it wasn’t a secret letter. There are no side letters to the agreement with the Vatican whatsoever – not about Jerusalem, not about Haifa, and not about Tel Aviv.

On Israel-PLO negotiations and Jerusalem:

Q: Nabil Sha’ath yesterday in Cairo before leaving for Gaza declared that Jerusalem will be the future capital of the Palestinian state. Would you comment on that?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: I can comment on it very simply: There is no agreement which prevents Nabil Sha’ath, or any other Palestinian leader, from dreaming. He has all the rights in the world to dream about a Palestinian state and about Jerusalem and whatever. Eventually, there is only one agreement, and it refers to the issues which will be on the agenda for the permanent solution, a solution about which we are going to negotiate two years from now, the latest. Jerusalem will be on the agenda. Our view about Jerusalem is very clear. We will be against any division of Jerusalem. Jerusalem should be under Israel’s sovereignty as one city and one municipality.

Q: It seems at this point that there is no way this gap can be bridged. What happens today will happen in two years time. What kind of an agreement are you talking about?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: One thing is for sure – it won’t be bridged by announcements and declarations. It will be solved, and I am sure that generally speaking there is a solution and there will be solution for the Palestinian problem. But it can be done only around the table and not by such declarations. I do not believe that such declarations are going to contribute anything to the ability to bridge the different views. But I do not agree that this problem is insurmountable or unbridgeable.

Q: I believe the negotiations were scheduled to start in Cairo this month on the next phase, on the economy. Is there something holding this up? Is this linked to Arafat’s arrival? And when do you expect this next phase to begin.

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: I don’t know about a specific date. I am sure that it is not linked to any visit by Yasser Arafat. There is a big question about the nature of the next step, because there are at least two alternatives.

One is negotiating about early empowerment, which means referring to five authorities out of about 19 which will be implemented in those areas in the West Bank which are not part of the autonomy, namely Gaza and Jericho.

Another option is to have elections in the occupied territories. According to the Oslo Agreement, the Palestinians of course have the right to have elections and to negotiate with us about the modalities of the elections. We thought even about elections in July. That of course will not take place. But if there are elections, then a council will be elected and the full autonomy will be extended to the whole of the West Bank and Gaza. So the question today is: are the Palestinians going to have elections, or are they just going to have early empowerment? That is something to be dealt with in the very near future. I presume that even if they are going to have elections in the future, and there is no date for that yet, we should speak about early empowerment before.

Q: I would like to ask you about the reports that Saudi Arabia has been funding the HAMAS movement, and what does it mean in terms of if they joined forces with the Syrians in order to oppose the peace process?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: It wasn’t a secret for us. It was known for years that Saudis financed the HAMAS groups. Whenever Saudi authorities were approached about this in the last years, even before the Oslo Agreement, even before the Madrid process, they said that as a government they don’t do that, but only private individuals are perhaps financing the HAMAS and they cannot prevent it. I would always accept such an answer with a grain of salt.

On the Human Rights Watch report:

Q: The Human Rights Watch came out with a report saying that since the Oslo agreement, the systematic torture of Palestinians has continued, with the tacit approval of the Israeli government. What is your reaction to this?

DEPUTY FM BEILIN: I did not read the report. I can only say something very general about it. I do not believe that there is anywhere a benevolent occupier. I do not believe that Israel has been a benevolent occupier. I am sure that during the occupation of the territories there were deeds which are regrettable, and that the only way to put an end to it is to withdraw eventually as a part of the permanent solution from most of the territories. That is my hope, and I sure that it will be implemented eventually.

I am not aware of the details. I cannot refute such allegations without getting to the details of those allegations. What I can say is that the whole question of human rights should be dealt with in the framework of the permanent solution. I have one hope: that after our withdrawal, the Palestinians themselves will stick very much to their own human rights.

“Few men have had a more striking career than the Rev. Michael Rosenthal.”

“He was a most impressive preacher, the passionate eloquence of his race being rendered all the more forcible by the intense earnestness of his own convictions. He spoke from his heart, and his influence was felt alike by the poorest catechumens he instructed and the listeners at a West-End drawing-room meeting.” (Some Great Christian Jews)

Rosenthal, Rev. Michael, Vicar of St. Mark’s, Whitechapel, who died at the age of 63, was a converted Jewish rabbi, who for thirty years carried on an earnest missionary work among the Jews of East London. [Bernstein, Some Jewish Witnesses]

The story of his conversion is a remarkable one. Young rabbi Rosenthal, a Hebrew of German extraction, was a profound Talmudist, and as strict and zealous a Jew as was Saul of Tarsus before the journey to Damascus. Rosenthal was sent on missions in connexion with the faith of his fathers to Asia Minor, to North Africa and other countries, and finally to England. On a steamboat he met a very learned and able man, who he believed was a Jesuit. The man was certainly a Roman Catholic, and he possessed a good deal of [435]  rabbinical lore.

Rosenthal, as a strict Jew, observed all the dietary and other laws of his people, and took his meals separately. The supposed Jesuit ridiculed his scruples, and one day, when the young rabbi was dining alone, touched his bottle of claret, thereby, of course, rendering it defiled. Rosenthal was angry, and the man saw this and taxed him with over-niceness in ceremonial observance. “Do you really think,” he asked, “that God is pleased by your rejecting things that are good enough for the captain and other people on the ship, and that you really serve Him by making yourself so different from anybody else?” They had some conversation, which left a great impression on the young rabbi’s mind.

One argument used by the supposed priest had considerable effect. The Jews in the course of their history during the last nineteen hundred years have acknowledged no fewer than twenty-four Messiahs, all of whom have turned out to be false, either impostors or self-deluded fanatics. Can a nation that has made the gigantic mistake of accepting twenty-four false Messiahs claim to be infallible in rejecting a twenty-fifth? All these false Messiahs have appeared and been accepted since our Lord lived on earth except “Judas of Galilee,” who was a contemporary of Jesus Christ.

Some time after his arrival in England Rosenthal became acquainted with Dr. Wilkinson, then rector of St. Peter’s, Eaton Square. The young rabbi was tremendously impressed by Dr. Wilkinson’s great abilities and spiritual earnestness. “Here is a Christian,” he said to himself, “who is [436] absolutely sincere and of great intellectual power. Can Christianity be merely a modern form of Paganism when such noble souls as these profess it?” He listened to Dr. Wilkinson, and was on the way to conversion when the good rector advised him to have recourse to the learned Dr. Ewald, a celebrated Jewish missionary of the L.J.S., for the solution of difficulties which only a Hebraist could deal with successfully.

Rosenthal was eventually baptized by Ewald. He took orders in the English Church, being ordained deacon by Dr. Jackson, Bishop of London, in 1877. Four years later he was admitted to the priesthood, and he served for thirteen years as curate to the Rev. S. J. Stone, author of “The Church’s One Foundation,” at St. Paul’s, Haggerston, devoting himself chiefly to mission work among the East-end Jews.

He organized the East London Mission to the Jews, which first came under regular diocesan management when the present Bishop of London was Bishop of Stepney. In 1899 Bishop Creighton presented Mr. Rosenthal to St. Mark’s, Whitechapel, a parish which is inhabited almost entirely by Jews. He met with a good deal of hostility from the Jews in the first years, but he talked straight to them and gradually the opposition died down, and he steadily pursued his mission work among them. His labours were attended with considerable success. He said that he had himself baptized over six hundred Jews and Jewesses.

“It was a strange sight to see the boys’ schoolroom filled with a frowsy crowd of unkempt Polish Jews, singing in Yiddish, Lord, I hear of showers of blessing: it was a still stranger sight to see an adult baptism, when the converts would be followed into church by a fierce-eyed, muttering crowd of their fellows, who would threaten acts of personal violence alike to priests and converts, threats which, happily, they seldom if ever managed to put into practice. Strangest and most moving of all it was to be present at a choral Hebrew Eucharist, when one seemed, as it were, to be hearing the Church of Jerusalem in the first days lifting up their voice with one accord in praise of the Crucified. This Jewish work…..made, as might be expected, a deep impression upon the parishioners.”

Prayer: Thank you Lord for the life, gifts and ministry of Michael Rosenthal, and the significant legacy which he left behind. May the Messianic movement today similarly show the fruit of such labours. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

https://archive.org/stream/somegreatchrist00littgoog/somegreatchrist00littgoog_djvu.txt

http://www.stgite.org.uk/media/jewishconverts.html

Michael Rosenthal was Vicar from 1899-1907 (curiously, he only became a trustee of the parish’s National School in 1904 – incumbents are normally ex officio). He was given a dispensation to preach in Hebrew. In 1885 Charlotte M. Yonge, sometimes described as ‘the novelist of the Oxford movement’, wrote to her cousin Mary about a meeting with Rosenthal at which he explained Jewish customs to her. The Booth Archive contains an interview with him [B222 pages 108-125]. His memorial tablet (in dark marble), which was moved to St Paul Dock Street when St Mark’s closed, says formerly a Jewish rabbi, he was converted in early manhood to the Christian religion, and enduring much persecution thenceforth laboured unceasingly to bring to his Jewish brethren the knowledge of Jesus Christ. More on his later ministry here. (His son David became the vicar of St Agatha Sparkbrook, an inner-city anglo-catholic parish in Birmingham, until his sudden death in 1938. Descendants remain active in the Church in Wales, and we are grateful for information that they have provided.)

(7) Michael Rosenthal (Vicar of St Mark Whitechapel 1899-1907), a rabbi born in Lithuania, was converted to Christianity by a Jesuit while on a tour of Europe fundraising for Jewish charites. He trained at the college of the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews (a parish-based charity established in 1877, where Dr Ewald was based) and worked from St Paul Haggerston for 14 years (the East London Tract Depot was set up there in 1887) as the hymnwriter Samuel John Stone’s curate, and later as curate of St Peter Eaton Square. Although St Paul Haggerston had few Jewish residents at the time, Stone had inherited a passion for this work from his father (whom he succeeded as incumbent in 1874). A memoir of Stone’s life comments, on Rosenthal’s work there,

Active for 30 years in Jewish-Christian mission, Rosenthal served at St Mark’s under the aegis of the East London Mission [later Fund] to the Jews, which he had founded, and was based at 87 Commercial Road (opposite the top of Christian Street, in the then-parish of St Augustine Settle Street) and at Navarino Road in Dalston (where he lived before he became Vicar of St Mark’s). (It is not to be confused with the East End Mission to the Jews, founded in 1890 by David Oppenheim and based in Leman Street.) The work of the mission included, according to its advertisements, A Home for Jewish Orphans, Hebrew Mission Services, Bible Classes for Inquiring Jews, Bible Classes for Lay Workers, Public Addresses to Unbelieving Jews, Meetings of the Hebrew Guild of Intercession, Mothers’ Meetings for Unbelieving Jewesses, Instruction Classes to Catechumens, Preparing Jews for Baptism, Confirmation and Holy Communion, Helping them on their onward heavenly march, and also assistance for destitute Jews. He claimed that over a period 20 years he had baptized over 600 Jewish converts. It supported curates, male and female layworkers and nurses, many of them themselves converts, and published annual reports of its work. It also organised the Hebrew Guild of Intercession (which claimed 1700-1800 members in the late 1890s), ran an orphanage from 1887, and published an edition of the Prayer Book communion service in Hebrew and English (here is a report of the Guild’s 25th anniversary service – after Rosenthal’s death – at which the Bishop of Stepney pronounced the absolution and blessing in Hebrew). Rosenthal died in 1909 at the age of 63 – see this obituary. He featured in John Stockton Littell Some Great Christian Jews (Keene 1913). On a flyleaf in the register of baptisms administered at these premises between 1892-98 (now in the London Metropolitan Archives), Rosenthal’s successor at St Mark’s, L.S. Lewis, noted that after that date all baptisms had been administered at the church, and that he had removed the register and a font from the premises. See here for statistics for St Mark’s registers.

Rosenthal died in 1909 at the age of 63

His life is described in The Church Times for June 14, 1907:   “Few men have had a more striking career than the Rev. Michael Rosenthal. He was bom at Wilna in Russia, of distinguished Jewish parentage, a direct descendant, on his father’s side, of the famous Spanish statesman and patriot, Don Isaac Abarbanel. His mother belonged to an ancient Aaronic family. His father was a learned Rabbi, and he himself was educated for the Rabbinate. He passed the Rabbinical examinations with great distinction, and owing to his own natural gifts, as well as to family connections, was appointed, while still a very young man, to an important post in connection with the Israelitish Alliance. The young Rabbi trav-

There are thirty -seven thousand Jew^s in this district, and at a recent service the

Bishop of Stepney attended in cope and mitre and said the Absolution and Benedic-

tion in Hebrew, while the priest, choir and congregation, rendered their parts in^ithe

Eucharist, also in Hebrew.

There has sprung up among those not Jews so great an interest in the Jewish

Eucharists, that the Guild has published the service in Hebrew-English, and it is

followed intelligently and easily learned by any of the friends and neighbors, who

often come to worship with them. It may be of interest to see how our Lord’s ser-

vice sounds in the opening of several parts in the ancient language of His own race:

A-vee-nu sheb-bash-sha-Mah-yim Our Father, Who art in Heaven

A-do-nai ra-kem a-Lay-nu Lord, have mercy upon us.

a-nee mah aMin be-lo-him eh-kad I believe in one God.

kadosh, kadosh, kadosh, aDonai elohe Holy Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts, tzevaoth

[ 20 ]

Hoy seh elohim O Lamb of God.

Kavod lelohim bammeromim Glor\’ be to God on high,

Shelom haelohim The peace of God.

This work has been a success because it is a brave work, boldly attempted on

thoroughly Christian lines. It is the best existing model for Jewish work.

We have too often forgotten that the Jew as an Oriental has even more than the

rest of us associated his religion with nature, color, mystery, movement, adoration,

and that these things, so far from being wrong in religion, are his right even if we

do not think of them as ours. Those who have chosen bare and cold forms for wor-

ship have come ere now more than half to regret their losses, and it is folly for us to

force on the Jew that which we regret that we must put up with ourselves. I say

this because there is not one really and entirely suitable organized mission to the

Jews in the United States, and at least one prominent, promising society, which for

long carried the burdens of an uphill work, has disbanded. When we try again, we

must not forget the lessons of the career of Michael Rosenthal.

https://archive.org/stream/somegreatchrist00littgoog/somegreatchrist00littgoog_djvu.txt

Pope Boniface VIII issues the papal bull “Exhibita nobis” which declares that “important” Jews can be denounced to the Inquisition without the identity of the accuser being made public.

This is actually an improvement for the Jews because the Inquisition had earlier declared that all Jews could be treated this way, and Pope Boniface VIII has limited the reach of this regulation. Now Jews are treated like Christians — “important” Christians can also be denounced to the Inquisition without their identity being revealed.

Prayer: In such dark times even a small act of justice and compassion made a difference. Lord, help us to avoid prejudice and discrimination, especially in a context of rising anti-Semitism and distrust of ‘the other’. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

Dushaw, Amos I., spent the greater part of his youth in Jerusalem, Palestine [sic!], where he attended the school of the London Jews’ Society. Here the seeds of Christian truth were sown in his young [191] heart. He afterwards came to London, where he was brought into close connexion with the members of the above-mentioned society, and the germs of truth gradually grew, budded, and blossomed into faith in our Lord as his Messiah. [Bernstein]

Dushaw went to America in 1895. The following year he was baptized, upon confession of his faith in Christ, in the Fourth Congregational Church, at Hartford, Conn.

He followed Horace Greeley’s advice, “Young man, go West.” He was determined to obtain a classical education. After a hard struggle, that perseverance and determination to conquer all obstacles always a component of the Jewish character, enabled him, in 1901, to graduate from Redfield College, South Dakota. He afterwards returned to New York, and entered the Union Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1904. June 12, 1905, he received a preacher’s license from the New York Presbytery.

While pursuing his regular academic course he made a specialty of sociology, literature and history. Especially was he interested in Hebrew history and the present social, religious and political status of Israel. He supplemented this study by personal observation as a worker on the East Side of NY. This training enabled him to write for “The People, The Land and the Book”, some very choice articles. Several secular papers quoted from one of his articles, “Moses and Jesus”.

The production of this article was due to the following incident. Dushaw called upon one of the leading reformed rabbis to discuss the condition of the Jews in the Ghetto. This rabbi was so much impressed with his insight into the situation, and also with his information on many facts pertaining to Israel’s development, that he advised him to return to the Hebrew ranks. Israel, he said, would appreciate his ability, whereas the Church would simply cast him out, because he was a member of Israel. He thought Dushaw was foolish to waste his time in the Church. On separating, the rabbi gave him a lecture, “Moses and Jesus”, delivered in his temple. Dushaw then decided to write one on the same subject, from his own point of view.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for this gifted and reflective Jewish believer in Yeshua, who whose novels and other writings express the problematic issues of identity, theology and narrative that challenge Messianic Jews throughout history. Thank you for his honesty, contribution to scholarship, and faith in you. Help us to similarly articulate the issues on which Church and Synagogue have been divided for thousands of years, but which, in your purposes, will one day be resolved. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/do/search/?q=author_lname%3A%22Dushaw%22%20author_fname%3A%22Amos%22&start=0&context=585089

http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3787&context=ocj

http://wanderingjude.blogspot.co.uk/2007/09/proselytes-of-ghetto.html

http://www.nycreligion.info/searching-messiah-york-city/

http://smartsheep.org/dushaw-amos-i-proselytes-of-the-ghetto

Lower East Side writer Amos Dushaw began a series of non-fiction and fictional books to respond to Cahan’s stereotyping of Jewish Christians. After studying at Union Theological Seminar he published The People, the Land and the Book as a Jewish Chrstian counterpart to Abraham Cahan’s The Rise of David Levinsky.

1909

Dushaw published his novel Proselytes of the Ghetto as a direct response to Cahan. The title may be an allusion to Israel Zangwill’s Children of the Ghetto. Zangwill gave currency to the phrase “the melting pot,” which he said was God’s way of remaking what it means to be Jewish.

Felix, the narrator of the story, recounts that the “Russian Jews” who read the New Testament discover that “God’s love is wider than petty creeds have represented, and that the life and teachings of the Nazarene have been caricatured by many of his followers. Here he discovers that the New Testament is not anti-Semitic and that Jesus was a loyal son of Israel, who came to break down the barriers which separated man from man.”

1910

Dushaw combined Zionism and Messianism. “Zionism will do it, from a political point of view, and the gospel from a spiritual point of view; and the intelligent Jews are turning to Zionism for political freedom, and to the gospel for spiritual freedom.”

He published the novel The Rivals: A Tragedy of the New York Ghetto. The story line is that Jewish journalist Daniel Mendes meets Debora Herz, and problems ensue over his evident belief in Jesus.

1920    Dushaw was appointed by the Hebrew Christian Alliance as its representative in Palestine.

1932    Dushaw published When Mr. Thompson Got to Heaven.

The book is sprinkled with some surprising gems. For instance, there is the account of Amos Dushaw, a Jewish Christian novelist “who gave voice in his novels to the struggles and dilemmas of converted Jews” (p. 51). Comparing his writings to those of the famous Yiddish novelist Abraham Cahan, Ariel notes that Dushaw was somewhat unconventional but that nevertheless, he served as the Hebrew Christian Alliance’s representative to Palestine beginning in 1920.

From Proselytes of the Ghetto

“The Russian Jew who reads the New Testament for the first time, is like a man who, on climbing a mountain, finds himself enshrouded in a thick cloud, and as he rises higher, he at length reaches the summit of the mountain where he sees the sun shining in all its splendor and beauty. Below him are the thick clouds, corresponding to human creeds which lead to unkind thoughts, petty jealousies, cruel and ignorant prejudices,
and non-chivalrous deeds. Here, far away from human inventions he finds himself in a limitless sphere of love and sympathy where creeds vanish before the Giver of light and life. The thought instantly comes to him, “Is this what I beheld below?” but his soul resents even the very suggestion of a possible resemblance between the atmosphere of the mountain top and that of the valley. What sights he now beholds! The light has revealed to him a larger horizon than he ever beheld before. Here he discovers that God’s love is wider than petty creeds have represented, and that the life and teachings of the Nazarene have been caricatured by many of his followers. Here he discovers that the New Testament is not anti-Semitic and that Jesus was a loyal son of Israel, who came to break down the barriers which separated man from man.”

http://smartsheep.org/dushaw-amos-i-proselytes-of-the-ghetto-index-2

Works:

The Grumbler, South St. Paul, MN, 1912
The Rivals: A Tragedy of the New York Ghetto, Arthur H. Stockwell, London, 1910
When Jews and Christians Meet: an Interpretaion and a Message for the Department of Jewish Evangelisation by the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School work, 1923
The Man Called Jesus, Fleming H. Revell Company, New York, 1939
Anti-Semitism – The Voice of Folly and Fanaticism, Tolerance Press, Brooklyn, 1943
When Mr. Thompson Got to Heaven, Tolerance Press, Brooklyn, 1932, 1954
No Room for Him, Tolerance Press, Brooklyn, 1950
Proselytes of the Ghetto: Time: the Present: Place: New York 1909 J. Heidinsfeld, 1909
Moses and Jesus, Calvary Baptist, 1924

http://www.ha-gefen.org.il/len/aalphabetic%20presentation/c13763/150359.php

Prophet, Disciple, Apostle to Antioch and Cyprus, Missionary, and Martyr

A Jew born in Cyprus, who received the Holy Spirit, sold all he had, and gave it to the Twelve. He introduced Paul (formerly Saul the Persecutor) to Peter, and accompanied him on many of his travels, preaching the Gospel and converting many. Tradition says that he carried the Gospel to Milan, and was stoned (or burned) to death by a mob in Cyprus.

Sayings about St Barnabas day:

“If it rains on St. Barnabas Day, it is good for grapes.”

“On St. Barnabas Day, it is time to cut your hay.”

“St. Barnabas oft times brings a tempest” [for which the good saint is invoked against hailstorms, not least of which is a prayer to leave the growing grain standing]

Barnabas (Greek: Βαρνάβας –Heb. ‘son of encouragement’), born Joseph, was an early Jewish disciple of Yeshua, prominent in Jerusalem. According to Acts 4:36 Barnabas was a Cypriot Jew. Named an apostle in (Acts 14:14), he and Paul the Apostle undertook missionary journeys together.They traveled together (c 45-47), and participated in the Council of Jerusalem (c 50). Barnabas and Paul successfully evangelized among the “God-fearing” nations who attended synagogues in various Hellenized cities of Anatolia.

Barnabas’ story appears in the Acts of the Apostles, and Paul mentions him in some of his epistles. Tertullian named him as the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, but this and other attributions are conjecture. Clement of Alexandria and some scholars have ascribed the Epistle of Barnabas to him, but his authorship is disputed.

Although the date, place, and circumstances of his death are historically unverifiable, Christian tradition holds that Barnabas was martyred at Salamis, Cyprus, in 61 AD. He is traditionally identified as the founder of the Cypriot Orthodox Church. The feast day of Barnabas is celebrated on June 11.

Barnabas is usually identified as the cousin of Mark the Evangelist on the basis of Colossians 4. Some traditions hold that Aristobulus of Britannia, one of the Seventy Disciples, was the brother of Barnabas.

As summarized in the Catholic Encyclopedia: “With the exception of St. Paul and certain of the Twelve, Barnabas appears to have been the most esteemed man of the first Christian generation. St. Luke, breaking his habit of reserve, speaks of him with affection, “for he was a good man, full of the Holy Ghost and of Faith”. His title to glory comes not only from his kindliness of heart, his personal sanctity, and his missionary labours, but also from his readiness to lay aside his Jewish prejudices, in this anticipating certain of the Twelve; from his large-hearted welcome of the Gentiles, and from his early perception of Paul’s worth, to which the Christian Church is indebted, in large part at least, for its great Apostle. His tenderness towards John Mark seems to have had its reward in the valuable service later rendered by him to the Church.”

Barnabas is usually identified as the cousin of Mark the Evangelist on the basis of Colossians 4. Some traditions hold that Aristobulus of Britannia, one of the Seventy Disciples, was the brother of Barnabas.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for this key Jewish believer in Yeshua, whose skills and gifts enabled Paul’s ministry to flourish, and who brought such blessing to the Messianic communities of the ancient world. Raise up for us similar leaders and encouragers. In Yeshua’s name we pray. Amen.

11 June – Saint Barnabas

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Saint Barnabas, Apostle and Martyr (died c. 61)

It came as a delightful surprise when David Klinghoffer came to the defense of Messianic Jews with his article on 10 June 2005. Klinghoffer is best known among Messianic Jews for his book “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus”, for which there are detailed responses as to why Messianic Jews rejected Klinghoffer’s position (here, here and below). Here is the article in full:

“When you write a book called “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus” and make your e-mail address available on a Web site bearing your name, as I’ve done, you are going to get a lot of e-mail from strangers. Some of it will be friendly, some hostile and some just heartbreaking. In the last category, I place the many communications I’ve received from messianic Jews — a correspondence that has made me question the longstanding Jewish policy of shunning such people.

Messianic Jews attend places of worship where traditional Jewish religious observances are practiced, but they also revere Jesus as the messiah and as God incarnate. As of 1995, there were 30,000 of them in the United States, according to the World Christian Encyclopedia, published by Oxford University Press, or 160,600 globally in 2000. They belong to “messianic Jewish” denominations whose membership, according to the same source, range up to 90% born gentiles, with only 10% born Jews.

You hear little about them because the Jewish community denies their leaders and organizations any recognition. Ordinary messianic believers feel the painful effects of the quarantine.

A messianic Jew named Bob wrote to me of being ejected from synagogues in Kansas City, New York’s Upper West Side and Singapore. Susan from San Francisco told of the “Conservative synagogue in which the president of the congregation and the cantor gave the rabbi an ultimatum: Kick me out or they would leave. I honored the rabbi’s request that I not ‘evangelize’ in the synagogue. But my membership dues were returned and I was no longer welcomed.” Michael, now living in Harrisburg, N.C., recalled being spat on while riding the Long Island Railroad.

Is the quarantine policy necessary? Is it fair?

It may be necessary. After all, passion can be persuasive; and followers of messianic Judaism are passionate to share their faith in a manner you don’t often encounter in liberal Jewish denominations — though you do in Orthodox Judaism. The messianic movement poses a special challenge to the continuity of Jewish belief. Ostracism is also a spur to rethinking your beliefs.

But what is necessary may not be fair. Do messianic Jews depart from Judaism in any way that alone sets them apart from other Jewish denominations?

Theologically, messianic Judaism is a hybrid, with doctrines that run counter to the Hebrew Bible — for example, the prophets’ faith that the messiah will preside over a world so radically changed that nobody will need to ask if he’s come — and other beliefs contrary to the New Testament. The latter, calling Torah “obsolete,” a “curse” and a “captor” (Hebrews 8:13, Galatians 3:13 and Romans 7:6), dispenses with the Jewish observances that messianics cherish.

Many Jews criticize messianic spokesmen for blurring the distinction between Judaism and Christianity. But is this any different from mainstream Jewish leaders who — on issues ranging from homosexuality to abortion and euthanasia — blur the equally sharp divide between traditional Jewish values and the values of secular liberalism?

Ah, you say, messianic Judaism is deceptive in doing this? Well, no more so than those Jewish groups that campaign for gay rights while disguising the fact that Jewish scripture unambiguously forbids homosexual intercourse (Leviticus 18:22).

Other Jews argue that messianics have ceased to be Jews because they revere Jesus as God incarnate, or because they worship a triune Deity. From the perspective of Judaism as it has been practiced for three millennia, there is indeed a problem in imagining God as taking a bodily form (see Deuteronomy 4:15) or as comprising distinct persons (Deuteronomy 6:4). But other beliefs constituting no less serious a departure from biblical tradition are smiled upon in our community. For instance, our liberal denominations reject the ancient faith that the Torah was received by Moses from God, thus reducing much of Judaism to mere folklore.

The gravity of this is evident from the teachings of Maimonides. In his encyclopedic “Mishneh Torah,” he lists 24 categories of people who may forfeit eternal life. One is a Jew who attributes bodily form to God. One is a Jew who believes in multiple deities. Another is one who denies that even a single word in the Torah comes from God.

To revile messianic Judaism while embracing Jewish movements that deny the revelation of the Torah at Sinai, then, makes little sense.

The irony is that messianic Judaism stands out by affirming the divine authorship of the entire Torah. When I debated a Conservative rabbi recently at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, a messianic Jew in the audience thanked me afterward for “speaking up for what the Torah says instead of what is ‘politically correct’ in Reform and Conservative Judaism.”

This same woman lamented, “We are often treated as ‘pariahs’ by other Jews.” Is that fair?

There is a further, practical objection to messianic Judaism. One may reasonably argue that Jewish belief in Jesus acts as a corrosive, an acid upon Jewish existence. There has never been a viable “Jewish Christianity” that didn’t ultimately disappear into the wider gentile world. Yet secularism has done a better job of decimating our ranks than has any other religion, and you don’t hear many Jews speaking out against secularism. Fair?

Certainly it is understandable that some Jews feel as they do about these Jewish Christians. For many, there is something stomach-churning about a Jew who embraces a faith with a centuries-long record of treating his own ancestors in cruel and humiliating ways.

And yet what is understandable, just like what is necessary, also isn’t necessarily fair. After all, we live in America with her unique philosemitic Evangelical Christian tradition. To imagine American Christianity, of which messianic Judaism forms a part, as if it were indistinguishable from medieval European Christianity is historically inaccurate.

No, I’m not trying to be judgmental about anyone’s beliefs. There is value, however, in shining light on an area — of interest to believers in Judaism as to believers in Jesus — that has been wrapped in murkiness and unreason. Let there be light.”

David Klinghoffer is the author of “Why the Jews Rejected Jesus: The Turning Point in Western History” (Doubleday).

Prayer: Thank you Lord for David Klinghoffer’s voice, here used on behalf of Messianic Jews, and his integrity. May he, like all of us, be given more of your wisdom, integrity and faithfulness, to discern the truth of your living Word, our Messiah Yeshua. In His name we pray. Amen.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Klinghoffer

http://forward.com/opinion/3649/are-we-being-fair-to-messianic-jews/

http://www.firstthings.com/article/2005/02/why-the-jews-did-or-did-not-reject-jesus

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/issues/v16-n01/klinghoffer

http://www.jewsforjesus.org/publications/realtime/may-2005/klinghoffer