Anti-Semitism issue

[Nihilist]

I have a problem (I think).

When I hear about the Israelist genocidical attacksa on Gaza, I get strong anti-Semitic feelings.

When I read the Gospel, I get strong anti-Semitic feelings. Texts like, “They will come from east and west to the kingdom of Heaven, but the children of Israel will be cast out.” And where Jesus says to the Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.” And, especially, where the Jews say, “Let his blood be upon our heads, and the heads of our children.”

I have been friends with many Muslims, and realise so many beliefs and values are in common (anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-pornography, etc.), who have caused me to have great sympathy with the Palestinians. When I was a youth, I also had a lot of ‘extreme right’ friends, who were very decent people at a personal level…

Then I think about all those capitalists- all those ‘sophisticated atheists’- all those homosexuals and degenerates- Seinfeld, Speilberg…ugh…

So, I suppose it comes down to this- I’m realize that I am an anti-Semite. I am not a Nazi, or anything, but it is something I can’t shake off…And all the current news just makes it worse.

And I don’t know what God’s will is…Are these feelings bad? Or is it all true- I mean, the Jews did kill Christ? Is this actually a right feeling, based on ‘unpopular truth’?

I’d be happy for any help, but won’t argue or defend my feelings at all…

 

[PaulfromIowa]

Anti-semitism is pure evil. The antidote to it is education which will help one grow out of a defective worldview. The Israelis have never attempted genocide toward the Muslims, Arab Muslims frequently advocate genocide against Jews.

 

[John_Lazarus]

And yet, the first twelve apostles were Jews. As was John the Baptists. As was Joseph. As was the Blessed Virgin.

As was our Lord, Jesus, the Incarnation of God.

If you hate Jews, be prepared to hate Jesus.

 

[John_Lazarus]

I have a problem (I think).

When I hear about the Israelist genocidical attacksa on Gaza, I get strong anti-Semitic feelings.

When I read the Gospel, I get strong anti-Semitic feelings. Texts like, “They will come from east and west to the kingdom of Heaven, but the children of Israel will be cast out.” And where Jesus says to the Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father you will do.” And, especially, where the Jews say, “Let his blood be upon our heads, and the heads of our children.”

I have been friends with many Muslims, and realise so many beliefs and values are in common (anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality, anti-pornography, etc.), who have caused me to have great sympathy with the Palestinians. When I was a youth, I also had a lot of ‘extreme right’ friends, who were very decent people at a personal level…

Then I think about all those capitalists- all those ‘sophisticated atheists’- all those homosexuals and degenerates- Seinfeld, Speilberg…ugh…

So, I suppose it comes down to this- I’m realize that I am an anti-Semite. I am not a Nazi, or anything, but it is something I can’t shake off…And all the current news just makes it worse.

And I don’t know what God’s will is…Are these feelings bad? Or is it all true- I mean, the Jews did kill Christ? Is this actually a right feeling, based on ‘unpopular truth’?

I’d be happy for any help, but won’t argue or defend my feelings at all…

You cannot conflate Israel with Jews worldwide.

And as for “the Jews killed Christ” – first off, **some **Jews called for His execution. We don’t know how many. We know He made some enemies – perhaps they engineered His arrest and execution while they knew most of those who supported Him would be busy with preparation for the Sabbath. The actual deed was done by the Romans. And also by us – every sin we commit is a stripe on His back, every evil a nail in His hand, every wickedness a spear in His side. If it wasn’t for US SINNERS, Jesus WOULD NOT HAVE DIED. Period.

And why single out Seinfeld and Spielberg as " ‘sophisticated atheists’- all those homosexuals and degenerates-" – What? No degenerates to be found in the Gentile world?

edit: Speak with a spiritual advisor about this.

 

[AggieCatholic86]

Nihilist. We believe in nothing Lebowski!

I just want to applaud you because you are at least aware of your feelings, you are only human after all. In Catholicism we have a kindred spirit with Judaism, being as we are a fulfillment of the New Covenant passed down through the Jews, that’s why you’ll find more sympathy for them here than Muslims.

But you must understand that even if Palestine were to become a state and have “democracy” they would still vote to exterminate the Jews by some 80%, I don’t really remember the figure but it was a super majority. They themselves voted in leaders of Hamas, a known terrorist organization, and they were the ones who kidnapped and executed 3 israeli teenagers, one of whom was an American citizen. They have fired 11k rockets into Israel since 2005, does not Israel have a right to defend its’ citizens? Do they not have an obligation to root out those who are killing their people?

You simply have an issue with perspective, if the Muslim world actually cared about Palestinians they would offer them asylum an any one of the countries surrounding Israel, but they haven’t.

Put it this way, if the Muslims would put down their guns there would be peace, if Israel put down their guns, there’d be no Israel. - Netanyahu

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I don’t believe anything Netanyahu says and he is responsible for much if the suffering Palestinians, including Christians have had to endure.

There needs to be a Palestinian homeland and Pope Frances has called for such.

That homeland must include control of their own water rights, access to their farmlands and control over their own seaports.

All the above has been rejected by Israel at every peace talk over the past decades.

The building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank must end and existing one’s be removed. The Palestinians must be given their homes and farmlands back in the occupied area. As it is, Netanyahu approved new Jewish settlements to be built on the West Bank, just this past year, despite the UN and USA declaring them illegal.

The Palestinians, essentially live without hope and become the target of the Israeli military, at the expense of Hamas.

The recent murder of three Jewish teens in the West Bank, was immediately blamed on Hamas by Netanyahu, despite Hamas rejection of such accusations. Those Jewish teens live an illegal settlement in the West Bank, which Palestinian homes were destroyed in order to make room for. There is much anger over the injustice the Palestinians have endured there, while even the US has the world has condemned those settlements.

Jim

 

[maryjk]

This might be an interesting article for some here to read.

It shows how Israel wages war vs. how Hamas does.

 

[7_Sorrows]

This might be an interesting article for some here to read.

It shows how Israel wages war vs. how Hamas does.

Thanks ringil. That was a good article. Unfortunately, it probably won’t convince those who are determined Israel is bad and palestinians are good. It is worth reading though.

 

[estesbob]

I don’t believe anything Netanyahu says and he is responsible for much if the suffering Palestinians, including Christians have had to endure.

There needs to be a Palestinian homeland and Pope Frances has called for such.

That homeland must include control of their own water rights, access to their farmlands and control over their own seaports.

All the above has been rejected by Israel at every peace talk over the past decades.

The building of Jewish settlements in the West Bank must end and existing one’s be removed. The Palestinians must be given their homes and farmlands back in the occupied area. As it is, Netanyahu approved new Jewish settlements to be built on the West Bank, just this past year, despite the UN and USA declaring them illegal.

The Palestinians, essentially live without hope and become the target of the Israeli military, at the expense of Hamas.

The recent murder of three Jewish teens in the West Bank, was immediately blamed on Hamas by Netanyahu, despite Hamas rejection of such accusations. Those Jewish teens live an illegal settlement in the West Bank, which Palestinian homes were destroyed in order to make room for. There is much anger over the injustice the Palestinians have endured there, while even the US has the world has condemned those settlements.

Jim

Hard to negotiate with people who deny your right to exist. So far every time Israel has ceded land to the Palestinians all it has done is provide them new platforms to launch rockets into Israel.

 

[Mumbles140]

Speaking generally, I see a vast difference between how one feels about the actions of Israel and how one feels about the Jewish people.

Specifically, I am saddened by the fighting and deaths on both sides, and continue to pray for a lasting resolution that will protect these lands which are so central to our beliefs.

 

[Sonny89]

Nihilist. We believe in nothing Lebowski!

I just want to applaud you because you are at least aware of your feelings, you are only human after all. In Catholicism we have a kindred spirit with Judaism, being as we are a fulfillment of the New Covenant passed down through the Jews, that’s why you’ll find more sympathy for them here than Muslims.

But you must understand that even if Palestine were to become a state and have “democracy” they would still vote to exterminate the Jews by some 80%, I don’t really remember the figure but it was a super majority. They themselves voted in leaders of Hamas, a known terrorist organization, and they were the ones who kidnapped and executed 3 israeli teenagers, one of whom was an American citizen. They have fired 11k rockets into Israel since 2005, does not Israel have a right to defend its’ citizens? Do they not have an obligation to root out those who are killing their people?

You simply have an issue with perspective, if the Muslim world actually cared about Palestinians they would offer them asylum an any one of the countries surrounding Israel, but they haven’t.

Put it this way, if the Muslims would put down their guns there would be peace, if Israel put down their guns, there’d be no Israel. - Netanyahu

Peace & all Good!

Exactly,

I seem to remember that during one of my History classes when we were looking at the creation of the State of Israel after the Second World War, and the ensuing wars & conflicts between Israel & its Arab Muslim neighbors, that many thousands of Arab Muslims fled to Jordan but were placed in refugee camps and then sent packing & refused asylum.

It’s terrible that people, especially young children, women & babies are hurt or killed by Israeli attacks & I pray for a resolution but regardless of what happens, many Muslims will always be trying to obliterate Israel from the face of the earth. The Israeli attacks aren’t setting out to kill women, young children, or innocent people, they’re trying to stop terrorists from killing heir citizens & wiping them off the map.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Hard to negotiate with people who deny your right to exist. So far every time Israel has ceded land to the Palestinians all it has done is provide them new platforms to launch rockets into Israel.

It’s also hard for the other side who were displaced and dispositioned, who have nothing to give at the negotiation table, because they have nothing and as the other side continues to build settlements and displace more of your own people.

Also they don’t have a military to defend themselves against the IDF.

Heck, if my family had done what was done to the Palestinians in 1948, I’d be calling for the end of the state that did it as well…

Jim

 

[Friedlander79]

Yep Jesus ( Yeshua) was Jewish
I am half Jewish so I celebrate Hanakkah and Passover
According to Jewish calendar Jesus was raises
From dead on festival of first fruits and Pentecost
Is actually celebrated 40 days after last day
Of Passover last supper was Passover supper
So holy communion Jesus became that Passover
Meal so we Passover from death to life just as
God had blood on the doors to Passover Jews
And for 8 days God kept the light going
In Matthew Jesus is seen keeping Hanukkah
Day of atonement and Yom Kippur all what Jesus
Followed. I pray for these people in
Israel.
Einstein was Jewish and Aspergers

 

[7_Sorrows]

So the topic is anti-semitism. Is their no love for Israel and the Jewish people?

 

[Nihilist]

So the topic is anti-semitism. Is their no love for Israel and the Jewish people?

I believe these feelings started when I was a child. Going to stations of the Cross- hearing about the Jews plotting against Christ, demanding His crucifixion, etc. Then all the stuff that’s going on in the Middle East today- all seems to confirm this impression. Then the most offensive, degenerate entertainers- many of them turn out to be Jews. It makes me very angry. So, I admit, I have a very negative feelings…

Is it possible to overcome these bad feelings? Or, if I conceal them, am I just being a cowardly conformist?

 

[7_Sorrows]

I believe these feelings started when I was a child. Going to stations of the Cross- hearing about the Jews plotting against Christ, demanding His crucifixion, etc. Then all the stuff that’s going on in the Middle East today- all seems to confirm this impression. Then the most offensive, degenerate entertainers- many of them turn out to be Jews. It makes me very angry. So, I admit, I have a very negative feelings…

Is it possible to overcome these bad feelings? Or, if I conceal them, am I just being a cowardly conformist?

Yes there is Passion week. But as I grew older I knew that was history. I never blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus. To me, it was part of God’s plan.
I guess those are important questions you need to ask yourself.

 

[Estevao]

I used to be an anti-semite as well. I suppose I came out of it thanks to the moral demands of the Church.

As the Catechism tells us (based upon Nostrae Aetate), it is not historically true that “The Jews killed Christ”:

I. THE TRIAL OF JESUS

Divisions among the Jewish authorities concerning Jesus

595 Among the religious authorities of Jerusalem, not only were the Pharisee Nicodemus and the prominent Joseph of Arimathea both secret disciples of Jesus, but there was also long-standing dissension about him, so much so that St. John says of these authorities on the very eve of Christ’s Passion, “many… . believed in him”, though very imperfectly.378 This is not surprising, if one recalls that on the day after Pentecost “a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” and “some believers. . . belonged to the party of the Pharisees”, to the point that St. James could tell St. Paul, "How many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed; and they are all zealous for the Law."379

596 The religious authorities in Jerusalem were not unanimous about what stance to take towards Jesus.380 The Pharisees threatened to excommunicate his followers.381 To those who feared that “everyone will believe in him, and the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation”, the high priest Caiaphas replied by prophesying: "It is expedient for you that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation should not perish."382 The Sanhedrin, having declared Jesus deserving of death as a blasphemer but having lost the right to put anyone to death, hands him over to the Romans, accusing him of political revolt, a charge that puts him in the same category as Barabbas who had been accused of sedition.383 The chief priests also threatened Pilate politically so that he would condemn Jesus to death.384

Jews are not collectively responsible for Jesus’ death

597 The historical complexity of Jesus’ trial is apparent in the Gospel accounts. The personal sin of the participants (Judas, the Sanhedrin, Pilate) is known to God alone. Hence we cannot lay responsibility for the trial on the Jews in Jerusalem as a whole, despite the outcry of a manipulated crowd and the global reproaches contained in the apostles’ calls to conversion after Pentecost.385 Jesus himself, in forgiving them on the cross, and Peter in following suit, both accept “the ignorance” of the Jews of Jerusalem and even of their leaders.386 Still less can we extend responsibility to other Jews of different times and places, based merely on the crowd’s cry: “His blood be on us and on our children!”, a formula for ratifying a judicial sentence.387 As the Church declared at the Second Vatican Council:

. . . [N]either all Jews indiscriminately at that time, nor Jews today, can be charged with the crimes committed during his Passion. . . [T]he Jews should not be spoken of as rejected or accursed as if this followed from holy Scripture.388

All sinners were the authors of Christ’s Passion

598 In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that "sinners were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the divine Redeemer endured."389 Taking into account the fact that our sins affect Christ himself,390 the Church does not hesitate to impute to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often burdened the Jews alone:

We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime in this case is greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness of the Apostle, "None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." We, however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in some way seem to lay violent hands on him.391

Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still, when you delight in your vices and sins.392

378 Jn 12:42; cf. 7:50; 9:16-17; 10:19-21; 19:38-39.
379 Acts 6:7; 15:5; 21:20.
380 Cf. Jn 9:16; Jn 10:19.
381 Cf Jn 9:22.
382 Jn 11:48-50.
383 Cf. Mt 26:66; Jn 18:31; Lk 23:2, 19.
384 Cf. Jn 19:12, 15, 21.
385 Cf. Mk 15:11; Acts 2:23, 36; 3:13-14; 4:10; 5:30; 7:52; 10:39; 13:27-28; 1 Thess 2:14-15.
386 Cf. Lk 23:34; Acts 3:17.
387 Mt 27:25; cf. Acts 5:28; 18:6.
388 NA 4.
389 Roman Catechism I, 5, 11; cf. Heb 12:3.
390 Cf. Mt 25:45; Acts 9:4-5.
391 Roman Catechism I, 5, 11; cf. Heb 6:6; 1 Cor 2:8.
392 St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitio 5, 3.

vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p122a4p2.htm

Furthermore, I used to point to the prevalence of Jews pushing moral turpitude through hollywood and the like, but then I discovered two things: a number of Jews who were morally upstanding (Dr. Michael Brown, Ezra Levant, Ben Shapiro), and I came across a book by a Jew named Michael Novak called “The Holocaust in American Life” which offered a plausible, non-racial explanation for the phenomenon of Jewish liberalism.

Finally, and most importantly, I got to know some Jews/Messianic Jews, and I could see that this notion of a “chosen people” mentality was just a figment of my imagination, and they did not have some kind of chip on their shoulder about the holocaust or the goyim or whatever.

 

[7_Sorrows]

I would like to understand both the phenomenon of both jewish AND catholic liberalism.

The Jews were blamed for killing Jesus for centuries.
Sadly Christian teaching was partly to blame for a long time.
The Passion plays that were put on long ago depicted the Jews in a bad way.

I know anti-semitism existed in our country and there were some hotels and country clubs, etc. that would not allow Jews.

I don’t understand is why people feel the State of Israel should not be allowed to exist.

 

[StGerardMajella]

So, I suppose it comes down to this- I’m realize that I am an anti-Semite. I am not a Nazi, or anything, but it is something I can’t shake off…And all the current news just makes it worse.

And I don’t know what God’s will is…Are these feelings bad? Or is it all true- I mean, the Jews did kill Christ? Is this actually a right feeling, based on ‘unpopular truth’?

Anti-semitism is not congruent with Catholicism. We are called to love our brothers, whether Jew or Gentile. The truth is that we all are guilty for the death of Christ through our sins.

You might start by studying the history of anti-semitism from a Catholic perspective. Pick up a copy of the book, “The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Anti-Semitism” by Fr. Edward Flannery, a Roman Catholic priest. In this book, Fr. Flannery articulates the different virulent threads of anti-semitism throughout history. It is an excellent primer on the subject, and well-written from a Catholic perspective.

After you’ve read this book, make a planned visit to one of the Holocaust memorials and museums around the country. This should change your perspective.

While we might not agree with others on theological grounds, whether Jewish or any other faith, anti-semitism and hatred for others has no place in the Catholic faith.

In regards to current events, we should pray for peace in the Middle East for every individual involved - Jew, Palestinian, Christian, Muslim - everyone.

 

[Martin_Pastore]

And yet, the first twelve apostles were Jews. As was John the Baptists. As was Joseph. As was the Blessed Virgin.

As was our Lord, Jesus, the Incarnation of God.

If you hate Jews, be prepared to hate Jesus.

I can’t say it any better.
Great post, there, John Lazarus!
To be an anti-Semite is to hate Jews.
Hating Jews is hating Jesus.
Hating the 12 apostles.
Hating the Blessed Virgin.
Well put, concise and to the point!

(that’s some catch, that catch-22).