Some of our esteemed commentators have brought up the Jewish Question again; Specifically, asserting that this tiny minority controls all of the levers of power in the United States.
Perhaps because I come from a minority myself, one which likewise has an out-sized influence in America, I see the picture as far more complex. I also know political boilerplate when I hear it. And contrary to what big-name Democrats like Nancy Antoinette are saying regarding Israel and their “undying support” for it, the reality is far different.
Simply put, the Democrat Party –the party that controls many of the levers of power on the national stage–is becoming anti-Jewish. I suppose that if I were a Jew in America, I would sense that in a minute. In fact, it’s becoming irredeemably anti-Israel, anti-Zionist, and yes, Judeophobic.
Notice I don’t use the word “anti-Semitic” because that would include Arabs, Assyrians, and even convert Jewish populations, such as the Ibo of Nigeria,the Lemba of Zimbabwe, Yemenis, Pashtuns, and (surprisingly) sectors of the Palestinian population of Gaza.
Consider this: when the despicable Ilhan Omar criticized the Jewish lobby, i.e. when she said “it’s about the Benjamins”, there was a brief flurry of outrage. She had touched one of the third rails of politics and was going to be censured by the House, if not ejected outright. Instead, she turned the tables on the House leadership and carried the day. Of course, now that Ben & Jerry’s decided to pull out of Israel because it is incensed by its policies in the Occupied Territories, it barely garners a “ho-hum”. It used to be political suicide to say (and do) such things. Not anymore.
Dedicated Jewish liberals, such as long-term Congressmen Eliot Engel of New York, have likewise lost elections to hard-Left anti-Israeli BLMers. Likewise Senator Chuck Schumer, the (Jewish) Majority Leader, is held hostage to the whims of the State Department, which desperately wants to make a treaty with the Islamic Republic of Iran. (This despite the fact that their official policy is “Death to Israel” and they even hosted a Holocaust Denial conference not that long ago.)
As for the American Academy it is resolutely hostile to Israel and the BDS (Boycott, Disinvest, and Sanctions) movement is gaining steam by the day.
As for the Republican Party, while it is more Philo-Judaic, it is nonetheless becoming more nationalistic. This will change the trajectory of American foreign policy in regards to its present foreign obligations in due time. Indeed, almost all segments of the conservative movement are trending in this direction. I, for one, welcome this development, not because I hate any foreigners but because I love Americans more.
The disastrous interventionist doctrines, peddled by the neoconservatives, many of whom, it must be admitted are Jewish, has left a bad taste in the mouth of Republicans and (dare I say?) most Americans as well. If the GOP retakes Congress, it’s only a matter of time before all foreign entanglements are put on the table for discussion. In fact, given the dire financial straights that await us, it’s inevitable.
The immediate danger for American Jews is from the Left, however. As far as the Democrats are concerned, the demographic landscape that makes up an increasingly large share of the party is hostile to both Israel and Jews in general. This is just the tip of the iceberg: by “demography” I mean blacks, Mesoamericans, Asians, Arabs, and other assorted Muslims who are migrating to America en masse. As such, Minister Louis Farrakhan is given a free pass to engage in the most anti-Jewish tropes imaginable. Because of the political strength of the black minority, he escapes all opprobrium. Worse, the only gentile demographic that is pro-Israel, i.e. the Evangelicals, are losing their grip on power, having been almost totally co-opted by the homosexual and feminist ideologies.
Don’t ask me why there is an inverse correlation between support for Israel and support for homosexuality but there is, at least as far as young Evangelicals are concerned. (Never mind that Tel Aviv is the gay mecca of the Middle East. Go figure.)
In the eyes of the Israelis, as far as America is concerned, the handwriting is on the wall with respect to the undying and uncritical support for Israel. And thus, we are sensing a slow but deliberate pivot by Israel towards China –and Russia. Biden is already ceding control of the Middle East to Russia (which, come to think of it, was another Trumpist proposal).
The Israelis sense this. The Chief Rabbi of Safed, Eliyahu Shamet, recently said that because America has lost its moral bearings, it is doomed as an empire. While I cannot agree with his laughable assessment that it will be Israel that will step into the vacuum and become the next super-power, his diagnosis about what ails America is spot on. (Really, any nation in which radical fringe movements such as BLM and Antifa have veto power over an election has reached its tipping point.) As such, to believe that there will always be reflexive American support for Israel is not a foregone conclusion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZDC4zUzGcc
Time and again, whenever it appears that Jews are assimilated into a host society and have reached an acme of power within it, the rug is invariably pulled out from under them. In pre-Nazi Germany, for instance, the intermarriage rate between Germans and Jews was an astonishing 40 percent. There were, in fact, significant members of the provisional Zionist government that admired the Third Reich. Yitzhak Shamir, the head of the Stern Gang, for example, openly despised the decadence of the West and sent out feelers to the Germans and the Italian Fascists in order to join forces with them.
There was precedence for this. In ancient times, when the Babylonians commenced persecution against the Jews, they switched their allegiance to the Persians. And when the religious toleration of the Greeks in Syria came to an end, the Hasmonean liberators of Judea made a pact with the Romans. In the latter instance, Roman protection had its limits and some three hundred years later, they utterly devastated the Jews.
This pattern repeated itself throughout history: when Edward I expelled the Jews of England, they migrated to the Low Countries. And when the Spaniards finally united their states into one kingdom and gave the Jews a choice between conversion or expulsion, the Jews migrated to the Ottoman Empire. In almost every case, the Jews had been resident within these host societies for centuries before their expulsion. It’s almost as if God wants to keep the Jews seesawing on the edge of civilization, indefinitely.
In any event, one cannot assume that because Jews make up x% of the Cabinet or y% of Congress, their power is absolute or permanent. In America, the rise in anti-Jewish “hate crimes” (as tabulated by the FBI)* is at an all-time high. From where I sit, that doesn’t sound like a minority that is all-powerful. Far from it.
* I don’t believe in the concept of so-called hate crimes, as all violent assaults are driven by hate. At any rate, it’s not European-descended whites who are committing the overwhelming number of these atrocities but nonwhite minorities.
That’s a great response. I’m not sure I totally agree, but it’s well thought out. Hubris always hits a wall. No power structure is permanent.
“Time and again, whenever it appears that Jews are assimilated into a host society and have reached an acme of power within it, the rug is invariably pulled out from under them.”
That’s because they can only destabilize. They don’t build civilization. If America falls, then Israel falls. They won’t have a country to flee to without the federal government sending them cash and missiles.
Traditional old country Judaism had a folk myth of the golem. The gentiles are threatening the synagogue or bagel cafe or diamond shop, so the rabbi creates a creature out of mud to defeat the attackers. At first this works, but then the golem turns on its own creators and causes even more destruction.
All mythology of any culture is a manifestation of the collective psyche of its people. The Jews have a cycle of getting everything they want and then ruining it. They created critical race theory and mass immigration, and now BLM and Mohammedans are using it against them. They wanted to reduce the white majority, but white people are the only race that can be guilted into hating itself, and the other races cannot understand why the capital-H Holocaust matters. The Jews are being held hostage by their own creation.
America was the best thing to ever happen to the Jews. They could assimilate with relatively little persecution. There was an open market for all their favorite non-physical labor. They even convinced a huge chunk of Christians that they had a moral obligation to support them. All they had to do is keep the wheels moving, and instead they have done everything they could to destabilize it. They admit this themselves in their own publications.
https://publicseminar.org/2019/12/the-history-of-american-progress-is-also-jewish-history/
They created a golem, and now it’s turning on them. It’s hilarious. Sometimes you get what you deserve.
The same thing happened in Russia. They overturned the Christian monarchy and became the leading prosecutors of the purges, and one of the first laws Lenin enacted was a capital punishment for antisemitism. But after several years it became clear that they weren’t really dedicated to the cause of the new man, so Stalin began a campaign against them, decrying them as “rootless cosmopolitans”. The history is sort of buried, but it seems that he closed synagogues and sent several Jewish leaders to the camps. He didn’t need them ganging up on him after they weren’t useful anymore.
Jewish Muslims in Salonica started the Young Turks revolution, which led to the Armenian genocide. A few years later Hitler said that he could do the same thing because no one remembered the Armenians genocide.
They pushed feminism, intermarriage and homosexuality to destroy the white Christian family, and now their birth rate is plummeting as fast as anyone else’s, and Jewish men find Jewish women repulsive.
So, you know, it’s funny how the circle is a wheel.
A few things.
I write this as Orthodox clergy with an ethnically Jewish family. So please, do not dismiss this as anti-semitic nonsense. Hear me out.
First, the Jews WERE God’s chosen people – chosen to contribute to the bloodline of the Theotokos and thus to Christ Himself.
However, when Christ arrived on earth as their long-awaited Messiah, the Jews – who like all men, were given free will by their God, had to make a decsion.
They had to either accept or reject the Christ, Who is the physical embodiment of the Logos. They rejected Him and killed Him, the Pattern, the Logos, becoming anti-Logos, anti-Pattern – – in other words, revolutionaries. Heck, they put to death the Logos and, identifying so much with Barabas, released the incarnation of revolution. They continue this trend.
In the aftermath of the crucifixtion, the Jews – not all Jews, just as not all Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, but their leaders, and the followers of these leaders – dispatched death squads to kill Christians. This also continues.
When they rejected the King of Heaven, they accepted the King of Earth, Satan. Christ calls them to this numerous times. We see their hatred for Christianity in the overwhelmingly Jewish rule of the early Soviet Union, which was a Jewish operation. See the Jewish bankers who financed the Jews Trotsky, Lenin and others who then paid the Jewish executioners of the Royal Family.
Look at what they did to Romania, Russia, etc.
Again, I’m not talking primarily about race but about culture – – someone were to claim blacks commit the majority of crime in America they hopefully don’t mean to say blacks commit crimes because they lack freewill and they’re programmed differently, no, we’d point to black culture.
For example.
The apostles who are racially Jewish hid “out of fear of the Jews.”
In the Gospels, we see that it’s those who reject Christ who are known as the Jews: “If you were Abraham’s children, you would do as Abraham did.” What does Christ mean by this?
What does Christ mean when he tells the “Jews” that “the devil is your father?” Is God anti-semitic? What do we even mean by this word? It’s used the same way they use ‘homophobic’ and ‘transphobic’ and ‘anti-vax’ and ‘white supremacist’ and ‘climate denier’ and ‘holocaust denier’.
In other words, it’s a weapon used to silence conversation.
Why?
I mean, the Governor of Texas goes on public television and says the conservative app GAB has no place in Texan values while sitting in front of an Israeli flag…imagine if it were the Chinese flag.
So, let’s say a man is kicked out of 100 businesses. Do we immediately blame these businesses? Or do we maybe examine the lifestyle of this individual? If it were me, I might ask myself, what am I doing that’s banishing myself from all these successful, good and mostly God-fearing countries?
Or let’s say a homeless family is kicked out of 100 households…I promise you, the odds are, the family is the problem. It’s not that everybody is racist and bigoted to this family, the problem is the behavior of this family.
Now, to your point, George.
You write: “the immediate danger for American Jews is from the Left…”
Really?
What about the Anti-Defemation League?
The American Civil Liberties Union?
Southern Poverty Law Center?
Antifa?
Black Lives Matter?
CNN?
Fox?
Youtube?
Google?
Facebook?
Wikipedia?
Twitter?
What about NPR?
New York Times?
NBC? CBS?
What about Hollywood? (By the way, do yourself a favor and read about the Hollywood Production Code).
If all these leftist organizations poisoning our culture – don’t get me wrong, I am at fault, I have freewill, but my nation is being poisoned – what if all the ogranizations consisted of Arab/Muslim names and pushing Islamic ideology, etc?
I’m sure you’re aware of the history of the Frankfurt School. Bolshevism is a Jewish invention, it absolutely is, and it is the driving force behind International Communism – Globalism, as we call it…
And since we mentioned globalism and Jews, and how they’re most in danger from the Left, let’s direct our attention away from all the above organizations rotting American culture and just look at Jews in Biden’s Administration.
Ready?
Jen Psaki: WH Press Secretary
Phil Rosenfelt: Deputy General Counsel of US Department of Education for Program Service
Catherine Lhamon: Dep. Director of Domestic Policy Council for Racial Justice & Equity
Bruce Reed: White House Deputy Chief of Staff
Robert Bauer: Co-Chair of the Pres. Commission on the Supreme Court of the US
Monica Medina: Asst. Sec. of State for the Bureau of Oceans & Int. Environmental & Science Affairs
David Cervantes: Policy Advisor at U.S. Department of the Treasury
Teddy Nemeroff: Director for International Cyber Policy NSA
Chanan Weissman: Director for Technology and Democracy NSA
Gene Sperling: Senior Advisor to the President
Anita Dunn: Senior Advisor to the President
Nora Volkow: Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse
Alina Romanowski: US Ambas. to Kuwait
Jonathan Cohen: US Ambas. to Egypt
Alaina B. Teplitz: US Ambas. to Sri Lanka & Maldives
Peter H. Vrooman: US Ambas. to Rwanda
Xavier Becerra: US Sec of Health and Human Services
Max Rose: Special Assistant to the US Sec of Defense for C-19
Andy Slavitt: Senior Advisor to the C-19 Response Coordinator
Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall: US Homeland Security Advisor
Ron Klain: White House Chief of Staff
Eric Lander: Director of the Office of Science and Tech. Policy Science Advisor to the President
“Rachel” Levine: Assistant Sec for Health
Rochelle Walensky: Director of the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
Jeffrey Zients: Counselor to the President
Steve Ricchetti: Counselor to the President
Wendy Sherman: US Deputy Sec of State
Anne Neuberger: US Deputy National Security Advisor for Cyber & Emerging Technology
Alejandro Mayorkas: US Sec of Homeland Security
Doug Emhoff: Second Gentleman of the US
Jared Bernstein: Member of the Council of Economic Advisers
Antony Blinken: US Secretary of State
David S. Cohen: Director of CIA until March 19, then transitioning to Deputy Director of CIA
Janet Yellen: US Sec of the Treasury
Merrick Garland: US Attorney General
Avril Haines: Director of National Intelligence
Isabel Guzman: Administrator of the Small Business Administration
Polly Trottenberg: US Deputy Secretary of Transportation
David A. Kessler: Head of Op. Warp Speed (Jan-Feb) & co-chaired the Biden-Harris transition’s C-19 Advisory Board (Nov-Jan)
Jennifer Klein: Co-Chair White House Gender Policy Council
Jessica Rosenworcel: Chairwoman of the Federal Communications Commission
Stephanie Pollack: Deputy Administrator of the Federal Highway Administration
Mira Resnick: State Department Deputy Assistant Sec for Regional Security
John Kerry: United States Special Presidential Envoy for Climate
Victoria Nuland: Under Sec of State for Political Affairs
Gary Gensler: Chair of the Securities & Exchange Commission
Mark Greenblatt: Inspector General of the Department of the Interior
Elizabeth Klein: Deputy Sec of the Interior
+++++ Again, if these names were Muslims, or Chinese, we’re probably say, ‘Hey, there’s a conspiracy going on here!’
Interesting points. I applaud your courage. And your analysis gives us much food for thought. I’m especially intrigued by your diagnosis of the “Jewish revolutionary spirit”, being that it’s a manifestation of being “anti-Logos”.
However, a few quibbles: it’s we Greeks who are responsible for Jen Psaki. Truly a stupido.
Lenin was only 1/4 Jewish. His Jewish grandfather converted to Orthodox Christianity and was very devout.
As for the organizations you mention, despite all of them, the fact remains that a parallel, anti-Jewish storm is gathering on the Left.
In any event, thank you for this thoughtful comment.
Interesting post. Thanks for posting it.
Though I’ve read and have heard Orthodox hierarchs indicate that at least a few of the Holy Royal Martyrs’ executioners were baptized Orthodox Christians. So yes, Orthodox Christians are historically very good at rejecting our baptism.
And of course Christ allowed the Jews to crucify Him – He most certainly could have called thousands of Angels from Heaven to destroy them and prevent His crucifixion. But He did not, because He loves us and wanted to reunite us with God by destroying death.
Christ’s crucifixion can never be used by Christians as a justification for persecution of Jews.
In essence, the Jews who persecuted Christ can be understood to have unwittingly executed God’s will.
In the 1940s-1950s America, if you had suggested that this would be the vast influence of Jewish Americans at the upper echelons of society in 2021 America, you’d have been called insane. Yet here we are. Any why is that? Because Christian men did not lead.
This epitaph should be everywhere on the tombstones of modern American men: “I’m sorry, I failed to become a man.”
There are about as many Orthodox Christians in America as there are Jews in America. Who has the larger influence on society? Why is that? Questions worth pondering.
Very true.
There are actually about four times as many Jews as Orthodox Christians here.
But not all Orthodox Jews consider Liberal Jews
to actually be Jews (in the religious, not the ethnic sense of the term).
Both Kerry and Mayorkas are of Jewish descent. It’s even on Wikipedia.
What is that that when someone has like a 5% of Jewish heritage you all jump to say he is Jewish? It’s obsessive.
“What is that that when someone has like a 5% of Jewish heritage you all jump to say he is Jewish? It’s obsessive.”
Crypto Jews have been a thing since at least the false messiah, Sabbatai Zevi. In case of the Kerry family, etc, the crypto has always been paper thin.
https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-kerry-s-brother-attacks-on-him-vile-1.5322375
The Kerry brothers first learned [yeah right] that their paternal grandparents were Jewish in 2004, during John Kerry’s run for the presidency, when The Boston Globe uncovered his grandfather’s roots.
Cameron Kerry had, coincidentally [yeah, sure], converted to Judaism and was active in the Jewish community. Until last year, he was general counsel to the U.S. Department of Commerce. He is now a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank and a visiting scholar at the Media Lab of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
I would say anyone who qualifies for the Law of Return is Jewish in an important way. John Kerry does, having Jewish grandparents.
Why do I care? Because they do.
I agree. The whole idea of crypsis only works if an ethnicity is more than 25%-50% of the ethnicity in question. And only if the members of the same group make a conscious idea to intermarry & to interact with those of your in group.
In other words to act in ways that are indistinguishable from an overt group.
Being less than 20% of anything dilutes the blood & the instincts native to the group. In other words crypsis fails as an In group strategy
“Being less than 20% of anything dilutes the blood & the instincts native to the group. In other words crypsis fails as an In group strategy”
There are effectively “Satanic Jews” that have been cryptos not only within Gentile nations/religions, but to Judaism and the Jewish ethnicity as well, that’ve maintained their in-group identity for centuries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donmeh
The Dönmeh’s maneuverings were said to have been at the core of Young Turk Revolution and their overthrow of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the dissolution of the Ottoman religious establishment, and the founding of a secular republic. Pro-Sultan, religious Muslim political opponents painted these events as a global Jewish and Freemasonic plot carried out by Turkey’s secret Jews, the Dönmeh, with Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the chief revolutionary and former member of the Committee of Union and Progress (CUP), a leading Dönmeh himself.
Nothing to do with obsession, but certain groups are known to give people of some Jewish descent a tap on the shoulder and offer favors if they help out the tribe. “Turns out your great-grandpa is from the shtetl; we might be able to work together.”
Like how us Greeks will claim anyone with an -os on the end of their name, but more sinister.
I’ve noticed how a lot of Americans will loudly and proudly proclaim some kind of minimal Jewish (or American Indian) descent, like the classic 1/64th Cherokee meme. Individualistic people, like Americans, like to be associated with marginal groups and the benefits that come with that association. Just look at Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal, etc.
Most Ashkenazi Jews are mongrels. None of them are completely from Judah.
And really, the same is probably true for all races. Pure races don’t exist. People intermarry and then forget. Greeks today aren’t really descended from the ancient blonde Athenians.
You guys probably assume I’m some kind of white supremacists Aryan stereotype. I’m brown. I don’t even have Anglo-Saxon teeth. We aren’t actually sure why our family has dark skin. I was always told it’s Cherokee, but that doesn’t make sense. I’m fairly certainly it’s Melungeon, but I have no direct evidence. But really, I’m a loud mouth southern Scotch-Irish. Whatever tiny fraction of Turkish or Moroccan I have, it’s not anything I have a connection to.
Pure races don’t exist. Mussolini mocked Hitler for suggesting that they do. An estimated 2-10% of Americans are Scots-Irish, but it has to be something closer to a quarter. Race is about tribe and culture, not genetic percentages.
RE: “But really, I’m a loudmouth southern Scotch-Irish.”
And that’s what we love about you!
Austin Martin says “Most Ashkenazi Jews are mongrels. None of them are completely from Judah.”
Judaism is not a race. Purity of race is irrelevant.
BTW, let me remind you that Sephardi Jews are “mongrels” too, as they are also the descendants of Edomites (forcefully converted by the Maccabees)
“I’ve noticed how a lot of Americans will loudly and proudly proclaim some kind of minimal Jewish (or American Indian) descent, like the classic 1/64th Cherokee meme. Individualistic people, like Americans, like to be associated with marginal groups and the benefits that come with that association. Just look at Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dolezal, etc.”
That’s because whites are legally last class citizens in their own country(ies), if you can pass as anything else then it is to your great benefit, and has been for generations, as seen in the age Mrs. Warren (born 1949). At this point, whites and other non-blacks can be murdered in the streets while the media ignores it, or worse, cheers it on (and effectively, IMHO, the entire OCA synod as well), and the law does nothing, unless you try to defend yourself, then they arrest you.
Now, as far as Israel, for anybody who thinks the Jews as a ethnic group run the world, Israel having one of the highest death shot uptakes in the world should disabuse you of that notion.
They’re not infallible, they make mistakes, especially when their power is cresting. Look at history, many such cases.
But Jews in positions of power will also exhibit the behavior they want society to take up, leading the way. For instance, no Jewish person wants a gay or transgender kid, it especially does not serve the interests of a small minority group to commit suicide that way, but notice how many prominent early adopters were Jewish, from Harvey Milk to Jazz Jennings. It gets popularized in the media, the Gentiles see it as a status symbol, and run after it while the Jews back away and go on to have their normal cis-het families.
So what better way to get the Goyim to vaccinate than to vaccinate Israel and promote its success across the world? They have no moral qualms about the abortions of Goyish babies—the atheists because they hate God, and the religious because the Talmud says we are cattle—, so aside from the marginal risk of vaccine-related health problems (gotta break a few eggs) there is no real downside.
I dunno, makes sense to me.
Well it looks like E.Michael Jones has made some waves in the Orthodox clergy and laity. Let’s try to keep his good historical research separate from some of his problematic polemics.
I agree with you. It’s one thing to critique a group (which I do) on the one hand and then be obsessive on the other.
Anon II…..outstanding post! Thank you.
When I’m president, I’m going to appoint Greeks to half my cabinet. Then every morning I’ll call out, “Myrmidons, assemble!” And they’ll all shuffle into the board room and sit around this giant oak table as we discuss plans, and then they’ll ride out in chariots through the streets of Washington while blare Iron Maiden’s “Run to the Hills” on a loudspeaker. It’ll be twice as entertaining as anything Trump said on Twitter.
“Run to the Hills” on a loudspeaker…?
Scottish Metrical Psalter Psalm 121:
‘ I to the hills will lift mine eyes,
from whence doth come mine aid[?]
My safety cometh from the Lord,
who heav’n and earth hath made. … ‘
I’ll gladly get on one of those chariots (if Gail lets me).
My take regarding the Jews, for quite some time, is that they can take care of themselves and we need not bother much about it. As to their status before God, we have St. Paul’s witness in Romans 11 which counsels us not to be too harsh with them or haughty lest we fall into the same trap as them. He spoke hopefully about their eventual conversion.
In the meantime, of course, they can be a real nuisance. However, they can be made allies of a sort since they share a similar moral witness and the same God. It is a very different situation from the Muslims. The Muslims claim to worship the same God as we do but it is not possible that the true God would give a revelation which supersedes and contradicts the Gospel. It must have been a demon who spoke to Muhammad, if Islam was not simply a creation of his fancy. Any legitimization of Islam is in and of itself a rejection or erosion of Christianity.
So the Jews retain a certain covenant with God. They were indeed the chosen people. Muslims are simply the errant sons of Hagar who invented a false religion or have been led by demons – either way, they have been a scourge to the Church and their religious ideology should never be normalized in any way.
Jews do not have the same God as Christians. If you don’t have the Son, then you don’t have the Father.
Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.
2 John:1:9
Whosoever denieth the Son, the same hath not the Father: he that acknowledgeth the Son hath the Father also.
1 John:2:23
Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know me, nor my Father: if ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also.
John:8:19
AM,
Yes, they worship the same God. They just do not understand Him or accept Him fully. They worship the God who delivered the word to Isaiah and Elijah. That is our God. The god who conveyed the Quran is either a demon or fictional.
Most Jews don’t worship God. Most Jews are atheists, or worse.
You could say that about some of the people who claim they are Orthodox.
You are wrong. They absolutely do not. We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and follow the religion revealed to us by the Incarnate God-man Jesus Christ. They deny the Holy Trinity and, in their ‘holy books’ blaspheme our Lord and His All-Holy Mother. These are the people that stoned the prophets and sawed Isaiah in half.
To add to Austin’s Scripture references:
And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world. (1 John 4:3)
Theirs is an antichrist religion; the only religion totally based on rejection of, and opposition to, the Savior Jesus Christ. While I agree with your take on Islam, they at least believe Jesus Christ to be the Word of God and venerate His Mother, while the Jews blaspheme God and His saints constantly.
They are not our ‘elder brothers in the faith’ as the Popes are wont to call them, but our oldest antagonists and persecutors.
The doctrine of Holy Trinity took centuries to form after the founding of the Church and Christians were not clear at all on this issue for a long time
The reasons for the split between Christians and the rest of the Jews were different. If we carefully read the key documents from that time – Gospels and Epistles, we can see that more important was the nature of Mesianic mission and Salvation, whether the Kingdom of God is of this world or is not and the purpose of the Law.
Once my friend, a religious Jew, asked me “how come, that you Christians can believe in Trinity”. I answered him “how come that God appeared to Abraham in three persons”. He got confused and agitated saying “I don’t know why, I don’t why!” and sort of gave up. 😉 I could have asked him other questions based on the Scripture, but for what purpose?
I think that to the believing Jews the mystery of Holy Trinity is veiled, but implicitly there.
The problem with most religions is they change what is for what they want it to be. Again, we Orthodox Christians come out ahead, theologically, by holding to Tradition. Most of us, anyway.
A former POTUS once [in]famously noted:
“It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
Get out of here. The doctrine of the Holy Trinity is biblical and apostolic. Fr. Stephen De Young does a good job of showing this in his book, Religion of the Apostles. The Trinitarian (or multi-hypostatic) tendencies that exist in the Israelite religion of the Old Testament are downplayed and even denied by the modern Pharisees.
Fr De Young’s book is on my to-do list.
I’ve been listening to the Audible version of the book, highly recommend it.
Fr. De Young will also be doing an interview with the YouTube channel Gospel Simplicity today, I’m sure it will be great.
It it not without its problems, but it is otherwise a worthwhile read.
I don’t usually purchase books published by Ancient Faith, but this really caught my interest, since I have read a lot of similar work in this field (Bishop Alexander Golitzin and his ‘Theophania school’ for one). Fr. Stephen has a more accessible approach to this worthy area of research, which is the examination of the actual Jewish religion of the Second Temple period in which the NT was written and formed, as opposed to the fake Judaism of the Talmud.
The sheep know the voice of the Shepherd. The true Jews recognized Jesus as the Messiah and followed him. The false Jews knew he was God and killed him anyway.
Others said, These are not the words of him that hath a devil. Can a devil open the eyes of the blind?
John:10:21
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee.
Revelation:3:9
The Jews deep down know that Christ is the Messiah, and it drives them mad with jealousy to see the Christians get all their blessings. This is why so many Jews are atheists, that if they can deny even the existence of God, the certainly God cannot have a Son.
This is why Pilate called Jesus their king. He was saying, “You Jews have been talking about the Messiah for years. If this man isn’t him, who possibly could be?”
But Pilate answered them, saying, Will ye that I release unto you the King of the Jews? For he knew that the chief priests had delivered him for envy.
Mark:15:9-10
And by declaring their allegiance to Caesar, they said, “We don’t want the covenant. If this man is the covenant, then we will be apart of the world.” And we see today that they are entirely secular.
And from thenceforth Pilate sought to release him: but the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let this man go, thou art not Caesar’s friend: whosoever maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar. […] But they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Pilate saith unto them, Shall I crucify your King? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
John:19:12,15
They said it themselves. They worship Caesar, not God.
Jesus rose from the dead. How much more proof do they need?
Basil and Austin,
Argue with the Apostle. Of course, he was a Jew too so he must be suspect:
Romans 11:
I say then, Hath God cast away his people? God forbid. For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew. Wot ye not what the scripture saith of Elias? how he maketh intercession to God against Israel saying, Lord, they have killed thy prophets, and digged down thine altars; and I am left alone, and they seek my life. But what saith the answer of God unto him? I have reserved to myself seven thousand men, who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal. Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.
What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day. And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them: Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway. I say then, Have they stumbled that they should fall? God forbid: but rather through their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles, for to provoke them to jealousy. Now if the fall of them be the riches of the world, and the diminishing of them the riches of the Gentiles; how much more their fulness?
For I speak to you Gentiles, inasmuch as I am the apostle of the Gentiles, I magnify mine office: If by any means I may provoke to emulation them which are my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them be the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert grafted in among them, and with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive tree; Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee.
Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear: For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?
For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob: For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the father’s sakes. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in times past have not believed God, yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief: Even so have these also now not believed, that through your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory for ever. Amen.
* * *
Of course, St. Paul was a Jew, as were Christ and His mother. Perhaps the whole thing is a Zionist conspiracy. Maybe we need a new god of the Aryan race . . .
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6uajey
Very true. What should scare us gentiles (Greeks especially) is the prospect Paul’s warning that “once grafted onto the vine”, we can be uprooted as well.
Nice straw man. “You disagree with me about the Jews, therefore Nazi.”
You offer us the writings of an Apostle, without even engaging with the writings of another Apostle. Go and read what Saint John Chrysostom has to say about Romans 11. . . .
Not a straw man, Basil.
I have read Chrysostom on Romans 11, what of it?
What you fail to see is that partial and temporary rejection is not permanent rejection and that St. Paul stated that the Jews would be saved in the end. Had they abandoned the God of Israel, that would not be the case. They simply rejected His manifestation in Jesus Christ. They rejected the Messiah.
Now, you may split hairs and say they have a false ideation of God and therefore they do not worship the same God. However, God is one and they purport to worship the God of the prophets whom Christ claimed to be. That they do not recognize Him does not mean that they do not worship the God of the prophets but rather that they misunderstand and mistrust Him.
To be sure, this is an impediment to salvation. And outside the Church, there is no salvation. On that we agree. Where we disagree is that I know that a) the Jews worship the God of the prophets, as do we; and b) the Jews will be restored to faith in the end, as St Paul asserts:
“For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved.”
St. Paul does not allow unbridled hostility to the Jews. He was on the other side of the argument at one point, executing Christians. He saw the light. And he asserts that when the Gospel has reached its fullness in the Gentiles, that Israel too will be restored to complete faith. This does not make them heathen in the interim. They hold to no invented god, as do the Muslims.
For Saint Paul and the Fathers, Israel is the Church. “All Israel will be saved” is salvation in Jesus Christ, through His Body, the Church.
Saint John’s commentary on Romans 11 chastises both Jews for their rejection of Christ, as well as Gentiles for any haughtiness that they might get, as George mentioned above.
The root, which is holy, are those Jews who stayed in the covenant by accepting baptism, continuing the faith of the Old Testament, i.e. the Apostles and those who converted at Pentecost.
The faithful remnant of the Jews is those who accepted the Gospel. Those who ‘did not bow their knee to Baal’ are those that accepted the Messiah instead of the prince of this world.
Any other way of reading this insinuates that the ‘root’ or ‘all Israel’ is Jews as an ethnic group, which is not something that we can accept, as ethnicity alone does not save – just go down to Hades and ask those Greeks who accepted Islam under the Turkokratia.
The religion of the Talmud and the Pharisees is not the religion of the Old Testament, it does not teach about the God of the prophets, and it is most certainly not a holy root onto which we faithful Orthodox Christians have been grafted. No sir. It is hostile towards Christ, His Mother, the saints, Christians, and pretty much everyone.
“. . . that blindness in part is happened to Israel . . .” Here, St. Paul is referring to the the Jews as Israel in the tribal sense. Blindness certainly did not happen to the Church.
It is the devil who argues in order to confuse rather than illuminate. Believe as you will. I leave you to your own devices.
The Word of God was always God. God was always a Trinity, and this was known to the Prophets. Jews don’t reject a manifestation, they reject God Himself. I don’t know what this is, quasi- Modalism or Arianism or something, but it doesn’t sit well with me.
Yes, in the end there will be a great apostasy from the Church in the last days, and a remnant of the Jews will be saved. But they will be saved as Christians, worshippers of Christ as God and the Holy Trinity, not as Jews.
Well the good news is that you won’t have to share eternity with them.
The God of the Prophets is the same God of the Church.
Yes, but not the synagogue.
We could take that further: or any other institution which does not hold to the Trinity.
Agreed completely. And also any institution that thinks that the Holy Spirit proceeds eternally from the Son.
We worship a God with three Persons, one of which is incarnate and has two natures. That is the only God there is. If you don’t worship this God, you do not worship our God. Elijah and Isaiah worshipped the Trinity, not a pure monad.
Ignorance was an excuse before the Lord began to preach, but now it is not. They know what we claim about Christ, and they reject him and curse him (and us) in their liturgy to this day. I can “bless those who curse” without pretending we’re all climbing the same mountain, like Elpi believes.
This doesn’t just go for Jews, but Muslims as well, who also know Christ, and while they at least hold him in esteem and even believe is coming to judge the world, they still reject him as God, and therefore they reject God altogether.
At the end of every Vespers the priest says: “Christ our God, O ON, is blessed, always, now and ever…”
“The I AM”, “THE ONE WHO IS”, “HE WHO IS”, “THE EXISTING ONE”. However you translate it, it refers to the one and only God that there is, and this is explicitly named as Christ our God.
Antiochene Son: “Ignorance was an excuse before the Lord began to preach, but now it is not.”
Unfortunately they are still ignorant. They think that we worship three persons with three wills that are involved in interpersonal relations (something Metropolitan Zizioulas seems to suggest).
It is important to stress that the doctrine of Holy Trinity, in the actual meaning, talks about three hypostases, or subsistences (not persons in the common usage), only one substantial ie having its being in itself, the others two taking it eternally from the source. God is One because Father is one. (with one will)
Christians themselves were not clear about those subtle issues for centuries after Christ (Ecumenical Councils were needed, more than one). To require from a Jew, to have understanding of those matters is not really fair.
Martin, I have to agree with you here. The “etenality” of the Two other hypostases is a mind-boggling mystery.
The only analogy I can come.up with is the sun: it’s an entity which gives off both heat and light. At no point in its material existence has it never had these two qualities.
Having said that, this understanding of the interior life of the Trinity, specifically it’s eternity in all its aspects, is the single greatest refutation of the Filioque.
George Michalopulos: “Martin, I have to agree with you here. The “eternality” of the Two other hypostases is a mind-boggling mystery.”
Yes and no. The dogmas were formulated for the people, to prevent their faith from deviating, so they were able to assimilate them. For example hypostatic union means that human nature is healed by uniting with the divine, while retaining its humanity. Otherwise the salvation would not be accomplished.
George Michalopulos “The only analogy I can come.up with is the sun: it’s an entity which gives off both heat and light. At no point in its material existence has it never had these two qualities.”
Such problems appear when we try to form a theory of Trinity similar to our scientific or philosophical theories.
We need to start from the other point, from the one that Old Testament Jews and first Christians were in.
1 True God is One, not like many pagan gods, that are products of human imagination.
2. God is the source of all beings, and is not comprehensible by reason, because He is the source of reason and not subject of reason. And He is a person.
3. Spirit of God is God himself, and is the same Divine person (person understood as the ground for the will) in a distinct hypostasis.
4. It pleased God to take human nature and became incarnated. As such
we deal with another eternal hypostasis, the Son.
Perhaps one should focus on what hypostasis means and forget about thinking about persons.
For the Jews such approach is not so hard, the Bible talks about God as Spirit and shows encounters of God in human or angelic likeness with men.
As Christians became more Greek and less Jewish over first three centuries, the need for dogmatic definitions arose. And later the confusion was compounded by the scholastic an scientific mindset.
We need to travel back in time two thousands years using our intuition, empathy and try to read the holy books in the spirit in which they were written. Or to open to our intact living tradition.
It is not I who require Jews, or anyone else, to worship the Trinity, it is the Trinity as revealed in the Church. This information is readily available to anyone who cares to understand, more than ever before in human history.
Why are we so reluctant to require right faith when it comes to Jews, as if they are hopelessly ignorant and incapable of understanding? If they can wend out the old Law to hang a wire around Manhattan so they can walk around outside on the Sabbath, I’m pretty sure they can grasp the Trinity. There are none so blind as those who wish not to see.
There is no salvation apart from faith in Christ. Faith in Christ presupposes faith in the Trinity, because otherwise it is faith in a mere man, who cannot save.
They curse our Lord and us to this day. They are not ignorant of the Christian faith.
I think it depends which “Jews” one is talking about.
Most Jews by the 1500s had completely abandoned their classical Jewish worship for something entirely new. That’s why when the reformers – who were allegedly basing their worship on “Jewish worship” – based it off of 16th century modern synagogue worship – which was totally different from ancient Jewish worship.
Which is why when we note that our Orthodox worship comes from Jewish temple worship, we look nothing like what a modernized Jewish synagogue of the 16th century looked like. That’s what a modern Presbyterian church is modeled after (a lecture and some songs).
By the 16th century most Jews had invented a new Judaism – and the reformers invented a new religion (“reformed protestant Christianity”) based off of this new modernized Jewish worship.
Do Jews worship the same God as Orthodox Christians? Depends what Jews you’re talking about, I think. Do all “Christians” worship the same God? Absolutely not. The God that most reformed and modern protestant Christians worship is an invented “deistic” God who is not the Triune God of the Orthodox.
For an thought-provoking examination of this question, see:
Israel Shahak: Jewish History, Jewish Religion:
The Weight of Three Thousand Years
specifically CHAPTER 3 Orthodoxy and Interpretation pp 34-51
https://zaidpub.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/jewish-history-religion-prof-shahak-oz-ed.pdf
‘ THIS CHAPTER is devoted to a more detailed description of the theologico-legal structure of classical Judaism. However, before embarking on that description, it is necessary to dispel at least some of the many misconceptions disseminated in almost all foreign-language (non-Hebrew) accounts of Judaism, especially by those who propagate such currently fashionable phrases as ‘the Judeo-Christian tradition’ or ‘the common values of the monotheistic religions’. Because of considerations of space I shall only deal in detail with the most important of these popular delusions: that the Jewish religion is, and always was, monotheistic.
Now, as many biblical scholars know, and as a careful reading of the Old Testament easily reveals, this a-historical view is quite wrong. In many, if not most books of the Old Testament the existence and power of ‘other gods’ are clearly acknowledged, but Yahweh (Jehovah), who is the most powerful god is also very jealous of his rivals and forbids his people to worship them. It is only very late in the Bible, in some of the later prophets, that the existence of all gods other than Yahweh is denied. What concerns us, however, is not biblical but classical Judaism; and it is quite clear, though much less widely realized, that the latter, during its last few hundred years, was, for the most part, far from pure monotheism. The same can be said about the real doctrines dominant in present-day Orthodox Judaism, which is a direct continuation of classical Judaism. …
Several points should be made concerning this system and its importance for the proper understanding of Judaism, both in its classical period and in its present political involvement in Zionist practice. First: whatever can be said about this cabbalistic system, it cannot be regarded as monotheistic, unless one is also prepared to regard Hinduism, the late Graeco-Roman religion, or even the religion of ancient Egypt, as ‘monotheistic’. Secondly: the real nature of classical Judaism is illustrated by the ease with which this system was adopted. Faith and beliefs (except nationalistic beliefs) play an extremely small part in classical Judaism. What is of prime importance is the ritual act, rather than the significance which that act is supposed to have or the belief attached to it. …
There is yet another misconception about Judaism which is particularly common among Christians, or people heavily influenced by Christian tradition and culture. This is the misleading idea that Judaism is a ‘biblical religion’; that the Old Testament has in Judaism the same central place and legal authority which the Bible has for Protestant or even Catholic Christianity. Again, this is connected with the question of interpretation. We have seen that in matters of belief there is great latitude. Exactly the opposite holds with respect to the legal interpretation of sacred texts. Here the interpretation is rigidly fixed – but by the Talmud rather than by the Bible itself. …
It should therefore be clearly understood that the source of authority for all the
practices of classical (and present-day Orthodox) Judaism, the determining base of its
legal structure, is the Talmud, or, to be precise, the so-called Babylonian Talmud;
while the rest of Talmudic literature (including the so~called Jerusalem or Palestinian
Talmud) acts as a supplementary authority. …
Of greatest importance for classical Judaism are the legal parts of the text, particularly the
discussion of cases which are regarded as problematic. The Talmud itself defines the
various categories of Jews, in ascending order, as follows: The lowest are the totally ignorant, then come those who only know the Bible, then those who are familiar with the Mishnah or Aggadah, and the superior class are those who have studied, and are able to discuss the legal part of the Gemarah. It is only the latter who are fit to lead their fellow Jews in all things. ’
Seems to me their is a difference between temple worship and synagogue worship.
The temple was obliterated so the only practices the reformers knew was synagogue worship. If I get this right, the temple in Jerusalem was where animal sacrifices were offered up to God. That is no longer necessary
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the word synagogue is of Greek origin which means to bring together. or a place of assembly. Sounds rather like the meaning of the word church to me.
Synagogues were considered houses of prayer, assembly, and study. The earliest known one was in the third century BC. All this sounds like what goes on in the large majority of so called Protestant churches.
The big difference is the proliferation of so called “temple worship.”
It is also interesting to note that leaders of most Protestant churches that I know of are called pastors, not priests.
Reading Ephesians chapter 2 this morning, I came across Paul’s explanation of who we are.
I will summarize my understanding of who we are from the view point of Paul. We Gentiles once had no hope in the God of Israel. But by the Incarnation of Jesus, his whole life, we have been brought into the relationship which they had. Paul says that “He reconciled the Gentiles and the Jews into one body.”
19 – 21 And so you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners! Instead you are fellow citizens with the saints, and members of God’s household, being built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets. Jesus the Messiah himself is the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, fitted together, grows into a holy sanctuary in the Lord.
Years ago when I was in Jerusalem, I attended a Messianic Jewish service. They explained to us that they did not convert to Christianity. Rather they are still on the original road, trunk, what ever you want to call it.
r
Watch Brother Nathaniel. Enough said.
Good Morning Vietnam! America is back!
World record for tone-deafness?
Kamala Harris on mission to tell Vietnam ‘America is back’
https://www.rt.com/usa/531189-kamala-harris-vietnam-america-back/
‘ Kamala Harris wants Vietnam to know that “America is back” when she travels there later this month, but not everyone is certain this is a prudent talking point given Washington’s previous ‘visits’ to the Southeast Asian nation. … ‘
Robert Burns: ‘To a louse’
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion: