Can We Talk About Jews?
“I’m asking you to re-examine your thoughts and feelings about the Jewish community. I’m asking you to be cautious of discussing Jews without defining exactly who you mean. I’m asking you to use respectful and appropriate language but my main plea is that you respond to Jews, and anyone else who is suffering, with compassion.”
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Study Guide
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Bonus Material
Matrilineal descent.
Anyone familiar with their Bible will be aware that lineage was recorded by the father far more ojen than by the mother. This doesn’t fit with the idea that Jewishness is passed on by the mother.
The Bible does not record the law of Matrilineal descent but, not everything that ever happened between God and man can have been recorded in the Bible so it may be God ordained.
In Ezra Ch 10 we read that those who married non-Jewish women had to separate from their wives. This may have been because their children were not Jewish. If you follow that argument through you also have to ask about the offspring of Jewish women who married non-Jewish men. Either there were none, which seems unlikely, or there were some but their offspring did not need to be reunited with the rest of the tribe. If they were classed as Jewish this seems odd.
An advantage of the law of matrilineal descent is that however a Jewish woman conceives she is the mother of a Jew. In cases of adultery, incest or rape both the mother and the child, maintain some status within the community.
Messianic Jews
Some Jews accept Jesus as the Messiah and they are known as Messianic Jews. They straddle both religions however, religious Jews and the Israeli authori&es may not accept them as Jewish. Some people presume that any Christadelphian who is Jewish is a Messianic Jew. The term could be used in that way but it is a bit like thinking any Chris&an who is English belongs to the Church of England. Christadelphian Jews may wish to define as Messianic Jews but most Messianic churches are Trinitarian.
Yad Vashem discuss the word Shoah here:
Microsoj Word - 6419.pdf (yadvashem.org)
Carmel Page - Chesterfield UK carmelpage@zoho.eu
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Very educational presentation, and one that challenges our community to think about an issue that has profound implications. By and large, and contrary to other faith traditions, Christadelphians see a future role in God’s plan both for Israel (political entity) and the Jewish (ethnoreligious) people. In my experience, this represents the typical exposition of Matt. 24:32-35 and Romans 11. In some ways our interest reflects a certain dehumanized detachment, not unlike that of the Catholic Church “Doctrine of Witness” policy towards Judaism and ethnic Jews of the Middle Ages. This policy offered a degree of protection, while at the same time delegitimizing the faith and people because of the group’s valuable (unsolicited) testimony to God’s gracious faithfulness. Caution! We not far removed from that view.
-KW
