What Jews Have Gone Through
It saddens me that my Jewish friends don’t understand something that
for me is so central to my faith. But the more I spoke with people from
the Jewish community, I could see that their anger and misunderstanding
was justified. The New York Times recently published an open letter to
Mel Gibson from Sue Perlman, a Jew and a professed Christian. The letter
explained, “over the years, many so-called "Christians" have
blamed my Jewish people for Jesus' death. The hatred and persecution we've
endured as a result is tragic, and that's made some Jews very defensive
when it comes to the subject of the Passion.” Dennis Prager paints
the picture even brighter “…for nearly 2000 years, attacked
as “Christ-killers,” countless Jewish men, women and children
were tortured and murdered in ways that often caused more suffering than
even Jesus endured (e.g., not only tortured and murdered themselves, but
also seeing their families and friends raped, tortured and murdered). For
Jews to worry that a major movie made by one of the world’s superstars
depicts Jews as having Christ tortured and killed might arouse anti-Semitic
passions is not paranoid.”
Why Christians Don’t Understand
Wow! I was struck by that statement. I had no idea that Jews had experienced
that kind of persecution from people who claimed to be Christians.
Any so-called believer who is anti-Semitic has absolutely no understanding
of what Christianity and Jesus are about.
Having only spent three years of my life in New York City, a place rich
with cultural diversity and where exposure to others of all types of
beliefs is inevitable, my mind has been opened in ways I never expected.
I grew up on a farm in the Midwest and spent more than half of my adult
life in the South. In places like these, you are either a Christian or
not a Christian. There are few people who practice other faiths, and
those who are practicing another faith tend to keep to themselves. Most
Christians in this country really have no idea how a film like The Passion,
a story of faith, hope and love, could ignite so much anger and misunderstanding.
They have had little opportunity to interact with the people being affected.
For them, for us, it truly is about the sin of the human race. It’s
about us all, no one sect of people. Most Christians would point their
finger at themselves as the one to blame for Christ’s death before
they will point it at anyone else.
|
