#christians and jews

[dynamicity-keysmash]

'Tis the season to unpack some stuff about Christmas from a minority perspective:

Christmas is a Christian holiday. The fact that many celebrate it in an irreligious way (which is valid!) does not change its origins, connotations, symbolism, nor what it has historically meant for religious minorities.

The idea that Christmas is "secular" (read: neutral) is a product of Christian hegemony and the blindness of many in Christian countries to the permeation of Christianity as "default" culture.

When someone says they don't celebrate Christmas since it's a Christian holiday, it is not actually reassuring or helpful to say something along the lines of "oh well it's just a secular day of family & presents for everyone! So you can celebrate it too!"

Though the above statement is usually well-intentioned, it is often distressing to hear because it is untrue and is erasing our lived experiences. The reflexive effort to make Christmas universal is a cultural reverberation of the millennia-old evangelizing effort to make Christianity universal, and as such, can be very uncomfortable for religious minorities.

[themedievalproject]

What's up with that? Ecclesia and Synagoga

Close up of Ecclesia and Synagoga flanking the Fürstenportal or Princely Portal of Bamberg Cathedral, July 2022

My first trip to Germany, my first encounter with Ecclesia and Synagoga. I had never seen these statues before and once I learned their names it was clear which one was which. But why are these female figures personifying the Church and the Jewish Synagogue on a Church? That led me to this post.

Ecclesia and Synagoga, the ones that survive today anyway, are most often represented by young and attractive females. Ecclesia, the Church, stands strong and confident wearing a crown and carries a chalice and staff with a cross. Synagoga is blindfolded and/or looking down and carrying a broken spear and torah scrolls.

The original Ecclesia and Synagoga from the portal of Strasbourg Cathedral now in Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame

My Ecclesia at Bamberg did not have the telltale signs of the staff with a cross or the chalice. But even with that, not knowing this symbolism, I wouldn't have put together the opposing woman as the Synagogue. It seemed to me to just depict someone blind to the faith of Christianity, not everything must be about Jews..right?

According to her book on the subject The Jew, the Cathedral and the Medieval City: Synagoga and Ecclesia in the Thirteenth Century, Nina Rowe explains that Ecclesia and Synagoga are generally found on the cathedrals of larger cities in northern Europe that had significant Jewish communities, especially in Germany(!) It was meant to remind Jews of their place (as if they needed the reminder) in a Christian dominated society. She notes most portal figures are from the 13th century.

So when did the Ecclesia and Synagoga depictions start?

Wikipedia says around 830, in a Crucifixion from the Drogo Sacramentary. Pic is in the public domain.

How and Why?

Ecclesia's characteristics on Christ's right hand side are already defined, the chalice collecting his blood but the Synagoga is an old gray haired man looking up. Synagoga stayed in this form, while rare, until 12th century when she became blindfolded with a broken lance. At this later time, the emphasis of Synagoga being defeated by the Church is the main objective of its symbolism and becomes a woman.

Rowe notes this timing coincides with the increasing Jewish populations in Germany and other place in Europe. There were increasing interactions between Christian and Jewish scholars and notably their different interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. The figures became a tool to reinforce the power dynamic of the Church.

Before Ecclesia met Synagoga

For centuries before her "coupling with Synagoga," Ecclesia had her own things going on. She had long been represented as the Bride of Christ taking the form of a queen. The Book of Revelation mentions "the Bride" many times and the Gospel of John talks of Christ as a "bridegroom."

Judith Glatzer Weshler expounds in A Change in the Iconography of the Song of Songs in 12th and 13th century Latin Bible, that Ecclesia imagery was sometimes conflated with the Virgin Mary, where Mary herself was depicted as the Church.

This timing is in line with the shift Nina Rowe talks about, when the portal figures appear on cathedrals. In general the 13th century was a particularly shitty time for Jews. But that's a whole other post.

Ecclesia enthroned, Prüfening Abbey, Bavaria, 12th century

There is a precedence in the Old Testament for the symbolism between God and people, via the Song of Songs, a poem that celebrates sexual love between a man and a woman.

Jewish tradition reads it as an allegory of the relationship between God and Israel, the Jewish people. 

Christianity interprets it as an allegory of Christ and his bride, the Church.

In her incredible book, "Mother of God, A History of the Virgin Mary," Miri Rubin writes about a Christian theologian, Origen (c 185- c 254) who advised early Christian followers to market and substantiate their new religion to potential Jewish converts. He thought by focusing on the Jewish Bible, the one they already knew, they could position "Christianity truth" as the revealing of new, necessary, inescapable reinterpretation of the text they thought they knew.

Origen engrossed himself particularly in the Jewish commentary of the Songs of Songs where he found messaging to fit a Christian paradigm, and replaced the Church as the bride of Christ.

Links for more:

Ecclesia and Synagoga

Wikipedia - Song of Songs

[whereserpentswalk]

Thing I made.

[moonmoonthecrabking]

happy pride month to religious queer people, who feel like they’re contradictions, or told that they’re contradictions, but stay true to these important parts of themselves anyway. happy pride to the queer religious people who have to explain their identities, and who have to defend their faith or their queerness in either circle.

i love you, i am one of you, thank you for being in this community with me.

[gingerswagfreckles]

Not really loving how my post about the left's love affair with eugenics and blood and soil ideology framed as "decolonization" got coopted into another "wait it's all Christianity??" "It always has been" post." Y'all are sticking your heads in the sand if you think this is a problem with "cultural Christianity." This is the exact same pattern we saw play out in the 1979 Iranian revolution and much of this ideology was coopted from the Nazis by the Soviets and reframed as progressive. This is not an issue with Western "cultural Christianity" and it would be great if Jumblr could stop engaging in the same "there's actually one secret root cause of every problem in the world and if we get rid of it we will have utopia" thing that antisemites have been using against Jews for 2000 years.

[chelledoggo]

there's too much animosity towards queer people who want to practice their faith/spirituality, both within their respective religions and within the LGBTQIA+ community.

we need to protect and lift up our queer siblings of faith.

our queer Christians.

our queer Jews.

our queer Muslims.

our queer Hindus.

our queer Buddhists.

our queer Sikhs.

our queer Baháʼís.

our queer Wiccans/Pagans.

our queer Shintos.

our queer siblings of indigenous/folk faiths.

our queer SBNR siblings.

our queer siblings of whatever religion/spiritual systems they observe.

you're all beautiful and valid and loved and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. 💖

[goldenangelbaby]

There is something so beautiful about queer Catholics and even queer people in any religion who are so devout despite people telling us we are a sin and damned. And yet, we still worship. And yet. And yet. And yet.

[genderkoolaid]

nations which pride themselves on their secularity when you ask them which "God" they are asking to bless their country:

[thetourguidebarbie]

goyim stop saying "judeochristian" challenge 🫠

[genderfluid-jew]

I think one of the easiest ways for me to mistrust a book and all it’s saying is to see how wrong it gets history about Jews.

This came about because I’m reading a book on indigenous activism and theory and it’s really good!

Too bad I can’t trust anything about it because I’m their little “history of colonialism” section they went “the three largest religions of the world-Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (collectively called the Abrahamic religions”.

Bestie. Jews are .2% of the global population. If you’d done a basic google search it would’ve told you the largest religious groups are Christianity, Islam, irreligion, Hinduism, and Buddhism, each of which have over 5% of the global population as adherents. It takes about five seconds to check that and see if you’re being accurate.

If your book is trying to be a reputable source of information and you can’t even put 5 seconds of effort into basic factual double-checking, you are not worthy of my trust about anything else you say.

[etz-ashashiyot]

I know I'm gonna regret posting this, but I just can't not say something: I'm so sick of people who are actively contributing to the ongoing oppression of and violence against Palestinians calling themselves "pro-Palestinian."

In the same way that so many people in the anti-abortion movement are actually pro forced birth rather than pro-child, there are a lot of you who aren't pro-Palestinian, you're just violently antisemitic or in it for yourselves.

If you aren't:

Also angry with the other countries that abuse their Palestinian populations, refuse them citizenship, keep them in displaced person camps under horrific conditions, and/or close their borders entirely to them;

In support of genuine grassroots movements that aim to create some kind of stability, peace, and safety through diplomatic relationships and community building, because that's ""normalization"";

Willing to condemn antisemitism in the diaspora, which helps fuels right-wing rhetoric in Israel;

Willing to shut down lies, propaganda, and disinformation even if it "supports" Palestinians in theory, because lying repeatedly associates the Palestinian movement with lying and makes it harder for survivors to tell their actual stories and be believed outside of the far left movements (and also the truth is bad enough - there's no need to lie);

Willing to focus on practical problem solving over political posturing, especially when it will save Palestinian lives;

Willing to condemn Hamas, which started this most recent disaster, steals aid meant for civilians, uses civilians as human shields, and has been torturing dissenters for years;

Willing to work with Israeli leftists who hate their current government and want peace and full equality for Arab Israelis and their Palestinian neighbors, and also have the best shot at making that change happen; and/or,

Willing to learn about Palestinians as living human beings and value their lives over using them as a political cudgel, whatever that looks like on the ground;

.............then maybe you're more interested in looking radical and jerking off to some fantastical version of The Revolution, and/or hurting Jews than you are in promoting peace, safety, dignity, and self-determination for Palestinians.

Like seriously with "friends" like these, do they even need enemies??

Anyway you should call out the Israeli government for its very real abuses of Palestinians and nothing in this post should be construed otherwise. But if you genuinely care and aren't just in it for internet cool points or leftist cred or feeding your Jew-hate boner or whatever, you gotta prioritize solutions that have a realistic shot at short-term relief and long-term possibility over whatever fits some idealistic goal that will only ever end with more dead Palestinians.

[whereserpentswalk]

Fellow pagans. Remember that the pagan experience is not purely an ex Christian experience. That experience is worth talking about, but please don't talk about the pagan experience as if leaving Christianity is universal to being neopagan.

Ex atheist pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Ex Muslim pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Non practicing Jewish pagans deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

Pagans who have been pagan for most or all of their life deserve to have their experiences acknowledged by the community.

[jessicalprice]

Sorry, Christian atheists, but “Christianity traumatized me” is not a get-out-of-accountability-free card for upholding Christian supremacy through your treatment of members of minority cultures, reiterating Christian evangelism and colonialism but for your WASP brand of atheism, promoting Christian purity and hierarchy but with the serial numbers filed off, insisting that the Christian model of culture is the only one that exists and shouting down members of non-Christian cultures about their own cultures and experiences, etc.

Oh, you don’t like members of non-Christian cultures pointing out the ways in which your behaviors continue to normalize and uphold Christian hegemony?

THEN MAYBE STOP ACTING LIKE CHRISTIANS.

[girderednerve]

this post is old but i saw it going around again & it's driving me nuts. this is an extremely bad historical summary? parts of it are outright wrong & the framing is nonsensical, multiple people have chimed in to add "more" information but no one seems to have taken issue with the content of the original post. anyway it's somewhat strange to say that the church 'began forbidding' christians from participating in moneylending (pawnshops are also moneylenders; banking didn't really exist in europe until the latter middle ages), because the text of the bible itself treats loans as a form of charity which should not bear interest between community members. there are a bunch of patristic commentaries to this effect, but there are also a bunch of rabbinic commentaries to this effect! because it was a moral rule for both groups of people, and indeed for muslims! however, to lend money at any sort of scale, you need to charge interest to cover for the risk that you won't be paid back, so there's friction between practical exigency & ethical doctrine. it turns out that there was a centuries-long moral crisis about the expansion of a market economy & the development of finance, which cannot be usefully boiled down to the idea that money was 'unclean' (extremely vague term; also, if the church simply thought that, why were there so many lavish churches & well-heeled priests?). it is broadly true that medieval european jews were excluded, often violently, from fully participating in christian society & that several engaged in moneylending, using the out-group loophole to lend at interest to gentiles. however, a bunch of christians just lent money anyway; actually, most moneylenders in medieval christendom were christians, and most jews did other work. the idea that jews were substantially engaged in early finance was first an antisemitic myth, propagated by christians who were trying to resolve the moral & practical conflict of moneylending by displacing it; then it was a philosemitic myth, recuperated by late nineteenth century scholars who saw in jewish moneylenders evidence of a unique jewish contribution to the development of europe. but it never reflected the daily lives of most medieval jews & we can do better than this, guys, come on

[indecisiveavocado]

Hello! You are (probably) wrong about Messianic "Judaism"

You have probably been referred here because you were making some awful arguments about Messianic "Judaism".

That's ok, that's why you're here.

How in depth do you want me to go?

One sentence

Messianic "Jews", "Jews" for Jesus, and other movements like that are not Jewish, they are Christian.

Two sentences

Messianic "Jews", "Jews" for Jesus, and other movements like that are not Jewish, they are Christian. They may sincerely believe they are Jewish, and they may look superficially Jewish, but they are still Christian.

A paragraph

Messianic "Jews" and other movements that claim to be Jewish but believe Jesus was the Messiah are not Jewish. They are Christian. They may sincerely believe that they are Jewish, but that doesn't change it. If I sincerely believe that I am, say, Muslim, that does not make me Muslim. They believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and Judaism does not. They are Christians roleplaying as Jews.

Questions

But there are Jewish athiests!

Yes. But Jewish atheists and agnostics are generally honest about it. Judaism is flexible on the degree of belief in God you need. It is not flexible on Jesus not being the Messiah. (Plus, athiests haven't genocided us for coming up on 2000 years, so they have a degree of goodwill Christians don't have as much of.)

But Chabad--

[Edit: This originally said the group of Chabadniks who think their Rebbe was the Messiah were not Jewish.]

The Chabadniks who think their Rebbe was the Messiah are still Jewish, but Messianics are not. Why?

First, consider degree of departure. Beliefs about the Messiah are important in Judaism, certainly; but not as much as monotheism. Allegedly, one Rabbi in Talmud, Elisha ben Abuya, questioned the monotheistic aspect, and henceforth he was referred to as 'Acher' (Other). The Sh'ma affirms the monotheistic aspect of Judaism. Of Rambam's thirteen principles of faith, one deals with the Messiah. Four deal with monotheism in some way or another. From a Jewish view, Christianity is, at best, questionably monotheistic.

Second, the intent differs. Chabad tries to get nonobservant Jews more observant (even with a few quirks in religious practice). Messianic Christianity tries to pull Jews away from Judaism.

Finally, of course, how widespread the thing is varies. In Chabad, it is a minor group, and certainly not a core tenet. In Messianic Christianity, it is a core tenet of it and indeed a major distinguishing aspect from Jewish denominations.

But they must have some merit! If they didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah--

And if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon.

How can it be this simple?

Christianity (regardless of how much they fight over it) is fundamentally a broad group. It's easily broad enough to include Messianic Christians without blinking.

You're anti-Messianic practices!

I am, yes. I am against the lying and misrepresentation their liturgy, beliefs, etc consist of. I am against the image of Judaism they project. If they stopped pretending to be Jewish (or converted to actual Judaism), I would have no problem with them. But, again: if Grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon. A fundamental part of Messianic Christianity is pretending to be Jewish by culturally appropriating Jewish practices, which is very sketchy given that Christians have consistently genocided Jews, including forcibly converting us.

Jews: if you see someone insistent Messianic Christianity is Judaism, feel free to direct them here!

[chelledoggo]