‘Gaza needs Jesus,’ says orthodox Jew

I was encouraged by the positive feedback I received about the first edition of the Jewish Media Review. Let’s continue to walk with our Jewish neighbors this year and try to observe national and world events through their eyes. Reading Jewish media gives us a window into what our Jewish neighbors are thinking regarding a wide variety of topics – important at the current moment is the Israel-Hamas War and rising antisemitism.

We hope you find these articles and essays valuable as we work to build bridges with our Jewish neighbors. CMJ USA will not necessarily agree with the opinions shared in these pieces.

We start with the source of our headline, a quote by Jonathan Feldstein, an American-Israeli Jew who works with Christian supporters of Israel.

• 😲‘Gaza needs Jesus,’ says orthodox Jew (Heart Publications)
  With the war against Hamas raging and hostages still held since 7 October, Jonathan Feldstein is calling for Franklin Graham to hold crusades and an army of Christian volunteers to rebuild Gaza.
  
  This is quite an astounding admission from an orthodox Jew in this op-ed published on a British Christian website.
  
  Now, the salt to this pronouncement is that he says, “This is not a task for the Jewish people. Our covenant is unique.” There are hints of dual covenant theology here, that Jews can access the Father through Moses alone and Jesus is for Gentiles. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). One must go to the Son of Man to get to the Ancient of Days (cf. Daniel 7:13-14). Jesus is the prophet like Moses that Israel and the nations should listen to (Deut 18:15, cf. Matt 17:5).
  
  Still, Feldstein sees that the Gospel of Jesus changes hearts and has the power to turn enemies into friends. Might Jesus say to Feldstein, “You are not far from the Kingdom of God” (Mark 12:34)?
  
  
• 📖Oct. 7 upended my sense of safety. Studying the Exodus story is helping me reclaim it (The Forward)
  Learning Torah about the antisemitism our ancestors faced in biblical Egypt is the only thing consoling me since the Hamas attacks
  
  Some Christians struggle with how to read the Hebrew Scriptures (what we sometimes call the Old Testament), and particularly the Torah (Pentateuch). The Jewish people have been reading those 39 books twice as long as Christians have. Let us dare to listen in on how they apply the Scriptures in their daily lives. We might learn something and probably see Jesus clearer in the Hebrew texts.

• 🏫 Why Campus Antisemitism Matters (The Tablet)
  Studies and polls of American Jewish students reveal a startling degree of anxiety and fear
  
  Excerpt: “In the wake of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, as reports of antisemitic incidents spiked, my colleagues and I launched a program of research to document Jewish young adults’ experiences of antisemitism. We wanted to understand how the war was affecting young diaspora Jews. Since the war began, we have conducted a set of surveys with nearly 7,000 Jewish young adults (college age to mid-30s) across the United States.
  
  “Across schools, one-third of the Jewish students we surveyed reported personal experiences of insult or harassment. Many reported being insulted or harassed on social media, but at the most hostile campuses, nearly one-quarter reported personal experiences of harassment. The vast majority also reported seeing antisemitic images on campus, and many said that they were blamed for Israel’s actions because they were Jews.”
  

• 🤝Two Friends—One Jewish, One Muslim—Have an Answer to Campus Conflict (The Tablet)
  
  Many U.S. college campuses have been struggling with student reactions to the Israel-Hamas War. But the University of Pittsburgh been a peaceful outlier. Two professors there have used compassion to diffuse on-campus strife in the wake of October 7.
  
  “Many people have asked us why our university did not disintegrate into chaos—like so many others—after Oct. 7. The students, faculty, and staff at the University of Pittsburgh are tied closely to the community. So many of us were touched by what happened at Tree of Life [synagogue massacre in October 2018]. The shadow of this tragedy—of this hatred—looms large. We suspect passions are tempered because people know just how high the stakes are here in Pittsburgh. We experienced the painful, ugly reality of dehumanization just footsteps from our campus.”
  
  Jesus had compassion on the harassed masses (Matt 9:36), and we should too.
  
  
• 🚫What Happens When You Teach at Columbia and Reject Hamas (The Tablet)
  A professor and his wife saw their lives upended by their decision to denounce terrorism in Israel and antisemitism in America
  
  Excerpt: "As leftist, liberal Zionists, we have always made a clear distinction between the people of Palestine and the inhumane terror organizations that falsely purport to speak in their name. Our support for a two-state solution has never wavered... Surely, we thought, our seemingly liberal friends would see that we, too, deserve to be heard.
  
  "This is what we got wrong. We failed to realize that for many in our 'progressive' circle, being a liberal Israeli just wasn’t good enough. If we had kept quiet, they might have been willing to accept us as equals. If we apologized for Israel’s existence, they might have even given us some extra points. But exposing Hamas’ atrocities and the support it was gaining among young Americans? Naming the kidnapped children and begging the world to help bring them home? Giving voice to the Israeli victims of mass rape by Hamas terrorists? For our friends, our refusal to apologize for Israel’s existence simply deemed us intolerable. ... Our friends did not have a problem with our politics, they had a problem with our identity. Our friends were willing to overlook the fact that we were Jewish Israelis, but only so long as we shut up about it."

• 🐰How fast does TikTok send users down the antisemitic rabbit hole? (The Forward)
  TikTok feeds its users videos with little input. What makes it feed them antisemitism?
  
  Excerpt: "Even when users try to find new content through specific searches, they’re subject to the algorithm’s decisions of which videos to pull up. Posts don’t appear in chronological order, or even order of popularity. ...The algorithm shapes every part of your experience in the app. The insidious issue with this algorithmic approach comes when it exposes people to radical ideologies when they’re not actively looking for — an issue that has also arisen with suggested videos on YouTube. But at least on YouTube, viewers have to click on a suggested video to watch it; on TikTok, most of the time, the video just appears in front of them."
  

• ✡️Opinion: Why it’s time to leave the labels of ‘Zionist’ and ‘anti-Zionist’ behind (The Forward)
  
  Our Jewish neighbors are as conflicted about the Israel-Hamas War as Christians are. Excerpt: “As war has raged across Israel and Gaza, there’s been a parallel war raging within my synagogue. For some of my fellow congregants, it feels as though they are being asked to share a sacred space with people who ignore or even justify the brutal slaughter of our fellow Jews. Others have said they’re being asked to pray next to people whose concern for human rights ends when the victims are Palestinian and the perpetrators are Jews.”

• 📺The People Behind ‘The Chosen’ (The Tablet)
  Jewish advisers help a hit television show about the life of Jesus grapple with Judaism
  
  There is a history in Christian interpretation of making the Pharisees the villains of the gospel narratives. Jesus has a tough critique for Pharisees as well as the scribes, the Sadducees, and the Essenes. Far removed from the first century, Christians sometimes read these arguments as if they are Christian vs. Jew, when in fact these are Jew vs. Jew debates. The makers of ‘The Chosen’ series are going to great lengths to depict the nuances and the Jewish nature of the story of Jesus of Nazareth.
  
  Excerpt: “Prior to Season 4, [Dallas] Jenkins and his team had pursued historical and theological accuracy by consulting with their multifaith team, running things past Jewish friends, or going down internet rabbit holes. The problem was that the answers didn’t always agree, he said, ‘even within the Jewish community and even among Jewish scholars.’ Meanwhile, he said that when members of The Chosen production team visited Israel, they began to hear from Jews who liked the show. With the help of the Christian organization The Philos Project, which works to develop productive relationships between Christians and Jews with regard to the Middle East, a Jewish Advisory Board for The Chosen was established. ‘We thought it would be good,’ he told me, ‘to get a more formal perspective from current Israeli Jews’ who were steeped in the history and practices of Christ’s time period. ‘Even if there’s disagreement about specific things, at least we have a deeper and wider perspective.’”

• ✡️Why would anyone convert to Judaism after Oct. 7? (The Forward)
  Despite rising antisemitism, interest in conversion is up and those already on the path are sticking with it
  
  I include this story for three reasons:
  
  
• It provides vignettes of antisemitic abuse hurled at those wearing visibly Jewish symbols.
• It shows the variety of political and theological thought within the Jewish community and those moving to join it.
• I hope it would provoke prayerful contemplation on how we can stand with and identify with our Jewish neighbors and step into their shoes without letting go of Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

The Rev. Cariño Casas is the Executive Director of CMJ USA. She joined the CMJ family in 2014 as the media coordinator of Christ Church Jerusalem. She has a Master of Arts in Biblical Studies from Trinity School for Ministry and a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism from Texas A&M University. She is the deacon at Grace Anglican Church in Edgeworth, Pennsylvania.