This world’s antisemitic hysteria has been on panoramic display these last few months, following Israel’s response to the October 7, 2023 unprovoked attack by the terrorist group, Hamas. By-the-way, there is a vast moral difference between Hamas going into Ofakim and murdering entire families and Israel trying to target terrorists and regrettably killing civilians. From the pubic squares of Muslim Turkey to the elite preppy universities of New York, Harvard and Yale – the vitriolic, acerbic hatred of anything Israeli has underscored again and again the ugliness of antisemitism. … and brings to mind the 1938 Kristallnacht - the “Night of Broken Glass” - in which Nazis terrorized Jews throughout Germany and Austria.
Air Canada First Officer Mostafa Ezz, in a social-media post writes, “Israel, burn in Hell.” Would you feel safe flying on an AC plane where the pilot is openly hostile to a Jewish family sitting in the row across from you?
Adil Charkaoui, a Montreal imam, some call, “The Merchant of Hate,” can give a speech (Oct. 28, 2023) at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Arabic in that city, call on Allah to "kill the enemies of the people of Gaza”, “exterminate them,” and “Don’t spare any of them,” and not be charged with hate speech. Parents who believe seven-year old’s should be protected from gender ideology in schools however are the haters that Canadians should be protected from, according to the Prime Minister (Sept. 20, 2023).
Ontario’s top union boss, President Fred Hahn of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), inanely celebrates the “resistance” after maniacal terrorist Hamas rapes, abducts and murders innocent civilians. As the saying goes - “You can’t fix stupid”!
NDP MPP Sarah Jama, an activist who has been described as “hating cops, Jews and Israel”, uses the same tired, notoriously ideological tropes when heaping scorn on Jews - words/phrases like “all occupation of Palestinian land,” “apartheid,” and of course “settler colonialism”. Censured and barred from participating in the Legislature, that same day (October 23, 2023) she was ejected from the Ontario New Democratic Party. I am not sad!
Then there is ‘Queers for Palestine.’ Peddling nutty ideas like ‘Palestine’ stands for LGBT rights, they seem woefully ignorant of the 2016 death of Mahmoud Ishtiwi (34). A Hamas commander in their elite Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades in the 2014 war with Israel, he was tortured, then summarily executed by his own, with three bullets to the chest for having gay sex. These activists should immigrate to Gaza, live their lifestyle and report back. If facts matter, Israel is one of the most tolerant societies for such rights. [Read “Tripping Over the Obvious,” June, 2021].
Student unions in our university campuses have long promoted anti-Israeli measures and rhetoric. No surprises here given the indisputable preponderance of progressive professors in the humanities and social sciences in Canada, with their politically correct speech codes, gender courses, their poisonous DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) cultic agenda, and ‘feelings-based’ nonsense. Apparently, this is called an ‘education.’ Wow!
Shallow slogans and even shallower rhetoric have been
part of Canadian universities for years; these recent
events are simply that much uglier.
A two-page open letter from three York University student groups says, “We reaffirm our solidarity with the Palestinian people … and their ongoing fight against settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.” No surprises here, coming from York! Give them the recognition they want - publish their names!
Some 74 law students at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) demand that the administration reverse its “neutral” position on the Middle East, while saying it “unequivocally supports” Palestinians and “all forms of Palestinian resistance.” What is particularly non-sensical is that they say “Israel is not a country.” Assuming they ever practice law one day, I hope they get a better handle on history.
In the United States, Ivy schools like Cornell, Columbia, UPenn., Princeton and Yale have become Poison Ivy schools, with their inherently inflexible antisemitic ideologies … often hiding behind sunglasses and kaffiyeh. UPenn President Liz Magill deserves rebuking for saying the University “fiercely supports … the expression of views … that are incompatible with out institutional values,” for when asked in a US Congressional meeting whether “calling for the genocide of Jews violates Penn’s rules or code of conduct.” Magill replied “It is a context-dependent decision.” Imagine – the UPenn President unable to pass a simple test. [Shades of current US Supreme Court Justice Jackson inability to define what a woman is]. Perhaps they should have their global endowments of $30, $40, $50 billion taxed and their tenured profs given five-year contracts instead of jobs for life? Talk show host Bill Maher perhaps said it best: “If you absolutely must go, don't go to a prestigious university, as recent events show that it only makes you idiots."
Harvard University President Claudine Gay was slammed for her slow condemnation to a pro-Hamas student letter by 34 student organizations, claiming Israel is “entirely responsible.” When Gay did speak – likewise, she refused to denounce the antisemitism of the student groups. Trying to defend her inactivity, Gay said, “Our University embraces a commitment to free expression.” Ba-lon-ey!!!!! The 2024 College Free Speech Rankings from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and College Pulse, makes a lie of her statement. The independent report noted: “Harvard University obtained the lowest score possible, 0.00, and is the only school with an ‘Abysmal’ speech climate rating.” The report continued … “Further, Harvard’s overall score of 0.00 is generous — its actual score is -10.69, more than six standard deviations below the average” (55,102 students from 248 colleges were polled). [1]
More Jews were murdered on October 7, 2023, than on
any single day since the Holocaust. No other country in the world would tolerate this. Yet what do we get from our
universities and some politicians? Celebration!
In the 2018 Tree of Life synagogue shooting in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the shooter yelled, “All Jews must die,” before murdering 11 Jews. What some might not know however (and equally appalling) is that the shooter’s social network Gab profile quoted John 8:44 – “Jews are the children of Satan” – implicating the Scriptures, Christianity and Christians as Jew haters. In view of the current antisemitic madness that has lit the world on fire, a review of John 8 and the ‘offending’ passage should interest all believers – given that the charge against Scripture is a serious one.
Definition
A definition might be helpful here. What actually is “anti-Semitism”? It can be defined as …
“the hatred and persecution of Jews as a group; not the hatred of persons who happen to be Jews, but rather the hatred of persons because they are Jews.” (Charles Glock and Rodney Stark as cited by Graham Keith, ‘Hatred Without a Cause? A Survey of Anti-Semitism’, Carlisle: Paternoster, 1997, p. 2f).
It is notoriously difficult to construct a single, uniform definition as to what a Jew is or what being Jewish means – one that will be endorsed by everyone. Some prioritize cultural components of Judaism over religious ones (i.e., remembering the holocaust, leading a moral life). Others, like Orthodox Jews, will maintain that it is mainly about religion and observing halakha. Choosing the reasonable working definition above - two observations: (1) Attitude – Jews are hated as a worldwide group, irrespective of setting or causes for this, and (2) this hatred is directed first, at their religion and culture …and then the person – “not … persons who happen to be Jews, but … because they are Jews.”
Christianity and Anti-Semitism
In the ancient world, the most sustained roots of anti-Jewish sentiment gained steam with the deicide (“killing of a god”) charge that it was the Jews ‘collectively’ who were responsible for killing Jesus and therefore they bear eternal responsibility. Based on Matthew 27:24-25, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” This passage has been leveraged to justify violence towards Jews – and by Christians no less.
The religious charge of deicide is (1) inflammatory – providing authorities [religious and secular]
justification to persecute Jews, and (2) prejudicial - because it condemned into perpetuity,
all Jews, for the actions of a few.
The charge that the Jews were complicit in the death of Jesus cannot be simply dismissed, given the testimony of several New Testament passages (I Thessalonians 2:14-16; John 11:45-53; 18:28-31; Acts 2:23; 4:10; 10:39; 13:28). However, any quick rush to judgment must be tempered by Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:22-23) when he said, and “you, with the help of wicked men, put Him to death by nailing Him to the cross” – reminding readers that the Romans certainly share blame.
More importantly, it is abundantly clear God the Father played the most significant role of all.
“It was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and . . . the Lord makes His life an offering for sin.” (Isaiah 53:10)
“God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of His blood” (3:25)
[God] “did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.” (8:32)
All of this was according to “God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge” (Acts 2:23). We cannot escape the facts that ultimately it was God’s will that Jesus die (Luke 22:42), making the ‘tools’ He used to achieve this, secondary. I mean, God used a donkey to straighten out that self-willed prophet Balaam, yet as far as I can discern the world is not mad at all donkeys – at least not those kinds of asses! So let me repeat myself here: it did not matter who killed Jesus. In obedience to His Father, He died willingly for our sins.
Still, we cannot brush aside history’s uncomfortable fact that ‘anti-Jewish’ rhetoric was common among early Christians, including the Church Fathers, and this behavior was shamefully repeated endlessly in Medieval and Renaissance-Reformation preaching. Later, these views would also inform Christianity’s relations with the Jews through the Crusades, Inquisition, pogroms and well into our modern era.
Justin Martyr (middle 2nd cent.) explaining why the Jews suffered the destruction of the Temple and were carried into exile, wrote that their “tribulations were justly imposed on you since you have murdered the Just One” (Dialogue with Trypho, 16).
John Chrysostom, an early 4th-century Church leader, was particularly scathing, calling the Jews “… inveterate murderers, destroyers, demons dwell in their soul [whom] debauchery and drunkenness have given … the manners of the pig and the lusty goat.” (Against the Jews, Homily I)
The Wittenburg professor, Martin Luther, the 16th century Reformation / Protestantism guy – counselled the Catholic Church (1523 AD) “…we must be guided in our dealings with them [Jews] not by papal law but by the law of Christian love.” Fifteen years later Luther would vigorously advise clergy, congregations, and all government officials to carry out his seven measures of “sharp mercy” against “this damned, rejected race.” [2] Even as he neared death, Luther bristled with rage, calling Jews dogs, saying: “We are at fault for not slaying them.”
Picking up on Luther and his Lutheran Reformed Church, Nazis would be inspired to develop a “final solution” to the Jewish question – paving the way for the Shoah and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. This was the cudgel Christians have used to persecute the Jews. This is the history of Jewish-Christian relations since the formation of the Church … and it should help us understand why Jews are rightfully suspicious of Christians and their intentions. Wrong, hateful, and biblically indefensible, their words do NOT represent either the intent or spirit of Scripture … and are a misrepresentation of the historical and Biblical texts. [3]
Since the Gospel of John and passages like 8:44 have often been at the centre of antisemitic talk … accused of being antisemitic, let dive a little deeper here. Is John antisemitic? Does this fourth Gospel support or encourage the persecution of Jews: indeed, does John encourage the persecution of anyone? Do antisemitic ‘Christians’ gain any support from the Bible? [Read “The Bible – A Prop for Racial Supremacy?” August, 2023].
John 8:44 Considered
In John 8:33, a collection of Jewish leaders and their followers have said that they are “the children of Abraham” … a rather startling statement given that their conduct has been characterized as one of violence (John 5:18), deception (7:21-28) and hypocrisy (8:1-11). Rejecting Jesus’ message because “they do not want to hear it” (8:43), John reports that they even insinuate Jesus is an illegitimate child (8:41).
In response, while giving a prophetic critique, Jesus basically says, “You cannot possibly be Abraham’s son because ‘true sons’ behave like their father ‘who believed’ … and since you do not, you cannot be part of Abraham’s spiritual family. Clearly you have a different father.” Not mincing His words, this is where that rather scandalous quote appears:
“You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” (NIV)
The Gospel of John grows out of a family squabble between Jewish people, who are on opposite sides of religious belief. It was typical of robust
religious debate of that day.
If I did not know better. I might conclude that Jesus is turning into a “son of thunder,” like the nicknames He gave to James … and John, the fellow who wrote this gospel. Was the rebuke by Jesus deserved? Are His words antisemitic or is this a legitimate prophetic critique? Should Jesus be de-platformed … or is Jesus highlighting real spiritual faults?
Jesus did not say “Jews are the children of Satan” as the text clearly bears out.
Jesus is Jewish, as were Paul and other apostles and leaders, so to censure all Jews was to count Himself in, as strange as that might feel. After all, the charge of deicide – “They killed Christ” - is that it was the Jews ‘collectively’ who are eternally culpable for murdering Jesus.
Jesus spoke these words “You belong to your father, the devil”, not John, the faithful reporter/witness and reporter (8:44), making any antisemitism charge against John here a contrived one. Further, it seems rather obvious that Jesus’ words were directed towards a subgroup of Jewish people in a specific time who did not recognize Jesus as Messiah. This is a dispute ‘within the family’ – something most families would understand.
On a theological plane, it can be safely said that these leaders and their followers were indeed the spiritual children of the devil – for they demonstrated the same traits. Surely, we can agree – Jesus was the quintessential exposer of self-righteousness … and practiser of ‘tough love’. Or … maybe Jesus was wrong!
John, a Jewish Christian, wrote largely for a Jewish-Christian audience and used the term “the Jews” (hoi Ioudaoi) about 63 times in his Gospel – pressing them to accept Jesus as the prophesied Messiah. Despite how it might sound however, John’s use of the term…
(a) is not actively negative in every situation [e.g., “I taught in synagogues … where the Jews come together” (18:20) or “according to the burial custom of the Jews” (19:40); (also 1:19; 2:6; 4:22; 4:9; 7:1; 11:454; 12:11)]. Nicodemus (3:1-21) and Joseph of Arimathea (19:38-42) are certainly presented positively.
(b) the term did not mean “all Jews” [29 times, including 11 times in the passion narrative, the term is spoken of those who specifically wish to do away with Jesus].
So, yes, “the Jews” appear at times as antagonists in the Gospel of John, but not all Jews – making it virtually impossible to label John an antisemitic … since antisemitism is discrimination against Jews – with no differentiating between different ‘kinds’ of Jews. And - who gets to decide if / when the phrase ‘hoi Ioudaoi” is considered hostile or carries a higher emotional impact and becomes antisemitic?
It is only when we remove John from the context of bitter intra-Jewish factional dispute that the fourth Gospel can be mis-read as an anti-Jewish polemic.
Though polemical, to suggest the Johannine passage is a case of Christian Jesus stigmatizing Jews, is to be over-sensitive (an epidemic these days) and fail to understand legitimate prophetic critique using hyperbolic rhetoric and its tradition of use in the Older Testament by prophets critical of their leaders and people.
Isaiah 3:16-17 – “You, with your low-cut blouses and high-cut skirts will be wearing sackcloth.”
Ezekiel 16:25-27 “You multiply your whoring with other nations. It’s not going to end well.”
Multiple times Moses refers to his people as “stiff-necked,” even stubborn and obstinate, yet I have yet to hear anyone suggest that the Torah or the Tanakh be labeled anti-Jewish. The intra-Jewish religious tensions we sometimes witness in scripture, with its scathing denunciations, are intended to reverse spiritual decline and push Israel to her high calling … not make her an object of scorn.
John could hardly be antisemitic, since (a) the term is a modern, secular nineteenth-century ideology, and (b) one that has a systemic racialization component to it – something foreign to the first century Biblical text.
Tension in Jewish-Christian relations was real, as the Council in Jerusalem in Acts 15 will later reveal. Still, even at that event we find no prejudicial discourse dividing folks into ‘them’ and ‘us.’ In the lead up to the gathering (Acts 11:19-21), a report about the success of Gentile evangelism is given to the Antioch church, a church with a significant Gentile population. Next comes the Jerusalem council meeting (Acts 15:1-21) where three theological points of view are given by Pharisaic, Gentile (Peter) and Jerusalem (James) Christian groups. Finally, the council brings a final resolution to deal with the relationship of Christianity to Judaism … AND this decision is taken back to the Gentile congregation (Acts 15:30-33), where the news is warmly received – bringing the entire drama to a ‘happy ending.’
The narrative itself and its flow highly suggest (at least implicitly) that intercultural relations and intercultural concessions were particularly valued – maybe even more than the circumcision / law protest that started it all. I would offer that the initial controversy - the integration of Jewish and Gentile Christianity - manifested more fundamental issues: salvation and fellowship … and that the force of what was debated never de-volved into racialized prejudice in the 1st century church. This is significant given our present climate of stigmatizing, or even criminalizing people.
Charges of antisemitism in relation to the New Testament world should be seen as anachronistic, belonging to an earlier period. We should therefore set its prophetic rhetoric into that context. Intra-Jewish debate was normal as the fiery indignation of Paul in Galatians 1:6-9 (also 2:4; 4:21-27; 4:30; 6:12-13) demonstrates. In fact, Galatians is among the most polemical books in the entire Bible, once you get by the polite niceties of the first few verses. Criticism or unflattering descriptions hardly constitute antisemitism in themselves.
If we were to stigmatize rhetoric – even the
activists would never see their thoughts
in print or on the Six O’Clock News.
So … is John scapegoating all Jews? Hardly! One can find no attribution to all Jewish people at all times in his writings. While history demonstrates that passages like John 8:44 (also Matthew 27:4-5 – “His blood be on us and on our children”; I Thessalonians 2:14-15 “… those churches suffered from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets and also drove us out.”) have been leveraged against Jews by Christians, any thoughtful study of the text will dismiss the accusation that John’s Gospel is hate-speech, slander, libel … or antisemitic. We either allow flawed interpretations to stand or interpret John rightly. I vote for the latter!
How people, Christians included, exploit scripture to their benefit or bias is one thing; what a Bible passage is truthfully saying, is quite another. The prophetic language used in John’s Gospel and other places is typical of fractional polemics the world over, in spirit and in tone. Even with current sensitivities as they are, modern media platforms and language activists looking to de-platform, will not find another ‘victim’ in John the Apostle. What is regrettable is that some believers seem to have so easily forgotten John’s words (4:22) that “Salvation comes from the Jews.”
Folks argue over who should be blamed for the crucifixion, yet ignore the unsurpassable, incomparable, unrivalled depth of Christ’s love and how far
He was willing to go for us.
Gentile Christians who regard themselves as belonging to a non-Jewish religion, might be tempted to use Scripture – any Scripture – in a prejudicial, antisemitic way. To these folks, I would offer that the deeper moral and spiritual danger is to read passages like John 8 (or Matthew 23) and imagine that such prophetic critiques do not apply to them – that somehow in their practice of religion they are incapable of being self-righteous, “hypocrites,” even “blind guides” (Matthew 15:7, 14).
On October 7, 2023, some 260 people were slaughtered while attending a musical festival. Over 100 more were massacred in a Kibbutzim and subjected to evil, depraved behavior, as Hamas bodycam footage horrifically revealed to media outlets demonstrates. Yossi Landau, the head of Zaka in the southern region, who retrieved the remains of the dead, described two groups of ten children each found tied to a bed and set on fire. Frankly, the footage should be released so its medieval barbary can be seen firsthand by CUPE’s Fred Hahn, his ilk, and a discerning world. If these folks were an identifiable group other than Jews, I doubt folks would be celebrating the world over.
These days the deicide charge from earlier Christian tradition has merely been recycled into the Muslim world and once again this false narrative tries to make “the Jew” and the State of Israel the great Satan. Lately, even our Prime Minister has tried to construct moral equivalencies between Israel and Hamas. Unbelievable!
The hatred of Jews is real, worldwide and over-flowing in universities everywhere. Antisemitism exists because evil exists - and lately this evil has been on full display in technicolor. Will it stop? No, not from what I know about the human condition and read in the Bible. But I will save that for another blog. “OnlySaying…”
2. Luther’s seven measures of “sharp mercy” are: (1) burn their schools and synagogues; (2) transfer Jews to community settlements; (3) confiscate all Jewish literature, which was blasphemous; (4) prohibit rabbis to teach, on pain of death; (5) deny Jews safe-conduct, to prevent the spread of Judaism; (6) appropriate their wealth (7) assign Jews to manual labor as a form of penance. [Luther, The Jews and Their Lies, 1545].
When considering the words / attitudes of the early church fathers, some scholars differentiate between antisemitism and the term anti-Judaism, which implies a theological enmity, rather than a racialized, biological one
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