Reply #61: Hard to Follow But.....

[vixannewigg]

This thread is hard to follow because of all of the deleted messages, but I found this article you provided extremely strange. First of all, you mention that you are a messianic Jew. No disrespect, but Jewish people do not consider messianic Jews to be Jewish. I am not familiar with the author of this article, but I am not sure why he or you can state with any accuracy that if you "listen to many Jews talk about conservative Christians you'd think they're discussing the Taliban." As a Jewish person, I rarely talked about conservative Christians AT ALL with other Jewish people until this election. If it's true that liberal Jews are critical of conservative Christians, you would probably also find that many are critical of ultra-Orthodox Jews as well. We just don't feel threatened by the ultra-Orthodox Jews in the same way we feel threatened by the conservative Christians. I believe (personal opinion here) that proselytizing is partly why they are threatening. The conservative Christian movement appears to seek to take over this country's government because they believe they have the one true answer and want to spread the word. The ultra-Orthodox Jews appear to have no such agenda. But many of their beliefs make me no less uncomfortable. So, really what I think that many liberal Jews are responding to (if they truly are sitting around bashing conservative Christians) is the same thing that liberal Christians are responding to---EXTREMISM in any form.

This article also appears to say that conservative Christians are donating tons of money to Jewish causes. This is an interesting statement---one which I will ask my rabbi about tonight during a class I take. Knowing how much money our local Jewish community donates to Jewish causes every year, I simply do not believe that the money that conservative Christian movements donate are even a drop in the bucket. Plus, I for one do not want anybody giving money to Jewish people and Jewish causes because they think that Jews are like antiquated pets favored by god. Sorry. That's just creepy. Jews give money to Jewish organizations because they want to support actual Jewish people--not some vague idea of biblical Jews.

Speaking for myself, I could care less about conservative Christians either way. My feeling is live and let live---if only they felt the same way.