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Some
Jewish people have started to reassess their attitudes
toward the most famous Jew of all time Yeshua
(Jesus) of Nazareth. The following quotations
are taken from Jewish leaders and scholars whose
thoughts reflect some of these changing attitudes.
"As a
child I received instruction both in the Bible
and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled
by the luminous figure of the Nazarene." (1)
Albert Einstein, Nobel prize winner
in physics; former professor, Princeton University
"Jesus
is a genuine Jewish personality, all his struggles
and works, his bearing and feeling, his speech
and silence, bear the stamp of a Jewish style,
the mark of Jewish idealism, of the best that
was and is in Judaism. He was a Jew among Jews
...." (2)
Rabbi Leo Baeck, for many years the religious
leader of German Jewry
"I couldn't
help writing on Jesus. Since I first met Him,
He has held my mind and heart.... I floundered
a bit, at first; I was seeking that something
for which so many of us search - that surety,
that faith, that spiritual content in my living
which would bring me peace and through which I
might help bring some peace to others. I found
it in the Nazarene.... Everything He ever said
or did has value for us today, and that is something
you can say of no other man, alive or dead...
He became the Light of the world. Why shouldn't
I, a Jew, be proud of it?" (3)
Sholem Asch, Yiddish novelist and author
"It is
a peculiar manifestation of our exile-psychology
that we permitted, and even aided in, the deletion
of New Testament Messianism, that meaningful offshoot
of our spiritual history. It was in a Jewish land,
that this spiritual revolution was kindled; and
Jews were those who had spread it all over the
land.... We must overcome the superstitious fear
which we harbor about the Messianic movement of
Jesus, and we must place the movement where it
belongs, namely, in the spiritual history of Judaism...."
(4)
Martin Buber, author and former professor at Hebrew
University, Jerusalem
"Jesus
was a Jew and a Jew he remained till his last
breath. His one idea was to implant within his
nation the idea of the coming of the Messiah and,
by repentance and good works, hasten the 'end...'
In all this, Jesus is the most Jewish of Jews...
more Jewish than Hillel.... From the standpoint
of general humanity, he is, indeed, 'a light to
the Gentiles.'" (5)
Joseph Klausner, author and professor at Hebrew
University
"Jesus
has become the most popular, the most studied,
the most influential figure in the religious history
of mankind.... No sensible Jew can be indifferent
to the fact that a Jew should have had such a
tremendous part in the religious education and
direction of the human race.... Who can compute
all that Jesus has meant to humanity? The love
he has inspired, the solace he has given, the
good he has engendered, the hope and joy he has
kindled - all that is unequalled in human history....
The Jew cannot help glorying in what Jesus has
meant to the world; nor can he help hoping that
Jesus may yet serve as a bond between Jew and
Christian, once his teaching is better known and
the bane of misunderstanding at last is removed
from his words and his ideal." (6)
Rabbi Hyman Enelow, past president of the Central
Conference of American Rabbis
"Neither
Christian protest nor Jewish lamentation can annul
the fact that Jesus was a Jew, an Hebrew of the
Hebrews. Surely it is not wholly unfit that Jesus
be reclaimed by those who have never unitedly
nor organizedly denied him, though oft denied
by his followers; that Jesus should not be so
much appropriated by us as assigned
to the place in Jewish life and Jewish history
which is rightfully his own. Jesus was not only
a Jew but he was the Jew, the
Jew of Jews.... In that day when history shall
be written in the light of truth, the people of
Israel will be known not as Christ-killers, but
as Christ-bearers; not as God-slayers, but as
the God-bringers to the world." (7)
Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, Zionist leader and founder
of the Jewish Institute of Religion
"We certainly
do not get in the Hebrew Bible any teacher speaking
of God as 'Father'... like the Jesus of Matthew.
And this habitual and concentrated use rightly
produces upon us an impression ... we are moved
by it to wish that we too could feel that doctrine,
even as Jesus teaches that we ought to feel; and
that we, too, could order our lives in its light
and by its strength." (8)
C.G. Montefiore Reform Jewish scholar
"Jesus
was utterly true to the Torah, as I myself hope
to be. I even suspect that Jesus was even more
true to the Torah than I, an Orthodox Jew." "I
accept the resurrection of Easter Sunday not as
an invention of the community of disciples, but
as a historical event.... I believe that the Christ
event leads to a way of salvation which God has
opened up in order to bring the Gentile world
into the community of God's Israel." (9)
Dr. Pinchas Lapide, Orthodox scholar
"Perhaps,
too, in this enlightened age, as his mind expands,
and he takes a comprehensive view of this period
of progress, the pupil of Moses may ask himself,
whether all the princes of the house of David
have done so much for the Jews as that prince
who was crucified on Calvary." (10)
Benjamin Disraeli, Former Prime Minister of Great
Britain
All quotations,
except that of Dr. Pinchas Lapide, may be found
in The Messiahship of Jesus: Are Jews Changing
their Attitude Toward Jesus? by Dr. Arthur
Kac, revised edition, 1986, Baker Book House,
Grand Rapids.
Footnotes:
(1).
Quoted from an interview by George Sylvester Viereck,
"What Life Means to Einstein," The Saturday
Evening Post, October 26, 1929, Curtis
Publishing Company.
(2). Quoted by Shalom Ben-Chorin in "The Image
of Jesus in Modern Judaism," Journal of Ecumenical
Studies 11, no. 3 (summer 1974), 408.
(3). Sholem Asch, One Destiny (New York:
Putnam Publishing Company, 1945).
(4). From "Three Talks on Judaism," translated
by Paul Levertoff in "Jewish Opinions About Jesus,"
Der Weg 7 no. 1 (January-February, 1933),
8.
(5). Joseph Klausner, Jesus of Nazareth (New
York: MacMillan, 1925), 363, 368, 374, 413.
(6). Hyman Enelow, A Jewish View of Jesus (New
York: MacMillan, 1920), 4-5.
(7). Stephen S. Wise,"The Life and Teaching of
Jesus the Jew, The Outlook, June
7, 1913.
(8). C.G. Montefiore, The Old Testament and
After, (London, MacMillan, 1923), 205-6.
(9). Pinchas Lapide, The Resurrection of Jesus,
Augsburg Publishing House, 1983.
(10). Benjamin Disraeli, Lord George Bentinck:
A Political Biography (London: Colburn, 1852),
363-64.
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