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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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