February 28, 2012 | 11:41 am

Jews Must Demand a Relationship of Full Equality with Christianity

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

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My much-publicized dispute with Canadian TV host Michael Coren last week taught me valuable lessons about the Jewish community and the new relationship with our Christian brothers and sisters.

For those of you who missed it, I was invited on to Coren’s Sun TV show to promote my new book Kosher Jesus, or so I thought. Within minutes Coren had made four very troubling suggestions. First, that Jesus completed Judaism, thereby emphasizing classical replacement theology which sees Judaism as a subordinate religion to Christianity. Second, that liberal Jews who strongly dislike Christians are involved in an effort to portray them as unsophisticated bumpkins. Third, proof that this is so comes from Hollywood, which Jews either control or significantly influence, so that they can portray Christians in any negative way they wish. Fourth, and finally, that unappreciative Jews have engaged in an effort to malign Pope Pius XII, the wartime holocaust Pope whom the Catholic Church is currently seeking to beatify but who is known to the rest of the world as “Hitler’s Pope.” (The full video can be found here and my two columns on our dispute on my blog at the Huffington Post.)

Normally, any of these four insinuations would be seen as highly prejudicial against Jews and even anti-Semitic, something I called on Coren to apologize for. Instead, he disgraced himself further by launching into sharp personal attacks against my appearance, my name, coupled with slanderous allegations that are beneath contempt.

Now, Coren does not much matter, given his tiny footprint in the media landscape. But what happened next is instructive in terms of how desperate we in the Jewish community can sometimes be for allies. A Canadian Jewish organization came to Coren’s defense, saying he has a long history of defending the State of Israel and friendship with the Jewish community, albeit, I assume, with right-wing elements thereof, seeing as he perceived ‘liberal’ Jews to be poisonous in their outlook. I also received emails from Canadian Jews saying that while Coren’s comments were repulsive, given that Israel has so few friends we have to be happy with what we have. We dare not alienate friends in the media.

For the record I do not believe Coren to be an anti-Semite and can of course accept that his protestations to friendship are genuine. Indeed, we have a mutual acquaintance who now wishes to bring us together and I have extended an olive branch to Coren in the form of a respectful challenge to a professional debate on the record of Pope Pius XII during the holocaust. I await his response. But there can be no question that his comments were slanderous toward Jews and furthered classic anti-Jewish stereotypes about world Jewish dominance, Jewish contempt for Christians, and the lying, unappreciative Jew who will even go after a saintly pope. Yet, in this age when Israel is so utterly marginalized and vilified we are prepared to overlook Christian brothers who look down at our faith and who only dislike some Jews—in this case liberals—to clasp at any hint of friendship.

I disagree. I believe passionately in the new Jewish-Christian alliance and wrote Kosher Jesus primarily to advance it. The book seeks to share the Jewishness of Jesus so that a theological bridge can exist between the two disparate faith-communities and I am proud of the global impact it is making on both Jews and Christians. But I do not believe in friendship at any cost. We need not seek the position of superiority vis-a-vis Christians that was humbly bestowed upon us by that most righteous of popes, John Paul II, when he referred to Jews as “our elder brothers” in the faith of Abraham. But we must insist on a relationship of equality, brotherhood, and mutual respect. We need not, we dare not, embrace Christian friendship toward Israel if it has any hint of condescension toward Jews and Judaism and, of course, from the vast majority of the world’s Christians – including the current Pope and outstanding friend of the Jewish people, Benedict XVI—it does not.

Yes, Iran, as it never ceases to remind us, is gearing up for a possible war of annihilation against Israel and, of course, we require every media voice possible to sound the clarion call against Iran’s possession of nuclear weapons. Likewise Israel needs every last media ally to remind the world of the existential threat it faces from Iran-funded Hezbollah and Hamas, not to mention the barbarous Syrian regime to the north. Christians in general and evangelicals in particular have become Israel’s most stalwart allies. But that need not mean that we must tiptoe around the relationship afraid to give offense when any of those same Christian allies seek to proselytize Jews, as my friend Dr. Mike Brown, and many other Jewish converts to Christianity, still do. We must vigorously oppose them, which is why I have agreed to debate Mike next month in New York. Glenn Beck expressed it best at the Christians United for Israel dinner in Washington last year. Christian support for Israel should be based not on end-of-days theology or a desire to bring back Christ but on simple, unadulterated love for the Jewish people, just as we Jews must reciprocate with unadorned love for our Christian brothers and sisters who stand by the Jewish state through thick and thin.

To be sure, in Judaism action is much more important than intention, and whatever the reason for friendship and good deeds, they supersede the motivation. But Jews and Christians have come long enough and far enough to now engage in a mature relationship of mutual affection where we both respect the G-dly calling that each faith poses without engaging in games of one-upmanship.

It is for this reason that I also agree with my friend and hero Elie Wiesel that it is high time that our warm allies in the Mormon Church cease the posthumous baptizing of any and all Jews, once and for all. I have been close to the Mormons since my early twenties and have lectured in Utah to Church groups on countless occasions. Indeed, I once even believed that posthumous baptizing did not much matter given that it was a private ritual and the public friendship of the Church was much more significant. But friends do not just respect one another in public, they do so in private as well. And it is time that our evangelical, Mormon, and Catholic friends respect and learn from the faith that was not only practiced by their savior and redeemer, as I detail in Kosher Jesus, but who said in Matthew 5:18 would be in force for all eternity. That religion, of course, was not Christianity but Judaism.

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Shmuley Boteach, “America’s Rabbi,” is the international best-selling author of 27 books and has just published Kosher Jesus. The London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium, he is currently mulling a run for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District, running as a Republican. www.shmuleyforcongress.com.

February 24, 2012 | 11:28 am

The Michael Coren Christians Who Cowardly Deny Church History

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

I came on to Michael Coren’s TV show in Canada to simply talk about my new book Kosher Jesus, which has received wide attention throughout the world. I left dazed, having heard from him that Jews refuse to appreciate Christians, depict them negatively, and essentially control Hollywood.

Now Coren has shoved his foot far deeper into his mouth with a personal diatribe against me.

Personal insults are the last refuge of the intellectual coward.

All Coren had to do was apologize for these nauseating insinuations and remarks. Instead, he made the matter worse by complaining that I’m short, that my office had the temerity to request kosher food from the exalted Coren and his staff, and that I refused to exit his studio when he obnoxiously demanded that I exit the very moment the cameras stopped rolling. For good measure, he made sure to gratuitously insult Oprah and Michael Jackson for their mere associations with me, as well.

For the record, there is little I can do about my height, and I apologize to Coren for offending him with my diminutive appearance. Likewise, there is nothing I can do about being kosher. I will never give it up, no matter how much he attacks me for simply asking where I might obtain kosher food since I am not familiar with Toronto. And when Coren’s show asked me to take an early morning flight to Toronto – to talk about my new book Kosher Jesus – where I was traveling for my nephew’s wedding, my office simply asked if a kosher meal could be procured since I would not be eating the whole day and, as a kosher Jew, cannot buy food in most places. Even so, they told my assistant we would have to arrange and pay for it ourselves.

As for Coren’s libel that I threatened him with disclosure of his remarks about Jews and Hollywood, the paranoid claim is laughable given that he had just made his remarks about Jews on national TV in Canada.

It is absolutely true that I refused to leave his studio after his reprehensible treatment of me and his attempt to evict me just as soon as the interview concluded, demanding to see his superiors and finally meeting a man named Matt Wolf, executive producer of Sun TV’s prime time talk shows, who turned out to be quite a gentleman.

I make no apologies for my actions. I am somewhat who fights anti-Semitism and holds those who malign my people accountable. Coren can claim from here to kingdom come that he is a friend of the Jewish community, and that may be true. But that does not excuse his odious remarks. His comments about lack of Jewish appreciation for Christians and the connection between Jews and Hollywood are the very stuff of negative Jewish stereotypes and if he was not prepared to retract them – as Marlon Brando did years ago when he too insinuated on Larry King Live that Jews control Hollywood – then I will bring the matter to his superiors. And his claim that he was only speaking about ‘liberal’ Jews matters not a toss. For the record I am a Republican who is currently seeking our party’s nomination for Congress in New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District. But I will stand with my people, whatever their political persuasion, and will not allow them to slandered.

As for the Jewish intern of whom he speaks, how sad that some Jews appear to turn the other cheek even when their people are maligned in order to remain in the good graces of superiors.

More troubling still is Coren’s praise for Pius XII and his attempt to hold the Jews accountable for misrepresenting this most ignominious of Popes. Indeed, Sun TV cut Coren’s remarks about Pius from their online post of the broadcast. Why? And why isn’t the interview posted unedited? The public has the right to see it in its entirety.

I stand by my comments about Pius, a religious hypocrite who remained silent while six million Jews died and never once protested. Decent people the world over are repulsed by the memory of a man who disgraced a great Church by showing a total absence of moral leadership, refusing to even once condemn Hitler and the Nazis through all the years of their monstrous murders and tyranny.

An autocrat who told the Roman curia repeatedly that their job was not to give him advice, but to follow his orders, there is ample evidence for Pius as a collaborator with the Nazi government in their occupation of Rome. When the Nazis committed the heinous war crime of executing 335 Roman citizens – many of them Jews but most of them Catholic – in reprisal for a partisan attack against Nazi troops, Pius was implored to publicly protest and protect his personal flock. As usual, he refused to say anything that might upset the Nazis. It seems that neither the love of God nor the love of his fellow man could ever move Pius to publicly condemn Hitler, with whom he had famously negotiated, as papal nuncio, the 1933 treaty which the Fuhrer praised to his cabinet on July 14th of that year as being “especially significant in the urgent struggle against international Jewry.”

Pius even granted a secret audience to Supreme SS Polizeifuhrer Wolff, who had served Himmler as chief of staff and was, in 1943, serving as the chief of German persecution apparatus in occupied Italy. That Pius realized he was doing something that others would regard as scandalous is attested to the fact that the meeting took place in great confidence, and Wolff came dressed in disguise. Years later, Wolff had this to say about the meeting: “From the pope’s own words I could sense the sincerity of his sympathy and how much he loved the German people.”

The coup de grace, of course, was how Pius XII literally watched as the Germans, on Oct. 16, 1943, rounded up more than 1,000 Jews of Rome, nearly all of whom would perish by gas a few days later at Auschwitz. A special SS contingent had been brought in for the roundup, and since many of them had never seen the great city, used the roundup of the Jews as a partial tourist excursion. This brought them to St. Peter’s Square, where many of the trucks actually parked, not more than 300 feet from Pius’ window. Even as the Jews were herded aboard cattle trains and taken to their death, Pius dared not upset the Germans by offering any kind of protest. His strict policy of neutrality was upheld as the Jews of his diocese were literally turned into ash.

But while he did not prize the lives of Jews, there was one thing that Pius did esteem, and that was the bricks and mortar of his churches. As the British and American armies geared up for a massive offensive in the spring of 1944 to capture Rome, Pius suddenly found his voice. He condemned the allies for bombing the eternal city and ordered his American bishops to launch public relations offensives in the United States to pressure the Roosevelt government not to cause destruction to the sacred monuments of the city. This while the Nazis were gassing more than 10,000 people per day.

Not all Christians are like Coren. The vast majority are prepared to honestly study painful moments in the Church’s history, take responsibility for moral failures, and move on to a more Godly future with the Jews as brothers. That was the purpose of my writing Kosher Jesus, which is now a bestseller on many Amazon subcategories. My intent was to educate my Christian brothers and sisters about the Jewishness of Jesus so as to bring our two peoples closer and I am moved by the untold numbers of devout Christians who have written to me thanking me for the book.

What a shame that the moral courage required of such honesty eludes Michael Coren. And how unfortunate that rather than rising to the occasion of building bridges between Jews and Christians, he resorts instead to shameful personal attack.

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Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ was the host of TLC’s Shalom in the Home, which won the National Fatherhood Award, was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium, and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. The international best-selling author of 27 he has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently mulling a run for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District, running as a Republican. www.shmuleyforcongress.com

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February 23, 2012 | 2:54 pm

Canadian TV Host Insinuates to Rabbi Shmuley Jews Control Hollywood [VIDEO]

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

Today I had what was probably the most unpleasant TV interview of my life on Canada’s Sun News Network (national). Interviewed by host Michael Coren about my book Kosher Jesus, I expected to be asked about the book’s content. The interview started that way. But then Coren quickly got to a question that seemed to be bursting from within. You’ll have to see the exact show, airing tonight at 7pm, for complete accuracy, and I am writing this about an hour after.

Coren essentially asked me why Jews depict Christians so negatively. He went on about how much the Catholic Church and Christians in general have done for the Jews of late. Yet the Jews continue to be so unappreciative, always questioning Christian motivation, always finding fault with Christians no matter what.

I asked him to justify his claim that Jews depict Christians negatively. He said something like, “What do you mean? Just look at Hollywood.”

Hollywood? I was confused. Weren’t we just talking about Jewish-Christian relations? Where did Hollywood come in, unless, for Coren, Jews and Hollywood were synonymous.

What was the connection between Hollywood’s depiction of Christians and the Jews, I asked. The show went downhill from there, with the anti-Semitic stereotype of the Jews controlling and influencing Hollywood dominating the interview. I defended my people against this disgusting slur, a tributary of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that the Jews control whole segments of society, in this case the motion picture industry, which they use to negatively depict Christians as a bunch of illiterate and primitive bumpkins.

From there Coren went on to speak about the negative Jewish depiction of Pope Pius XII, which I battled him on further. This was amazing. The Jews were defaming the saintly Pope Pius? For the record, I have written a great deal on Pius XII, the man John Cornwell, a non-Jewish British journalist, famously called Hitler’s Pope in his best-selling 1999 biography of the same name. Pius was the wartime Pope who never once condemned the systematic murder of Europe’s Jews through all the years of the holocaust and who, after the war, allowed the mass kidnapping of Jewish children who had originally been given by their families to Christians in order to save their lives. Pius advised, in the form of a typewritten directive discovered in a French church archive and dated Oct. 23, 1946, that church authorities not return to their relatives Jewish children who had been baptized. They must remain Christian and should not be returned to Jewish families.

He was the Pope who famously refused, amid unmistakable evidence of thousands of Jews being shipped to slaughter in Nazi concentration camps, to ever speak out against the Holocaust. This followed Pius’ successful efforts to prevent the publication of an encyclical commissioned by his dying predecessor to condemn Nazi anti-Semitism. This is also the Pope who sent Hitler birthday greetings every single year and who refused to excommunicate Hitler or any other top Nazis who were on official Catholic rolls (to give this context, the singer Sinead O’Connor was excommunicated). He ignored the pleas of President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to denounce the Nazis. He later refused to endorse a joint declaration by Britain, U.S and Russia condemning mass murder of Europe’s Jews, claiming that he simply could not condemn “particular” atrocities. The most he ever did was a single pronouncement during the war on the murder “of hundreds of thousands.” By then, of course, there were millions, and he did not mention Hitler, Nazi Germany, or the Jews in the statement. Most infamously, he was silent when the Germans rounded up Rome’s Jews in October 1944 for slaughter. They were being processed for extermination in a military school a few hundred yards from his window in St. Peter’s. An Italian princess, Enza Pignatelli, forced her way into the Pope’s study and warned him about the imminent assault on the city’s Jewish citizens. “You must act immediately,” she cried. “The Germans are arresting the Jews and taking them away. Only you can stop them.” The Pope assured her, “I will do all I can.” He made no protest and nearly all were later gassed in Auschwitz. Curiously, amid the Pope’s inability to find his voice to condemn the extermination of European Jewry, when the Catholic archbishop of Berlin issued a statement mourning Hitler’s death, the Pope did not reprimand him.

Those who have read my writings, and especially those who have read Kosher Jesus, will know that I have unbridled love for my Christian brothers and sisters, a deep respect and affection I have written and spoken about on countless occasions. They will also know that I was given the great pleasure and honor of being greeted by Pope Benedict in Rome in 2010. They will further know that I am invited to address Christian audiences the world over, including in Israel. And I wrote Kosher Jesus in response to the great Christian yearning to discover the Jewishness of Jesus.

But people like Coren who perpetuate the anti-Semitic canard that Jews both control Hollywood and have contempt for Christians are a serious obstruction to the new era of Jewish-Christian brotherhood and rapprochement. It is an absolute lie that Jews have contempt for Christians. It is likewise a lie that Christians are victims of Jewish hostility, as Coren implies. The truth, of course, is that Jews have suffered mightily at the hands of Christianity for nearly two millennium. But thankfully a succession of great Christian men and women in modern times, led by Pope John XXIII, the greatest of all popes, and then by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both outstanding friends of world Jewry, and joined especially by the 80 million born-again Christians in the United States, the vast majority of whom are phenomenal friends of Israel, have reversed this trend and made Catholicism and Christianity stalwart allies and friends of G-d’s chosen people.

Denying the past is not going to increase our friendship just as being limited by it will not either. This is a new time for Jews and Christians. Let’s forgo the old animosities, the old prejudices, and especially the old and ugly stereotypes.  Michael Coren owes Jewry an apology. If he’s man enough to give it I will overlook his foul treatment of me, both during the interview and after it was over.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ was the host of TLC’s Shalom in the Home, which won the National Fatherhood Award, was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium, and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. The international best-selling author of 27 he has just published Kosher Jesus. He is currently mulling a run for Congress from New Jersey’s Ninth Congressional District, running as a Republican. www.shmuleyforcongress.com

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February 16, 2012 | 5:05 pm

A thank you to a political rival for my son’s nomination to West Point

Posted by  Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

If I run for Congress in New Jersey’s Ninth district, I will be squaring off against either Congressman Steve Rothman or Congressman Bill Pascrell, who have been squeezed into the same district and who are competing against each other for their party’s nomination.

Rothman and I have fought some tough, public battles against one another, primarily over the Libyan embassy, which is my immediate next-door neighbor in Englewood, New Jersey. I have also been critical of his support for President Obama on Israel, even when the President’s positions put unfair and unjust pressure on Israel.

But today I am writing not to attack a potential political rival but to thank him. I have already declared that if I run I want to be the values voice in Congress. In Judaism gratitude for an act of kindness is among life’s highest virtues. So here I present a much-deserved thank you to Rothman that I am not running by any political advisors or consultants, who would presumably tell me is ill-conceived given my potential battle against him this autumn.

Congressman Rothman recently nominated my son Mendy to West Point. To be sure, Mendy is an outstanding young man and earned the nomination through personal merit. At just eighteen he is currently serving in his second year as a Chabad student emissary in Frankfurt, Germany, where he is helping to rebuild Jewish life after the devastation of the holocaust. He also began visiting with American service personnel stationed on bases in Germany to cater to their religious needs and, having been highly impressed with officer graduates of West Point, decided he wanted to serve his country and applied to The United States Military Academy. To be accepted you have to be nominated by your Congressman.

This is where things could have gotten a little hairy.

Congressman Rothman knew I might run against him. But that did not stop him from rewarding my son’s application with the nomination to West Point. Rothman’s decision to put merit before political consideration showed character and integrity and I salute it. It also demonstrated a willingness to populate our officer corps with deserving men and women, whatever the political consequences.

Having been nominated, Mendy may join his elder sister Chana who has now volunteered for two years of army service in Israel – training male soldiers for combat – to help an embattled democracy survive against brutal enemies. Mendy is now down to 4000 applicants from which 1500 will be chosen as cadets for the West Point Class of 2016.

He faces an uphill battle.

Mendy has to be incredibly physically fit, even though his Yeshiva in Frankfurt has no gym facilities and he therefore has to daily improvise for all his physical activities, and this while having a grueling daily regimen of Torah study that begins at 7am, ends at 10pm, and is only interrupted for hours of spiritual work with the community. Still, he wants to serve his country and is convinced that the greatest force for good in today’s world is the US military consisting of the bravest men and women who are prepared to fight for the freedom and rights of total strangers the world over.

For recognizing Mendy’s commitment and character, I am taking the opportunity to thank Congressman Rothman in writing. Even if Rothman and I end up later doing battle in the fall, it will never be as dangerous as any of the battles that our service men and women fight daily in hellish warzones against evil terrorists like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

I pray to G-d for the safety of all our service men and women, especially my children, who may be placed in harm’s way. And I thank G-d for the opportunity they have been afforded to serve, and for the people through whom such service comes about.

Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ is an award-winning national TV and radio host and international best-selling author of 27 books. He has just published Kosher Jesus. Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley.

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February 1, 2012 | 11:11 am

In the discussion of Jesus, Jews should go on offense

Posted by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

By the time the dust settles on the ferocious battle over my book, “KosherJesus” – and it will settle – the reputation of several people will have been affected. Rabbi Yitzchok Wolf of Chicago, who started the controversy by writing that both the book and I should be banned from Chabad while admitting he had never read it, will have compromised his standing as an educator. After all, what kind of educator doesn’t believe in making educated statements?

Rabbi Immanuel Schochet, I predict, will be known over the next few years for the book he banned more than any book he wrote, so devastating was his declaration of “Kosher Jesus” to be heretical without offering a single argument to back up his claims.

His son, Rabbi Yitzchok Schochet, whose two-decade obsession with me would be flattering if it weren’t so disquieting, will have undermined his credibility further with his invention of three judges at his father’s debate declaring him the victor over Dr. Michael Brown. And while this construction out of whole cloth was well-intentioned – designed as it was to make his father appear better – all it did in reality was make all rabbis look worse. His issue is no longer with me but now with the many Christian missionaries attacking him for his fabrications about the debate with Brown.

Then there is the cowardly Rabbi who seemed to attack me without having the courage to even mention my name.  He was always friendly to me and we even talked about a number of large-scale educational projects we could work on together.  He never once voiced a word of complaint about my books or actions.  And yet when it became fashionable to attack me, he retroactively decided to condemn – in the most vicious language imaginable – both me and my past work. I will reciprocate his compliment by leaving him to his own nameless oblivion.

Now we have Michael Skobac, the education director of Jews for Judaism attacking “Kosher Jesus” and beginning with an unfortunate, gratuitous, personal, cheap shot that only undermines his argument, saying that I revel in the attention my book is receiving and that I am “desperate.” I really have to wonder, is there no one who can discuss this book without getting personal?

Judaism does not fear intelligent discussion. It is not a closed-minded religion. So let’s leave the personal invective out of this and go back to the issues. Indeed, I am grateful to Skobac for at least offering his reasons for fearing my book and for tacitly breaking with Schochet by not declaring the book heretical because he knows the suggestion is ludicrous and cannot be sustained. Indeed, given Skobac’s fairness, I would appeal to him and Jews for Judaism to please refrain from the dissemination of a pirated PDF copy of the book to others for comment—not only because it is illegal and unethical, but because it is an earlier version and is riddled with errors. As Rabbi Gil Student tweeted after being sent a bootleg copy of “Kosher Jesus” by another party, “Woe to the generation in which rabbis send each other illegal copies of books.”

Now let’s consider Skobac’s points.

Skobac first writes that the pamphlet of his which I quote where he entertains the possibility that Jesus was a Torah-observant Jew who never sought to invent a new religion was “written with a counter-missionary agenda, directed primarily to Jews who have embraced Christianity. The goal was to provoke them to consider the possibility that Jesus did not deny the binding nature of the Torah and did not claim to be divine.”

Unfortunately, this argument just doesn’t work. When you put something on the internet, it is there for the entire world to see, and the idea that there is an intended audience becomes completely irrelevant.  Furthermore, it is deceptive to claim that your pamphlet applies to one group of people but not to another. Indeed, one of the foremost anti-missionary arguments against Paul of Tarsus is that he seems to do precisely this:

“… And to the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might win Jews; to those who are under the law, as under the law, that I might win those who are under the law; to those who are without law, as without law, that I might win those who are without law; to the weak I became as weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.  Now this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I may be partaker of it with you.”(1 Corinthians 9:20-23)

People like Rabbi Skobac regularly criticize Paul for seeming to change his arguments based on whom he is addressing. But truth is truth. It does not change no matter whom your audience is. Rabbi Skobac cannot say that the letter he quotes from Rabbi Yaakov Emden where the basic theory of my book is endorsed only applies when addressing “Jews who have embraced Christianity.” I could easily have hid behind the same argument and said that Kosher Jesus is written primarily for a Christian audience – which it is – and that Orthodox Jews are not its intended readership. Still, the book must have universal application and I have therefore defended the book vigorously in Orthodox Jewish forums and against Orthodox Jewish attack.

Skobac then says that there is “no evidence” that Jesus was a devout Rabbi or holy man, when the whole purpose of Kosher Jesus is to demonstrate precisely the opposite. He is well aware of the fact that many scholars who have preceded me, most notably Hyam Maccoby whom I quote extensively, believe precisely the opposite to be true and that many scholars have provided abundant evidence to support this conclusion, a great deal of which I synthesize in Kosher Jesus. I suggest the reader read Kosher Jesus and decide for themselves.

But Skobac’s main complaint is “Boteach’s implication that Jesus was a prophet and that the Christian scriptures were divinely inspired.”  So let me be clear.

“Kosher Jesus” has three principal purposes. The first is to educate Christians as to the Jewishness of Jesus so as to deepen the authenticity of their own faith. The book maintains that Christians cannot fully understand or appreciate their religion without examining its Jewish origins. Embracing the Jewishness of Jesus will, of necessity, force Christians to focus on the humanity rather than the divinity of Jesus, something the Noachide covenant demands. Though there are many halakhic, Jewish legal opinions as to what is required of a Noachide, I would just point to what Rabbi Isaac Herzog, the second Chief Rabbi of Israel, wrote in his book T’chuka L’yisroel al Pi Hatorah.  In it he concludes that Moslems have the status of gerei toshav – in this context, people who live by the Noachide covenant –  and after a long discussion in the matters of the Trinity, he explains that Christians have this same status. 

According to this line of thought, if Christians sees Jesus as a teacher and prophet, but not divine, then they join in the Noachide covenant.  Islam, as well, sees Muhammad as a prophet and, while Judaism would disagree and reject the prophecy of Muhammad, there is nothing wrong with Muslims believing in Muhammad as prophet, and Judaism, of course, respects Islam as a monotheistic faith.

Second, the book argues that the light of Judaism has permeated the world but is seldom given credit for doing so. Hence, Jews rarely take pride in their tradition. They see how huge Christianity is compared to how tiny we are when the truth is that Jesus’ teachings are based almost entirely on the Torah and to the extent that they were modified it was done after Jesus’ death by Paul and others mostly in an effort to appease the Romans.

Third, the book offers the textual proofs as to why Jews reject the divinity and messiahship of Jesus so that both Jews and Christians are well aware of what we can never embrace about Jesus.

Based on this, was Jesus a prophet? Not to the Jews, of course.  As “Kosher Jesus” argues forcefully and with many proofs, he was another rabbi and a martyr for his people whose memory was later ripped away from us and whom we should reclaim. If the evidence points to his being a devout member of his people, why should we allow him to be taken from us without resistance? But can non-Jews who have discovered the existence of G-d and some of the essential teachings of the Torah from the teachings of Jesus see him as a prophet who brought the knowledge of G-d to the masses? As long as he is not deified, then yes, of course. Why would Skobac be concerned with my labeling Jesus a prophet to the non-Jews? It’s his deification that is the problem. Indeed, the term prophet is regularly used even in modern times for people like Martin Luther King, Jr. and it is in this overall sense that I use the word.

Here it is important to note the opinion of Rabbi Yaakov Emden. Rabbi Emden was one of the greatest Talmud scholars of the past millennia and held that Christianity was mistaken in rejecting the laws of the Torah and believing Jesus to be divine, and hoped for the day when all would recognize Judaism to be G-d’s revealed religion. Nevertheless, in his commentary to Ethics of Our Fathers, as translated by Blu Greenberg (Judaism 27:3 1978 p 351-363) Rabbi Emden goes even a step beyond my conclusions in his understanding of Christianity. I quote:

“In his commentary Eitz Avos (40b-41a) on Pirkei Avot (4:11), Emden describes Christianity as a ““religion in the service of God,” a religion which God sees as good and, therefore, He sustains it; it came to spread the word of God to those ‘who, until then, had worshipped wood and stone, who denied the existence of God altogether, who did not believe in good and evil, or in the afterlife. Christianity spread the notion of one God, one Ruler of all the universe who metes out justice to His creations. Christians accept the seven Noachide Laws and many other mitzvot which they voluntarily take upon themselves. In addition to these good qualities, God also gave them prophecy through their righteous ones, and through these prophets gave them laws and commandments by which to live.  Because of all this - because they met these tests of a holy community - their religion was upheld and maintained by God.” Emden continues: these two families, Christianity and Mohammedanism, which God selected as vehicles to bring faith into the world, were never brought under the yoke of mitzvoth (commandments) of the Torah; their fathers never gave it to them, nor did they stand at Sinai; neither were they slaves in Egypt; therefore, they are not obligated for the 613 mitzvos and are thus exempt from the prohibition of shittuf (loosely translated here as the Trinity).  Emden concludes with the repetition of a previous theme: though some of their evil ones cause us sorrow with their violent actions and false accusations, there are righteous ones who protect us from those who rise up against Jews, and wise ones among them who search for truth in our works and find no fault in our faithfulness to our Torah and mitzvot.”

Similar views regarding the righteous deeds of Christians are expressed by great rabbis such as Menachem Ha-Meiri, Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, Rabbi Moshe Rivkes, among others.  In a statement adopted by the Rabbinical Council of America in 1964—though it discouraged many aspects of interfaith dialogue—it in part states, “Each religious community is endowed with intrinsic dignity and metaphysical worth.”  Maimonides, in examining the life of Jesus, though he disagreed with Rabbi Emden in many ways, says something similar, even as he rejects the Christian teachings taught in the name of Jesus as false:

[Jesus’ purpose] was to straighten out the way for the King Messiah, and to restore all the world to serve God together. So that it is said, “Because then I will turn toward the nations (giving them) a clear lip, to call all of them in the name of God and to serve God (shoulder to shoulder as) one shoulder.” (Zephaniah 3:9). How is this? The entire world had become filled with the issues of the anointed one and of the Torah and the Laws, and these issues had spread out unto faraway islands and among many nations uncircumcised in the heart, and they discuss these issues and the Torah’s laws. These say: These Laws were true but are already defunct in these days, and do not rule for the following generations; whereas the other ones say: There are secret layers in them and they are not to be treated literally, and the Messiah had come and revealed their secret meanings. But when the anointed king will truly rise and succeed and will be raised and uplifted, they all immediately turn about and know that their fathers inherited falsehood, and their prophets and ancestors led them astray.” (Laws of Kings 11:10–12.)

As for Maimonides’ strident criticism of Jesus as a heretic who led the Jews astray, I explain in Kosher Jesus that the Talmud’s Jesus’, upon whom Maimonides bases himself, is not the Jesus of the gospels, as Rabbi Yechiel of Paris, and other authoritative Jewish sources, have maintained.  It is a known fact that the name Jesus had been exceedingly common in Second Temple times. Rabbi Gil Student recently published an informative piece on this issue entitled Three Easy Steps to a Kosher Jesus which is well worth reading.

“Finally,” Skobac writes, “I never wrote or implied that Jews should reclaim Jesus or embrace him. These are meta-themes of Boteach’s book and a tremendous cause for concern… [Jews will] think of the Jesus praised by Tim Tebow! For an Orthodox rabbi to urge Jews to embrace Jesus is incredibly irresponsible, as it will inevitably facilitate the slide by some down the slippery slope toward Christianity.”

This is perhaps my principal point of departure from Skobac.

Today there are tens of thousands of Jews who have converted to Christianity in the US and the tide of assimilation is increasing. Perhaps the swarm of Jewish anti-missionaries who have ganged up to malign my book ought to consider a new approach to combat the problem. Kosher Jesus is that new approach. It argues that rather than Jews always playing defense it is time for us to go on the offensive. Jews convert to Christianity? For what? The real religion of Jesus was Judaism, not Christianity. Jesus taught the Torah, kept all the mitzvot, and preached to all his students that they must do the same or they would be the least in the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:18). Our argument to our Christian brothers and sisters – and especially to Christian missionaries – must be that every time they convert a Jew to Christianity they diminish from themselves the opportunity to discover the truth about Jesus, what he taught, and how he lived. Christians need Jews to discover the truth about their faith rather than the reverse, a point I have made in countless lectures before Christian audiences. We must teach Christians about the Jewishness of Jesus rather than Christians teaching Jews about the Christianity of Christ. Jesus was always a Jew and never a Christian. Period.

It has become very evident that Kosher Jesus is not just a “soundbite and headlines” as Skobac derisively writes. It is already, in pre-publication, a best-seller on many of Amazon.com’s lists. It is now receiving, thank G-d, glowing reviews from disinterested parties. Library Journal has just written, “Boteach writes with clarity, force, and intelligence, and his Kosher Jesus is an excellent resource for parish libraries, Jewish worship communities, individual seekers, and all interested in the historical Jesus.” Publisher’s Weekly reviewed the book as an “informed and cogent primer on Jesus of Nazareth. Boteach, rabbi and author of the international bestseller Kosher Sex, takes a brave stab at re-evaluating Jesus through an intensive look at the New Testament and historical documents. This well-researched analysis will certainly reopen intrafaith and interfaith dialogue.”

It must also be pointed out that anti-missionaries, through no fault of their own, often employ a myopic view of Christians whereby our principal interaction with them is when they come to convert us. This is not the case and this sort of thinking must change. Christians are our best friends today. A tiny, tiny minority are missionaries. Rather than allowing the relationship to be based on fear where we never ever engage in dialogue out of a concern that they may convert us, I believe precisely the opposite is true.

It is time for the Jewish community to stop playing defense and go on offense. We should stop fearing assimilation and start sharing with the world the universal wisdom and values of Judaism, beginning with demonstrating the Jewish sources of Jesus’ teachings

The political bridge of support for Israel is not enough. A theological bridge between Jews and Christians must exist as well. Kosher Jesus proposes that Jesus the Jew, rather than Christ the Christian, be that bridge. It is not for Christians to teach the Jews about Jesus, as has been attempted for so many centuries, but rather, for the Jews to teach Christians about how Jesus lived, prayed, worshipped, and died as a Jew.

This book is written principally for Christians who hunger to learn more about the Jewishness of Jesus, even as they disagree significantly with my conclusions. And it is written for Jews to finally be knowledgeable about the real story of Jesus so that they can engage in this relationship authoritatively and with an immunity to missionizing efforts. In an age of Jewish-Christian rapprochement, ignorance of Jesus is no longer an option.

Skobac and others seem to evince little faith in the Jewish community. For them, Jews are for the most part uneducated and therefore susceptible to missionary charms. But if that is the case, then stop attacking books like Kosher Jesus that seek to teach them. Indeed, write more of your own books to educate our nation and let our people know!

This is the reason you’re seeing so many anti-missionaries attack the book. They want us to fear Christians. And yes, we have to stop missionaries. In Oxford, New York, and countless other venues, I worked to do precisely that. And in this book there is an entire section which will offer the Jewish reader invaluable textual proofs to counter missionary encroachment. But that is no longer the essence of the relationship between Christians and Jews. It has changed.

Skobac, Schochet, and others risk becoming dinosaurs if all they focus on is how much Christians want to convert us. Today, Christians want to learn from us.

But there is a problem.

At so many public Christian events in support of Israel, pastors refer to Jesus haltingly if at all, afraid to offend Jewish sensibilities, while the Jews likewise are on guard to ensure that they are not accused of being used as props for a covert Christian evangelizing effort. If Jesus can never be mentioned we risk the relationship between Jews and Christians being a fraudulent one, with mutual suspicion growing on both sides. We are at a stage where the light of Judaism can finally shine through to the entire world, if only we have the courage to embrace the opportunity.

And this is what you’ll continue to see in this debate on Kosher Jesus. Two world views. One says that Jews today are not very religious or knowledgeable and therefore highly susceptible to missionaries and there goes Shmuley Boteach opening the door to missionaries to proselytize us.

But then there is another group who value the new Judeo-Christian relationship of allied friendship and want the Jews to be the ones to take their rightful place as, in the words of Pope John Paul II, “elder brothers and sisters in the faith”.

Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek calls ‘the most famous Rabbi in America,’ was the London Times Preacher of the Year at the Millennium and received the American Jewish Press Association’s Highest Award for Excellence in Commentary. The international best-selling author of 27 books, this week he will publish “Kosher Jesus.” Follow him on Twitter @RabbiShmuley. His website is www.shmuley.com.

Rabbi Shmuley wishes to thank his assistant Daniel Abraham for contributing source material to this column.  The column is dedicated to the memory of Machla Debakarov, a close friend of Rabbi Shmuley, who died last year. May her memory be an eternal blessing.

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