Christians persecuted Jews for centuries. How can their faith be true?
What was done to Jews in Jesus' name was evil, and it went against everything he taught. It misled many Jews about who he is. We grieve it and repent of it. Judge Yeshua by his own words, not by those who betrayed them.
The list is long and terrible: the Crusader massacres in the Rhineland (1096), blood libels, forced debates and Talmud burnings, expulsions from England (1290), France and Spain (1492), the Inquisition, pogroms, and the church's silence and worse during the Holocaust.
None of it came from Yeshua. He was a Jew who said "love your enemies" (Matthew 5:44), told his followers to put away the sword, and prayed for those who crucified him. Paul wrote that the gifts and calling of God to Israel are irrevocable (Romans 11:29) and that gentile believers are grafted into Israel's olive tree, not over it.
So we say it plainly: it's right to be angry about what was done. That history misled generations of Jews into seeing Jesus as the enemy of their people. He isn't. He is one of you.
Sources
- Rhineland massacres of 1096 (the Hebrew chronicle of Solomon bar Samson)
- Talmud trial and burning, Paris 1240-1242
- Edict of Expulsion (England, 1290); Alhambra Decree (Spain, 1492)
- Matthew 5:44; Romans 11:17-29
