Passover 7 days of meditation opening a way to conversion

Immanuel Verbondskind looks back at the lockdown period and the impact on the small Jeshuaist community and some Jewish communities. For Jews it has even been more difficult to undergo the lockdown, because many do have no television or internet and have been in a real-time strict isolation, not being able to have worship moments with brethren and sisters.

Those times of seclusion and restriction could be called a ‘reflection time‘ or retreat, where one had enough time to think about faith and religion. On the 15th of April this year (2022) it was 14 Nisan, the evening to remember the liberation of God’s People from the enslavement in Egypt, but also to remember the gathering of Jeshua and his disciples, where at the last supper Jesus talked about the blood being shed for the liberation of all people.

In Wintertime, many Christians celebrate Christmas and have some holiday, where they also can think about the light that came in the darkness. For true Christians and for Jews, 14-22 Nisan is the most sacred period of the religious year, where is remembered how the Elohim brought to light in the dark night by passing over the houses where there was the blood of the lamb, giving the opportunity for the Jews to flee their world of slavery in Egypt.

True Christians with Jeshuaists remember also the Passover lamb Jeshua (Jesus Christ) and show their gratitude for the salvation by the Grace of God, Him accepting that ransom Jesus was willing to pay for all people.

 

Since Friday night Jeshuaists and Christadelphians, like other true Christians, since some long time of isolation because of lockdown, could at some places get together (in restricted form) and make connections with other brothers and sisters, either in place or via the internet streaming. Many, the previous time in isolation got lots of opportunities to think about the value of such a connection or ‘fraternity‘. They had enough time in the lockdown period to think about their religious affiliation, and some also about their need to go over into a conversion. Because the last few months, more signs could be seen that we are entering a new period in the Time of Ages or in God’s Plan.

Because of those “Signs of the Times” there has come a certain pressure to know what to do and which direction to go. Now many more ask themselves who shall be part of the things going to be there after the big battle or great tribullation.

Several people have wondered in those Covid times if it would not be better to become part of a community. There also have been Jews by race or non-believing and non-practising Jews, who started to change ideas about the world and its Creator. The Jews from Middle European origin also started wondering by which denomination of Jews they would best join. Those people living here in Belgium, France, Holland and Germany wonder if they would convert to Judaism, if they then would be accepted as a Jew.

Anti-Zionists often claim that Ashkenazi Jews are white imposters, fake Jews who are entirely descended from European converts to Judaism. This is completely rebutted by genetic studies which have proven a Middle Eastern patrilineal origin for Ashkenazi Jewry. However, when the Anti-Zionists make the Apartheid accusation are Jews suddenly a single racial group. The notion that Jews generally constitute a racial group is Nazi in origin and is at the core of the Anti-Jewish Apartheid libel. {Why Many Ashkenazi Jews “Look” European}

There is a long history of the racialization of Jews. There have also been religious and non-religious Jews in several countries.

Racialization of Jews have a long pedigree in the history of Anti-Semitism. Racialization of Jews was practiced in Spain against the Anusim (“Marranos”), Jews who were involuntarily converted to Christianity during the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. Racialization of Jews in Germany became prominent already in the second half of the 19th century when religious Anti-Semitism (Anti-Judaism) was increasingly supplanted by racializing Anti-Semitism. The third phase is the current racialization of Jews by the extreme left.

Racialization of Jews is intended to paint Jews as “genetic aliens” in a certain country (e.g. Spain, Germany or Israel). Of course painting any other people as “genetic aliens” is not socially acceptable beyond Nazi circles. But Anti-Semitic opponents of Israel systematically engage in discourse to stigmatize the Jews in the land of Israel as genetic aliens despite Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim patrilineally being very very genetically similar to Palestinians due to common historical origin, with the genetic divergence accounted for by historical conversions to Judaism and by immigration to the land of Israel from other parts of the Middle East during the Islamic era.

Ashkenazim, Sephardim and Mizrahim are more similar to each other than to any other populations and are predominantly of Middle Eastern origin in genetically confirming the historical narrative of ancient Israelite origin. The Anti-Semitic accusation according to which Ashkenazi Jews are exclusively descended from European converts to Judaism despite that part of Ashkenazi ancestry accounting only for only 30% of the Ashkenazi gene pool with the remaining 70% being Middle Eastern in origin is used by Anti-Semites such as Palestinian-American professor of Columbia University Joseph Massad to libelously paint Israeli Jews as “European colonizers” and against the scientific consensus denying that most modern Israeli Jews are Levantine returnees to Israel. The false claim that Ashkenazi Jews are “European colonizers” is in fact one of the main claims involved in the Anti-Semitic racialization of Ashkenazi Jewry. {Jews are a Nation of Color}

After the covid pandemic several feel a greater need to come to connect with one or another Jewish or Jeshuaist denomination. Having been on their own, in their own living room, with nobody else to share the faith, was too lonely. Some, who were previously connected with a shul, lost contact but also interest to go to a prayer and study house. Though others have now, even more than ever before, felt the need to be connected to other fellow believers.

This Passover is for several an essential time to consider the way how God handled His People and how, also today, He is still willing to guide them through the desert of this (non-religious) world.

Some people take time to think about separation and isolation, and look at the lessons we get from the Scrolls that teach that the priests were deliberately separated from everyone else. They even couldn’t go to family funerals, like many could not in the Corona crisis. Their job was to remain separate from the people they served, which may sound strange. But their goal was to maintain their close connection with the Most High in purity or holiness.

To remain separate at all times isn’t healthy for anyone. All over the world many learned that all too well the last two years. this year many felt a great joy they were able again to come together with some friends to do like the apostles did, following up the permanent ordinance… a celebration for all of God’s people throughout all time, remembering Passover.

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Find to read:

Times of seclusion, restriction, liberation, connection, religious affiliation and conversion

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Preceding

Measure of loneliness whilst time drags

Adar 6, Matan Torah remembering the giving of Torah

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Additional reading

1. Jewish diaspora
2. December a joyful time for many
3. Lenten Season and our minds and hearts the spiritual temple in which God seeks to live
4. Remember the day
5. Ransom for all
6. A perfect life, obedient death, and glorious resurrection
7. Redemption #4 The Passover Lamb
8. Redemption #7 Christ alive in the faithful
9. Atonement And Fellowship 8/8
10. A strange thing might happen when you come under Christ
11. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
12. Falling figures for identifying Christians
13. What is happening in America to religion and to the language of faith
14. Who is a Jew?
15. Counting sands and stars
16. We Count. We Just Weren’t Counted.
17. Judaism and Jeshuaism a religion of the future
18. Great tribulation and Armageddon
19. Armageddon or the Great Tribulation
20. Ashkenazi Jews are extremely inbred

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Related

1. Passover Blessings – April 15th through 22nd, 2014
2. Proselytism
3. Jesus Became Our Passover Lamb
4. How Jews look to non-Jews – Part 1
5. Going back to shul
6. Fighting ignorance

Historian Deborah Lipstadt Assesses the New Anti-Semitism

Historian Deborah Lipstadt has published an accessible and comprehensive book about contemporary anti-Semitism called “Antisemitism: Here and Now.” The book, in which she spells anti-Semitism as “antisemitism” for reasons she outlines—is structured as a series of letters she writes to a fictional student and colleague — both of whom are composites of people Lipstadt has taught and worked with at Emory University in Atlanta.

Lipstadt, the author of books on Holocaust denial and the Adolf Eichmann trial, has experienced anti-Semitism as a result of confronting Holocaust deniers. In the early 2000s, she prevailed in a defamation lawsuit brought by David Irving, one of the more prolific and notorious Holocaust “revisionists.” Her victory was dramatized in “Denial,” a 2016 movie starring Rachel Weisz.

Lipstadt writes that anti-Semitism is challenging to define:

“It is hard, if not impossible, to explain something that is essentially irrational, delusional, and absurd.”

She recently spoke to JewishBoston about her new book and the ongoing scourge of anti-Semitism around the world.

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Is today’s anti-Semitism “old wine in new bottles?”

On some level, it is old wine in new bottles. There are certain aspects of the stereotype which continue to exist and don’t go away. What’s different today is a number of things. First of all, it’s coming from the right and the left simultaneously. That’s different. At the same time, we’ve got a third source, and that is Islamic extremists who have been responsible for dangerous, deadly events in Europe. In some sectors of the Muslim community, it has become embedded among people who wouldn’t think to do anything violent but think evil things of Jews. This combination is different, but the charges are classic.

Actor Rachel Weisz and author Deborah Lipstadt on the set of their film “Denial,” a Bleecker Street release. (Photo credit: Liam Daniel/Bleecker Street)

In your introduction, you write, “By the time this book appears there will have been new examples of antisemitism.”

In some ways, the book is a work in progress. I was sure by the time it was published there would have been a number of instances that could have appeared. Five weeks after I hit the send button, Pittsburgh happened.

Speaking of ongoing anti-Semitism, what inspired you to write a book about it?

I wrote an article right after Gaza happened the summer of 2014 for The New York Times op-ed page. What struck me was the degree of anti-Semitism that got mixed up in opposition to that war. But it wasn’t just the war. There was the 2006 murder of Ilan Halimi. In 2012 there were the murders at a Jewish school in Toulouse. Then there was the shooting at the Jewish Museum of Brussels just before Gaza. Anti-Semitism was coming back in a way that deserved attention. The Times article was very popular, and my agent asked where my book proposal was. I sent him a brief proposal as a favor. He came back to me shortly afterward and said he sold the book. That’s how I came to write a book about anti-Semitism.

You talk about what I describe as “low-voltage anti-Semitism” that can happen casually at dinner parties or in dorm rooms. How do Jews deal with that?

While this book has received mostly amazing reviews, like any author, I tend to linger on the one or two negative ones. One of the reviews said I should not have told my fictitious student Abigail that when she encountered anti-Semitism among her roommates to go back and have a discussion. The reviewer said, “I would have told her to find new friends.” That’s the wrong answer. We’ll run out of friends very quickly if we do that. There is a lot of misunderstanding of what anti-Semitism is and what constitutes it. Our job should be to try to explain that to people. However, when you call me a termite [as Louis Farrakhan did] because I’m a Jew, I’m not going to try and educate you anymore. We have to discern between ignorance and what is absorbed from the ethos sphere, and the committed anti-Semite.

What do you say to young Jews participating in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement? And what are some of the anti-Semitic tropes associated with BDS?

Many people on campus who support BDS probably couldn’t find Israel on a map. I don’t immediately brand every person who supports BDS as an anti-Semite. Some people erroneously equate BDS with their parents’ votes against apartheid. But if you drill down to what BDS is all about it, it calls for the destruction of the state of Israel. That is anti-Semitism. As for the tropes, it’s this talk of power, control and money. It’s the anti-Semitic stereotypes put into a Middle Eastern context. A few days ago, people said the seven Labour lawmakers who resigned over anti-Semitism in their party were being paid to do so by Israel. If that supposition weren’t so dangerous, it would be simply absurd.

(Courtesy image)

Are anti-Zionists and anti-Semites the same?

They are backing into each other. If you look at each of them in 1935 or 1945, they are not one and the same. Bret Stephens had a great article about the difference. I second what he says very much. Look at the division and we now see something quite distinct. We see something that has become this hostility to Israel. Opposition to Israeli policy is not anti-Semitism. It’s important to recognize that. We’re talking about a myopic view that all the troubles in the world are the Palestinians’—the only one at fault in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is Israel. Something is wrong with that.

I recently heard a story about a student in a New York City public high school who asked her teacher to sign a letter of recommendation for a summer program. She brought him the form, and when he saw it was for Israel, he said he wouldn’t write a letter for her. She asked if he would write a letter for a program in North Korea, China, Myanmar or Sudan, and he said yes.

Something is wrong when your singular focus is on one country. Something is wrong when you look at this complicated situation in Israel where there are wrongs on both sides. We see a dedication to Palestinian organizations that have a major commitment to the destruction of Israel within their charters. And you have to ask, why this myopic view? That’s when you come to anti-Semitism.

It’s almost Purim, and your middle name is Esther. Do you feel you have a Queen Esther-like role in the Jewish community?

Someone once sent me a quote from the Book of Esther where Mordechai comes to Esther to tell her she has to approach the king, or our people will be murdered. She initially says she can’t go to the king because she will be killed. But then she does talk to him on behalf of her people. In fighting deniers and anti-Semitism, I don’t feel I’m a queen of anything. What I do feel is very gratified that I’ve been given a chance to do this work. I wish anti-Semitism were an old problem, but there’s an urgency to understand it. People are so grateful and appreciative that I do that. I feel humbled and thankful that I’m getting this kind of reaction. I’m not a Queen Esther, but I have been given a similar gift of being in the right place at the right time. This enables me to contribute to an important battle.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

By Judy Bolton-Fasman for JewishBoston

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Related

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  Holocaust Historian Deborah Lipstadt Prevails in “Denial”

  

  Judy Bolton-Fasman