By Fr. Victor Feltes
“What’s a Jew,” I asked my dad as a boy. “Where did you hear that,” he countered. I had seen a TV news report about Palestinians in a street slinging rocks at Israeli soldiers. I recalled this memory recently when two parishioners called to ask the same question I once had. So who are the Jews?
We read in the Old Testament about God making covenants with Abraham and his descendants. God changed the name of Abraham’s grandson Jacob to Israel and from his sons come “The Twelve Tribes of Israel.” God used Moses to lead these tribes from Egypt into the land which is now the country of Israel. From one of those twelve tribes, Judah, the Jewish religion (Judaism) and Jewish people (Jews) have their names.
Jesus, Mary his mother, his apostles, and his earliest followers were Jewish. Many Jews believed Jesus was their long-awaited “Anointed One” or Christ. Other Jews, however, rejected him. The Jewish leaders conspired and pushed the Romans to crucify him, yet Jesus died due to the sins of all mankind. After his resurrection, the Jews and non-Jews with faith in Jesus Christ came to be called “Christians.”
In our day, a person could be Jewish in two ways: religiously Jewish, Jewish by descent, or both. Someone now identifying as religiously Jewish believes in the Old Testament and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but does not believe that Jesus was the Christ, God’s eternally-begotten Son, or that he rose again from the dead. Religious Jews are usually of the Jewish race as well, since Judaism draws few converts. On the other hand, a person may be racially Jewish and not practice Judaism. This is how it is possible for someone to be, for example, a Jewish atheist or a Jewish Christian.
All peoples are called to the New Covenant in Christ and his Church. St. Peter preached Jesus as Christ and Lord and risen from the dead to the Jews at Pentecost: “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins…” The Vatican II document on non-Christian religions, Nostra Aetate, notes, “Jerusalem did not recognize the time of her visitation, nor did the Jews in large number accept the Gospel… Nevertheless, God holds the Jews most dear for the sake of their Fathers…” If the world seems to bear irrational hatred towards Jews, Catholics, and other Christians, perhaps this is because we are God’s people in special ways.
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