Bridging the Gap - Jewish/Christian Relations
Pillar of Salt: A Daughter’s Life in the Shadow of the Holocaust
Anna Salton Eisen will be the featured speaker at the third annual Beauty for Ashes Luncheon, March 22, 2024, at the Kingwood Country Club. Click
Everyone’s mad at de Blasio’s ‘Jewish community’ comment for the wrong reason
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio came under an onslaught of criticism on Tuesday night when he tweeted his reaction to the overcrowded funeral procession for a rabbi from the Satmar Hasidic sect of ultra-Orthodox Jews. The first tweet called the crowd that had in South Williamsburg, in violation of statewide bans on gatherings of 10 or more people, “unacceptable.” But de Blasio’s subsequent message sent Twitter into a spasm of rage because it began, “My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups.”
What might surprise Jewish readers of the New Testament are the Israel-affirming bits that show that the Gospels are thoroughly Jewish. Jesus and his rivals argue about food laws because, well, Jews argue about food laws. They argue about how to relate to Rome because that was a contentious issue in first-century Judea. They argue together with tools all Jews recognize and honor — the Torah and the life of worship and festival known as Judaism.
So what do we do with these texts that are still in our Christian Scripture? We don’t dismiss them. We situate them historically as I have done here — as a reflection of one claimant to the legacy of Israel clawing for space against another.
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Christian Friends of Israel Rally to Help Jewish State Fight Coronavirus
The number of individuals in Israel diagnosed with the COVID-19 coronavirus rises daily, and pro-Israel Christian organizations have joined the struggle to help contend with the pandemic in the Jewish state.
The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews (IFCJ) has decided to lend a hand in Israel’s fight against the pandemic and approved over the weekend $2 million in special grants to 15 hospitals for respiratory equipment and other lifesaving machinery.
Additionally, The IFCJ purchased 20 special testing devices for Magen David Adom (MDA), Israel’s emergency medical response organization. The devices will help the staff test patients and reduce the burden on hospitals, preventing unnecessary contact between Coronavirus patients and their surroundings.