Proselytism of Jews

 Nadene Goldfoot                                         

Thousands of Jews were hung on crosses as punishment when the Romans occupied Judah. I'm afraid that this has set the tone for world hatred for Jews, called anti-Semitism.  The Romans were cruel.   The Appian Way was lined with men on crosses, dying from the most painful death that has ever been invented.  In 73 BCE, a slave revolt (known as the Third Servile War) under the ex-gladiator of Capua, Spartacus, began against the Romans. Slavery accounted for roughly every third person in Italy.  

Spartacus defeated many Roman armies in a conflict that lasted for over two years. While trying to escape from Italy at Brundisium he unwittingly moved his forces into the historic trap in Apulia/Calabria. The Romans were well acquainted with the region. Legions were brought home from abroad and Spartacus was pinned between armies. The ex-slave army was defeated at Siler River by Marcus Licinius Crassus. Pompey's armies captured and killed several thousand rebels that escaped from the battle and Crassus captured several thousand more. The Romans judged that the slaves had forfeited their right to live. In 71 BCE, 6,000 slaves were crucified along the 200-kilometer (120 mi) Via Appia from Rome to  Capua.                                              

By 70 CE, the Romans had burned down Jerusalem and the 2nd Temple, taking

Jews prisoners.   Jewish prisoners had to carry the holy items from the Temple 

for the Romans.  This is in Rome, on the Arch of Titus.                             

    First Jews were slaves in Egypt for 400 years.  Then they were attacked by the

Assyrians and later the Babylonians, only to wind up in Roman hands for 535 

years.  

 Romans did this again when occupation of Israel took place.  In 63 BCE the Roman general Pompey captured Jerusalem. The Romans ruled through a local client king and largely allowed free religious practice in Judaea. At times, the divide between monotheistic and polytheistic religious views caused clashes between Jews and Gentiles. .Any little  reason to punish, any reason, deferred to the crosses. 

 The Christians' Jesus was not the only one.  Romans did not respect the Jewish state or their religion.  The Greeks had invaded the Temple and put their idols in there.  They forced the people to break their Jewish traditions, such as the eating of pork.  The Christian emperors also persecuted their Jewish subjects and restricted their rights.
                                                                              

                                  A holy man  from the 3rd-century wall paintings at the synagogue of Dura-Europos.  Dura-Europos, also spelled Dura-Europus, was a Hellenistic, Parthian and Roman border city built on an escarpment 90 metres above the right bank of the Euphrates river. It is located near the village of Salhiyé, in today's Syria.  

This would be the time of Roman emperors.  Around this time, Christianity developed from Second Temple Judaism. In 313, Constantine and Licinius issued the Edict of Milan giving official recognition to Christianity as a legal religion. Constantine the Great moved the Roman capital from Rome to Constantinople ('New Rome') c. 330, sometimes considered the start of the Byzantine Empire, and with the Edict of Thessalonica in 380, Christianity became the state church of the Roman Empire.

People have been proselytizing Jews since the early days of Judaism by the Greeks and Romans.  Jews were forbidden to do such to them, as it had been happening in cities Jews lived in during those days.  During the days of Roman Emperors, the Romans felt as if they were in competition with the Jews and took steps to be the top dog.  Since then Judaism does not proselytize anyone.  In fact, if someone wants to become Jewish, they have to ask at least 3 times to be allowed to study for such a change.  It does happen, though.

In 649, 721, 873:  Jews in the Byzantine Empire (Roman Emperors with capital in Constantinople (Istanbul) a Turkish city which included Palestine in its empire)forcibly converted to Christianity. Jews had lived in this Byzantium from its foundation in the 4th century. During the Byzantine Period, the Jewish community suffered from continuous persecution.  

                                                 

Just imagine!  The very worst enemy of all, the Romans, turned around and used the newly formed Christian religion as a power hold in place of their paganism.  Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine the Great, started something when she talked her son into becoming a Christian.    

1146, 1391,  Jews of Spain forcibly converted to Christianity

1492,  Expulsion of 180,000 Jews from Spain.  50,000 converted to Christianity by coercion, to remain in Spain     

1502, All Jews of Rhodes forcibly converted, expelled or taken into slavery    

1838,  Entire Jewish community in Meshed, Persia (Iran) forcibly converted to Islam.

We Jews are said to have insecure feelings as a principal feature of the Jewish experience in many lands.  The full chronology of persecution, massacre and expulsion along with proselytism at our heels is not all listed here, only the mass forced conversions forced upon us unwillingly.                                       

      Me in Safed (1980-1985) and our red Fiat and our German shepherd, Blintz.

When I returned from living in Israel from 1980 to the end of November, 1985, I read about a covert operation of people living in Ontario, Oregon where I was living.  They had gone to Israel and were working in a kibbutz and took the opportunity of working in the kitchen and were proselytizing.  This was  written up in the Ontario Argus newspaper as an editorial of their achievements.  I was so mad that I wrote to the President of Israel about it.  It was an insidious and cheap attack on our religion and values.  It seems that there are several groups of Christians who still proselytize Jews. 

We've been attacked since time immemorial physically by different armies, and by forced conversion.  Now Israelis and Jews in other countries have been bombarded by proselytism to not only Christianity, but Islam as well.  Knowing how we felt in ancient days when this was happening to our ancestors, we do not do it to others.  It's the most distasteful thing one can do to another, and that is showing no regard or respect for their decision to worship a higher power as they wish.  We have no policing our religion, but we do learn about our history every year in our holidays and our own education. 

                                                         

Jews waiting to be ushered into cattle trains headed for gas chambers in Holocaust.  They didn't know the end result.  

 We've gone through the Spanish Inquisition days   where remaining in Spain  after 1492 was a death warrant for Jews.  The same thing happened a few years later in Portugal.  We've gone through the Holocaust.  If you see us remaining as Jews, that is because we wish to remain Jewish.  We assume the same goes for Christians and Muslims as well.  The best that can happen is a place where we live peacefully together.  Israel is trying to bring that about with the population that they have.  Knowing people's minds and knowing history, that is why Israel is to remain a Jewish State with an 80% Jewish population.  After all, there are already 48 Muslim majority countries in the world that I counted last, and a few other religions of Buddhism or Hinduism with Christianity being the largest population in the world's countries.                                                     

Here we have an Ethiopian Jew, a Druze, Christian and Muslim in IDF.  Druze are a religious sect deriving from Islam with members in Syria, Lebanon and Israel.  About 53,000 live in Israel in 18 villages in the Galilee and other places.  The Druze cooperated with the Israel forces during and since the War of Independence (1947-49) and have representation to sit in the Knesset.  They have their own religious courts which administer Druze religious law.  

In Israel, the only Jewish state in the world, there are in the minority population, Muslims and even some Christians.  Some groups of Muslims and Christians, both men and women, serve in the IDF.  They usually speak Hebrew like a Sabra.  The religious affiliation of the Israeli population as of 2019 was 74.2% Jewish, 17.8% Muslim, 2.0% Christian, and 1.6% Druze. The remaining 4.4% included faiths such as Samaritanism and Baháʼí, and "religiously unclassified", the category for all who do not belong to one of the recognized communities.  

                                                       

My son set my new Smart TV up with Roku, another way of getting some special stations with new programming.  You receive a new hand-held thing in the mail to use to get into special channels, and the one I wanted was a Jewish station for news from Israel.  I was able to get Tisha Bader from New York on the Jewish Broadcasting Service.  I can now also get TV 7 from Jerusalem about Israel on You tube.                                                           

The news announcer,  Anchorman & Editor in Chief,  is a Christian Israeli, Jonathan Hessen.  He has served in the IDF.  I had no idea that my nightly Israeli news was a Christian station.  He told us the facts as they were happening and Israel and hot items about the USA. Then I finally noticed that he used some words that Jews didn't use, and caught on.  He was a Christian.  I didn't get it right away, though, and thought that the praying for a country each night, a different one each time, was very nice.  Obvious wording was not used to let me know he was broadcasting as a Christian and it was a religious Christian station.  Jonathan has been very respectful of Judaism and has not started any proselytism.  At the end, Jonathan prays for the peace of Jerusalem using Psalm 122.  This is what I do every Friday night over my candles.  

TV7 Israel News is a ten minute news segment on Israel that is aired five times a week. It has all the new updates about internal and external affairs related to the daily process of Israel with an objective point of view shining the light on all what is going in the media.

TV7 Israel News presents you the News in a fresh and relevant way. It enables you to grow with knowledge concerning the situation in Israel and to use that information into building up a point of view that is not influenced by the media, but influenced by the actual events taking place within Israel and the surrounding area.  it's great to be able to hear what's happening in Israel every day and even more so to know that Jonathan will not be proselytizing.  

Update:  Today, 2/22/2021, I just received this in my email:

In recent days, many Portland area residents who have Jewish sounding names or Jewish neighbors have been receiving a purple envelope with the book “Changed” by Tom Cantor in the mail. Cantor spends millions of dollars every year sending his proselytizing books to people he believes are Jewish in hopes of converting them. Cantor reportedly purchases mailing lists to obtain the names and addresses. No local Jewish organizations sell their mailing lists. The Jewish Federation of Greater Portland has received several comments through its website and social media platforms from people who received the book. While proselytizing mailings are “problematic,” they’re not uncommon nor illegal, says Federation’s CRC Director Bob Horenstein. “Only if there is some explicit — or even implicit — threat should we be overly concerned.”  Cantor’s mailings stem back to at least 2013 and have continued. An article in The Jewish News reported mass mailings to the Detroit area earlier this year.

Resource:

https://www.tv7israelnews.com/vod/series/563/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Roman_Empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appian_Way

Facts about Israel; Division of Information, Ministry for foreign Affairs, Jerusalem