Gaspard Greenberg

Like, I very rarely see a portrayal of Jews where the focus isn’t on four tropes:

1) A couple where the man is meek and emasculated, controlled by the wife, and basically the human equivalent of a wet mouse and the woman is large, domineering, stubborn, loud, and annoying

2) Someone who says they’re Jewish once and MAYBE has a menorah in their window during the Christmas episode but still fully participates in all Christian traditions, eats pork, possibly shits on their Jewish parents or grandparents (which usually fall into the first category), and whose entire identity is forgotten the minute it’s not juxtaposed to Christianity or a one-off joke/reference

3) Gosh, aren’t those orthodox people INSANE?

4) These Jews Are Dead, But Don’t Worry, The Christian White People Will Avenge Them

It doesn’t matter the genre, it’s all these four tropes. And has anyone else noticed that we usually only appear in comedy or tragedy? When was the last time we got a Jew in an action film??

Never mind that there’s never any diversity when we ARE in something. I can count on one hand the amount of goyim I know that were aware that Jews of color exist before I told them. Or any diversity beyond the archetype that every single work regardless of genre uses-white passing, straight, cis, extremely reform or orthodox (but they never use those words), eastern european ashkenazi (again, you never hear those words), men and sometimes women of a certain personality type.

There are Jews on every continent and from every background you could possibly imagine. There might not be that many of us, but we’re a diverse bunch despite it! I know many people have never even met a Jew, but with the internet now there’s really little excuse for blatantly antisemitic and offensive portrayals like this. If I see another Mort Goldman type I might actually go insane. Almost every piece of adult media is responsible for a Mort Goldman. Enough is enough, it was never funny.

Do some research PLEASE. Portraying a minority as reductively as we are portrayed has real-world consequences. Some of the stuff I’ve seen in recent years isn’t far removed from Charles Dickens for fuck’s sake.

Reform Jews are still Jewish. Non-observant Jews are still Jewish. Atheist Jews are still Jewish and some are even observant. Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews exist. Orthodox people are not insane and actually happen to be fairly diverse! Many Jews don’t even fall under these categories and have their own observances. Judaism is so individual.

Furthermore, Jews of color exist. Jews of every creed and background exist. Jews of every orientation and gender exist. I literally promise you.

The Entire State of Israel (in Legal-Civil matters)

All of the Head Rabbis of the State of Israel (In Religious matters)

Birthright-Taglit

Orthodox (MoDox, Yeshivish, and other)

Chabad

other Hasidic sects

Reconstructionists 

Reform Judaism and the URJ

Conservative/Masorti Judaism 

Humanists

Sephardim

Ethiopian Jews/Beta Israel

Bnei Israel 

Kaifeng Jews 

Secular Jews

Unaffiliated 

Me

Moshe

I’d be greatful if someone who feels able could private message me or explain to me here. I have little understanding of Judaism and this is something I am trying to learn about but I struggle to read books or focus on documentaries (Plus I seldom trust documentaries) due to my learning difficulties and also I end up sobbing uncontrollably whenever I read of the atrocities both past and ongoing, I do not turn a blind eye however and would be exceptionally greatful if someone who perhaps would enjoy educating me on the finer points of Judaism, to learn I need to be able to ask questions. I’m not expecting a full history lesson unless you are so inclined as one of the reasons I want to learn more about Judaism is so that I can more effectively shut down racist fuckwads. 

I will do some research independently but would appreciate some source suggestions as I will end up spending all my mental energy on finding a source that is more fact based and less thinly veiled racism and misinformation.

1.) Messianics are part of a movement formed by evangelical Christians specifically and intentionally to convert more Jewish people to Christianity in order to bring about Christian end times. Messianics have built up a culture of lying to and misleading Jewish people in order to further their goal of cultural genocide - erasing everything about Judaism which does not further THEIR goals.

2.) the actual Jewish religion fundamentally does not support believe in Jesus. He did not fulfill the Jewish requirements for being Moshiach, and Jewish law forbids worshipping anyone but G-d. And a human incarnation cannot be G-d, simply because that would make them divisible. There’s a million other reasons but the most important is that this is Avodah Zara or idol worship, and that is extremely forbidden to Jewish people. (We already mentioned the group Jews for Judaism, there’s another rabbi (Tovia Singer) on a website called outreach Judaism which specifically is about counter-missionary stuff. Otherwise Myjewishlearning.com is a good place.

No real Jewish organization recognizes messianics because A.) their end game is to make us Christian and wipe Judaism off the map in order to bring about the second coming and B.) they break fundamental laws, and the breaking of those laws means you are not counted amongst Klal Yisrael (the Jewish people). An ethnically Jewish person CAN return, if they give up the whole Jesus-messianic thing. But unless or until they do, they are simply a Christian person with Jewish heritage.

Whereas Mashiach/Moshiach (alt. pronunciation) is the hebrew for Anointed One, and is a Jewish term. Confusingly, Moshiah is the term for “Savior” but those are not the same thing, and in Hebrew these words are not actually etymologically similar and have different roots. In any case, we don’t believe Jesus is either the anointed one, or our savior. 

The Mashiach is supposed to fulfill some obvious requirements:

The mashiach will bring about the political and spiritual redemption of the Jewish people by bringing us back to Israel and restoring Jerusalem (Isaiah 11:11-12; Jeremiah 23:8; 30:3; Hosea 3:4-5). Jesus did not bring the people back to Israel or restore Jerusalem to Jewish power. Instead, he died. 

He will establish a government in Israel that will be the center of all world government, both for Jews and gentiles (Isaiah 2:2-4; 11:10; 42:1).  Jesus did not establish a government in Israel, much less one that was the “center” of the world. He established no government whatsoever, unlike another Jewish man whom people believed might be the Mashiach (Bar Kokhba).

He will rebuild the Temple and re-establish its worship (Jeremiah 33:18). In Jesus’ lifetime, the second temple has already been built. It would be destroyed shortly after his death. He did not accomplish this. He did not restore worship there, and in the New Testament, he is recorded as having disrupted it instead. (See: chasing away moneylenders for people making pilgrimage and preventing them from affording…anything, overturning carts and cages of birds for sacrifice at the Temple)

Related: Mashiach will build the Third Temple, which Jesus obviously also didn’t do. Or rather, the Temple must have remained standing, which it obviously didn’t. [Ezekiel 37:26-28]

He will restore the religious court system of Israel and establish Jewish law as the law of the land (Jeremiah 33:15). Jesus did not restore the Sanhedrin, or restore full power to the Sanhedrin. He did not defeat the Romans or even remove Roman influence from Israel. 

Isaiah 2:4: The Mashiach will usher in an era of world peace, and end all hatred, oppression, suffering and disease. “Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall man learn war anymore.” War, disease, and oppression still exist. 

Zechariah 14:9: Spread universal knowledge of the G-d of Israel - uniting the entire human race as one: “G-d will be King over all the world—on that day, G-d will be One and His Name will be One” This also did not happen. If Jesus was the Mashiach, his followers would not have created a separate religion and accorded Jesus any divine power or status, because that divides G-d. 

Also the Mashiach must be descended on his father’s side from King David in order to be from the same tribe/lineage. As Jesus by the NT had no human father, he could not be a descendent of King David qualified to be the Mashiach. 

That one thing alone is actually quite complicated, Aish explains it in full:

Many prophetic passages speak of a descendant of King David who will rule Israel during the age of perfection. (Isaiah 11:1-9; Jeremiah 23:5-6, 30:7-10, 33:14-16; Ezekiel 34:11-31, 37:21-28; Hosea 3:4-5)

The Messiah must be descended on his father’s side from King David (see Genesis 49:10, Isaiah 11:1, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:17; Ezekiel 34:23-24). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father – and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father’s side from King David. (1) (1) In response, it is claimed that Joseph adopted Jesus, and passed on his genealogy via adoption. There are two problems with this claim: a) There is no biblical basis for the idea of a father passing on his tribal line by adoption. A priest who adopts a son from another tribe cannot make him a priest by adoption. b) Joseph could never pass on by adoption that which he doesn’t have. Because Joseph descended from Jeconiah (Matthew 1:11) he fell under the curse of that king that none of his descendants could ever sit as king upon the throne of David (Jeremiah 22:30; 36:30). (Although Jeconiah repented as discussed in Talmud Sanhedrin 37a and elsewhere, it’s not at all clear from the early sources that his repentance was accepted to the degree that the royal line continued through him. See e.g. Bereishit Rabbah 98:7 that the line continued through Zedekiah.) To answer this difficult problem, apologists claim that Jesus traces himself back to King David through his mother Mary, who allegedly descends from David, as shown in the third chapter of Luke. There are four basic problems with this claim: a) There is no evidence that Mary descends from David. The third chapter of Luke traces Joseph’s genealogy, not Mary’s. b) Even if Mary can trace herself back to David, that doesn’t help Jesus, since tribal affiliation goes only through the father, not mother. cf. Numbers 1:18; Ezra 2:59. c) Even if family line could go through the mother, Mary was not from a legitimate messianic family. According to the Bible, the Messiah must be a descendent of David through his son Solomon (2-Samuel 7:14; 1-Chronicles 17:11-14, 22:9-10, 28:4-6). The third chapter of Luke is irrelevant to this discussion because it describes lineage of David’s son Nathan, not Solomon. (Luke 3:31) d) Luke 3:27 lists Shealtiel and Zerubbabel in his genealogy. These two also appear in Matthew 1:12 as descendants of the cursed Jeconiah. If Mary descends from them, it would also disqualify her from being a messianic progenitor.

So he’s not from the appropriate potential Messianic line, he did not fulfill any of the requirements of the Jewish Mashiach, and also he missed the era of the Prophets, so he isn’t even a Jewish prophet.