Forum
FORUM Readers React Jesus Wasn't Christian Was Cerrotti Correctly Converted? Regarding Dennis Cerrotti's "Jesus Was Not a Christian" (October 1999): Rabbi Bernard Mehlman, who officiated at...
...My father passed away at the end of July, and although I will mourn his loss for years, your article brought a smile as well as tears...
...Munch can see nothing wrong in what he did...
...The Orthodox believe that anyone born deaf is mentally retarded...
...All the other candles are symbolic...
...I daresay there might never have been an Allegra Goodman or an Ehud Havazelet hail there not been a Grace Paley...
...This Jew had no trouble choosing a Reform shul...
...My father was a gentle, caring man, and it was one of the highlights of his life to be able to help bring a Torah to his small Texas community...
...I was bar mitzvahed Orthodox, but my Jewish identity was saved by joining a Reform synagogue after marriage...
...Lisa Solomon Rockaway, New Jersey Sue K. Levine Cherry Hill...
...He proposes that "one can be bound to opposites" and that, ''these are the elements that many, if not most, converts bring to the Jewish table...
...Name one messianic thing Jesus did...
...Texas Picking a Reform Shul Is Easy How you can continue to print Prager's garbage is beyond me...
...I hope Moment did not publish this item because of Cerrotti's background as a Christian minister...
...Rabbi Jacob Chinitz Montreal, Quebec...
...New Hampshire Moment Plugs Jews for Jesus The article by a former Baptist minister, now a convert to Judaism, sounded more like a propaganda ploy for Jews for Jesus than an account of a wholehearted passage to the Jewish religion...
...The husband would fill down in the dark when he came home from shul Friday evening...
...I am as comfortable sitting next to a congregant (man or woman) with head-to-toe tallit (prayer shawl) as he or she is with my uncovered bald head...
...History has shown that it has been a dangerous precedent...
...Michael P. Fruitman Fairfax, Virginia Shabbat Candles Women Light Candles So Men Won't Trip In your discussion of candle lighting for Shabbat (Perspectives, October 1999) you discuss the reason that Jewish women are responsible for lighting the Shabbat candles...
...Munch has no remorse for putting an entire hut of sick people to death...
...Readers may hold differing opinions as to solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
...Shawamreh says he just wants a roof over his head...
...It therefore appears that they are well meaning but naive do-gooders or, in Shalom Goldstein's words, "They're not interested in the truth, they're interested in supporting their political line...
...For instance, Capt...
...The file with the signatures accompanying the original application has been "lost...
...Would you rather apply die literal eye for eye in the Torah or substitute monetary compensation as per the Talmud...
...Peter Lemer, a spokesman for Israel's Civil Administration, says Shawamreh's home was denied a permit because of proximity to a by-pass road, and because two co-owners of the property had not signed a release...
...New York Jesus Dropped Torah As a United Methodist minister for nearly 20 years, I read with interest the article by Dennis Cerrotti...
...By "following Jesus," Cerrotti is living as a Christian (albeit, in his anachronistic case, an early Christian...
...Rabbi Arik W. Ascherman Jerusalem, Israel Forget the Palestinians...
...If I still found Jesus relevant, I'd have remained a Christian...
...In the Jewish tradition that would be called gzeilah [theft...
...Rabbi Stanley Rabinowitz Washington, DC And Furthermore...
...That we are even wondering, 50 years after the Holocaust, whether a Nazi doctor at Auschwitz should be considered a Righteous Person in Israel is frightening...
...Martin J. Weisman Westlake Village, California A Rescuer Passes Thank you for including the article about the Jewish community of the Texas hill country', and my father, Herman Miller ("Rescued Again," October 1999...
...Your decision to treat the question in such a serious manner underscores its importance...
...The Danger of Honoring Munch Your important article on the 'good' Nazi doctor was chilling, almost surreal—and hauntingly compelling...
...Lewis A. Rockman Butner, North Carolina Nazi Doctor This Doctor Is No Righteous Gentile Dr...
...Of all our complex candle rituals—which includes Hanukkah candles, yartzeit candles, yizkor candles, die iter tmnid (eternal light), and havdallth candles—Shabbat candles are the least symbolic and the most functional...
...Open any side door of halachah, such as candle lighting for Shabbat, and it will lead you to the unavoidable conclusion that laws were added, even against Torah law, and that halachah allows (even demands) change—not because the Torah is not divine, but because even a divine Torah is human...
...But if you read your own writer's words, "Mr...
...Shawamreh was fully aware when he bought the plot that it would be problematic to build on it...
...But if a man lives alone, he must light the candles...
...These were the last of a string of reasons given...
...So how's this for a fact: Government statistics show that the percentage of homes declared illegal that are actually demolished is 50 to 80 percent higher for Arab homes dian for Jewish homes in any given year...
...Torah is the reason I wish to be a Jew...
...I disagree...
...The Reform conversion ceremony requires that the potential convert answer yes to the following question: "Have you given up your former faith and severed all other religious affiliations...
...If he wants a roof over his head, why not move to the Gaza Strip...
...Sherry Fischer Denver, Colorado...
...Would you rather kill witches according to Torah law or suspend the law as the rabbis suspended it...
...it is my understanding of the way of God...
...Shawamreh does not sound like a law-abiding citizen of a democracy...
...Yet in the German magazine Dei-Spiegel, he admits doing exacdy that...
...The obligation is for the house, not for the person...
...And we say, "Blessed art Thou...
...Guinter Kahn, MD North Miami Beach, Florida Read the article more carefully—perhaps more subtly.—Ed...
...Rabbi Mehlman told me that Cerrotti was asked this question and that he answered affirmatively...
...I am disturbed Moment chose to publicize Cerrotti's views, thereby allowing a Christian ministry to obtain a dangerous foothold in a Jewish magazine...
...Wake up Moment, and for the moment act and write like responsible journalists...
...Move to Gaza You think you can have your cake and eat it too...
...Why turn to a Christian deity when we have our own tzaddikivi (righteous people) to direct us...
...Surely, maintaining ties to those Christians we love is vital, but suggesting Jews, especially converts, spend time on Cerrotti's beliefs that Jesus is "a very special person and the best example of a messiah that this world has yet seen" can dilute one's energies away from the Cod whose message and messengers are found in Torah...
...But I'm startled by the omission of Grace Paley and Henry Roth...
...Doris G. Rosenberg New York...
...I have been a physician for 40 years, and when I read the original article, I wanted to vomit...
...Alan Levitt Brooklyn, New York Just the Facts I want to commend Moment for choosing an article on home demolitions as the cover story for October...
...It is simply not true that a person declining to reject the idea of Jesus as Messiah can still live "a full Jewish life...
...Regarding Dennis Cerrotti's "Jesus Was Not a Christian" (October 1999): Rabbi Bernard Mehlman, who officiated at Cerrom's conversion, is a highly respected Reform rabbi who assured me the conversion was kosher...
...He told Der Spiegel the prisoners would have died anyway because of experiments performed on them by another Nazi doctor named Clauberg...
...New Jersey Demolishing Homes Want a House...
...He now belongs to the Christians, and to follow Jesus makes one a Christian...
...As for your ostensible anxiety to base observance on Torah rather than Talmud, on God rather than the rabbis, I suspect you are not serious in that line of thought...
...For this reason alone, our highly educated rabbis, who are students of religious history, should be able to place him in the Jewish context, differentiating him from the theology of Paul/Saul and the subsequent anti-Jewish stance of the church...
...Hans Munch tells Moment he did not inject Auschwitz prisoners with strep and staph bacteria after pulling out their teeth ("The 'Good' Nazi Doctor," October 1999...
...Cerrotti's line that Jesus is "the best example of a messiah that this world has yet seen" is too close to the line of the evangelical Christian sects dedicated to converting Jews like Jews for Jesus...
...New York If Jesus Was Relevant, I'd Stay Christian As a prospective convert myself, 1 feel Dennis Cerrotti's article obfuscates, rather than illuminates...
...Here was a Jewish man, grounded solidly in Jewish tradition, who clearly had no intention of forming a new religion...
...Now I want to vomit again because you have been hoodwinked into writing an article in which you have the gall to suggest Dr...
...The truth is, although there might have been a "Jewish Jesus" at one time, there is no longer...
...Over a year and a half later, the Civil Administration has not revealed names of the two co-owners...
...And since when do citizens of a democracy take the law into their own hands...
...Yet his existence came to underlie much of Western civilization...
...O Lord our God, Ruler of the universe, Who has commanded us to kindle the Hanukkah Candles," Perhaps God is to be found in the collective consciousness of die Jewish people...
...All the passages for punishing the woman for failing to light candles are agadtib (narrative).The halacbab (religious law) of the matter is quite simple and utilitarian: The house should be lit up on Shabbat because otherwise shalom bayit (peace in the home) would be endangered...
...After the home was demolished a road was started on the opposite hill, and then halted...
...Jesus' teachings were no greater than those of the thousands of rabbis and teachers who have taught us Torah throughout the millennia...
...Hanukkah candles are not supposed to be used for light...
...We have a wonderful choir consisting of men and women...
...Rabbi Mehlman also assured me that Cerrotti understood he could not be both a Baptist and a Jew simultaneously...
...Arlene Horowitz Fort Lee...
...Joanne Cruber New York, New York Reviving Freeze-Dried Liturgy In "A Recipe For Comfort" (Column, October 1999), Dennis Prager says that he finds more spirituality and closeness to God in Torah study than in prayer...
...Charles Ferns Memphis, Tennessee Jews Should Come to Terms with Jesus After 2,000 years, Jews should conic to terms with the tragic figure of the historic Jesus the Jew...
...Nelson Marans Silver Spring...
...Why should we look to Jesus for our instruction on living a Jewish life when we have such luminaries as Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Akiva, the Vilna Gaon, the Ba'al Shem Tov, the Chofetz Chaim, and Rav Kook...
...You asked, "Where is it commanded that we light Shabbat candles...
...Canada Why Light Hanukkah Candles...
...However, Jesus substituted himself and his way for Torah...
...New Jersey Jews Must Reject Jesus as Messiah Dennis Cerrotti is mistaken that Judaism rejects only Jesus' divinity, and not his messiahship...
...Had there been no Arab invasion with the attempted stated purpose of annihilating Israel in 1948, there would have been no reason for Arabs to leave...
...Prager writes: "For Jews who do not believe in the traditional Orthodox service, choosing a shul is difficult...
...No conversion ceremony can change that fact—no matter how "traditional...
...The official reasons given for demolitions are often transparent attempts at veiling the political reality...
...Maryland Jesus Was No Hillel Cerrotti sees no conflict in his "following Jesus" and converting to Judaism...
...By using the traditional core of Jewish prayer, enlivened by hasidic uiggnnim (religious melodies), dance, movement, music, meditation, visualization, chanting, and so forth, the "freeze-dried" liturgy is brought once again to passionate life...
...All the Hebrew spoken is translated into English so we can understand the prayers...
...Shabbat candles are explicidy for light...
...I am convinced that the historic Jesus would be horrified by what is being taught in his name...
...He encourages our synagogues and schools to talk about Jesus more because he was "a very special person and the best example of a messiah that this world has yet seen...
...Indeed, one may conclude that God is a synonym for the collective consciousness ot the Jewish historic experience...
...Mr...
...The Orthodox believe it is a sin to listen to a woman's singing voice...
...The real catastrophe of that era was the brutal expulsion of some 700,000 Jews from Arab countries (Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Morocco, and Libya, to name a few) and the seizure by Arab governments of over SI 1 billion worth of Jewish property and assets...
...These writers have been far-reaching in their influence on die way we think and on the way their successors write...
...And Roth's Call It Sleep is one of die most acclaimed American novels of the century...
...denied a building permit three times, he decided to build anyway...
...And consider: Since 1967, 80 percent of the private land expropriated in Jerusalem has been from Palestinians and none of that land had been designated for Palestinian use...
...I read with interest and enthusiasm .Anne Roiphe's "From Jewish Writing to Writing Jewish" (October 1999), as well as the "Bookshelf" sidebar...
...We Jews should not let outsiders define us...
...But contemporary Jews can rediscover a Hasidic fervor in prayer within the transdenominational Jewish Renewal movement...
...You laud the fact that Israel is a democracy, yet you criticize Israel for its demolition policy ("Demolishing Arab Homes," October 1999...
...In fact, I read it three times...
...However, I would hope they would agree, as have several Likud MK's with whom I have spoken, that policy goals should not be accomplished through the violation of human rights...
...While I'm sure those proposing this honor do so from conviction, it seems a dangerous, slippery slope in a world in which many believe the Holocaust never even took place...
...Munch might be a righteous gentile...
...I am currently enrolled in a class for converts and inquirers at Temple Israel, Memphis...
...I also wonder: "Where is it commanded that we light the Hanukkah candles...
...But while the article presents the government case in terms of facts and statistics, demolition opponents are simply quoted offering opinions and affective statements...
...Bette-Jean Black Long Beach, California Jesus Wouldn't Recognize "Christianity" I wrote my master's thesis on the Jewish roots of Christianity...
...Nowhere in the Bible is the Festival of Hanukkah even mentioned, much less the commandment to light its seven candles...
...Julie Hilton Danan San Antonio...
...At my present synagogue we have a female assistant rabbi who was born deaf, and she is an inspiration to the congregation...
...How Can You Forget Paley and Roth...
...It is true that Jesus was a Jew...
...Rabbi Joshua L. Segal Amherst...
...Jewish Refugees Abound Moment's promotion of Palestinian housing is evangelism...
...Rabbi Mark Sameth Pleasantville...
Vol. 25 • February 2000 • No. 1
