Not Just "Surrection"

Passover and Easter have brought forth a miracle: Uncle Jay explaining the news without once mentioning Sandra Bullock, 24, the iPad, or trained dragons playing hoops. The rest is the good stuff. Haha, April Fool!



[via UncleJayExplains]

The Star Wars Holiday Special "Changed" Christmas forever (enjoy it here, if you dare!) Will it do it to Hannukah?

The Greatest Offense

A week from Friday is Good Friday, a most solemn day for Christians. It is also a problem day for Jews, and for the evident Christian majority which is (or wants to be) sensitive to the sensibilities of Jews. For centuries the most painful element in the Roman Catholic liturgy came from the Good Friday litany in the Latin Rite, which began: "Let us pray for the perfidious Jews: That Almighty God may remove the veil from their hearts so that they too may acknowledge Jesus Christ our Lord..." There was also reference to "Jewish faithlessness" and "blindness." In 1960 an offended and thoughtful Pope John XXIII deleted "faithless" (perfidis); in 1970 the prayer was radically altered. So far, so good.

Last summer Pope Benedict XVI allowed for reversion to the world and words of pre-1970, to a 1962 Missal version of the liturgy. This act was received ambiguously by American Jewish leadership. The American Jewish Committee expressed "appreciation" for some of the papal steps forward, but the Anti-Defamation League called the pope's action "a theological setback" and a "body blow" to Catholic-Jewish relations. On February 6 the Vatican announced an emendation of the 1962 Missal. Tradition-hungry Catholics will now pray this revision: "Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge Jesus Christ is the Savior of all men…grant that even as the fullness of the peoples enters Thy Church, all Israel be saved…"

Recently I conversed with a Jewish professor of New Testament at a largely Christian theological school, and expected her to speak of "setback" and "body blow." To my surprise, she said that while all such prayers make Jews uncomfortable, given the painful history we inherit, she thought that the notion of one faith-community praying for the spread of its faith to others was not the highest offense. "Many do it." OK. {continue...}

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Hasidic Hallowe'en?

It's not just another Hasidic zombie movie. "Hold on for the most violent, sexually explicit experience since your bris."

Takeaway quote: "There are Jews on the lawn. Zombie Jews!"{more}

[via The Wittenburg Blog]

Oh, Sup...rising.

Ann Coulter's Supersessionism

[via Ponderings on a Faith Journey]

Reminders of the Jews

Just in time for Yom Kippur...{continue...}

[via The Wittenburg Blog]

Will You Pass Over?

Image by Br. Robert Lentz, ofm [more images]
Commentary featured at Trinity Stores

Captive Daughter of Zion

For centuries Christians have called Mary the Ark of the Covenant. As they used other Jewish titles for her, seldom have they accepted the fact that she was a Jew.

If Mary had lived in Nazi Germany, Mary would have been thrown into a concentration camp with other members of her race. Jewish Mary is the archetype of the Christian church,...

In this icon Mary wears a large yellow Star of David with the word "Jew" on her left shoulder. The Nuremberg Laws forced all Jews in Nazi territories to wear this badge. Jesus is wearing a paper shawl over his Byzantine garments and is holding the Torah. The Hebrew inscription at the bottom of the icon reads: "Captive Daughter of Zion," and is taken from Isaiah 52.2, a text in which God promises to deliver Israel from bondage. In the background is the barbed wire fence of a concentration camp.