Pope Urban II
Rabbi Michael Skobac is a Jewish apologist involved with an organization called Jews For Judaism. His organization specifically argues against groups like Jews For Jesus and similar groups. For this I can’t really blame him since those groups often use dishonest tactics that bring their ethics and integrity into question. I should also point out that Rabbi Skobac seems like a very kind individual whom I could see myself having a meal with or maybe watching a Blue Jays game.
Regardless, he has said things that I object to. Here is the Youtube talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_e8WO7FdoU
The talk is about the history of how the Christians persecuted Jews. I would say that some of the information is true and some is false.
For example at 34:30, he talks about how the Crusaders of the First Crusade massacred Jews in Germany before going to the Holy Land. Rabbi Skobac fails to mention that Pope Urban II at the Council of Clermont where the Crusade was called, never ordered such a massacre. Five versions of his famous speech exist and in none of them he tells them to attack Jews in Europe. They did this on their own.
Rabbi Skobac also fails to mention that the Catholic Bishops attempted to protect the Jews of Germany. They hid them their homes to protect them from these vandals.
A Jewish Chronicler from Mainz wrote: “When Bishop John heard, he came with a large force and helped the [Jewish] community wholeheartedly and brought them indoors and saved them from their [the crusaders’ and burghers’] hands. He seized some of the burghers and “cut off their hands.” He was a pious one among the nations. Indeed God brought about well-being and salvation through him.”
This Chronicle is found on page 114 of Edward Peters book The First Crusade which provides numerous first hand accounts of the first Crusade, including Jewish ones.
Why does Rabbi Skobac not mention that the Pope never ordered it and Bishop John sought to save them? Either his scholarship is poor or he’s being dishonest. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say his scholarship is poor.
That’s just one example of skewed data in Rabbi Skobac’s presentation. However, the biggest objection to his talk is when he talks about the holocaust at the very end.
Basically Rabbi Skobac blames Christianity for the holocaust. Here’s my question to Rabbi Skobac and anyone else who holds this view:
If the Christian religion is so anti-Semitic and laid the fertile ground for the holocaust, why did the holocaust not happen in the dark ages? Why didn’t it happen in the year 1302 when Pope Boniface VIII published his famous bull Unam Sanctam? Europe was thoroughly Catholic, the Pope was the highest authority in Europe and maybe even the world and the Church could essentially do anything it wished. There was not a hint of secularism in those days among the Jews or Gentiles of Europe. If the Pope wanted every Jew in Europe dead he could have easily had it that way.
The Jews of the dark ages denied Christ just as much as the Jews in 20th century Europe did. The only difference was that a Jew in the dark ages who converted would be fully accepted in the Christian community whereas a Jew who converted to Christianity in 20th century Europe would still be targeted by the German government. A good example is Edith Stein, a Jew who converted to Catholicism who was executed in Auschwitz and is now a Catholic Saint. Is it a Christian thing to execute someone of Jewish background who is a Christian?
My question stands Rabbi Skobac. If the holocaust was Christian or semi-Christian, why didn’t it happen when Christianity was in 100% control and not when it had been reduced to social club status with little cultural influence like Germany in the 20th century?
I think antisemitism has clear roots in the New Testament itself. Its in the DNA of the Christian faith sadly.
Thanks for the reply. I would disagree. Antisemitism is racial. If what you said was true then every Christian would hate Jesus, Mary, Paul, Peter, James, and John. It is certainly anti-Judiasm, no question there, but not antisemitic. The NT also commands us to love our neighbours so the holocaust can’t be justified by the NT. If you say the Jews are enemies and not neighbours, well we’re commanded to love them as well.
Would you be willing to answer the question I gave to the Rabbi? Why didn’t the holocaust happen when the Church was in complete control of Europe?
Odd anachronistic question. If God wanted to save humanity through the sacrifice of his son, why didn’t he crucify him in the garden?
Don’t know. It is never revealed in scripture. It also isn’t the topic of this post. I have talked about similar things in previous posts though. Feel free to check them out.
Once upon a time, an ( all loving god) had kept teaching his eye’s apple( Israelites) that he is not a man, and he doesn’t change.
He had kept teaching them that they have to keep his ( perfect law) to be holy for more than 1500 years. Although that law can’t make anyone be saved, and it cannot be kept according to Christians, that all loving god had kept punishing his beloved people for breaking it!
When all the sudden he decided to reveal the reality for his beloved people because he is ( all loving!) , he came to hang out with parables in a such that even his own disciples couldn’t figure out what it’s going on.
After this story based on ” love”, christians kept harrasing jews or persecuting them for almost 1700 years becuase jews killed Christians’ god, and jews didn’t believe of what’s obvious!
Jesus has already declared that jews are( sons of satan).
Have anyone heard more loving story than this ?
BTW, jews still have to acknowledge that Christians are peaceful, and they have never been toward antisemitism.
Absolutely brilliant! You refuted every single one of my arguments. I’ve never met a more cunning mind. That’s why they pay you the big bucks.
Wait…you actually didn’t refute a thing that I said but instead showed your ignorance of the scriptures, Christian history, and Jewish history, etc.
You gave absolutely no examples of Jews being harassed by Christians because they killed God. I challenge you to do so. Let me give you an example(something you didn’t do). When Pope Paul IV put the Jews into the Roman Ghetto it was not because they killed or rejected God but because of the way they were behaving. Yet when I was 20 years old and was in Rome, a Jewish man told me that Pope Paul IV put them in the ghetto for “rejecting the saviour” which is a complete lie. I believed him because like you, I didn’t think. I just believed what I heard.
When you think about it now it’s pretty absurd. The Jews rejected Christ long before Pope Paul IV. Other historically examples could be given.
If you can give me an example of a well known Catholic who has engaged in antisemitism, I would like to see it. Remember, I said antisemitism, not antijudaism or antizionism.
Please don’t forget about the many forgotten Holocausts: http://redneck_rastafarian.tripod.com/forgotten.html
Christianity was a necessary condition but not a sufficient one for the magnitude of the Shoah. If the Cossacks had access to railway cars, machine guns, and Zyklon B, do you think they would have abstained? A pogrom is only as lethal as its weakest link.
I would argue that Darwinian nihilism was the new kid on the block, standing on the shoulders of Luther’s On The Jews and Their Lies. Idolaters throughout History have persecuted the recipients of the Torah. I don’t envy them in the world to come.
Thank you for at least sticking to the subject.
This is a common argument. Although Christianity wasn’t directly responsible for the holocaust, it laid the spadework for Jew hatred. You need to remember that Jews are responsible for a lot of hatred towards themselves at the time of the Nazi Third Reich. From Marx(grandson of two orthodox rabbis) onwards, many Jews fell in love with communism and when they came to power in many parts of Eastern Europe they would suppress many populations, murder their priests and take all of the good jobs for themselves. That’s not exactly a formula for winning people over. I recommend that you read Fr. Fahey’s book: “The Rulers of Russia”.
In the book, we read: “On page 29 of Les Derniers lours des Romanof, we read: “In order not to leave myself open to any accusation of prejudice, I am giving (on pages 136-137) the list of the members of the Central Committee, of the Extraordinary’ Commission and l i e Council of Commissars functioning at the time of the assassina tion of the Imperial Family, The 62 members of the Committee
were composed of 5 Russians, 1 Ukrainian, 6 Letts, 2 Germans, 1 Czech, 2 Armenians, 3 Georgians, 1 Karaim (Jewish sect), 41 Jews.1 The extraordinary Commission of Moscow was composed of 36 members, including 1 German, 1 Pole, 1 Armenian, 2 Rus sians, 8 Letts, 23 Jews. The Council of the People’s Commissars numbered 2 Armenians, 3 Russians, 17 Jews. According to the data furnished by the Soviet Press, out of 556 important func tionaries of the Bolshevik State, including the above-mentioned,
there were in 1918-1919, 17 Russians, 2 Ukrainians, 11 Arme nians, 35 Letts, 15 Germans, 1 Hungarian, 10 Georgians, 3 Poles, 3 Finns, 1 Czech, 1 Karaim, 457 Jews.”
The was the case in many countries. The Hungarian government was overwhelmingly Jewish as well.
If you read the writings of Justin Martyr from the second century, he talks about an evil Jewish man named Barcochba persecuting the Jewish Christians in the Holy Land during his rebellion. In the seventh century the Jews allied with the Persians to sack Jerusalem and killed 90,000 Byzantine Christian civilians. No side is innocent.
You like to imagine that the Jews have been pure as snow and innocent as doves for the last 2000 years. That’s not true at all. They have persecuted others as well.
I am not an expert on what the Cossacks did but I know that E. Michael Jones has written about that subject extensively and what happened leading up to that. Martin Luther departed greatly from the Christian tradition and I am no fan of his. Also, this is a Catholic blog, I would prefer Catholic examples. The Cossacks were Eastern Orthodox and Luther was a Protestant. Catholics have always let Jews live in their lands unharmed provided they behaved properly and didn’t engage in immorality and usury.
You lastly said: “Idolaters throughout History have persecuted the recipients of the Torah. I don’t envy them in the world to come.”
I should point out that the religion of the Old Testament doesn’t exists today. Judaism today was founded between 70 AD and 500 AD. It has little to do with the religion of the scriptures. The religion of the OT had a priesthood, sacrifices, a Temple, a monarch, a theocratic kingdom of Israel(not a secular state) and most certainly did not have an Oral Torah. That is not the religion that modern Jews practice today. Judaism today is essentially a debating society founded by diaspora Jews when the Biblical religion ended in the first century. The Catholic Church has been at the forefront for 2,000 years in uniting Jews to God. If you read the book Before the Dawn, you can read about how the Chief Rabbi of Rome came to know Christ and was baptized by Pope Pius XII himself.
When Jews stray from the Torah they are capable of evil. And when Gentiles depart from their 7 Laws they’ll defend the slaughter of millions of civilians — given how “no side is innocent.”
“You like to imagine that the Jews have been pure as snow and innocent as doves for the last 2000 years.”
Don’t put words in my mouth. It’s unsanitary. There’s a Great Book filled with Jews lapsing into every manner of sin. It’s written better than Cormac McCarthy. You should read it with fresh eyes, without presupposing the a priori truth of anything subsequent. It’s called the Torah. (In Numbers 14 Moses dissuades God from destroying everyone with the suggestion that it will lower His prestige in the eyes of the other nations. There’s something zany and wonderful and shatteringly beautiful there.) Jews lapsing into idolatry and worse is only news to the illiterate. We must encourage our Jewish brothers & sisters to study Torah. (I defend the 7 Laws of Noah to secular Jews on a regular basis, and implore them to return to our Father, to affirm the 13 Principles of Judaism at the very least.)
THIS IS THE IMPORTANT THING, regardless of who’s naughty or nice: the Jewish people heard the voice of Hashem, the ultimate, non-contingent Source of all Being, the metaphysical Bottom Line of Reality, the only “entity” who’s existence and essence are coextensive, within whom is fused all potentiality and actuality and knowledge and meaning and Truth and power and love and He dictated a Book to their leader. The Torah is the only self-authenticating Revelation in all History: http://www.mesora.org/god No other “religion” starts out like this! And Deuteronomy boasts about it: http://www.morashasyllabus.com/class/torahm'sinai1.pdf
It was written directly by God Himself. Moses was His faithful Boswell. The Torah was originally written “974 generations” before the Creation, in “letters of black fire on a scroll of white fire.” It is what you call the “logos.” The entire creation is derivative of the Torah. It contains 613 commandments binding “for all generations.” Not one, NOT ONE says “Be on the lookout for the Messiah, my son, and worship him.” (Exodus 4:22 says the son of God is Israel. Numbers 23:19 says God is not a man. Deut 6 says He is ONE.) All punishments in the Torah are for deviations from it. Deuteronomy 26:1-29:8 contains warnings about the current Exile. (Chapter 28 stands as the most horrifying thing ever written.) There isn’t even a mitzvah to “accept the messiah” Because when he comes it will be obvious; no “faith” will be required. Deuteronomy 13 is a warning about Jesus. Miracle workers who entice you follow gods your forefathers didn’t know deserve the death penalty.
Now you’ve officially gone off topic. I’m well aware that most Jews depart from God both in the OT and in the NT. There were only 7,000 who hadn’t worshipped Baal at one point.
Also, if you go to the portion of Genesis that deals with Noah, you don’t find those seven laws. You find one or two. The Torah was written 974 generations before creation? Believe that if you want but don’t be surprised if I don’t.
You keep talking about how the Torah doesn’t command everyone to believe in the Messiah. The Torah actually doesn’t have to do much with the Messiah at all. The Prophets deal more with the Messiah. Regardless, that is nothing to do with the post.
I want you to answer the challenge that I asked Rabbi Skobac. I’ll lay it out again.
“If the Christian religion is so anti-Semitic and laid the fertile ground for the holocaust, why did the holocaust not happen in the dark ages? Why didn’t it happen in the year 1302 when Pope Boniface VIII published his famous bull Unam Sanctam? Europe was thoroughly Catholic, the Pope was the highest authority in Europe and maybe even the world and the Church could essentially do anything it wished. There was not a hint of secularism in those days among the Jews or Gentiles of Europe. If the Pope wanted every Jew in Europe dead he could have easily had it that way.”
If you want to say that they didn’t have mass transport or Zyklon B, that won’t work. Pol Pot managed to kill millions with machetes and strangulation. You don’t need fancy technology for a mass murder. Answer the question and stick to the issues.