Should we honor or hate Christian pilgrims to Israel?

Should we spit at their sight or run to hug them?

There is nothing wrong with seeing differences between groups of people. G^d is One, but His creation is full of differences, contrasts, and grays. When emotions rage, reason often takes a backseat. Let’s think.

No individual should be injured for the group they happen to belong to. Every individual should be held responsible for the choices s/he makes. Staying passive to not upset others or rock the boat is a choice too.

The easiest is to run to love. It’s so much nicer than hate. But love is not always better than hatred. It depends, really. It’s also easy to hate and condemn. It feels better than being scared and vulnerable. But it could alert naïve people to real dangers. Love and hate are not automatically bad. Let’s think about what and when to love and when and what to hate.

Love could be fake. I’m not only talking about supremacists pretending to love us. Some Gentiles very genuinely love us but in fact just seem to love themselves. Just like groupies love their heroes but in fact dream of their idol to love them. Just like people say: ‘I love fish’ and then eat it. They don’t really love fish; they love the feeling they get from fish.

Jew-hatred in the Churches will disappear, and Jews would be safer if 10% of the Christians who spend effort, time, and money to come here to be close to us would use these resources to fight anti-Jewish Christianity.

Christians are not Nazis. Collectively, they inspired Nazism, but most who did that are long dead. Judaism doesn’t acknowledge collective guilt.

Still, any Christian should endeavor to disavow the Crusades, Inquisition, Holocaust, and Anti-Zionism, clean the Churches and the whole world from Antisemitism and their attempts to convert Jews out of their Heritage, and to stand with the Jews and help them end their infighting they’re causing.

Still, a challenge to the Gentiles is to be a good person, and we Jews have our own challenges. Our job is to befriend, guide, and teach Gentiles. Yet, that’s not simple when they look down on you and want to proselytize you. We need to worry that they would influence us more than the other way around. A Jew who’s not worried about that is in danger, believe me. But if they don’t act like friends, a lack of education by Jews is their loss.

Having said all that, we need to have two simultaneous policies towards Christian individuals. Not just embrace them. And not just despise them. We need to be warm but on our guard. Some can be trusted, and some cannot. Millions of Christians still pray and try to rob us of our Roots. We do not need to respect that or be naïve about it. Christians who want to be our friends need to acknowledge this ongoing attempt at genocide on our culture and religion, including their misappropriations of what is ours.

We need to reject Christians who dodge responsibility by claiming that the people perpetrating the Crusades, Inquisition, Holocaust, and Anti-Zionism cannot be ‘true’ Christians. But they were and are. Clean out your stables!

Though Christians should clean up their traditions, Jews can openly dislike and reject the Trinity (the elevation of Jesus as a god) and Dualism (the elevation of Satan as a god), and also their glorification of and obsession with suffering, and criticism of Science and reasonable Earthly pleasures.

We must reject Christians brazenly ‘explaining’ Monotheism or Israel to us.

We must tell them not to dress up as Jews, not to have men and women dance together in the streets of Jewish Jerusalem, not to give non-kosher sweets to our children, and not to bless us as if they are closer to G^d.

We may reassure them they don’t need to hide their prejudices and arrogance against Jews because we can smell them from a mile away. That we don’t expect past-bound guilt but rather taking responsibility for now and onward. That we need them to take on the Missionaries, not us.

How lovely to see in the photos of the Christian Tabernacles march of 2023 in Jerusalem so many Asians—from the continent where Jews were mostly safe in WW II. May they have the grace and numbers to impact the West.

But our first responsibility is Jewish unity around worthy causes. (The Tower of Babel story shows that a good collective goal is important.) We don’t need to save Christians. They can humbly come before us to be taught. And then we shall be their humble teachers. To be that, we need to become knowledgeable and proud about our Heritage and People.

NB: Only after ultra-Orthodox Jews hurled stones at secular drivers traversing their neighborhood on Shabbat, Muslim Antisemites started hurling rocks at Jews. Only after ultra-Orthodox fanatics started spitting next to Christians, Arab Antisemites started spitting onto Jews (allegedly, because it could have been water from the air conditioning)!

About the Author

MM is a prolific and creative writer and thinker, previously a daily blog contributor to the TOI. He often makes his readers laugh, mad, or assume he's nuts—close to perfect blogging. He's proud that his analytical short comments are removed both from left-wing and right-wing news sites. None of his content is generated by the new bore on the block, AI. * As a frontier thinker, he sees things many don't yet. He's half a prophet. Half. Let's not exaggerate. Or not at all because he doesn't claim G^d talks to him. He gives him good ideas—that's all. MM doesn't believe that people observe and think in a vacuum. He, therefore, wanted a broad bio that readers interested can track a bit what (lack of) backgrounds, experiences, and educations contribute to his visions. * This year, he will prioritize getting his unpublished books published rather than just blog posts. Next year, he hopes to focus on activism against human extinction. To find less-recent posts on a subject XXX among his over 2000 archived ones, go to the right-top corner of a Times of Israel page, click on the search icon and search "zuiden, XXX". One can find a second, wilder blog, to which one may subscribe too, here: https://mmvanzuiden.wordpress.com/ or by clicking on the globe icon next to his picture on top. * Like most of his readers, he believes in being friendly, respectful, and loyal. However, if you think those are his absolute top priorities, you might end up disappointed. His first loyalty is to the truth. He will try to stay within the limits of democratic and Jewish law, but he won't lie to support opinions or people when don't deserve that. (Yet, we all make honest mistakes, which is just fine and does not justify losing support.) He admits that he sometimes exaggerates to make a point, which could have him come across as nasty, while in actuality, he's quite a lovely person to interact with. He holds - how Dutch - that a strong opinion doesn't imply intolerance of other views. * Sometimes he's misunderstood because his wide and diverse field of vision seldomly fits any specialist's box. But that's exactly what some love about him. He has written a lot about Psychology (including Sexuality and Abuse), Medicine (including physical immortality), Science (including basic statistics), Politics (Israel, the US, and the Netherlands, Activism - more than leftwing or rightwing, he hopes to highlight reality), Oppression and Liberation (intersectionally, for young people, the elderly, non-Whites, women, workers, Jews, LGBTQIA+, foreigners and anyone else who's dehumanized or exploited), Integrity, Philosophy, Jews (Judaism, Zionism, Holocaust and Jewish Liberation), the Climate Crisis, Ecology and Veganism, Affairs from the news, or the Torah Portion of the Week, or new insights that suddenly befell him. * Chronologically, his most influential teachers are his parents, Nico (natan) van Zuiden and Betty (beisye) Nieweg, Wim Kan, Mozart, Harvey Jackins, Marshal Rosenberg, Reb Shlomo Carlebach, and, lehavdil bein chayim lechayim, Rabbi Dr. Natan Lopes Cardozo, Rav Zev Leff, and Rav Meir Lubin. This short list doesn't mean to disrespect others who taught him a lot or a little. One of his rabbis calls him Mr. Innovation [Ish haChidushim]. Yet, his originalities seem to root deeply in traditional Judaism, though they may grow in unexpected directions. In fact, he claims he's modernizing nothing. Rather, mainly basing himself on the basic Hebrew Torah text, he tries to rediscover classical Jewish thought almost lost in thousands of years of stifling Gentile domination and Jewish assimilation. (He pleads for a close reading of the Torah instead of going by rough assumptions of what it would probably mean and before fleeing to Commentaries.) This, in all aspects of life, but prominently in the areas of Free Will, Activism, Homosexuality for men, and Redemption. * He hopes that his words will inspire and inform, and disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. He aims to bring a fresh perspective rather than harp on the obvious and familiar. When he can, he loves to write encyclopedic overviews. He doesn't expect his readers to agree. Rather, original minds should be disputed. In short, his main political positions are among others: anti-Trumpism, for Zionism, Intersectionality, non-violence, anti those who abuse democratic liberties, anti the fake ME peace process, for original-Orthodoxy, pro-Science, pro-Free Will, anti-blaming-the-victim, and for down-to-earth, classical optimism, and happiness. Read his blog on how he attempts to bridge any tensions between those ideas or fields. * He is a fetal survivor of the pharmaceutical industry (https://diethylstilbestrol.co.uk/studies/des-and-psychological-health/), born in 1953 to his parents who were Dutch-Jewish Holocaust survivors who met in the largest concentration camp in the Netherlands, Westerbork. He grew up a humble listener. It took him decades to become a speaker too, and decades more to admit to being a genius. But his humility was his to keep. And so was his honesty. Bullies and con artists almost instantaneously envy and hate him. He hopes to bring new things and not just preach to the choir. * He holds a BA in medicine (University of Amsterdam) – is half a doctor. He practices Re-evaluation Co-counseling since 1977, is not an official teacher anymore, and became a friendly, powerful therapist. He became a social activist, became religious, made Aliyah, and raised three wonderful kids. Previously, for decades, he was known to the Jerusalem Post readers as a frequent letter writer. For a couple of years, he was active in hasbara to the Dutch-speaking public. He wrote an unpublished tome about Jewish Free Will. He's a strict vegan since 2008. He's an Orthodox Jew but not a rabbi. * His writing has been made possible by an allowance for second-generation Holocaust survivors from the Netherlands. It has been his dream since he was 38 to try to make a difference by teaching through writing. He had three times 9-out-of-10 for Dutch at his high school finals but is spending his days communicating in English and Hebrew - how ironic. G-d must have a fine sense of humor. In case you wonder - yes, he is a bit dyslectic. If you're a native English speaker and wonder why you should read from people whose English is only their second language, consider the advantage of having an original peek outside of your cultural bubble. * To send any personal reaction to him, scroll to the top of the blog post and click Contact Me. * His newest books you may find here: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=stripbooks&rh=p_27%3AMoshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&s=relevancerank&text=Moshe-Mordechai%2FMaurits+van+Zuiden&ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1