Three Messiahs

Jesus Christ, Bar Kokhba and Shabbtai Zvi,

three Jews who problematically

claimed God appointed them to be messiahs,

suffered from the same delusion, for all three

were far more praised by pro-Semitic media

than by heavenly choirs.

That Jesus’ claim survives is the main reason

for tides of joy in every Christmastimely season,

echoing joy of Jews when lighting a menorah,

as Jesus did, presumably no Hanukkah ignorer.

I don’t know whether Jesus ever celebrated Hanukkah,

suggestion that I make which cannot be disproved,

although I’ll add one that is even manicker:

of Handel’s “Messiah” he might well have disapproved.

Jewish theologians who like Rabbi Irving Greenberg put Jesus into a category they call “failed messiah” are rightly criticized by Alon Goshen-Gottstein, who, quoted by Eliezer Finkelman, in “Soloveitchik’s Children’s “Orthodox” Pluralism,” Tradition Online, December 8, 2024, describes this perspective as amounting to “interreligious colonialism.”

On the other hand, one reason that I describe the colonialistically interreligous suggestion in the last verse of this poem as one that is possibly “even manicker” than the others is that a close reading of the libretto of Handel’s “Messiah” by his librettist Charles Jennens reveals that Jennens permeated it with a strong anti-Semitic message, of which Handel may not have been aware.