Beyond Rome
Beyond Rome is a podcast that seeks to reconnect Catholics with their Hebraic and Christian roots in the Near East. Hosted by Simone Rizkallah, she and her guests explore a variety of topics related to religion and culture in the West and why the Near East matters for a healthy Church and world. Beyond Rome looks beyond the West to understand what makes the Catholic Church truly universal.
Beyond Rome
Panel on Gen Z Religious Revival, Hebrew Catholics, & Future Jewish-Catholic Relations
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Moderator Peter Wolfgang, President of Family Institute of Connecticut Action, speaks with three young Jewish Catholic panelists about their personal experiences and their thoughts on current cultural and societal difficulties.
Panelists:
- Yarden Zelivansky, Co-host of The Voice of Jacob
- Gideon Lazar, Co-host of The Voice of Jacob
- Aviva Lund
Hosted by the Coalition of Catholics Against Antisemitism in collaboration with Benedictine College, the Shoulder to Shoulder Conference brought together scholars and leaders committed to fostering friendship, combating antisemitism, and strengthening Catholic-Jewish relations.
You know, Dr. Crane opened up this conference this morning by uh describing Simone as a visionary, and I think she is. We're very grateful to her, to the Coalition of Catholics against anti-Semitism and to Benedictin College for holding this conference, and we're grateful to all of you for being here. It's been quite a day so far, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_09Yeah.
SPEAKER_08So as Simone said, we have um several speakers here for this panel uh around a theme. They are all Generation Z, and they are all in one form or another Jewish Catholics. And I'd like to break that down. We have uh Yarden, who is Israeli and is a uh Jew who converted to Catholicism. We have uh Gideon, who's an American, who's a Jew who converted to Catholicism, and uh Aviva, who is an ethnically Jewish cradle Catholic. So these experiences run kind of parallel to each other, but they're not exactly identical. And I thought maybe we'd explore that uh a little bit. Beginning with you, Yarden. Thank you so much for streaming in. What is it like to be a uh an Israeli Jew who has served in the IDF and has converted to Catholicism? We want to hear about it.
SPEAKER_00I think uh it's mostly surprisingly benign. People expect, you know, very very severe persecution on an everyday basis. Um, and certainly for some people that may be the case. I can't say I hide my faith. Uh my IDF gear is marked with Jerusalem crosses all over uh instead of the usual method of using initials. I wear my crucifix, you know, everywhere I go. Um my car is also marked with a Jerusalem cross. And I can't say life is too complicated for me as a Christian. Generally, people seem to just not really care uh when they hear my accent or the lack of accent in Hebrew. Sometimes they kind of wonder, and then a very interesting personal or theological conversation begins. Um but it seems to me that especially since October 7th, there's been a shift in how Israelis view what kind of makes you a part of the nation of Israel. Um and while a lot of people will stick still stick to halachic lines, it seems to me a view has become more common that it's about joining your fate with the fate of the nation of Israel. So even if they think you're errant in your theology, um, but you see yourself as a part of the nation of Israel, and and you you do what everybody else does to to be a part of the nation of Israel, that seems to be more important to sheeple than what you believe.
SPEAKER_08That's very interesting. So you don't um you don't experience uh any any sort of hostility or discrimination for the fact that you converted to Christianity in Israel.
SPEAKER_00It seems to me a lot of a lot of the problems people speak of in Israel are kind of centered in Jerusalem. So I don't live in Jerusalem, I live near Tel Aviv. Uh my friends who live in Jerusalem do experience some of the spitting and the cursing that you hear about. Um, but I've never experienced it anywhere else. I I I've run errands in ultra-Orthodox towns wearing my crucifix. Nobody ever said anything, nobody ever did anything. Um life is just completely normal, except I go to church on Sunday, uh, which is not not very common in Israeli society.
SPEAKER_08Can I ask you about serving in the IDF as a Christian? What is that like? Is it is it different?
SPEAKER_00I think first it's important to mention that it's more common than people think. Um we tend to talk about about 2% of the population in Israel being Christian, and that's because, in terms of registration, that normally applies to Arabic-speaking Christians, um, Armenians, Melkites, and so on. If you count messianic Jews and people who are of Jewish origin, of a Russian Jewish background, some estimates speak of between 30 and 50,000 uh Jewish believers in Israel. So the um the amount of Christians you meet in the IDF is is much greater than people expect. In my battalion alone, during this war, I've met three or four other Christians, Rush Russian Orthodox. Um and the IDF, I think three or four of the soldiers who've been killed in combat uh were Christians belonging to some denomination. Um so again, it's a it's it's a surprisingly benign experience. People you're there alongside other people in the military, naturally, people from all across the religious and political spectrum come together to serve their country. Um and that's this is just another another difference. Uh it could be a lefty and somebody else has more right-wing opinions, or more realistically the other way around. Um, and that's a difference that we have to work through. Religious differences tend to be no different. Um at first joining the reserve during this war, I was a little bit anxious. Um, but I decided to do what seemed to me the the right thing and just put crosses on everything and be uh treated as if it's nothing, as if everybody here is a Christian. And I think 50% of it is the confidence. If you're confident about your faith in Christ in Israel, um you'll you'll get into a lot of very interesting discussion and experience very little friction.
SPEAKER_08Thank you. Thank you. I've got uh I want to go to the other two panelists, but I have one other one last question for you. Could you could you tell us briefly? I mean, it's an unusual journey, I as far as I'm aware. What caused you um as a as a Jewish Israeli a member of the IDF to convert to Catholicism?
SPEAKER_00A woman, no. Um my my journey, my journey following Jesus did start with me kind of talking theology with a girl when I was 16. We ended up being married and now have three kids. Um and it took me through a lot of different places. Uh and I was actually one of Jehovah's Witnesses for about 10 years before I discovered that church history goes way back way more way earlier. Starts way earlier than I thought. Uh I got to know the apostolic fathers, and when I read them, it was pretty undeniable that it's the Catholic Church they're talking about. Uh and from there, the the transition into the Catholic Church was um theologically easy, socially very difficult. Um, but I'm 34. I've been a Christian in one way or another since I was 16, so that's more than half of my life at this point.
SPEAKER_08Thank you. Thank you. Aviva, we just heard um um Yardin talk about his journey to Catholicism. In my experience, there's now a growing body of literature about Jewish Catholics, but they are mostly about, as with Yarden, as with Gideon, uh, your co-panelists, about Jews who converted to Catholicism. What's it like to be an ethnic Jew who is a cradle Catholic Catholic?
SPEAKER_02Oh man, um I think I need to have more confidence, Yardan. Um, when I'm talking to my Jewish brethren. Um yeah, well, growing up, it it wasn't just a Jewish family that were different from my belief. My father's side is Danish, and so I've been surrounded by atheists, agnostics, Protestants, so on. So Jewish was just one of them. But I think that has remained the most awkward for me um over my short life. Um my experience growing up, um well, awkward, but also beautiful. Um I have my first cousins, second cousins, and third cousins. Um I have uh Jewish, like they're practicing Jews across all of that. And my first cousins grew up in uh Connecticut, like me. Most of them are in Israel now, and I was able to celebrate Shabbat's with them. And so that was a very special experience for me growing up, being able to share my Jewish roots with them. And my parents were very open about what it meant to share um with our Jewish roots, especially in the Mass. So I I loved Shabbat, especially doing the the hand pairs like mitzvah and around and so on. Like I loved doing that and and and and being tied to our roots. Uh now when I was in college, I studied abroad in Jerusalem. Um and I studied at Hebrew University, uh also at Palestine at Bath University, and then through Notre Dame at Tantour. And um my only experience with Jewish people then was with primarily cousins um and their friends. And so at that point, I guess I I I'd have questions for you, Arjuna, as to how to equip this confidence. But I would introduce myself as, oh, I'm a Viva and Amashkenazi Jewish, because that was relevant to them and relevant to me. And then eventually they'd realize that I did not know much about the actual liturgical practice of it. And it'd be like, wait, so uh, and these questions and then Catholic Um and then it'd be really confused. And it wouldn't, but they're like, but you said you're Jewish. I'm like, well, yes, I'm Roman Catholic, Ashkenazi, Jewish, Ecuadorian, Danish. Any questions? Um, so yeah, for me, it's honestly kind of been an uh evolution. Um, the way I guess I approach it now is I mean, and a few of the previous speakers have talked about this, like basically our Jewish brethren are are brethren. They're our older siblings, and so we might as well just enjoy them as fellow human beings. I recently was um at Shabbat with my cousin guy's girlfriend's family in Maryland. And it was an awesome time. Um, I shared in the prayers that I could have recalled and got to know them as humans, and they invited me for every Shabbat after. I travel a lot, so I haven't been able to make it. Um sometimes Jesus comes up and sometimes he doesn't. Um, but what I've sensed is that I mean I mean, Jesus is Jewish, and so he chooses when his name is explicitly named when versus when it's not. And in this case, with this dinner, it was not. Um, and then one more uh little story. Um, and other times Jesus comes up in the strangest ways. Um when I was visiting one of my cousins in the West Bank um for Shabbat, um we were invited to the rabbi's uh house. Um and I I want to get to know my Jewish roots, and I I think in doing so we can have a much more deeper appreciation of the beauty of the sacraments, it's it how ancient they are, right? Our liturgies, it's incredible. Um and I think it gives us a deeper appreciation for the person of Jesus Christ. Um then all that being said, I was very curious. So I started after it rabbi question after question about all the practices we were doing that day. And eventually he told me this story. And afterwards, when we went back to my cousin's house, we're like Abiva, we're so sorry. The name is never mentioned. We don't know why it happened, we hope it didn't offend you. And I was like, Well, now going back to the story, what had happened was this. He's like, Yeah, you know, there was this man who lived once. And we don't understand how he became so powerful. Yet we do have a theory, and this is this is what it is. And for the theologians in the room, please tell me if you can recall where this comes from. Because I it was this crazy theory. Who knows? You never know, but I mean I think I know. Um there's this, I'm gonna mention a random number, but it was around like a 64-letter combination that if you get access to it, we get the power of God. And what it requires you to do is to walk through the Holy of Holies. And as you walk through the Holy of Holies, you receive this combination, this power of God, and on your way out you forget that there is this one teacher. He walked into the Holy of Holies, and when he entered in, he cut his arm open. And on a papyrus, he wrote down or whatever the sheet of paper at that time would be. He wrote down the combination, he stuck it into his arm, and on his way out, he felt this pain in his arm. He didn't know where it came from. He pulled it out, and there he had the letter combination. And from that moment on, he had incredible powers that he brought forth to his community. And his name was can you guess? Jesus. It's like wait, wait, I was like, I thought I was learning about your practices over here. I I didn't I didn't say very much. I was like, oh, he didn't know I was Christian. And I was like, Thank you for sharing that. That is that is fascinating. Um and now with that, he did if he asked me questions, I would have happily shared, but he didn't even know I was Christian, and so he didn't ask, and I didn't share. And so um afterwards, my cousin came and I was like, Oh, I'm so sorry that happened. And and I think what and I was like, that was fine, it was a very interesting story. Um I think from that moment I realized because I was explaining to the Holy Spirit the whole time, and part of me was like, should I have said something? Like, should I have been like, oh, and by the way, I'm Roman Catholic. Um and I think what that taught me is that you know, Jesus is more powerful than our own methods of evangelizing. Like somehow the man came up. He was in our midst. Um and I think that's the power, especially of being Catholics, to receive Jesus and on in his body, blood, soul, and divinity. And so we have a particular grace in being able to bring him to friends. And I just showed up and asked questions. Um, but yeah, I all I would say is I the more I meet Jewish brethren, the more I I deepen into the mystery of Jesus because especially with evangelizing. Um yeah, because they are our brethren. And I actually there's a Hebrew Catholic friend of mine, her name is Leah Nathimil Khananel. Was that her last name? Oh, okay. Oh, yeah, you know Leah, right? Right. So I met her. Yeah, she's a freaking legend of Jerusalem. She's so cool and has been uh is this right, Yarden? Like she's been big in the Hebrew Catholic movement, is that correct? Correct.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. She she she's still cool. We can talk about her in a bit, maybe. But um, all that being said, she you can tell me what you think of this, Yarden, and also as uh you as well. Um, but she believes that a part of the fulfillment of Revelation will come with like or in the Jewish people, like bringing kind of a lot of our ancient roots back into the Catholic Church. Not in terms of the fact that we're missing anything core, but rather that as we come together as a people, like the Jewish people and Christians now, there will be more fulfillment in in and in Jesus' saving mission for all of us. So I'll finish with that. But but yeah, it's been it's been a whole life journey, friend. And I I'm still in it. So here we are.
SPEAKER_08So let me ask you. Now I Yardin and you, Aviva, have both spoken about this this dual identity of being both Jewish and Catholic. And what I find as a commonality and what both of you have said is that it's relatively smooth. And my question is as a uh and your faith is ultimately Catholicism, you're very close to your Jewish roots, though. So and so my question to you is do you ever um from your from your Jewish family um or Jewish friends or whatever, is there is there ever any um pushback or hostility? Like earlier in the day, I think it was during uh the Q ⁇ A with Joel, um, it was it was said correctly, I think we don't want to unnecessarily offend people, but you know, there may be times when we have to offend. Um do do do the Jews in your life, uh, is it an ever an issue about your Catholicity? And conversely, um you know, you've talked about taking part in uh Jewish religious ceremonials. I I assume um uh out of you know for the reasons that you give it. I mean your your faith is Catholic. Do you ever get pushback from your fellow Catholics who say, oh no, no, no, no, no, you should never do that. That's a denial of Jesus or some such thing.
SPEAKER_02I suppose I haven't been so unlucky. Um or maybe I've been terribly lucky hearing about the stats of our our our lovely Catholic brethren um and their opinions towards Jews. But no, so I personally, with my friends, haven't really received any pushback from the Catholics. I I see a lot of jokes come up. There was only one experience online, this person I had met quite randomly. Um he would post on a story like gunning down Jews and laughing about it. And eventually I was like, by the way, um I'm Jewish. And then he started berating me. And I was like, okay, I mean, what else am I gonna do? But blocky, like I tried to have dialogue and he was incredibly um vicious. Um beyond that, I have had like no negative experiences. I'm more kind of on that like question of sin of omission where people will make jokes that are kind of on the line of anti-Semitic, and I'm like, Well, what do I say, Lord, in this moment? Um now when it comes to uh uh pushback from Jewish brethren, um Jordan, was it you who said that they don't care? Yes, yes, so most Jews don't they don't care. Like I think something that we forget is that it is kind of uh maybe at least in in a sense somewhat unique how evangelical our your religion is. Um Jews, from my understanding and from my experience, are not evangelical. They don't care. Um they just care about their own people. The worst I've gotten is is maybe one of two things. One if I try to evangelize them, like like what's that what it called proselytizing or whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't do that. Um, unless like they're actually curious, right? Then they could be, yeah, like like any other person though. Have you tried evangelizing people of any or no religion? Like no one wants to be told what they should believe, like like there's just pure rational arguments. Like that's not how the heart moves. So I've learned that the hard way too many times. But my general experience with both Jews that I'm related to and those me is they they literally don't care, just like stay out of their business kind of thing, and like um and just be a fellow human with them. And I basically have had a very pleasant time. And the only thing that'll happen, like I some recently was in in in the Philippines and I I met uh this Jewish couple while playing volleyball. Um and I was talking to them as a Jew. I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm Jewish too. Like and whenever that happens, it's like yes, family. Um, and then about an hour into the conversation after volleyball, they were like, oh, so ask more questions. And they're like, and then I mentioned I was also Catholic, and they were like, wait, wait, and then they were confused, but they just wanted to make sure that I believed I was Jewish first. And once they realized I wasn't hostile towards them, they were like, Oh, well, you're Jewish, it's fine. And so, no, I I generally actually don't receive any pushback from from fellow Jews, so long as I'm not trying to like impose anything on them, like anyone else.
SPEAKER_08There will be QA. Don't don't worry, we'll get to that. In fact, if we have time, uh, you know, you talked about maybe um addressing a question to Yardin. Well, you kind of asked it, but maybe if we have time for the panelists to ask each other questions as well as the audience, we'll do that. But Gideon, I do want to go to you. And one of the themes of this panel discussion is Generation Z, Gen Z Catholics, and this um question of where things stand now in Catholic Jewish relations. And uh, you know, when I put the question to Aviva, it was very interesting. She talked about how in, you know, you see this in the news that there is an uptick in in online uh anti-Semitism among young Catholics on the internet. I want to ask you not about that, but about something kind of adjacent to it. And what I want to ask you is this this is as someone um of a similar background to Aviva who has written about these issues myself, here's the feedback I sometimes get. Um the big some of the biggest names in, for lack of a better way of putting it, baby boomer Catholicism. Think Cardinal J Dolan, think Robbie George, think George Weigel. These are people, some of the biggest names from the John Paul and and Benedict era. Um this time of a of a great greater uh unity and uh and um uh brotherhood, togetherness with our Jewish friends, you know, working out Nostra Tate and Pope John Paul II's pontificate. What does uh all that mean for um Catholic Jewish relations? Some of those people I've just named in uh in recent years in response to an uptick in hostility towards the Jewish people among some young Catholics, they have uh taken to writing articles. We've seen them in um Cardinal Dolan had one in the free press, Robbie George had one in a in a Jewish publication um trying to teach the next generation that look, no, this is um this is not uh what Catholicism teaches, and they're quoting recent recent uh uh papacies and documents and so forth. And the pushback I've gotten is that while these folks are well-meaning, that they sometimes fudge the issue a little bit. Uh and that when you when you fudge the issue, that there are some real differences between Judaism and Catholicism. We heard earlier today about how supersessionism um is is a an error we don't want to fall into. Dual covenant, of course, is uh is an opposite error in the other direction that we don't want to fall into. And what I've heard is you know, you know, some of these folks on the internet. Some of the young people that are pushing back, they're not necessarily doing it out of any ill intent. They're just trying to make sense out of things. And that when the when the baby boomer big name Catholics uh write about these things, if it comes across like they're fudging some of the real theological differences um that Matthew uh Ramage spoke about earlier, particularly when he was talking about Joseph Ratzinger's 2018 document. And he was he was working out uh all the all the tensions in where we are right now, the problems that still remain, where we should go, that what Ramage was talking about via Ratzinger, that some of that gets lost, and if you don't get that stuff right, you're gonna actually lose, not the anti-Semites, but the well-meaning young people who are actually trying to uh figure it all out and understand. As a Jew yourself who has converted to Catholicism, can you address that?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, absolutely. Um yeah. Um, so let me speak. I'm gonna speak to two audiences here. The first one is to sort of the baby boomers who are here or watching online and so on. The work you're doing, I get you guys are well intentioned. Every time you put out one of those articles, you make another 50 anti-Semites online. Like I know you're well intentioned in it, but when you do not address the actual theological issues or political issues, whatever is coming up from people, what they're hearing is you don't have answers to their questions. And when you don't have answers to their questions, they're thinking you're trying to trick them or obfuscate or so on. Um because I think they're in many ways, especially Gen Z men, I think in many ways, see a culture that has failed them in many ways, and they're looking for answers, and they feel that because the older generations failed them, they don't have those answers. And maybe they'll say, Well, I don't reject Vatican II or the recent popes per se, but I'm kind of skeptical that they're telling the full truth. And they're thinking, All right, I want to go back to the older sources because even if let's say Vatican II isn't heretical, the older sources are unquestionably solid, they're gonna give it to us straight, politically incorrect and all, and give us the real answers. And when they don't get those real answers from you, they're gonna get them from random anti-Semites online who've like quote mined a bunch of random church fathers to make the church fathers and the tradition look anti-Semitic. And then when they see, okay, the church tradition, we actually were supposed to hate Jews, then they think, all right, that's actually the correct Catholic position, is that we're supposed to hate Jews and be really obnoxious and so on. And so that's what they absorb then. And so by not actually addressing what they're really saying and instead addressing a straw man that you've created in your mind, you're actually further driving them into those rabbit holes. Now that I've addressed uh that audience just writing those articles, I want to address Gen Z men because I understand where you're coming from, right? I understand. I remember constantly being told growing up that like straight white men are responsible for every evil on earth, and therefore, if you're a straight white man, you have to hate all of your identities and stuff. Everyone else is allowed to have their identities, but you're not allowed to have your identity. You have to hate yourself, you have to hate your tradition, and so on. That's not true at all. So I want to read actually from a quote from um St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who I actually think gives us a really good model of how to think about our relations with Jews. So this is from his sermon on the Song of Songs, a sermon 79. And he's commented, he sees the Song of Songs with the rest of the Christian tradition as an allegory for the church's relationship with God. And in the third chapter, I think it's verse 4, it talks about how the uh bride brings her groom back to her mother's house. And Saint Bernard sees this as an allegory that the Jews are the mother, right? They're the old test, they're from where the church came from, and that the bride is the church and the groom is Christ. And so he says, the charity of the church, which uh does not begrudge her own delight, even to her rival, the synagogue, is great. What is kinder than her being prepared to share with her enemy, the very one whom her soul loves? Yet no wonder, because salvation is from the Jews, the Savior will return to the place from which he had come, so that the remnants of Israel might be saved. Let not the branches be ungrateful to the root, nor the sons to their mother. Let not the branches begrudge the root what they took from it, and let not the sons begrudge their mother what they sucked from her breath. Let the church hold firmly onto the salvation which the Jews lost. She holds it until the plenitude of the Gentiles may enter in, and thus all Israel may be saved. So Bernard is not laying down the fact that the Jews need Christ for salvation. Of course, we can bring in qualifications, invincible ignorance and so on, but very clearly, right, Jesus is the Messiah of Israel. So who needs him? First of all, it's the people of Israel according to the flesh. But at the same time, Bernard does not react to the fact the Jews failed in that calling to say that therefore we ought to hate the Jews or anything. Rather, he actually sees in that an almost greater calling to the Jews, that we should not be hateful towards them. What? Because they're going to be brought back in, that all Israel will eventually be saved. And I've seen some people assume that, oh, the the church is a spiritual Israel, which is true. That therefore, when it says all Israel will be saved, it has nothing to do with the Jews. But that's actually not true at all. I highly recommend everyone read Saint Thomas Apointus's commentary on Romans 11, uh, where Saint Thomas is very clear, the tree, he said, he specifically says the tree is the Jewish race because of the great spiritual for uh fruits which it bore. And Saint Thomas says this all Israel be saved is the bringing back of the Jews to the church. This is universal among the fathers. Not a single church father denies it. You can find it in Bede, Bernard, Bonaventure, uh, John Chrysostom, even uh Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Augustine, anyone you go to is going to talk about this. So it is not as though our theological stance towards the Jews is that like we should hate the Jews, they're uh horrible. No, the church's teaching has always been that God's plan, God still has a plan for you, they still have an important place in salvation history. No, perhaps it was saying, All right, in the future, when the Jews come in, I'll be nice to them then. But up until then, he's kind of skeptical. Or maybe you're even saying, All right, I grant that I shouldn't be hateful towards them. We need to show them love because that's how you bring anyone to the church, but they're still like have no use anymore, essentially, until they're brought back in. But actually, this was a question that Saint Augustine reflected on because Saint Augustine saw in his own day that paganism was dying off, but the Jews were still staying around, and he was wondering why is it that like the pagans are coming to the church, but not the Jews. And so Saint Augustine concludes, he comes up with what's sometimes called the witness doctrine, that the Jews actually continue to have a role as a witness to Christ. Because what was the purpose of the Jews right before Christ came? It was to prepare the world for the reception of Christ, that they were to have these the uh signs and shadows in their scriptures and in their rites, and that this was to point the world towards Christ. And Phanagazin is saying, actually, they're still doing that, that through the continuing practice of Judaism, they're continuing to point to Christ. Uh, you can find this one of the most clear statements of this in St. Thomas Aquarius when he's discussing um the unbelief. This is in the secunda secunde of the Summa, I think uh question 10, Article 11, if I remember correctly, which is on the question of should the rights of unbelievers be tolerated? So should we think positively essentially of non-Catholic rights? Um and he says basically to the rights of the pagan, they should be tolerated insofar as like we're not forcibly going to convert people and so on, but like they have essentially no use to them in themselves. But on the other hand, he says that the rights of the Jews ought to be tolerated because we see Christ in their rights, in a figure, so to speak. And so actually, St. Thomas Aquinas is not saying that, oh, because Christ came, the Jews no longer have a purpose, they actually continue to point to Christ, and eventually they will be brought in too. And I think this is uh connected to what Joe was speaking about in his talk this morning, when he was talking about the kingship of Christ and that there's a call. And you read the Old Testament again and again, it talks about how when the Messiah comes, the Gentiles are going to cast down their idols and they're going to turn and worship the God of Israel. And this is very connected within Jewish ethnography. And we've seen this accomplished through the work of Jesus the Messiah, who's brought his mystical body all over the world. But there's also a second part to that, which is the Jews accepting the Messiah as king, that we also see prophesied throughout the Old Testament. And what's shocking that St. Paul discovers that no one had realized is that most Jews thought first the Messiah comes, then the Gentiles turn from their idols, and then the dead are resurrected. But right, he's on the road to Damascus and he encounters the Messiah's risen from the dead. Wait, we got the order backwards. First the dead rise, then the Gentiles turn from their idols, then the Jews accept the Messiah. Like this was shocking to him that the order had been reversed. So it's not as though Christianity is saying Judaism got it all wrong, it's saying it got how everything fit together in sort of the wrong order. But you talk to Jews, and Jews disagree among themselves about how everything is gonna fit together. There's an old joke of uh two Jews, three opinions, and that's not really right. It should be two Jews, five opinions. Um I say all this not to say that um I understand where a lot of young Gen Z men are coming from. They feel like they're not getting answers, but I think instead of searching for those answers in the tradition, many of them are falling down a very dark path that I do want to call out as very problematic. I was talking to um a friend who's uh uh catechuming, converting from Judaism, and she said, I wish I could join one online Catholic discussion group where people weren't posting pictures of Hitler and praising Hitler. So that's that that's when we have people we we our message to the Jews was the question of Christ as king and that being offensive to Jews and so on, right? Right, and really our message to the Jews should be hey, God gave you all these scriptures, isn't it amazing? He's fulfilled your scriptures, and you should now accept the Jewish Messiah. There's nothing more Jewish to do than accepting the Jewish Messiah, and we think Jesus is that Jewish Messiah. And there is something, right? There might be Jews who are very resistant to that method, and so as a result, there might be genuine tensions there that are going to occur. Um but currently, right, Joe this morning, he very nicely referred to Andrew Tate as a Muslim. That's not really accurate, he's a sex trafficker. And so when he says Christ is king, right, if Christ was king, Andrew Tate would be in prison if we recognized that in America. So clearly, Andrew Tate, if when he says Christ is king, what does he mean? He means I want to antagonize Jews. Actually, another guy, Jake Shields, is a big Holocaust denier online. He has specifically publicly said he only says Christ is king to antagonize Jews. So clearly, when he is saying Christ is king, he is not intending to actually hold up Christ as king because he himself admits he's not a Christian. So how are we possibly supposed to tell our Jewish brothers and sisters that Jesus is their Messiah when when we tell that to them, they think that means you hate us? No, this is a message of love it should be. And it's one of the worst things that's happened is this beautiful message, the kingship of Christ, has been corrupted by people who are fundamentally opposed to Christ, and that's the main issue. Um and that's I think a good example of this that I think a lot of people connect with is the favorite Black Lives Matter. That people, there aren't some people critical of that phrase because they're genuinely racist and they hate black people. But there's many people who are thinking, no, this phrase is being politically weaponized, and I do care about black lives, but the way in which this phrase is being weaponized is problematic, so I'm not gonna say the phrase. And I think that's how a lot of people are when they react to Christ as king, seeing the people using it anti-Semitically, are reacting in that way, and so that's why they want to distance themselves from the phrase. Um I do think it's important that we bring back really everything Joe was talking about this morning, that the Jewish roots of the kingship of Christ. Um, I was talking with a Jewish friend about this once, and he actually said, We Jews, we all agree that Christ is king. That's not our disagreement with you. Our disagreement with you is that we don't think Jesus is the Christ, but they all think that Christ is going to be king over the world. Um and so I think it's important that we be serious, that we don't mitigate our message. I said to the boomers watching this, please realize how many times your articles are actually just further driving people into anti-Semitism. I say that in full love to all of you. Um but also to the young people. Just because you're not getting good answers sometimes from the older generation, A, it doesn't mean those good answers aren't out there. And B, that doesn't mean you lose your own personal responsibility. That we should remember that, especially if you're online and you say you're Catholic, you're in person, you say you're Catholic or whatever, you are representing the Catholic Church when you speak to non-Catholics. And we ultimately, right? It's not as though, like when we're at judgment day and Christ tells us, like, this comment you made online is the reason this person didn't look into the church. We can't say, Oh, I was just joking online. Like, oh, all of us realize when we're in front of Christ, like that's obviously not going to work as an excuse. And so we need to be thinking seriously about how we're representing the church to others.
SPEAKER_08Gideon, thank you. I have one more question for you uh and then we will go to QA. My other question is this all day long, I've been thinking about two groups Catholics and Jews. There's a third group that I think is a player in all this, and that's the Protestants. And you know, this um when we talk about this uptick of uh hostility um towards the Jewish people that we see in in some Catholic circles among the young and so so forth, um, there's a context here, right? There are things that are happening in the world right now that people are divided on. There's October 7th, there's the Gaza War uh that resulted from it. And so uh what I see sometimes, what I think I see sometimes when I'm I'm reading some, and again, I'm I'm looking at the Catholics that don't see the world I the way I do, but aren't necessarily seeing it with ill intent. They're just they're just using um uh a different frame of reference than me. And so what I what I think I see sometimes is that what initially appeared to me as anti-Semitism or anti-Israel sentiment, uh a lot of times is actually a much more deep-seated uh hostility to Protestant Zionism. That there's there's a concern among some Catholics uh about what they believe to be uh a theology and ideology that has a disproportionate influence over U.S. foreign policy, and that they're actually reacting against that. Now, as we heard earlier from Matthew Ramage, um when Joseph Ratzinger gave his last big uh article on this subject, that even if you are a Catholic, even if you are a pro-Israel Catholic, it's not a theological thing. But there are people that don't get that. And I should add too that there there is room for speculative theology, right? Some of us are familiar with the work of Gavin DaCosta and so forth. So there there is room for speculation on this. But in terms of um what the church actually teaches, it seems to me that some people in their hostility are confusing categories and they they don't understand that there's a there's a whole range of um views that are supportive of the Jews or the state of Israel or so forth that doesn't go anywhere near theologies that would be understood to be heretical in Catholicism. Can you uh what would you say to the Catholics who think that way that way?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, I something I've encountered quite a bit is people essentially going that dispensationalists believe X, whatever belief you want it to be. We are not dispensationalists, therefore we don't believe X. But that's actually an invalid syllogism, right? Dispensationalists believe in the Trinity. Are we gonna reject the Trinity because dispensationalists also believe the Trinity, and we're not dispensationalists, we reject the incarnation, and so on. So we have to we can't do theology by starting off with a list of what other people believe from groups that we don't agree with, and then assume therefore we believe the exact opposite. Right? Sometimes we're actually in agreement with them, sometimes we do believe the opposite, sometimes our belief is somewhere in the middle, and sometimes there's a range of acceptable opinions among Catholics. So I think it's important to start off with us actually going back and doing Catholic theology so we have the proper Catholic theology, and then once we have the proper Catholic theology, then we can enter into a dialogue with evangelicals. So for example, like someone could um for example, someone wants to say that the kingdom of God ought to be identified with the modern state of Israel, like that is very problematic. There's someone in the last QA was talking about this idea in the catechism it talks about of the deception of the Antichrist, is to make us want to think the kingdom is worldly. And so if your idea is that the modern state of Israel is identical to the kingdom of God, like that would be very problematic. I don't know, at least many people who hold that, but that's definitely very wrong, right? If someone wants to say that you, as a faithful Catholic, have to support the modern state of Israel, well, there's an acceptable like range of opinions among Catholics. I've just as frequently encountered people who say like you have to support the destruction of the state of Israel because of Catholic teaching, and that's not in Catholic teaching either. Like there is there's a diplomatic stance there of the church of recognizing the Israelis and the Palestinians, and there are certain principles that we ought to think about uh of Catholic social teaching by which we ought to think about it, but there's a wide range of acceptable opinions there. Uh but then there's a question of, for example, can the return of the Jews to the land be understood as part of divine providence? Well, first of all, it has to, in a sense, be divine providence given that it happened and nothing happens outside of divine providence. Um, I there's some people who seem to think that like the Jews are more powerful than God, and even though God exiled them from the land, according to Deuteronomy and Leviticus, the Jews are the Zionist lobby is so powerful they overcame God and they got back to the land, even though God had exiled them. Um then you could ask the question of all right, given that we accept that at least in the general sense, that all of history is providential, does this have a particular providential relevance at all? I think there's certain extreme positions that would be very problematic. The church doesn't find you hold that it has any theological relevance. You could say it has none. But as I've been looking back in the tradition, I've actually noticed some saints of the past who thought about these sorts of questions. Uh so for example, um Dr. Ramage in his talk mentioned uh the Gospel of Luke, Luke 21, 24, where it says that Jerusalem will be trodden down by the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled. And if you look at uh Saint Bede's commentary on it, you can actually find this in the Katana Aurea by St. Thomas Aquinas on Luke. He says that when the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, the Jews will return to their ancestral land and rehab and even rebuild their capital and so on. And he says that this is why it says until the time of the Gentiles is fulfilled, that it's not perpetual. Now that's a theological opinion, you don't have to agree. Uh Saint Thomas himself actually considers this in his commentary on Jeremiah, uh Jeremiah chapter 31, lesson four, uh, when it says, and there is hope for your future. Saint Thomas comments this is in regards to their future salvation, and he says, also perhaps their return to their land. So it's a perhaps there. So Saint Thomas said alright, I could consider it. But I think if Saint Thomas had then seen, then it happened, like all the medievals saw all of history as super providential. Like they would look at every detail. So the fact that the Jews did return seems to me like, okay, that's an interesting thing for us to consider as other saints that could come on as well, but I think it looks like I don't have time to get into that. So I'm not saying we ought to hold the dispensationalist position, but I think we can theologically reflect on it, and that seems to me within the bounds of Catholic theology, given that there's multiple doctors of the church I found reflecting on these sorts of questions. Um Gideon Yardin Aviva, thank you very much.
SPEAKER_05Your conversion.
SPEAKER_06Uh my question is around your conversion and then some of the events going on right now in Israel. Obviously, there's a war going on.
SPEAKER_05Um as far as some of Israel's expansion into the West Bank and Lebanon, Christians and Muslims getting displaced. Has your conversion to Christianity given you a different perspective on that? Or would you say you and other Christian converts in the IDF are still largely aligned with Netanyahu's vision for uh greater Israel?
SPEAKER_00I will I think I'll start by saying that even though I'm currently Latin, I'm undergoing the process to cut to to change to um to be Syriac, Syriac Catholic. So my own bishop is from Lebanon. Um and everybody in my church almost is Palestinian, so it's not theoretical for me. The main thing I would say, borrowing from everything Gideon has said, is that as a Catholic, I'm not bound. Or maybe I'll go about it this the other way. Faith comes first. Faith informs morals. Morals inform politics. I don't like the current government of Israel. Not many of my friends do. Um and serving in a certain country's military certainly does not entail uh agreeing with every single policy. So I wouldn't say it's my place to comment on politics. I would say that we all need to inform ourselves of current events that are relevant to us uh and examine them in the light of faith, and not examine faith in the light of politics, which is something that tends to happen a lot left and right these days.
SPEAKER_04Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Yes, yes. Thank you, thank you. Um this is for for any of you who would like to answer it. Um so so I've encountered enough um a lot of Catholics in person in traditionalist communities, um SSSP sort of sort of communities where um for one reason or another, like they they have a lot of I've I've found a lot of anti-Semitic and supersessionist ideas going around. Um how would you um find it best to respond to it?
SPEAKER_07Yeah, thank you for that. Um I'll say in a pastoral, the first thing not to do is accuse them of anti-Semitism, especially until they've given you like if they've given you clear signs, like are they just like are a hateful person, then obviously just move on. Uh but if they're like engaging with you in good faith, to engage back in good faith. And actually, Yarden and I have a podcast called The Voice of Jacob, where we are going through, you can find us on YouTube and all the major podcasting platforms, where we are going through a lot of these questions theologically. We achieve an episode that I think will be very helpful to people called Who is Israel according to the Catholic Church? And we go through a lot of major saints, Saint Justin Martyr, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, any major doctor of the church you can mention. We probably have at least one slide on them in there. And we go through what do they actually say about the Jews? What do they actually say about the land? What do they actually say about the proper use of the title Israel? And I think it will actually shock people what the tradition says. Like I think there is a lot more nuance in these questions than people are making out. As I mentioned, they're not receiving that nuance. And so, yeah, I would say show people that episode idea, watch it yourself, obviously. If you have people, I think it's a good episode to point them to, because we just walked through what the doctors of the church say, what Vatican II actually says, what the current catechism like actually says, um, rather than just making accusations on the people, once you've read through all those quotes, you can make up your own mind about many of these things. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02I have less experience in this category, but I did have one experience with a very trad Catholicologist. Um and what I would just add, very small point, is to remember that a lot of these theological conversations, if if they become very heated, there's probably something that has nothing to do with theology that's happening with these people who are upset. And and you went into that quite a bit. And so I would encourage just asking like genuine questions and giving them space, but then also uh once you're comfortable with them and they're comfortable with you, kind of challenging them to like how Christ would respond to injustices himself in scripture, right? Like would click behave in this way? Probably not, probably not, right? Um but yeah, I think kind of in kind of like pushing forth what you guys are saying, like they're we're all people, including the people who are fighting, like hating the Jews, and it's often not about the Jews, but something else that's happening and then and then so the question is over there, over there.
SPEAKER_10Thank you. I don't have the um um depth or breadth of background that you all do in many of these areas, but um I was just thinking at different points throughout the day of this title of Christ as king and the the the connection in my mind that that rings with Christ as the shepherd or the shepherd king, and I I just um I know that in in the old testament that image of the shepherd had had so much um messianic um symbolism, and so that when Jesus presented himself as the true shepherd that the crowds responded the way they did when he said he was a bread of life, life, like it it meant it had that much significance for them. But I wondered if if um um if you're looking at the king who is the shepherd, which which David was that shepherd king that then prefigured the true shepherd and the true king. But but if you're looking at a king as as something triumphal, then it's a very different understanding than the kind of shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep and who desires that there would be one flock and one shepherd, and that all would have fullness of life. So I feel like it's just kind of half the image of of Christ to say just the king. But to say the shepherd king gets to the merciful heart of Christ, which I mean I feel like that's the only way to reach people is through the merciful heart of the shepherd.
SPEAKER_04Thank you. Thank you. Yes, over there. Him and then you sorry. Thank you guys so much. I've really enjoyed your perspectives.
SPEAKER_07I am curious and interested about the Talmud, and maybe you guys could talk about what that is and where it came from from Yeah, so the Talmud essentially functions to Judaism in a similar way the church fathers function to us. So instead of having separate works by different famous rabbis in history, it's essentially they'll have a topic, and then here's what all the famous rabbis of like the early centuries after the time of Jesus said about this. So it's essentially a sort of discussion that then becomes very important for Judaism because if you just read through the Old Testament, like we when we get to Leviticus, we like fall asleep. But to Jews, a lot of those sections in Leviticus are like very, very relevant to their everyday lives. So they need to figure out there's actually not enough details just in the text. They have very similar critiques in sola scriptura that we have, like you can't actually implement them just from scripture. Uh, so then they need commentary on how it works. Now, then there will also be times in the Talmud where they sort of get into like anecdotes and they'll get aside and they'll tell different stories that help might illuminate a problem and so on. And some of these are actually, I think, very helpful when we speak with Jews in evangelizing. Like there's uh one story where a rabbi meets with the prophet Elijah, and the prophet Elijah asks him, he asked the prophet Elijah, where is the Messiah? And he says the Messiah is at the gates of Rome, tending to the poor and the sick there. Like, this is so Christological. Um, there's even another one that says the messianic age will start 2,000 years after Abraham. That's right when Jesus came. So there's lots of great prophecies like that we can cite. Now there are some passages, I assume, is what you're talking about that talk about Jesus in a negative light, or at least it's what they seem to do. There's some people who want to argue that these are not actually about Jesus. That is possible because they get a lot of historical details wrong. But there's a good book by a Jewish scholar named Peter Schaefer called Jesus and the Talmud, where I think he does successfully argue that these are about Jesus, and their origin essentially is in later Christian polemics against Jews. And that's why they get a lot of the historical details wrong, about getting Jesus at the wrong time and so on. And my answer to this is like, why are you surprised that Jews who don't accept Jesus at one point in history wrote down a few negative things about Jesus? Like, this would be like if every time we tried to talk to Jews, they're like, Do you know what St. John Chrysostom said about us? And then they cut off the conversation there. So instead, it's actually we shouldn't be surprised that different religious traditions have written negative things about other religious traditions at times. We shouldn't be shocked. Obviously, we as Christians wouldn't want to like endorse something like that, obviously. But I think we shouldn't be surprised that a little bit of that showed up in the Talmud. And I would say the answer you have a Jew who believes that negative stuff is tell them to go read the Gospels. Because I've had Jewish friends who read the Gospels, and I one Jewish friend remember he read the Gospels and he said, I knew Jesus was Jewish. He's like, but I didn't realize Jesus was like a Talmudic Jew. And what he meant by that is that when he was in Yeshiva, the version of seminary, he had studied the Talmud and he sees all these debates between rabbis, and many of them are set during like around the time of Jesus. And he thought, there's no way they actually did it like them. These are written hundreds of years later. This was probably anachronistic. And he said, No, Jesus debates the heresies, and just the way I read about the Pharisees debating one another in the Talmuds. Like Jesus is entering into the debates of his time. And then what was more shocked is that he read the book of Acts. He's like, I didn't realize how Jewish the apostles were. Like uh something that's shocking to open up is Acts 28. So this is the last chapter of the book of Acts. Saint Paul is in Rome, where you think any apostle would have been like the most adopted a Gentile way of life to evangelize the Gentiles would be Saint Paul. Maybe not in his early ministry, but especially by his late ministry. He gets to Rome. The first thing he does when he gets to Rome is go to the synagogue in Rome because he wants to speak to the Jewish leaders there to try to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah. And his opening line to them is in Acts 28, 17. He says, I have never done anything contrary to the law or the traditions of our fathers. What traditions of those? Back in Acts 23, he said, I am a Pharisee. And he insists, I've never taught anything contrary to the teachings of the Pharisees. What is he teaching? He says, I'm teaching the resurrection of the dead, the restoration of the 12 tribes of Israel. Well, that's all that the Pharisees were teaching too. So Saint Paul saw himself as like a Pharisaic Jew, which is so shocking to us. And well, a lot today we've spoken about uh groups of people, and the groups of people are Catholics and Jews. I can't find anywhere in scripture where the two groups of people are Jews and Christians. I read a lot about Jews and Gentiles, because those are two groups of people that God has made. And He unites them in the church. So there's Jews in the church, there's Gentiles in the church, there's Jews outside the church, there's Gentiles outside the church, but even having that mindset then of like um Jews and Christians as two groups. I know I got a little off trail for your question, but my answer to that is when you encounter negative stuff about Jesus in the Tulb, but don't be so surprised that like not people who aren't Christian wrote negative stuff about Jesus sometimes. And then two Jewish friends who perhaps believe that or believe negative stuff about Jesus, just encourage them to read the gospels and discover who the real Jesus is.
SPEAKER_08Question We have a question that came in online.
SPEAKER_01Okay. This is from the Gen Zero coming at us from the live stream. Okay. Okay. Can you um ask someone, yes I can, to explain what exactly in quote Boomer articles by say Robbie George or George Weigel is perhaps driving the anti-Semitism. What is it exactly? Maybe you should take that question. Or I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Well, I I do want to throw it back to Gideon. I I will say in general um that the the feedback I get, the pushback I bet get is that um there are good people. Gideon said this earlier, that there are there are good people out there who have no malice, people of goodwill, uh young people who uh feel that that generation of faithful Catholic commentators um are fudging some of the distinctions, not intentionally, but that you know that they're they're the product of a certain era where it was not unusual to fudge those sorts of distinctions, that they that they fudge those sorts of um distinctions that exist in Catholicism between uh Catholicism between Christianity and Judaism, uh in that Joseph Ratzinger actually, in his in his Pope Emeritus phrase phase in his 2018 article was was very specific in a way that they they are not, even if they're quoting or citing Joseph Radzinger.
SPEAKER_07Yeah, yeah, I would add to that that I think sometimes an incomplete or bad answer is almost worse than if you had never answered the question at all, but then they think that's the answer out there. And so as a result, you have to perhaps you say, I don't have the answers or I don't understand that mindset enough to engage. That's fine, you can not engage or even just condemn people who are saying genuinely very hateful stuff. But if you're going to engage, you have to engage seriously and be ready to give serious answers. And if you don't give serious answers, then they think there's no answer. And so that's what I mean when I'm saying that this is helping to drive the anti-Semitism, is it sets up basically a false dichotomy of um this like anti-Semitism and rap on the they think they're being lied to, exactly?
SPEAKER_08They think they are being lied to by those Catholic commentators who are um most Jewish friendly, and so it has the effect of pushing them in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_07I think that's really much the case. And there's also an immediate assumption there, I've encountered among quite a number of Gen Z that they assume that anyone who is pushing back against the anti-Semitism thinks like the fate of Israel is unquestionable or that they might be being like paid by the Israeli government. Like, I don't know if there is anyone genuinely being paid by them. There probably I'm sure every government pays their people to make the government look good. But like I've never been paid by the Israeli government. Netanyahu, I would really love some money if you'd be looking to donate. But like I've never been paid by anyone. Like I just say like what I think. And a lot of these people, I think, just say what they think, but they're like assuming that everyone is being like paid by the Israeli government to like not give answers or so on. And so then they're and but that's what I mean. Just give serious answers to serious questions. And I think that will at least hopefully drive the discussion in a better direction.
SPEAKER_08Okay, okay. We have to take a break. I'm sorry, I know you had a question. Okay, good.