Via reader Diane G. (who sent me the link with the comment “execrable vid,” we have this clip made by the Jews for Jesus—an organization whose name is roughly equivalent of “Lions for Broccoli.” The video shows Jesus as a Holocaust victim, sent to the gas chambers because he was a Jew. It was posted on the Religion Dispatches website (the title of this post is the title of the clip!), with a comment by Evan Dercaz:
Below is a new little Easter greeting from the good people at Jews for Jesus (aka evangelical Christians) called, tastefully enough, “That Jew Died For You.” (Note to self: thatjewdiedforyou.org still available.)
It’s like JfJ are PETA now…willing to do anything for publicity. I fully expect them to open a Jesus deli downtown: ThatJewCooksForYou.com
As one friend put it: “It’s got potential. Kosher style. Lamb-of-God chops. Wood-smoked bacon.” The upside there is that it’d pit PETA against JfJ in a tasteless deathmatch.
If Jesus died for the Jews, he/his dad sure didn’t treat them very well at Auschwitz.
(BTW, I’m not nearly as down on PETA as Dercaz or many of the readers here. Yes, it’s done some bad stuff, like breaking into labs, but it’s also drawn a lot of public attention to the horrific treatment of animals raised for food.)
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Where to start? Perhaps with the simple observation that those murdered in Poland in 1943 were not voluntary victims.
Admission, I dipped into the middle, watched 10 seconds, and then switched off in disgust.
PETA also decries animal shelters while euthanizing almost all of the pets in its care.
Its policy of objectifying women to protest the objectification of animals renders them anathema in my eyes.
Yeah, I’ve never felt pretty enough to join PETA.
“Its policy of objectifying women to protest the objectification of animals renders them anathema in my eyes.”
Well said, tycha.
More Christians showing themselves to be quite fond of exploiting the holocaust. Is it possible to sink any lower for advertisement?
Most christians are interested in making a buck (and then not paying any taxes on it). They aren’t so interested in reading what Jesus (if he actually existed) ostensibly said about money and possessions. This is not surprising. Back when I was preaching and teaching, I’d occasionally mention that, and get immediate negative feedback.
I couldn’t watch the video. The very idea is tasteless beyond words.
Also, I don’t support PETA, and it’s not because they break into labs…. it’s because they euthanize most of the dogs and cats in their “care.” Here is reporting on that from the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/us/peta-finds-itself-on-receiving-end-of-others-anger.html?_r=0
Yes, PETA has done some fine consciousness-raising. Dont always agree with its priorities but its work has exposed much that needed such.
Science
Scientists Successfully Teach Monkey Theory of Evolution
Apr 19, 2014
Scientists at Harvard University have successfully taught a monkey to understand the theory of evolution.
According to a new paper published today in Nature, a team of primatologists used basic sign language and symbols to teach an orangutan named “Pongo Pete” that humans and other primates shared a common ancestor.
The two-year experiment began by teaching Pete the difference between the evidence-based reasoning of science and non-evidence based reasoning. It concluded two months ago when Pete finally confirmed he understood that both he and his human friends had evolved through natural selection.
“Our goal was to prove that even a monkey can understand evolution,” says Dr. Ronald Artest, the lead researcher on the project, “The idea came to us when one of my undergraduate students said she believed God created the Earth, humans and all other life on this planet simultaneously around 10,000 years ago.
“I thought to myself, ‘that’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard. I bet even Pongo Pete is capable of understanding the idiocy of that comment!’ And sure enough, it seems that with a lot of hard work and patience, you can teach monkeys things you can’t teach Creationists.”
The theory of evolution states that all life on Earth evolved through a slow, gradual process of natural selection from a common ancestor that lived around 3.8 billion years ago. A theory only in the scientific sense of the word, evolution is seen as established fact by the vast majority of scientists.
Nevertheless a recent Pew Center poll found that 33% of Americans do not believe in evolution at all, while another 26% believe God was behind the process. Only 32% believe in the scientific fact of evolution by natural selection.
Most of the opposition comes from white evangelical protestants, a whopping 64% of whom completely reject the idea evolution. There is also a 10 point gender gap, with women more likely to believe in science than men.
Denialism has been growing over time, as 54% of Republicans said they believed in evolution in 2009 and only 43% said the same in 2013.
When told that a large percentage of humans still have not accepted the reality of evolution, Pongo Pete reportedly responded by pointing to the symbol for “stupid.”
In a weird coincidence, Pongo Pete was my nickname at primary school, though I’m not sure my grasp of evolution was as good as a monkey’s then. (I think you should have made Pete a chimp, though…)
Ugh that his so tasteless but doesn’t it just bring about this whole idea of evil again, rendering the whole thing not only tasteless but also ineffective? Sure, Jesus died for the sins of humans but then there was the holocaust so a fat lotta good that did when god just let a whole bunch of evil go down again.
there was so much sin in 1900 years after jesus that 6m more jesuses had to die?
When PETA sought to exploit the murder of Dr. George Tiller to advance the cause of veganism, I forever wrote them off. There is no depth of tastelessness they will not step to. IMO they belong under a rock with Jews4Jesus.
Doing things that some people find in bad taste is a pretty necessary part of getting the public’s attention these days. If you think that the public’s attention is important, then you need to get into those headlines to make your point. Unsurprisingly, this attracts self-publicists and other hangers on to the movement.
CIWF (Compassion In World Farming) were banging on this drum in the early 1980s, from my personal experience, before PETA ever appeared on this side of the Atlantic. People don’t want to listen. They simply don’t. Personally, I’ve routinely proposed the simultaneous banning of private slaughtering (because most people don’t know how to do it and make a bloody mess of it) and of sale of butchered meat as being an effective way of reducing the amount of meat eaten, and therefore reducing the overall exploitation of farm animals. You want to eat pig, that’s fine. Here’s a dead pig. Enjoy.
My first encounter with the not-so-lovely Jews for Jesus (whom one of my Jewish friends calls “Kikes for Christ”) was at a 1979 Bob Dylan concert which was just a few months after Bob D had become a born-again Christian and was now singing only his Christian songs in concert. (Earlier songs of his which !*reference*! Christian !*imagery*! are much much better.)
I quickly pegged them as the looniest and most offensive Christian group I had ever met (though this was only 1979- they may have been beat by now) though I was still an ultra-liberal/progressive Christian at the time. I was particularly rankled by their new set of lyrics to “Tradition” from “Fiddler on the Roof” which a group of them were singing in front of the concert hall, which I thought the musical’s authors should sue over.
They create a whole new level of meaning to the phrase “self-hating Jew”.
Let me get this straight. Jesus was there in the middle of Auschwitz, but he couldn’t be arsed to miracle up a little helpful something like one of his dad’s plagues that only worked on Nazis — or even just a Nazi-specific soporific that only lasted long enough to let their victims escape — and instead just meekly accepted his horrific death as any good little Jew should?
Am I the only one to see that as, shall we say, theologically problematic? Not to mention batshit fucking insane, and anti-semitic in the extreme?
b&
Oh, stop getting in the way of a good emotive story by asking logical questions!
Actually…spun right, it could make for an even more emotive story — just a blood-n-gore horror story, rather than a touchy-feely love story…with Nazis and gas chambers.
Wait. What the fuck? A touchy-feely love story with Nazis and gas chambers?
Damn…there I go again….
b&
Oh my. Maybe also make it a musical.
Ugh, I’m making myself feel nauseated now.
It worked for
Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Not to forget Springtime for Hitler
…Springtime for That Nazi Jew who Died for Your Lampshade and Your Long Pork Pie?
b&
And wasn’t the cross superfluous?
No more so than the selective coloration and the shit-eating grin on the SS officer’s face…or, for that matter, the “for You” in the title….
b&
Three little comments:
1. First, and up front, this is a slimy bunch of film makers, Yes?
2. The clip is historical inaccurate: They forgot “Gott Mit Uns” belt buckles on the SS guy and the older officer.
3. The Nazi “Gott Mit Uns” White-Power legacy is alive today in the armed western Ukraine militias that just subjugated Kiev with the backing of the US and EU. These anti-Semitic Russophobes are lineal descendents of Ukraine’s 1941 dawn of the Holocaust (remember the old tune “first they came for the Socalists, then they came for the Jews …”?). In western Ukraine, many still have their grandfathers’s Nazi garb hanging in the closet (and march around in it on special occasions – videos available).
Very interesting.
Poppycock.
“Gott mit uns” was not a slogan used by the SS.
Rather, it was the motto of the Prussian royal family (House of Hohenzollern) and thus found on the belt buckles of Prussian soldiers since the 19th century and later taken over by Reichswehr / Wehrmacht.
In its Dutch version “God zij met ons” you traditionally have it on coins (today Dutch two-Euro coins).
“Lions for Broccoli” LOL!
Isn’t PETA, like Greenpeace, simply terrorists? Targeting laboratories and fields that set science back is violence that “disregard the safety of non-combatants”.
“According to Liddick, PETA has substantial links with Native American ALF activist Rod Coronado. He alleges that two Federal Express packages were sent to an address in Bethesda, Maryland, before and after a 1992 fire at Michigan State University that Coronado was convicted of setting, reportedly as part of “Operation Bite Back,” a series of ALF attacks on American animal testing facilities in the 1990s. The first package was picked up by a PETA employee, Maria Blanton, and the second intercepted by the authorities, who identified the handwriting as Coronado’s. Liddick writes that the package contained documents removed from the university and a videotape of one of the perpetrators. When they searched Blanton’s home, police found some of the paraphernalia of animal liberation raids, including code names for Coronado and Alex Pacheco—PETA’s co-founder—burglary tools, two-way radios, and fake identification. Liddick also writes that PETA gave Coronado $45,000 for his legal bills and another $25,000 to his father.[97]
Newkirk is a strong supporter of direct action that removes animals from laboratories and other facilities—she told The Los Angeles Times in 1992 that when she hears of anyone walking into a lab and walking out with animals, her heart sings.[13] Newkirk commented to the Chronicle of Higher Education in 1999, “When you see the resistance to basic humane treatment and to the acknowledgment of animals’ social needs, I find it small wonder that the laboratories aren’t all burning to the ground. If I had more guts, I’d light a match.”[98]”
[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETA ]
No.
Greenpeace terrorists? Oh please…
Does Torbjörn think Greenpeace blew up a French ship in New Zealand? This is widely believed in the US, apparently, but I’m surprised at this commenter.
Not that I actually support Greenpeace; they lost me by campaigning against the kangaroo harvest here in Australia. Sustainable use of renewable resources, including wildlife, is the only viable alternative to Soylent Green (PETA’s utopian vision).
It was the French Secret Services that blew up the Greenpeace ship in New Zealand.
As for kangaroos, are they being hunted or killed for human consumption? Perhaps it is the method used for killing them that riles up Greenpeace.
The French are unpopular in NZ especially for their nuclear testing nearby that went on up until relatively modern times. Strontium90 was high in milk and my mom lost her teeth because of it.
That was 1985, and the French secret service (being about as arrogant and incompetent as most secret services) thought they could get away with an act of terrorism in Auckland. Two of them got caught. This led to extreme unpopularity. Nuclear testing at Mururoa ended in 1996. New Zealanders would like to think that our continued opposition to that, coupled with our nuclear-free legislation which led to a long stand-off with the United States, helped foster a climate of opinion in which nuclear weapons were seen as abhorrent and encouraged nuclear limitation treaties. There may even be some truth in that view.
But anyway, in the subsequent 20 years French unpopularity here has gradually decreased to, probably, way less than in the US at present. Jacques Chirac telling George Bush to get lost over Iraq certainly didn’t do the French any harm in this country.
That’s terrible, and I don’t blame you and your fellow New Zealanders. I was always very much against all nuclear bomb tests anywhere in the world, and royally pissed-off against President Chirac when he resumed nuclear tests in the South Pacific in 1995. I therefore attended several protests and signed several petitions against him and those tests.
Both organisations exemplify the pitfalls of idealism. I wouldn’t waste a fig-leaf defending PETA. Medical research is their enemy when animals are concerned. That makes them my enemy.
Now they can make an equally tasteful sequel. They can show the Jews marching up to the gate and this time Jesus is dressed in the uniform and standing behind the table. He looks them up and down and asks the big question: “Jew or Christian?”
If they say “Christian” then it’s “To the Right (Heaven.)” If they say “Jew” then it’s “To the left (Hell).”
Really drives home the point this time.
Perfect. Just perfect. And so obvious, now that you say it.
Last night I was trying to frame something snappy about the Jews going to hell anyway, but you’ve absolutely nailed it. (Uh, no Xtian pun intended…)
The best I can offer is this:
“Atheists – over here please. You must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits”. (I cracked up at that)
“And finally Christians. Oh yes I’m sorry, I’m afraid the Jews were right”.
Rowan Atkinson at his best.
check check
I worked for many years in mid Manhattan and walked through Times Square every day — a region populated by many people trying to convince you to pay attention to them. One day one of a group of “Jews for Jesus” stepped in front of me and tried to force a bunch of pamphlets into my hand. I turned to him and politely said “No thanks, I’m an atheist for Moses”. They lobbied there quite often, and I always thought it was an oxymoronic (or perhaps just moronic) slogan.
As a secular Jew (OK, I was raised Jewish, still enjoy the food and celebrations, but never bought into the concept of a mysterious sky daddy) I find the “Jews for Jesus” more annoying than just about any other evangelical group. Almost none of them have any Jewish heritage and most I have spoken to know nothing of the history or traditions. They are just one more group of evangelical nuts trying to use the name of their group as an excuse to convince Jews that they can be evangelicals too (and reject all of their history and teachings). Christianity and Judaism are incompatible in terms of their beliefs, and anyone who tries to say differently is ignorant of the facts.
Of course both are based on the belief in an invisible daddy in the sky, which makes about as much sense as flying whales, so it shouldn’t matter, but those people really bug me.
Ahem.
Cheers,
b&
They spelled it wale??
Only once, for a 25% error rate. Just think of it as an offering to the god Tpyos.
+1 for the god Tpyos
Despicable video, and not forgetting that even the Nazis were Catholics (for the most part) and believers. This could never have happened.
Subject: I do not agree with those who are attacking the video showing Jesus carrying a cross and being sent to the showers from the gates to Auschwitz
I am the son of Holocaust survivors. Most of my family perished in the Holocaust, either in the crematorium or they were shot dead on the street. Like many children of Holocaust survivors I never had grandparents. I became a rabbi as a concept of never again. I vowed that I’d do everything in my power to stop evil and to make certain that people that are like the Nazis, demons that they are, would never succeed.
When I viewed the film, “That Jew Died For You,” I recognized it as a movie of compassion. I am not a stranger to this subject having just authored a new book The Holocaust as Seen Through Film, one of the many books that I have written with a Holocaust theme.
I do not believe that Jesus was the Messiah but I do believe he was a Jew. I am completely non-judgmental with regards to anyone’s religious observances. I don’t judge anybody because I did not go into the clergy for religious sake. I went into clergy for humanity’s sake. There are not too many Holocaust survivors’ kids around that think the way I do.
I do not agree with those who are attacking the video showing Jesus carrying a cross and being sent to the showers from the gates to Auschwitz. If Jesus were at Auschwitz he would have been murdered just for being a Jew. If anything the attack on this video bolsters Jews for Jesus, which I’m sure was not the intent of those critics. I think that the purpose of the video was to show that indeed Jesus was a Jew; whether you accept him as the Messiah is up to you. LET ME STATE CLEARLY: I DO NOT ENDORSE JEWS FOR JESUS OR THEIR BELIEFS. But I think their intent was not to harm our Jewish people but to depict Jesus as the observant Jew he was. The historical Jesus was a devout Jew.
I witnessed Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ in Manhattan when it first came out and there was an uproar—there was a fear that it would create a lot of anti-Semitism because of the way that Jesus is persecuted and victimized. The fact is Jesus, at least the spiritual Jesus, was supposed to die and be resurrected and that did happen in this film. It was not the Jews that killed Jesus; rather it was Pontius Pilate and the Romans. In fact, if you saw that picture, you would see that the Roman soldiers did the floggings. Many people do not understand history at all.
I believe that it was the teachings of the Church, not Jesus, that allowed Hitler to spread his ideology of hatred for the Jews. I am happy that the teachings of the Church regarding the Jewish people have changed. A special thank you to the Christians who support the state of Israel.
The bottom line is that Jesus’ message was not to hate the Jews, but to love all humanity, and he would certainly not say that one should hate his own people. Instead of hatred in the world, there should be love. And if that was the message Jesus communicated, then that was an outstanding message for all of mankind. During this period of Easter and Passover, as well as the remembrance of the Holocaust, may love conquer evil and may we together fight hatred and intolerance.
Rabbi Dr. Bernhard H. Rosenberg
Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau gave a powerful speech at the March of the Living
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/180024#.U18MYFPD_IU
There may be those who believe I am being used by Jews for Jesus or Christian groups by allowing by article to be published. My answer is simply I seek a world where I and my family, 4 children and so far 7 grandchildren can observe Torah and mitzvoth, the 5 books of Moses and the commandments. I seek a world where instead of fighting each other we can love and help each other. As an observant Jew I WILL LIVE AND DIE OBSERVING Jewish law and so will by children and grandchildren. The message of peace, shalom, is a message of comfort. That is my blessing for all of us. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG
Bernhard Rosenberg • 10 hours ago
: Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau gave a powerful speech at the March of the Living
http://www.israelnationalnews….
There may be those who believe I am being used by Jews for Jesus or Christian groups by allowing by article to be published. My answer is simply I seek a world where I and my family, 4 children and so far 7 grandchildren can observe Torah and mitzvoth, the 5 books of Moses and the commandments. I seek a world where instead of fighting each other we can love and help each other. As an observant Jew I WILL LIVE AND DIE OBSERVING Jewish law and so will by children and grandchildren. The message of peace, shalom, is a message of comfort. That is my blessing for all of us. RABBI DR. BERNHARD ROSENBERG