My original title was going to have “to live in a Christian country” but I thought that this is perhaps controversial (is it?)
Anyway, I’m from Israel and a lurker on this sub. Now, I realize that Jews being a minority in a gentile majority was the norm for the past 2,000 years at this point and thus nothing special, and yet still, from everything I’ve read here and on the other r/jewish sub in the last few years of lurking, there seems to be some tension arising from this from time to time, and I specifically focused my question on American Jews as they seem to be the majority of the members of this and the other Jewish sub.
Some contentious subjects I’ve seen here multiple times that I as an Israeli never have to deal with – Christian groups trying to trick Jews into converting (so called messianics), creepy Mormons “baptizing” Jewish graves, Mormons using Jewish terms to refer to themselves (other Christian groups do this too obviously), The Prince of Egypt being referred to as a Christian movie (this one bothers me a lot I must say), Christians looking at us as living fossils, literary characters from “their” scriptures, or tragic figures who they like to cry about in books and movies (to me it looks like most media focusing on Jews is looking at us in the past tense, but correct me if I’m wrong), or just a lost people as a target for conversion.
Do you think of these things on a daily basis, or at all? Does it take active work to maintain your Jewish identity in a country that celebrates Christmas, where the president swears on a bible? Do you live in harmony with your neighbors? I realize that not everyone in the US is a Christian, and those that are are on a spectrum of religiosity, but like 60-70% of the population identify as Christian, and obviously Christian culture is baked into the DNA of your country regardless of the amount of churchgoers. I will add that I’m also aware of intermarriage between Jews and Christians being more common than Jews with Jews, so perhaps that answers this whole thread.
If you have a recommendation for a book, an article, or a video about this subject please let me know about it, because I’m genuinely interested in this, and in learning about you in general.
Thanks for reading.
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