Countless Jews have suffered persecution and martyrdom in the name of Christianity over the centuries. The Church has perpetrated hatred and violence in the name of Christ, as if compelled by his teachings and commands. Christians have portrayed their savior to Jews as one who disavowed the Jewish people, declared the end of the Torah and Judaism, celebrated the destruction of the Temple and the cessation of its sacrifices, and demanded worship as God.
Throughout the generations, our Jewish community has largely accepted this portrayal of Jesus as accurate and thus worthy of rejection. We even have conflated this depiction with the unfavorable memories of other historical characters in our past with superficial similarities (i.e., "Yeshu").
But in more recent times, an ironic historical truth has surfaced. The persona of Christ that the Church has promulgated differs substantially from the historical person it claims to represent. Scholars today widely accept that Jesus of Nazareth was an observant Jew whose teachings fell within the norms of the Judaism of his day. Like thousands of other Jews of the era, he was executed by crucifixion by the Romans.
A straightforward reading of the New Testament reveals that Jesus was not put to death for offenses against faithful Judaism. It was specifically the Tzaddukim (Sadducees), a heretical sect of collaborators with Rome, who were complicit in Jesus' death. They feared that as Jesus stoked the hopes of redemption among Jews, the Roman government would view it as sedition and respond with collective punishment. By handing Jesus over preemptively as a lone seditionist, they hoped to exonerate themselves from Roman wrath.
The Tzaddukim committed this act in direct violation of Jewish law: it is absolutely forbidden to turn a fellow Jew over to Gentiles to be put to death.
People might mistakenly suppose that Jewish leaders of the Second Temple era convened a valid court representing Jewish consensus. They might think the court proceeded according to Jewish norms and produced a conviction on the basis of halachah. The New Testament goes out of its way to show that this was not the case. Practically every detail about Jesus' trial explicitly violates a law of Jewish jursiprudence.
Compare Mark 14-15 with Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:1 to see several clear disqualifying factors. The trial was held at night, whereas capital cases must only be held during the day. The trial was held on the Yom Tov of Pesach, but a capital trial may not be convened on Yom Tov or Erev Yom Tov. Jesus was condemned and sentenced within hours of his arrest, but a capital case must not conclude with conviction in one day. The trial was held not in the Chamber of Hewn Stone but in the private home of Caiaphas, with clearly biased judges who pronounced a unanimous verdict of guilt with not a single defender.
Claiming to be the Messiah, even wrongly, does not amount to blasphemy by Jewish law. It does, however, amount to insurrection, sedition, or sacrilege against the Roman Empire.
When the Romans executed Jesus, they posted a sign indicating the charge of his crime. Instead of writing his actual charge they wrote, "King of the Jews." They placed a crown of thorns on his head, draped a robe on him, and forced him to hold a reed as a "scepter."
They did not do these things to humiliate Jesus. They treated Jesus in this way to humiliate the Jewish people. It was a message to Israel that they were not just executing a man; they were crucifying the Jewish hope of autonomy. Jesus was not condemned by "the Jews;" he was executed by Rome in an act of anti-Jewish oppression.
It is a bitter irony that the Romans, the same nation as those who crucified Jesus, converted to Christianity and continued to persecute Jews the way they persecuted Jesus, the Jew.
Members of our community are devoted followers of the historical person, Yeshua of Nazareth. We are convinced that he is the promised Messiah. We accept that our devotion and conviction is a matter of faith that not everyone holds.
But the fact that he lived as a pious, observant Jewish Rabbi is a matter of historical truth. Holding on to the idea that he was an iconoclast who spurned the mitzvot, rejected the Jewish people, and founded a new religion is like believing the earth is flat. It was forgivable in historical times of ignorance, but it is unreasonable nonsense today.
And yet this holy Jewish teacher from the era of the Tannaim unfairly bears the stigma of generations of lies. The slander against him has fed into a vicious cycle of antisemitism that bears no signs of slowing. It's time to break it.
The Torah combines two commands a single verse:
לֹא־תֵלֵךְ רָכִיל בְּעַמֶּיךָ לֹא תַעֲמֹד עַל־דַּם רֵעֶךָ אֲנִי ה׳
Do not go as a talebearer among your people; do not stand by the blood of your neighbor; I am Hashem.
The Chofetz Chaim writes in Hilchot Rechilut 1:1,
One who goes talebearing about his fellow transgresses a negative commandment, as it is said, “You shall not go as a talebearer among your people.” This is a grave sin, and it causes many Jewish lives to be killed. Therefore it is juxtaposed to, “You shall not stand by the blood of your fellow.” Go and learn what happened through the talebearing of Doeg the Edomite, through which Nov, the city of priests, was killed.
Thus it is imperative for everyone who considers themselves to be shomer mitzvot, even if you disagree with us about Yeshua being the Messiah, to refrain from speaking lies about him and to refute those who do. If everyone understood the truth about the Jewish person named Yeshua of Nazareth, the world would be a much better place.