this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Movies and TV Shows

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I'm not even religious, I just want to know.

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[–] mewpichu@lemm.ee 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

What a strangely aggressive take. The old testament in Christianity is more equivalent to the Tanakh in Judaism, of which the Torah is a part. The film tells the story of one of the highest of high holidays in all of Judaism, so it does make sense to call it a Jewish movie first and foremost.

After all calling a Christmas movie Jewish just because Jesus was a Jew would be silly.

[–] awsamation@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The important detail isn't which exact term for Jewish scripture will most closely match the old testament in Christianity. The important detail is that "old testament" as a name is meaningless in reference to Jewish scripture, because the term only has meaning if you consider the new testament as equally valid scripture.

So they're arguing that referring to Moses in a Christian context is "appropriating" Jewish culture, while doing the exact same thing themselves in the exact same comment. If they actually cared at all they'd have known that using any Jewish name for the scripture would've served their point better than "old testament".

As for the Christmas thing, it doesn't make sense to call a Christmas movie Jewish because if you actually follow Judaism then the birth of Christ isn't something worth celebrating to you. Any Christ as the savior narrative goes directly against what Judaism believes about Christ. And any Christmas movie without Christ as a savior narrative, might as well be considered non-religious.

[–] chickenwing@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

He started out as aggressive. Christians aren't appropriating Jewish culture lol. Also OP watch Martin Scorsese's movies as they all have Catholic themes.

[–] mewpichu@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I found awsamation's appeal to emotion specifically to be a bit aggressive, which is why I had decided to respond.

Messianic Judaism and the concept of celebrating Pesach and Yom Kippur as Christians are examples of Jewish appropriation. In general, I see much less straight appropriation these days, and much more the concept that we should rejoice that Judaism doesn't have to exist anymore as Christianity is Judaism v2, which only serves to erase Jewish culture.

[–] awsamation@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I didn't make any appeals to emotion, I just pointed out their own hypocrisy. If you want people to believe that you actually think Jewish culture is being appropriated by Christianity, the very least you need to do is not use Christian terminology when there exists widely known Jewish terminology for the same thing. If you don't know enough about Judaism to know the name Torah, then you have no right to complain about the interaction between Christianity and Judaism.

And of course Christianity believes that Judaism is unnecessary now. Just like Mormons believe the Christianity is unnecessary because they have the v3 update. It doesn't erase Judaism, heck the thing that started this whole thread was the fact that Jewish scripture is included directly in the Bible. The old testament stories are the same either way. The only difference is whether you believe that Jesus was the savior who fulfilled the law and brought the new law, or if you believe that the messiah hasn't come yet. But those stories still point to a future savior.

[–] mewpichu@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Responding to everything here so that we’re not bouncing between 2 different threads.

Appeal to emotion – “Heck, you don’t even give enough of a shit to refer to the scripture by the Jewish name. If you really cared perhaps you should start by calling it the Torah, the name ‘old testament’ is nonsensical when you remove the new testament.” The language you used implies they don’t care about the argument and that the lack of care is what counteracts an argument instead of facts.

Perpetuating the “Judaism is unnecessary now” narrative is part of what breeds antisemitism and makes for more hate crimes. Jews are literally seen as “Christ-killers”, and therefore literal murderers of God, in many Christian communities. This lead to normalized persecution of Jews over the course of the last 1500 years. The whole of Catholicism/Christianity is much larger than just the Mormon community, so it tends to have much more of an impact. Look up Jewish Decide for more info.

While I agree that the “Old Testament” is meaningless in relation to Judaism, you’re trying to pick apart an argument on semantics which didn’t sit right with me. Why not demand that Exodus be called Shemot? That is the proper Judaic term after all. Exodus technically refers to the Old Testament.

As for the Christmas reference – literally replace ‘the birth of Christ’ with ‘the story of Passover’. Sure it’s something that Christians learn about, but it’s not something seen as Holy as it is in Judaism. The vast majority of Christians do not really celebrate Passover, just as Jews don’t celebrate Christ or Christmas.

[–] awsamation@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

The language you used implies they don’t care about the argument and that the lack of care is what counteracts an argument instead of facts.

I only threw in that line as counter to their closing sentence of "stop helping the Christians appropriate my culture." I find it hard to believe that this supposed Christian appropriation actually bothers them very much if they themselves default to the Christian terminology. If you insist on calling my argument an appeal to emotion, then I will insist that I was only countering their prior appeal to emotion.

Perpetuating the “Judaism is unnecessary now” narrative is part of what breeds antisemitism and makes for more hate crimes.

By that same logic, every single religion in the world perpetuates hate crimes against every single other religion. The Judaism/Christianity relationship isn't special because literally every religion that isn't Judaism inherently includes the idea that Judaism is unnecessary. Just the same as how Judaism inherently includes the belief that every religion except Judaism is unnecessary.

Why not demand that Exodus be called Shemot?

Because prior to this interaction, I (a Christian) have no recollection of ever hearing the term Shemot before. If they had called it Shemot that would've been even better. But as it stands, the term Torah is very basic in the context of understanding Jewish terminology

Sure it’s something that Christians learn about, but it’s not something seen as Holy as it is in Judaism. The vast majority of Christians do not really celebrate Passover, just as Jews don’t celebrate Christ or Christmas.

That all comes down to the difference in their views of Christ. If you believe that Christ was not the messiah, then you have no real reason to celebrate him. If you do believe that Christ was the messiah, then you have incentive to celebrate important events in his life and less incentive to celebrate the feasts which were only instituted in order to point to him.

Why would I celebrate the passover, a feast that points to the sacrifice of the coming messiah, when I could just celebrate the life of that messiah instead.

I think the best comparison I can think of is something like world war 2. We don't celebrate D day, or the battle fo the bulge, or the battle of Midway. Because instead we can celebrate remembrance day. Why celebrate every major battle when you could celebrate them all at once in the winning of the war?

Or if you're Jewish, you celebrate those battles because you don't believe the war is over yet.

[–] toasteecup@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I appreciate you, I actually didn't know that set of books could be referred to as the Tanakh. I knew calling it the Torah would be a bit of an overstep.

Even if Christians claim it as part of their religion and have been appropriating it for "2000 years", it's still neither right nor accurate. I view it as further attempts to make Christianity seem more like the right choice and ease conversion for Jews which really really REALLY bothers me. It's right up there with calling Jews white. We're not.

[–] mewpichu@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago

Whether we're white or not depends on how convenient it is for someone else 🤣

I live in a very Jew-friendly area so thankfully nobody's attempting outright conversions, but there's always the consistent commentary of Christianity being the default that just hits be the wrong way.