Dialogue Jewish Christian Insincere Setbon

From the Kippah to the Cross: A Jew’s Conversion to Catholicism, by Jean-Marie Elie Setbon. 2015

Dubious Sincerity of Jewish-Christian Dialogue. Talmud Anti-Christian. “Progressive” Rabbi Moses Maimonides Condemned Jewish Christians to Die

Because there are many other reviews that describe the overall contents of this book, I do not repeat them. Instead, I focus on other themes, especially the author’s deep insights into Judaism.
The author was Ashkenazic through his mother, and Sephardic through his father. His maternal grandmother was of Polish origin. (p. 16). The family lived in France. Author Setbon, for a time, was a well-educated ultra-Orthodox Jew living in Israel, and, at another time, a Lubavitcher.

—The following [EXCEPT FOR THE CAPTIONS IN CAPITALS] are direct quotes—

THE TALMUD

There, developing my knowledge of the Talmud, I was preparing to make a horrible discovery that was to torture me for years, even after my baptism. I recognized that Jesus was treated in several passages of the Talmud…Jesus was called a blasphemer. Even worse, I learned that it was forbidden to pronounce His name!…I realized that the story of Jesus and Mary such as it was presented in the Talmud had absolutely nothing to do with the story recounted in the Gospels I had read as a teenager. (pp. 56-57).

THE ONE-SIDEDNESS OF CHRISTIAN-JEWISH “DIALOGUE”

For religious Jews, Jesus is the devil. For this reason, I am skeptical about the sincerity of Jewish-Christian dialogue such as it is practiced (even if in substance it can be very rich). For me at any rate, I can tell you that when I was an Orthodox Jew, I would have had—forgive me the expression—absolutely NOTHING to do with Christians. (p. 57. Emphasis is in original).

I am not trying to be polemical, but relations between Jews and Christians must be founded on freedom of speech and on the truth. (p. 140). [NO KIDDING].

JEWISH/CHRISTIAN INTOLERANCE AND PERSECUTION WENT, AND STILL GO, BOTH WAYS

And I also cannot ignore the sufferings of my first Jewish brothers converted to Christ who suffered martyrdom at the hands of their own Jewish brothers. It is not for me to judge them; I am not God. It is for me to forgive. But look at how, in our day, Israeli Jews converted to Christ are obligated to conceal themselves, and yet Israel is a democratic society. As I have already said, even today, Jews pray a nineteenth blessing that was added to the chief eighteen-blessing prayer. And this prayer is in fact a curse on Jews who have converted to Christ. In the twenty-first century, three times a day Jews still curse Jews who have become Christians, and I am not supposed to say so? (p. 140).

MOSES MAIMONIDES CONCLUDES HIS THIRTEEN ARTICLES WITH THIS COMMENTARY:

But if someone is so perverse as to deny one of these articles of faith, he is outside the communion of Israel, and IT IS A PRECEPT TO HATE HIM AND TO EXTERMINATE HIM. (pp. 78-79. Emphasis is in the original).

——-End of direct quotes——–