dear Christian friends: PSA

therenegadegabbai:

therenegadegabbai:

dear Christian friends! since we’re now approaching Easter and Pesach…

if you’re a Christian in the US, you’ve probably seen a church advertise a seder. [a seder (lit: order) is a Jewish festive meal, often for the holiday of Pesach, or Passover]. churches will often put on seders for Easter in a misguided attempt to connect to the last supper, or will use it to celebrate Pesach in a Christian manner. this might have happened in your church. you might have attended it.

[psa: i don’t blame you for being taught that this was okay! but,] here are some reasons why that’s a problem:

• seders are a specifically Jewish ritual. the same concerns about appropriation apply here–this is a sacred practice by us and for us, and if you’re not invited to participate (which often happens! talk to your Jewish friends!), it is harmful for you to take our ritual and use it to suit your own purposes.
• Jesus was a Jew. cool! let’s talk about it! interfaith dialogue is my jam. but Christianity has been a separate tradition from Judaism for 2000 years. you have your own holy traditions and practices, as do we, and all of those have changed over the last two millenia. Jesus’ Judaism looked very different than today’s, not least because he lived in a time when there was still a Temple in Jerusalem. in his time, Pesach focused on a physical korban, or sacrifice at the Temple, and the rabbinic extrapolations that formed the modern seder had not been set down in writing. while the modern seder uses ritual foods and texts to recall or fulfill similar functions to the korbanot, it is not the same as a celebration of Pesach that would have occurred during the Second Temple Era. that the holy figure of your faith celebrated a ritual that shares ancient roots with our modern ones does not entitle you to the modern ritual.
• the above applies whether or not the last supper was in fact a Pesach meal. biblical historians can debate this more completely than i can, but in either case, the modern Jewish seder is the result of 2000 years of Jewish development independent of Christianity. it is not yours.
• also, given that one of the central tenets of our tradition is that Moshiach, or the messiah, has not yet come, it’s pretty squicky for us to see a messianic group appropriating a Jewish practice in service of their messiah.
• also, you all have some pretty cool practices as far as i can see! you have a beautiful and vast tradition to draw from when celebrating Easter and other holidays. why appropriate when you could be celebrating something wholly your own?
• the history of antisemitism is long and checkered, and unfortunately has quite a lot to do with Christianity. Christianity has been a major body in the oppression, disenfranchisement, and murder of Jews for centuries. whether accusing us of killing Jesus, relegating us to ghettoes, perpetuating damaging stereotypes, limiting our citizenship, encouraging and engaging in large-scale murders of Jewish communities, expelling us from cities and nations, forcing conversions, or many, many other acts of antisemitic violence over the years, the church has consistently given religious power to antisemitic positions. while this has improved in certain places in recent years, it’s a long history. and its effects are still felt today–even in Christian-majority places where physical violence has become less common (though by no means absent), Jews have to fight for our ability to celebrate real Pesach, often facing the possibility of retaliation when taking time off of work or school, while Christian holidays are made federal. elsewhere, Jews continue to hide in our homes during the Easter season to avoid those set on revenge for Jesus’ death. it rankles when anyone takes our traditions, but when the people in question are part of a legacy that has, through physical and institutional violence, prevented us from celebrating them ourselves, it is all the more harmful.
• antisemitism related to Pesach specifically has also had a massive and devastating impact on Jewish communities around the globe. the blood libel, one of the most pernicious antisemitic myths, accuses Jews of kidnapping and murdering Christian children in order to use their blood to make matzah, the unleavened bread used in Pesach seders. it has been used to call all Jews child-killers, bloodthirsty, predatory, and cruel. it was an impetus behind most of the major European-Christian acts of antisemitic violence, including the Inquisition, the Holocaust, and pogroms, and is still in use today, all around the world. the very observance of Pesach has been shaped by this violence–for example, many Ashkenazi Jewish communities still have a practice of using white or raisin wine instead of red for their seders, simply because the danger of being killed for having a cup of red liquid on a Pesach table was so great. for the right to celebrate this holiday in particular, millions (and no, i am not exaggerating) of Jews have been murdered. Pesach is a celebration of our freedom from bondage, but it has also been a time of fear. you can have a seder on a whim. we put our lives on the line. 
• please respect our history. if you have questions, my inbox is always open, and if you’d like to learn what a real seder is like, so is my door!
• further reading

SO, what can you do? if you see a local church advertising a seder and are in a position to speak out, do so. if you’re not, that’s okay. but start these conversations whenever you can. and you can always, of course, get in touch with your local Jewish community and learn about actual Jewish practices! appropriation is not the only way to connect to Jews or Judaism. let’s celebrate these springtime holidays in the spirit of interfaith understanding!