overqualification

[fox]

this morning, on the escalator down to the metro, someone standing on the right as i walked by on the left tried to give me a pamphlet from Jews For Jesus. i'd seen him from a few steps up, actually, so i wasn't in the no-thank-you place i'm usually in when people try to give me unsolicited literature -- he held the thing out to me and as i went by i heard myself say "don't EVEN", and he pulled it back, and that was that. ugh, and i was cross all the way in to work.

i e-mailed them once, several years ago, because i honestly don't understand their logic. (my freshman roommate described Jews For Jesus as "overqualified"; hence the subject line.) they were actually very polite -- the exchange went something like this:

me: so "Jews For Jesus", huh. i may be missing something, but doesn't that make you, you know ... christians?
them: yes, we are christians.
me: then, would you please stop calling yourselves jews?

i think they went on to explain that they were defining "jew" as "a member of the jewish 'race'" (a concept that doesn't bother me a whole lot, but god do i hate the phrase), a child of israel, one of The Jewish People, and not (obviously) as "a practitioner of the jewish faith". so it wasn't actually a flagrant contradiction for such a person to be a christian. my feeling: whatever. then call yourselves Hebrews For Jesus, or Israelites For Jesus, or Judaeans For Jesus. stop calling yourselves jews, and i'll stop calling you lying liars who tell lies.

Comments

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, there's some FASCINATING info on this group online... links here:

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/j/jews/

Apparently they particularly target Eastern European immigrants whose language barrier may delay their figuring out this isn't a real Jewish group... bah, my dog bites them.

[axiom_of_stripe]

so "Jews For Jesus", huh. i may be missing something, but doesn't that make you, you know ... christians?

i'd always wondered that myself. huh.

[gaeta.livejournal.com]

Is there any kind of proselytizing Christian that isn't annoying?

[jgesteve.livejournal.com]

If as you seem to indicate these are a group of people of jewish ethnicity versus jewish religion, wouldn't pamphletting be a large waste of time unless they were ethnic profiling just the Jews? I mean I couldn't be a Jew for Jesus even if I wanted to by their reasoning so...

[batdina.livejournal.com]

a couple of weeks ago there was a collection of them hanging around the civic center bart station for a few days. given my lack of equilibrium, this was a bad bad thing for all concerned, but mostly for me, to have to deal with after a long day at work. thankfully, lori walked with me for a few evenings and played human buffer and they all kept away from me, which was a Very Good Thing.

you know, however, that they tend to be ignorant of both Judaism and Christianity, thereby making them not even much fun to taunt.

[sneezer222.livejournal.com]

Ewww. Don't even get me started on that subject. And you are right, if it was Israelites For Jesus it wouldn't get my panties in such a tight bunch.

[mortifyd.livejournal.com]

Word. Those ignorant wankers annoy me and lure the unsuspecting with no Torah background away from Torah. They suck.

but

[esti626.livejournal.com]

aren't you the one who makes a distinction between Jewish and jewish? As you have for Cuban and cuban? Would you not simply argue that they are jews for Jesus?

There was an article on them in the Post a week or so back, so I knew to expect them. Strangely, I haven't been flyered, and I thought I was jewish! or jewish enough..