As we approach the Passover season, on behalf of Jews everywhere, I ask you my non-Jewish friends, to please put an end to "Christian Seders"..
I know some participate in these events thinking that they're well meaning homages to Jewish ritual, but for Jews, they are entirely and deeply offensive. They are a grotesque parody of a sacred ritual, and a direct reminder of Christian oppression and destruction of the our people. They are #antisemitism.
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Christian Seders are offensive on quite literally every level. It is no exaggeration to express that as a Jew, I find them as, if not more offensive than the kind of direct antisemitism we experience, when someone vandalizes a synagogue with a swastika.
For Jews, participation in such an event is a hateful act, and we have begged our Christian friends and neighbors to stop them, yet they continue and grow every year, bringing increasing trauma onto our people.
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If you care about your Jewish friends or consider yourself an ally to the Jewish people and you encounter this type of event taking place in your social circles, please speak out. Please tell them that we see these "celebrations" as hateful acts, as hateful as any group holding tiki torches chanting "Jews Will Not Replace Us".
I beg you to support us in making these grotesque caricatures of our holy rituals a thing of the past.
We can't do this ourselves, we need you!
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I'm going to share a few links about why these events are so bad. All the links I will share are from a Jewish perspective, but I know allies have expressed their feelings from a Christian perspective as well, and explained why these Christian Seders are not good. I urge you to share the links you have on this topic, and to share the information on this thread.
Together, maybe we can put an end to this.
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https://forward.com/food/397452/why-are-christians-starting-to-have-passover-seders/
https://sicutlocutusest.com/2014/04/11/no-christian-seders-please/
https://www.heyalma.com/why-are-christian-passover-seders-a-thing/
https://nypost.com/2022/04/14/many-jews-are-fed-up-with-christians-hosting-passover-seders/
Please, feel free to add to this list, or if you are a non-Jew, to add to it with the perspectives that are not Jewish on this. And share this with anyone who is planning or thinking of attending one of these events. Well meaning Christians can hopefully be talked out of it.
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Years ago, people with good intentions did things that hurt others.
As an example, I suspect some people who wore blackface were not necessarily always racist, but maybe have been unaware of the way it harms Black people.
So too can we appeal to the masses to tell them that Christian Seders are not acceptable, and in doing so, move this activity back to the fringes where it's seen as socially unacceptable.
I hear you.
I just think we need to at least try to explain it. When I was a kid, in the 1980s, we (and I) used a lot of words that would be entirely unacceptable today.
We can hopefully change this through awareness.
@serge It's even more important for goyische, specifically white Christian, leaders and mainstream to make this kind of thing unacceptable and embarrassing, since white Christians will respond to being shunned by their peers where they won't care about hurting Jewish people.
There are unfortunately a couple of barriers to making this happen, first in the segmentation of Christianity which means the Christians that are likely to listen to Jewish people and condemn this are also unlikely to be listened to by the out-and-out antisemitic right-wingers.
Second is that Christianity as an institution has had a structural and historical problem with antisemitism and appropriation practically since its inception, baked into its scriptures. Different churches have come to terms with this to different degrees, and European and Euro-settler churches have made practically no strides because European civilization itself, not coincidentally, rests on antisemitism.
So I can see why @ghostdancer is skeptical--but then again the needle has moved on these things before and I think it's worth trying. More importantly, Christians are the ones who need to listen and make that change.
Serge from Babka
Spammy Snarker L.J.
ghostdancer
nat_the_laowai