You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Much has been written explaining why the Hebrews of the Roman world did not forsake their Judaism and follow Jesus of Nazareth and Pauline Christianity. As a student of Judaism, I have never found a satisfying explanation to account for the reluctance of my forebears in ancient and modern times which I could accept as plausible.
The most generalized view of Jewish survival is that Jews internalized from their history a peculiar relationship to an omniscient and omnipotent God who had a predetermined plan for His people to fulfill. This view, based on a unique covenant the Jewish people had made with their God, was later refined to include a concept of a divine mission which was to bring their God's message into the consciousness of the gentile world. Thus the covenant or brith with Abraham and the mission of Israel as expounded in the prophets of Judah were what made the Jewish people unique and distinct to our own time.
As a child I knew there were people who were not Jews and this was made quite clear to me as they were frequently called “goyim,” who seemed to me at the time to be people of whom one might feel a bit wary. I had no idea what it was that distinguished “goyim” from Jews.
One day while I was spending my summer vacation with my grandmother, who was a very observant Orthodox Jew, she made a distinction between Jew and gentile for me. This distinction was based on kosher food. What was it about kosher food which made Jews Jews and non-Jews Christians. I was watching her koshering meat one day, which is a process involving the soaking of flesh in water and