What Hate Does
By Anonymous, San Antonio, TX
I was very touched when I read thisarticle, for I am also a Jew living in a Christian community. I knowwhat it is like to feel like an outsider because of my religion. Igreatly respect Michael R. for not giving up not only on his religion,but also on his family.
Sometimes I’ll hear derogatoryremarks from people, but I know they are just ignorant of otherreligions. Ignorance does no good for anyone and is most harmful tothose who possess it. Recently, a rabbi came to my school to speak aboutJudaism to introduce students to other religions. When he startedtalking about Jewish beliefs, one particular belief seemed to offend myclassmates: that Jews don’t accept Jesus Christ as the son ofGod.
After the talk, many of my own friends, forgetting I wasJewish, made comments like “When I heard that Jews don’tbelieve in Jesus, I closed my ears.” They seemed to get the ideathat despite the fact that Jews believe in God, we are sinners for notbelieving in Jesus. I explained that they obviously didn’tunderstand Judaism or the rabbi’s talk because if they did, theywouldn’t be saying those lies. I was dumfounded that some peoplestill haven’t changed.
But then I read an inspiring quoteby George Aiken, “If we were to wake up some morning and find thateveryone was the same race, creed and color, we would find some othercauses for prejudice by noon.” This put a smile on my face, andnow I realize that those ignorant, prejudiced people aren’t worthmy time.
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