When reading the story of Yeshu one is reminded of another Jew who, like Yeshu, became one of the most influential people in all of history but was also condemned and rejected by the Jews – Baruch Spinoza of Amsterdam (1632-1677). He, too, had been fully part of the Jewish community, then started to oppose Judaism, broke away at a young age and became one of the greatest secular Jewish philosophers ever. He, too, is admired by millions.
Baruch SpinozaRelated topics
age broke history judaism reading secular story young influential AmsterdamRelated quotes
The only successful attempt to free human reason from the authority of religion was that of Spinoza (1632–1677). In his Theologico-Political Treatise (1670) he denied the claims for divine authority based on the text of Scripture and religious tradition. [...] Spinoza was the first secular Jew, and as such, the first secular man. Indeed, he served as the role model for all secular Jews, instituting the precise features that characterized future Jewish secularists.
Baruch Spinoza
The Jewish question exists wherever the Jews live, however small their number. Where it does not exist it is imported by Jew immigrants. We naturally go where we are not persecuted, and, still persecution is the result of our appearance...By persecution we cannot be exterminated...the strong Jews turn proudly to their race when persecution bursts out. Entire branches of Judaism may disappear, break away; the tree lives.
Theodor Herzl
My Lords, I and the vast majority of the Jewish community, care deeply about the future of the Palestinians. We want Palestinian children, no less than Israeli children, to have a future of peace, prosperity, freedom and hope. Which is why we oppose those who teach Palestinian children to hate those with whom they will one day have to live; who take money given for humanitarian aid and use it to buy weapons and dig tunnels to take the region back to a dark age of barbarism.
Jonathan Sacks
There were two reasons why contemporary Jews were inclined to celebrate Spinoza. The first is Spinoza's assumed merit about mankind and only secondarily about the Jews; the second is his assumed merit about the Jewish people and only secondarily about mankind. Both reasons had induced contemporary Jews not only informally to rescind the excommunication which the Jewish community in Amsterdam had pronounced against Spinoza, but even, as Cohen put it, to canonize him.
Leo Strauss
In spite of the fact that the Jews do not even refrain from attacking Christendom, they are protected by those who wear the cassock. The Christendom of the early time was different to the one of today.
The first Christians were fighters, who wanted to free their people from the Jewish ignominy. Then the Jew crept into that community and had the originally pure Christendom ridiculed by mankind. The first Christians were willing to die to defend the Christian doctrine.
Julius Streicher