Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Why Jews Become Catholics, by Rosalie Marie Levy, Deborah Bernstein (Preface).

Traditional Catholicism Vibrant. Jewish Elitism and Anti-Christian Prejudices

The Jewish converts, featured in this 1924 book, were from many walks of life: Some were secular, and some were devout–even the sons of rabbis. A recurring theme of the testimonies is the dissatisfaction with Judaism as a system of performances and rituals.

WOMEN AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH

Ironic to current feminist complaints that the Catholic Church does not allow female priests, one of the converts had come to Catholicism precisely because she believed that the Catholic Church allows women to serve God along with men. In contrast, “The place of a woman in the Jewish religion is in the home, to keep a ‘kosher’ house, which in my opinion was only cleanliness.” (p. 137).

CANDOR ON RECIPROCITY OF ANTAGONISMS BETWEEN JEWS AND CHRISTIANS

Nowadays, almost every book on Jewish-Christian relations blames Christianity for everything negative in the past. Not this 1924 book!

The Jewish testimonies are candid about earlier prejudices against Christianity. Christianity was considered idolatry (p. 140), seen as ignorant (p. 178) and treated with “utter contempt”. (p. 54). One convert came to accept the statuary in the Catholic Church just as one would look at a photo of one’s mother and father, and thereby recall their presence and love them. (p. 130).

CONSEQUENCES OF LIBERAL DECAY IN THE CHURCH TODAY

The Preface to the new edition is written by Deborah Bernstein. She criticizes the 2000 statement of Pope John Paul II (JPII), in which he substituted feel-good sentiments for sound Catholic teachings. She comments, “These Jews [in the 1924 book] did not gravitate toward the Church because of an appeal to human values but rather because of the Divine Truth to which, by the grace of God, they respond with recognition and submission.” (second page of unpaginated Preface).

The decline of the Church today is evident everywhere. For instance, several decades ago, a single poor parish in New York was able to bring more converts into the Church than a typical diocese does today.