RELS 131_ Reflection 1 Judaism - Rachel Hickey
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Reflection 1: Judaism
Rachel Hickey
20425091
RELS 131 World Religions
Dr. Amarnath Amarasingam
October 5th, 2023
The first reflection for this course surrounds Judaism. We have covered many parts of this
religion starting from the foundations of the religion, to rabbinic Judaism, medieval Judaism,
modern day, and much more. Going into the class, I had a general understanding of the religion
and its traditions, yet my knowledge was very surface level. This unit has opened my eyes to the
disturbing history of Judaism, the persecution against Jews, the differences between theology and
religious studies, and things that have shocked me yet also interested me.
The main thing that shocked me the most throughout this unit would be the long history
of anti-Judaism and how it developed into anti-Semitism in the modern age. The treatment of
people of the Jewish faith seemed to be okay whilst they were living under Muslim civilization.
Under Muslim rule, they were given dhimmi status which protected them if they followed certain
rules, paid taxes, and often wore their identification badges (Week 3 - Judaism, slide 7). This
took quite the turn when living under Christian rule, where crimes of deicide (murdering God),
blood libel, and host desecration “took place”(Week 3 - Judaism, slide 11). Jews were accused of
using Christian blood for religious rituals which had been obtained through murder (Week 3 -
Judaism, slide 12). This was not difficult to believe as the deicide myth had been widely spread.
In terms of host desecration, Jews were accused of beating, stabbing, trampling, and burning the
communion wafer which is considered to be the “body of Christ''(Week 3 - Judaism, slide 15).
An entire cult of worship grew around these conspiracies and was pushed along by religious
authorities. This mass persecution and murder of Jews led many to convert to Christianity (Week
3 - Judaism, slide 16). Many Jews practiced in secret and The Spanish Inquisition arose to weed
out hearsay. Yet, the methods of torture used to get confessions were so severe and would lead to
false confessions just to make the pain stop (Week 3 - Judaism, slide 16). The Jews were
murdered either way, burned at the stake. Growing up in the Catholic church and attending a
catholic school, I was never informed of this side of Christianity. My school never talked about
the horrors in Christian history. Even though I am no longer part of the Christian faith for other
reasons, this shows my ignorance in expanding my knowledge about Christianity. I think it is
important for Catholic schools to teach about the grueling parts of Christian history. If this
education is not spread, I feel as though students are being misled into following a religion that
they don’t know everything about. For example, my brother who was in the seminar to become a
priest and has been a devoted Catholic since he could talk, recently decided to leave the church.
All the horrific stories coming out about the Church really swayed his decision to believe in this
faith. This is not to say those who believe in the Christian faith necessarily agree with the acts of
the Church, but shows that when people are informed of the entire history, it can 100 percent
change their beliefs.
Moving away from the medieval age of Judaism, this long history of anti-Judaism started
to turn into anti-Semitism. In my tutorial, we discussed and clarified the difference between the
two. Anti-Judaism was the Christian aversion to the Jewish faith whereas anti-Semitism was the
hostility and prejudice against Jewish people (Week 3 - Judaism, personal notes). In my high
school classes, we often covered the Holocaust. I was often left with the feeling of confusion,
wondering how this came about. It almost seemed like it came out of nowhere. This is certainly
not the case, this unit has opened my eyes to the long line of prejudice, discrimination, and
hostility against Jews. This unit has really helped bridge the gap between my knowledge of the
Holocaust and all the events that led up to it. Again, I feel as though it is the responsibility of
Catholic schools to ensure they are teaching the full history. At my school, World Religions was
a required course in grade 11, but it never went as in-depth on the history of Judaism as this
course has. Overall, this information was extremely shocking for me but has gratefully expanded
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my knowledge.
Something I struggled with grasping was the difference between theology and religious
studies. As mentioned before, I attended a Catholic school, and Catholicism belief was taught as
academics. Now taking this course in university, it was a little confusing separating religious
beliefs and looking at religion from an academic perspective. This was also a problem we ran
into during one of our tutorials. One of my classmates had asked the question “Who wrote the
bible?” A couple of our Jewish classmates had responded saying it was the word of God and that
the Prophets had written it. Yet the TA responded by explaining Julius Wehlauten’s theory of
Documentary Hypothesis. This theory states that the Bible is a product of many different authors
from different regions and that an unknown editor put them all together at an unknown time
(Week 2 - Judaism, slide 13). This was also broken up into four strands of tradition; Jahwist,
Elohist, Priestly, and Deuteronomist (Week 2 - Judaism, slide 14). This shows the difference
between theology and looking at religion from an academic perspective. This took a little bit of
time for me to wrap my head around, but this example from my tutorial helped me understand it.
In conclusion, this unit has reinforced concepts I already knew but also extended my
knowledge of the difficult history of Judaism. Not only do I have a better understanding of
Judaism, this unit revealed some shocking truths about a religion I used to follow and was
surrounded by my entire elementary schooling and high school education. I am thoroughly
enjoying this course and can not wait to learn more historical implications of religion as well as
continuing to examine religion academically for the first time in my life.
Bibliography
Amarnath Amarasingam, September 14, 2023,
Week 2 - Judaism,
[PowerPoint presentation],
https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/829777/viewContent/5036051/View
Amarnath Amarasingam, September 21, 2023,
Week 3 - Judaism,
[PowerPoint
presentation], https://onq.queensu.ca/d2l/le/content/829777/viewContent/5045328/View