I got the email too, and am at an utter loss to understand why - I haven’t even participated in this thread.
::sigh::
I got the e-mail, too. I hate to think that people like that are around here, even if they do eventually get banned.
Thanks for your explanation, Fenris. As I interpret your statement, you have no problem with non-practicing Jews claiming to be of Jewish heritage. You do have a problem with people implying they are religious Jews when, in fact, they do not practice or believe in basic Jewish religious dogma. Is my interpretation accurate?
I got one too: He wants me to unban him. Little does he know that though I have vast powers, unbanning ain’t one of them. (Not that I would…)
He’s apparently convinced that Laurange is the only person who disagreed with him. He spends the bulk of the letter repeating that Laurange isn’t a Jew. He’s not real fond of her. She’s racist. As Monty noted, he misses the point of “The Jerk”.
It’s not a particularly psychotic rant, but it is obsessive and racist.
Fenris
As Joan Jett once said, “I’m glad it wasn’t just me!”
I got the email too. Again, polite enough, but hey, so was JDT, right?
Hey, I started this damn thread and I’m what you might call a ‘non-practicing’ Jew. My mom was Jewish but I’m not terribly religious. Heck, as I said before, America is the best place the Jews have ever found. Willy nilly, right-of-return or not, here I stand.
Kinda. It depends on why they’re making that claim. See below.
**
Yes. But I want to expand a bit on what I said earlier.
The reason that I pay attention to people who are non-“religous Jews” who claim to be Jewish is that, once you step outside of people like Laurange who are legitimate “ethinic or cultural Jews”, there’s a whole, scary segment of the population who call themselves Jews for the purposes of defrauding and worse.
As mentioned, there are frauds like “Jews for Jesus” who are “Christians” who lie about their faith in order to score conversion points. (see this thread for a particularly good discussion about them.)
There are also racists (The “Christian Identity Movement” for one particularly noxious example) who claim that Jews as we understand the word aren’t “real” Jews, we’re descended from Eve being raped by the Serpent in the Garden of Eden (the “Serpent Seed” doctrine) and that “real” Jews are white Aryans like them (apparently all “real” Jews are butt-ugly, judging from the spokesthings I’ve seen).
My understanding is that some of the more radical Islamic sects, as well as Faharakkan’s group, also claim that Jews aren’t really Jews.
So my concern isn’t just trying to preserve some mythical “purity” of Jewishness, it’s that when someone says “I’m a ‘real Jew’” or a “cultural Jew” or an “ethinic Jew” they can be anything from a nifty person like Laurange to a Nazi.
Fenris
I got the email as well – pretty damn amazing, considering I’d never HEARD of him before he emailed me. (I thought it had something to do with an IRC channel that I’m on a lot, actually.) It took me a bit to find this thread.
I replied to him before figuring out for certain what he was talking about:
If I get a reply that is other than apologetic, his ISP gets an AUP complaint.
So, people who didn’t even post to this thread are receiving the email. He’s going to great effort to make his point.
Brain hurts.
[Moderator Hat: ON]
Okay, if you did get this letter, please send an e-mail to me to let me know. You don’t have to send me the text of the letter- I’ve gotten my own copy, and had two other people forward it to me, so it’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I’d just like to keep track of who got it, so that should there come a need to contact his ISP regarding him being a stalker/spammer, we can. Assuming he pushes the situation.
And please don’t push back- don’t reply, don’t taunt, don’t pester. I realize some replies have already been sent out, and that’s fine- I’d just prefer to keep this from allowing anyone on this end from being accused of escalating things.
[Moderator Hat: OFF]
Oh, and Fenris- when discussing someone who is an ethnic Jew, I prefer the term “e-Jew”. Sounds all modern and high-tech. 
First, thanks for giving me the benefit of doubt. I wasn’t trolling by any means of the immagination. I was simply trying to give reasons why Jews were proof that God existed. I understand now that it came off wrong to some people and I am sorry that happened. That was not my intention what so ever. But I do appreciate Lynn your fairness about not liking me and all therefor giving me the benefit of the doubt.
Sister coyote,
Yes, the God I worship is the same one Poly and Fenris do. I guess I just used Poly’s name because of the way I understood one of Fenris’s post.
I got the e-mail too. I did not read it as badly as some of you seem to have. I understand where y’all are coming from completely, but I read it as someone without a lot of experience who wandered into a mine field and dosen’t understand what all those loud noises are. My take on Portajon is that he is a vastly inexperienced person who sees himself as arguing the “facts” without understanding why such a position is offensive in this case. Such an attitude is not unknown, particularly among immature human beings ( I’d be suprised if he’s more than 16-18 or so ), but Jon has so far demonstrated a singular lack of willingness to try and understand why that’s a bad attitude to have. The analogy that springs to mind is a person meeting Michael Jackson for the 1st time, without any knowledge of his backgroud, who responds to Mr. Jackson saying “I’m black” with, “No you’re not, just look at you.” Wrong? yup. Misguided? yup. Insensitive? yup, yup. Offensive? definitely. But not, in this light, completely incompriehensable. That’s just my take on the matter, and I do realize that I tend to be more charitable than most in situations like this.
Fenris, I have a question for you. You have several times refered to “Jews for Jesus” with distain. If a person is the child of a Jewish mother ( an e-Jew. I like that, JC. ) who feels that Christianity is the religion that he or she is called to follow, what is wrong with that? In addition, from that person’s POV, would they not be the embodyment of the fulfillment of promises made in the Torah? Why do such people bother you?
Gotta go with Weirddave on this one. PJ’s attitudes are exactly as Dave describes them, except he doesn’t need to be sixteen to think like that. We must realize that there are loads of people in this country who have never met a Jew and the only things they know about Jews is what they learn from other people. They haven’t been sensitized to the deeper, or hidden, meanings of some things. They have preconceptions that might sound to you like prejudices. And because so much of this is alien to their experience they may be a little slow on the uptake. Enlightening them may take time and effort but it can be worthwhile.
No, Bill, it’s NOT the same God. Your God is part of a Trinity. Father/Son/Holy Ghost.
To Jewish teachings this is absolutely incorrect. The idea of God being a Trinity is, to me, as incorrect as the idea that Jesus isn’t God’s Son who died and rose is to you.
The most basic, fundimental, un-arguable tenent of Jewish faith is summed up in probably the most important Jewish prayer called the Shm’a (I can’t spell the English transliteration): Hear O Israel : The Lord our God, the Lord is one. The most important Jewish prayer is to reaffirm that God is one unsplittable, undividable being.
The prime tenent is that God is One and Indivisible. I understand that Christian theologians have said that this prayer refers to the idea that the Trinity is one God (shell/yolk/white=one egg). Jews, pretty much universally reject this idea.
So no. We don’t worship the same God.
You believe in original sin. We don’t.
You believe in a Messiah, all God and All man at the same time. Our idea of a messiah (note lower case) is a king/scholar/teacher who is in NO WAY divine.
While Jews and Christians share a lot in common, Christians are not simply Jews with extra stuff added on.
(The following analogy uses evolution to illustrate how the two religons diverged and will make both Ben AND Wildest Bill’s heads explode. Let’s watch! 
)
Think of it this way: Humans did not evolve from gorillas. Gorillas aren’t devolved humans. But both humans and gorillas share a common ancestor.
Fenris
Just like you, Fenris, and WIldestBill share a common ancestor, but…look at the difference.
Well, ONE of them is the same!
(Yeah, I’ve read part of the Trinity thread so I won’t mention my own confusion as to how the Trinity differs from polytheism.)
Fenris:
I would venture to add that the “Jews for Jesus” really are all about decimating the religion of Judaism. I can think of nothing nice to say about such a group.
Wow… I feel so special.
I agree that (as weird as it may sound) it doesn’t seem like portajon’s trolling in this thread, just that he’s obtuse and ignorant. Of course, if Lynn says he is trolling, though, she must have some good reasons.
I have to confess that I don’t get anti-Semitism. Judaism is a beautiful religion based on committment to following God, and I like the sound of Hebrew prayers just as an aesthetic pleasure.
What would America be without the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Lenny Bruce, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Sandy Koufax, Hank Greenberg, George Burns, Leonard Bernstein, Yul Brynner, Zero Mostel, Adam Sandler, and the Three Stooges, just to start? We owe Las Vegas to Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky (maybe not good men, but still important to American culture).
Think about how Yiddishisms have become a vital part of the American vernacular: Klutz; schlemiel; schlep; nudge; yenta.
Our diet would be much poorer without the New York deli, kosher pickles, noodle kugel, potato pancakes, and the humble bagel with cream cheese.
I may not be a religious or ethnic Jew, but according to my friends, Rob and Sean, I’m an honorary Jew, which is pretty cool for a Roman Catholic boy.
I also got one of those creepy e-mails. Yeesh.
I don’t object to a Jew who converts to Christianity (or anything else). I’d never argue about what religoon is right for a person. I don’t even object to “Messianic Jews” (other than the name, which is my problem, not theirs) which are e-Jews (and I agree: great term, John) who are religous Christians who also follow Jewish Law (I don’t understand the point, but they’re not hurting anyone). The key here is that they don’t pretend to be r-Jews.
“Jews for Jesus” however is a sham organization. If you read that link I posted above, Zev and Chaim went into far greater detail about that group than I can. The upshot is that they pretend to be r-Jews to lure r-Jews in and slowly start slipping in Christian doctrine.
And, finally, they are not the fulfillment of the promises of the Torah. The Jewish messiah is incompatible with the Christian idea of a Messiah (note capitalizaton). The fulfillment of the promises in the Torah would be a messiah who’s a king and teacher, NOT the Son of God.
Fenris
Ok Fenris I see what you saying. But can I still make another observation. Can we both say we worship the same Father then? Secondly, the prayer about being undivided confuses me. Don’t the Jews believe that one day God is going to send a Messiah? And wouldn’t the Messiah be the Son of God?