This morning I was shocked by the conversation that I had with the 6 and 4-year-olds. Jr, the 20-month-old, calls juice jew. “I ount jewww,” he exclaimed. I replied, “You like Jews?” This is the following conversation.
…
6-y-o: He does not like Jews.
Me: Jesus was a Jew.
6-y-o: (with a look of dismay) Jesus was never a Jew!
4-y-o: Yeah, he was never a Jew!
Me: The Jews are God’s people. Moses, Abraham, King David, all the Apostles, they were all Jews…
(Both girls shake their heads.)
Me: So who do you think the Jews are then? (I'm guessing they think I'm calling Jesus a glass of orange juice)
6-y-o: They are mean people.
4-y-o: Yeah!
(I think to my self, “Ohh my gosh, I’m raising little anti-Semites.”)
Me: Where did you learn that!?!?!
4-y-o: Maybe at school?
6-y-o: We don’t talk about Jesus at school.
…
So I had to strongly defend the Jews as God’s chosen people, and all the great Bible characters were Jewish, they were not bad people, and that Jesus himself was, in fact, Jewish. My guess is that no one actually told them that Jews were bad people, but that they inferred it. At home and church they learn that Jesus and all the Bible heroes are good. No one has ever referred them as Jewish. They learned that the Jews are the ones who killed Jesus (which is a whole other discussion…for another day perhaps); therefore they are bad people just like the Philistines or the Babylonians.
I can’t believe that that was festering in my own house. All I can say is thank God for orange juice and my 20-month-olds mispronunciation. Without it we would not have had such an important theological discussion this morning.
Technorati Tags: parenting
antisemitism
Christian Education
1 comments:
Oh Man! Good work catching that. The only thing I can say is that it's very difficult to know how children are reasoning things out. You just have to keep plugging away with them.
Post a Comment