Rabbi Ken Ehrlich, Librarian
“Happy New Year”: and “Mazal Tov!”
We are about to celebrate an important date: January 1. New Years Day. Eight days after Christmas. The day the early Church calendar named “The Feast of Circumcision.” That’s right….according to early Church tradition, what we now call New Years Day marks the anniversary of Jesus’s bris!
As Alvy Singer’s mother said in “Annie Hall”: “Why is this your business? “ Why should Jews care about this early and now almost forgotten Christian tradition?
Because when we Jews learn about Christianity, we also learn about Judaism. More than one Jewish scholar uses the term “midrash” to explain Christianity’s origins: an interpretation of Judaism and the Jewish tradition. As those scholars explored how and why Christianity originated as a Jewish movement and how and why it evolved into a separate religion, they also discovered new and important aspects of Jewish life, thought, and culture. Those discoveries, in turn, rewrote the history of Judaism and the Jewish people.
So the study of Christianity is our business. And much of that study is contained in dozens of books in our TES Library. To find them, simply go to our on-line catalogue and search (by Subject) : “Christianity” or “Jesus” or “Jewish History”.
Enjoy your reading, And remember to greet this New Year with a “Mazal Tov”!