btw: if you reblog this poll, feel free to explain your answer in the tags or the reblog!

Correct Answer: No Role At All

Jesus does not play a role in Judaism. That includes both the Tanach, which is arguably our primary religious text, and the daily religious/cultural practice of Judaism. He certainly plays a role in Jewish history—largely a negative one, as his followers have persecuted Jews for multiple centuries. There is evidence that he may appear briefly in the Talmud, which is a compilation of Jewish legal commentaries and teachings that modern Jewish scholars study throughout their lives. However, this is not a commonly-known fact amongst Jews (I myself didn't know this beforehand), nor do regular practicioners ever discuss him in Torah Study or services. (If any Talmudic scholars want to comment on this, absolutely feel free to!)

Nothing described above constitutes a role in Judaism. One trend I saw in tags was the assumption that, since Jews often engage in scholarly and/or religious debate, we likely discuss Jesus amongst ourselves. We don't lol; if there's a consensus about anything in Judaism, it's probably the Jesus thing. There is slight variance amongst individual Jews; for example, some consider him a wise rabbi/teacher with good ideas, while for others he's just some Jewish guy who probably existed and caused problems.

For every non-Jew who believed he had a role, I urge you to reflect on this assumption. Where did it come from? Who gave you this information initially—a Jew or a gentile? Why might a Christian source want you to believe we accept Jesus as a prophet or prominent figure? I also urge anyone who grew up Christian (or in a Christian culture) to reflect on any emotional reaction you had to learning this information. Were you shocked or uncomfortable? What do you feel about Jews who don't like Jesus at all, no matter how "good" his ideas might be?

While Jesus doesn't play a role in Judaism, Christianity does play a large role in antisemitism. This may also be new information to you. If you feel shame or guilt about your reaction and/or not knowing, I gently urge you to unpack that before engaging in any more conversations—if either emotion is the driving force of your allyship, you will burn out. And here's me talking specifically, because I can't speak for all Jews lmao: you don't need to confess or repent. You just need to show up and trust the perspectives of Jewish people about both our religion/culture and experiences with antisemitism. (You'll notice that all the sources I've included above and below are from Jewish organizations!) That's the first step, and I appreciate any non-Jews who take that step and keep going afterwards.

Results/Quick Analysis:

Thank you to everyone who participated! I was actually blown away by how seriously folks took this question; I've been joking to friends that I haven't ever seen this many goyim be normal towards Jews LMAO + genuinely curious to learn more about our religion, culture, and history. The bar is wildly low, but it's still cool to see it surpassed, and to see an absolute Torah Study happening in those tags.

Very Quick Analysis: the results were both relieving and worrying. Relieving because most people got the right answer! Worrying because, well, nearly half of the respondents did not. This isn't a verifiably solid sample size by any means, but that's still roughly 44% of 44,027 respondents, not including everyone who voted "something else." (Some of those answers veered from "very wrong" to "techically right," so it'd take a bit to accurately quantify).

That being said, the three primary wrong answers are not equally wrong. There are some important and interesting nuances to oberve here, and I plan to do so in a much longer post (hopefully) later this week. However, if you're interested in a quick explanation/breakdown of the wrong answers, click the read more below.

Wrong Answer One: Jesus is a Jewish Prophet

Jesus is not considered a Jewish prophet by any major sects or traditions. There are approximately 48 recorded prophets in the Tanach, none of whom are the guy known to Christians as Jesus. (I say approximately because the number has been contested before in the Talmud). There may be individual Jews who believe that Jesus should be a prophet or a significant religious teacher in Judaism, such as this guy I found in a 1971 New York Times article.

Here's the definition of a Jewish prophet, according to JewFaqs:

In very simple terms, Jesus is not a prophet because we don't believe he spoke on G-d's behalf. I was very tickled by the description of Jesus as a "good Jew" in some tags, because, well. No he ain't, according to most commonly accepted definitions of a Jew who practices Judaism and participates in Jewish culture. (Some disagree with this, however! That is where debates can happen between Jews. Just not in Torah Study).

There are also Messianic Jews/"Jews for Jesus", who have alternative beliefs about Jesus' role in Judaism, to put it mildly. However, Messianic Jews do not reflect the beliefs of anyone but themselves. Many Jews (myself included) do not count Messianic Jews as Jews. To learn why, please read that article I've linked there.

According to the tags, there appears to be two main reasons for this assumption. The first is the one I expected: While Jesus is not a prophet in Judaism, he is a prophet in Islam. This conflation is somewhat understandable, especially for Muslims/those who grew up Muslim, plus anyone who only knows a few facts about either Judaism or Islam.

The second one is honestly shocking to me: some Christian schools (including day schools and extracurricular programs) are apparently teaching y'all that Jews believe Jesus is a prophet!!! Hello lmao. They are Blatantly lying to you! This is fascinating. And it explains so much about Christian assumptions of Judaism and our relationship to JC. But what the fuck. Anyway, I plan to analyze Why I think they're teaching y'all that in the future Big Post. In the meantime: feel free to toss that lesson out. garbage

Wrong Answer Two: Jesus Appears in the Torah

Nope! The Torah's historical timeline is complicated, especially when you consider both the oral traditions and the written text. However, Jesus definitely doesn't appear in there. In general, the Torah describes the first five books in the Tanach, which consists of three major sections: the Chumash (the Torah), the Prophets (Neviim), and the Writings (Ketuvim). The Tanach roughly correlates to the Christian Old Testament; there are some key differences in which texts are included in the latter versus the former.

Anyway, as many have pointed out in the tags, the Torah was written way before Jesus was born. There's no full consensus on when the written Torah (as Jews know it today) was completed, but it was definitely before the birth of JC. He missed the whole party and we're not giving him any party favors.

According to the tags, I believe there are also two main reasons for this assumption. The first is plain and simple ignorance. Many gentiles don't know what the Torah is; in fact, many assume that it's the full Old Testament. Others don't know that Jesus only appears in the new one, especially if they weren't raised Christian/only know stuff about Christianity through osmosis. And it's okay to not know things! But now you know. Woe! Google Scholar be upon ye

The second is a bit more complicated: according to Christian theology, Jesus' birth was predicted in the Old Testament, aka the Tanach, aka the Torah. In this context, it makes sense why Christians/anyone raised vaguely Christian might misremember that Jesus himself shows up. Or they might count these predictions as him "showing up." But this is only true of Christianity. Jews do not believe that Jesus shows up in the Torah. Theologically speaking, that would be as absurd as the Buddha showing up in the Torah.

"Wrong" Answer Three: Jesus is a Rejected Messiah/Religous Figure

Actually, this answer isn't technically wrong. Anyone who voted this answer gets the metaphorical consolation prize. Put simply, Jews very much do reject Jesus as the prophecied Messiah in Judaism. (Someone in the poll reblogs wrote a great explanation as well - I'll either link it here or reblog it after posting this!) Furthermore, some Jews classify him as a "false Messiah" - belonging to a wider group of other Jews who claimed to be a Messiah and were rejected for various reasons.

The reason why I included this answer is because I was interested in how gentiles would intepret it. Some definitely questioned whether this answer should be separated from "no role at all," and others wanted to know my intended meaning first. For the sake of simplicity, my interpretation is this: Jesus can only be a "Rejected Messiah" figure in Judaism if that rejection is active—something we do as a part of everyday Judaism.

However, our rejection of Jesus is ultimately very, very passive. To actively reject Jesus, we'd have to seriously consider him as a contender. His divinity and/or importance would need to be a subject of debate. And he isn't. For the majority of Jews, rejecting Jesus has the same theological relevance as rejecting any major religious figure from a different religion. To use a common phrase from the tags: to us, Jesus is very much just some guy.

In any case, I do think my original hypothesis holds true: selecting this answer over "no role" shows that you approached the question from a Christian perspective, rather than a Jewish one. To be clear, I don't expect you to have that Jewish perspective ready to go. However, the Christians don't only believe we rejected Jesus; many believe that Jews killed him. (Jews did not kill Jesus. If Jesus existed, the Romans killed Jesus). This antisemitic canard is the basis for other antisemitic canards, including blood libel, which has led to multiple pogroms. (Also: many of these pogroms have historically occurred during Passover).

To put it even more bluntly: the Christian belief that Jews reject Jesus gets us killed. That's why it's important to consider the Jewish perspective over the Christian perspective. That's also why it's important to separate the two religions in your mind. Judaism is not incomplete Christianity, nor a proto-Christianity. It's an expansive tradition spanning thousands of years with multiple sects and diverse histories. And Jesus plays no significant role in that tradition.

Concluding Thoughts (Where's the Long Analysis?)

Thanks for reading the short version (haha) of the analysis! I hope to have a longer one out sometime this week, but it may be longer, as I'm hoping to get imput from other Jewish folks before publishing. Everything I described above is within my wheelhouse of knowledge, but the Longer Version requires a research journey and more in-depth sourcing. (That being said, @ Jews, please feel free to offer corrections or alternative perspectives!)

If anyone has any questions about the poll or what I wrote above, feel free to shoot me an ask or dm! (Anon is unfortunately off because I get nervous every time one of my Jewish posts makes the rounds). If I don't know the answer, I'll either provide a source you can check out, consult another Jew who's up for answering questions, or point you in the general direction of where to find the right answer.