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One Destiny: An Epistle To The Christians
One An Epistle To The Christians is a book written by Sholem Asch, a Jewish author and playwright. The book is a letter to Christians, in which Asch explores the common ground between Judaism and Christianity. He argues that both religions share a common destiny and that they should work together to promote peace and understanding.Asch begins the book by discussing the history of Judaism and Christianity, highlighting the similarities and differences between the two religions. He then goes on to argue that both religions have a shared destiny, and that they should work together to achieve this destiny.Throughout the book, Asch provides insights into Jewish culture and traditions, and how they relate to Christian beliefs. He also discusses the role of religion in modern society, and how it can be used to promote peace and understanding.One An Epistle To The Christians is a thought-provoking and insightful book that explores the common ground between Judaism and Christianity. It is a must-read for anyone interested in interfaith dialogue and understanding.This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the old original and may contain some imperfections such as library marks and notations. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions, that are true to their original work.
- GenresReligion
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
11 people want to read
About the author
Sholem Asch
259 books36 followersPolish-American writer Sholem Asch (also written Shalom Ash, Yiddish: שלום אַש, Polish: Szalom Asz) sought to reconcile Judaism and Christianity in his controversial novels, such as
The Nazarene
(1939).
Sholem Asch composed dramas and essays in the language.
Frajda Malka bore Asch and nine other children to Moszek Asz, a cattle-dealer and innkeeper. Asch received tradition and as a young man followed, obtained a more liberal education at Włocławek, and supported with letters for the illiterate townspeople. He moved to Warsaw and met and married Mathilde Shapiro, the daughter of Menahem Mendel Shapiro. The Haskalah or Hebrew enlightenment initially influenced Asch, but Isaac Leib Peretz convinced him to switch.
Plot of God of Vengeance , his drama of 1907 features a lesbian relationship in a brothel.
He traveled to Palestine in 1908 and to the United States in 1910.
His Kiddush ha-Shem in 1919 in the earliest historical modern literature concerns the anti-Semitic uprising of Khmelnytsky in mid-17th century Ukraine.
He sat out World War I in the United States and a naturalized as a citizen in 1920. He returned.
People celebrated a 12-volume set of his collected works, published in his own lifetime in the early 1920s.
When people performed God of Vengeance , the highly esteemed play, on Broadway in 1923, authorities arrested and successfully prosecuted the entire cast on obscenity charges despite the fact that people in Europe already translated it into German, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Czech, and Norwegian.
Farn Mabul ( Before the Flood , translated as Three Cities ), his trilogy of 1929 to 1931, describes early 20th century life in Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, and Moscow.
In 1932, the republic awarded the decoration of Polonia Restituta, and the club of poets, essayists, and novelists (PEN) elected him honorary president.
He later moved to France and visited Palestine again in 1936. Dos Gezang fun Tol ( The Song of the Valley ) about the halutzim or Zionist pioneers in Palestine reflects his visit of 1936 to that region.
He set his Bayrn Opgrunt (1937), translated as The Precipice , in Germany during the hyperinflation of the 1920s.
He settled in the United States in 1938.
He, however, later offended sensibilities with The Apostle , and Mary , parts of his trilogy, which in 1939 to 1949 dealt with subjects of New Testament. The Forward , leading language newspaper of New York, dropped him and openly attacked him for promotion.
Asch spent most his last two years in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, Israel but died in London. His house in Bat Yam now houses his namesake museum. Yale University holds the bulk of his library, which contains rare books and manuscripts, including some of his own works.
Sholem Asch composed dramas and essays in the language.
Frajda Malka bore Asch and nine other children to Moszek Asz, a cattle-dealer and innkeeper. Asch received tradition and as a young man followed, obtained a more liberal education at Włocławek, and supported with letters for the illiterate townspeople. He moved to Warsaw and met and married Mathilde Shapiro, the daughter of Menahem Mendel Shapiro. The Haskalah or Hebrew enlightenment initially influenced Asch, but Isaac Leib Peretz convinced him to switch.
Plot of God of Vengeance , his drama of 1907 features a lesbian relationship in a brothel.
He traveled to Palestine in 1908 and to the United States in 1910.
His Kiddush ha-Shem in 1919 in the earliest historical modern literature concerns the anti-Semitic uprising of Khmelnytsky in mid-17th century Ukraine.
He sat out World War I in the United States and a naturalized as a citizen in 1920. He returned.
People celebrated a 12-volume set of his collected works, published in his own lifetime in the early 1920s.
When people performed God of Vengeance , the highly esteemed play, on Broadway in 1923, authorities arrested and successfully prosecuted the entire cast on obscenity charges despite the fact that people in Europe already translated it into German, Russian, Hebrew, Italian, Czech, and Norwegian.
Farn Mabul ( Before the Flood , translated as Three Cities ), his trilogy of 1929 to 1931, describes early 20th century life in Saint Petersburg, Warsaw, and Moscow.
In 1932, the republic awarded the decoration of Polonia Restituta, and the club of poets, essayists, and novelists (PEN) elected him honorary president.
He later moved to France and visited Palestine again in 1936. Dos Gezang fun Tol ( The Song of the Valley ) about the halutzim or Zionist pioneers in Palestine reflects his visit of 1936 to that region.
He set his Bayrn Opgrunt (1937), translated as The Precipice , in Germany during the hyperinflation of the 1920s.
He settled in the United States in 1938.
He, however, later offended sensibilities with The Apostle , and Mary , parts of his trilogy, which in 1939 to 1949 dealt with subjects of New Testament. The Forward , leading language newspaper of New York, dropped him and openly attacked him for promotion.
Asch spent most his last two years in Bat Yam near Tel Aviv, Israel but died in London. His house in Bat Yam now houses his namesake museum. Yale University holds the bulk of his library, which contains rare books and manuscripts, including some of his own works.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 1, 2013
The book flap calls the author, Sholem Asch, "the greatest of living Jewish writers." This is surely a matter of taste. The opening line is: "In the young manhood of our people when it was imbued with lusty shepherd strength, our fathers, rocking in the humps of their camels across the desert, saw the stars in the sky." In any case, this edition is in English translation by Milton Hindus; the author wrote in Yiddish.
The central argument is that Judaism and Christianity are theologically connected, so the adherents should consider each other family. Jews and Christians have a "single spiritual character," insofar as Jews await the Coming of the Messiah while Christians await the Second Coming of the Messiah. Miracles exist: as a Jew, Asch believes that the survival of the Jews through myriad oppressions is a miracle, and so, too, Christians must believe that the miracle of Jesus's birth included his being born as a Jew for some reason determined by God. Whoever supports Jewish-Christian unity, he says, "is on the side of God. Whoever does otherwise belongs to the other party. This is my spiritual credo. On this foundation I have built my house. For this I have sacrificed everything. This faith is my spiritual ego, my physical and spiritual personality. With it I stand and with it I fall." At the time, in the 1940s, many Jewish readers of One Destiny were bothered by what they understood as an excessively favorable theological interpretation of Christianity. His quasi-hybrid theology (in which Jews and Christians are supposed to recognize each other's miracles to some extent) is indeed bewildering.
Muslims, to the contrary, are a different breed, in his point of view. Some Middle Eastern Jews may claim that Islam is a kindred religion "through the monotheistic principle which it embraces," but in truth "the lack of the messianic principle in the Mohammedan makes him an incomprehensible stranger to us."
The gulf between Jews and Muslims is only asserted, not argued for. This assertion is quoted below in its entirety:
It should go without saying that a dissenter could answer "Well, actually, yes," or "What has that got to do with the price of fish?" to most of these questions.
Asch acknowledges that both Christians and Muslims have oppressed Jews, but this is not his immediate concern. Writing in 1945, he naturally focuses on the suffering endured by Jews in the Holocaust. He explains Nazism as a race obsession and doesn't interpret it as affiliated with Christianity. As far as modern-day oppression is concerned, he sees Christians as allies.
His dramatic descriptions of human slaughter during the Holocaust are poignant, but they do not really connect with the argument for Jewish-Christian unity on a theological basis. The half of the book that is about the Holocaust seems to have been prompted by the historical moment in which the book was written, and not by the claims about Christianity. If the book were written today, it might have been published as two separate tracts. (It's only 88 pages in total.)
The central argument is that Judaism and Christianity are theologically connected, so the adherents should consider each other family. Jews and Christians have a "single spiritual character," insofar as Jews await the Coming of the Messiah while Christians await the Second Coming of the Messiah. Miracles exist: as a Jew, Asch believes that the survival of the Jews through myriad oppressions is a miracle, and so, too, Christians must believe that the miracle of Jesus's birth included his being born as a Jew for some reason determined by God. Whoever supports Jewish-Christian unity, he says, "is on the side of God. Whoever does otherwise belongs to the other party. This is my spiritual credo. On this foundation I have built my house. For this I have sacrificed everything. This faith is my spiritual ego, my physical and spiritual personality. With it I stand and with it I fall." At the time, in the 1940s, many Jewish readers of One Destiny were bothered by what they understood as an excessively favorable theological interpretation of Christianity. His quasi-hybrid theology (in which Jews and Christians are supposed to recognize each other's miracles to some extent) is indeed bewildering.
Muslims, to the contrary, are a different breed, in his point of view. Some Middle Eastern Jews may claim that Islam is a kindred religion "through the monotheistic principle which it embraces," but in truth "the lack of the messianic principle in the Mohammedan makes him an incomprehensible stranger to us."
The gulf between Jews and Muslims is only asserted, not argued for. This assertion is quoted below in its entirety:
"But what have I to do with Mohammedanism? Did Mohammed pretend to be the Jewish Messiah? Is Mohammed a product of the Jewish spirit? Is Mohammed a continuation of the line of the prophets? Is Mohammed a fulfillment of the Lord's promise? Did Mohammed assure anyone at any time of anything but the sword? Was it Mohammed who preached the Sermon on the Mount? Did Mohammed create the culture and civilization of which I am part, and in the realization of which I see the greatest good fortune of humanity? Are the Mohammedans my brothers, sharing equally with me in the heritage of the patriarchs, subject to the same promises and taking part in the same privileges as myself? What have I to do with the desert tribe? The Christians are my brothers."
It should go without saying that a dissenter could answer "Well, actually, yes," or "What has that got to do with the price of fish?" to most of these questions.
Asch acknowledges that both Christians and Muslims have oppressed Jews, but this is not his immediate concern. Writing in 1945, he naturally focuses on the suffering endured by Jews in the Holocaust. He explains Nazism as a race obsession and doesn't interpret it as affiliated with Christianity. As far as modern-day oppression is concerned, he sees Christians as allies.
His dramatic descriptions of human slaughter during the Holocaust are poignant, but they do not really connect with the argument for Jewish-Christian unity on a theological basis. The half of the book that is about the Holocaust seems to have been prompted by the historical moment in which the book was written, and not by the claims about Christianity. If the book were written today, it might have been published as two separate tracts. (It's only 88 pages in total.)
Displaying 1 of 1 review