I was raised catholic...does the Jewish religion celebrate Easter?

Question

I don't know much about the Jewish faith, so sorry if this is a stupid question? For us, it is a big religious holiday. How about Christmas....I heard they celebrate 7 days around that time, but not Christmas. They 7 candles...each day, one. What does it signify?

The more we understand other faiths...the better the world would be...agree?

Thank-you alll for your answers. One of the great traditions I feel the Jewish people have is when the celebrate the male child coming of age. I do not know what it is called, but friends and family come from all over the world for this event. What a great way to start into man-hood. It paves the way to a great future.

Answer 1

The jewish people celebrate Pesach aka Passover to honor the memory of when they were slaves in egypt and how their god sent Moses to redeem them from bondage to take them to the promised land at this time of year. They also call it the Feast of Unleavened bread, because their ancestors were told to flee egypt in the middle of the night and they didn't have time to let bread rise. Each year, they clear their house of all leavening products, and for 7 days they do not have anything with leaven in it. They also have a festival dinner called a Seder (prounounced sayder) to honor their flight from egypt to find the promised land.

They do not celebrate Christmas, they celebrate Chanukah. Chanukah is in celebration of the time when the maccabees took on the Greeks who had invaded Jerusalem and defiled their temple.. they successfully took back the temple and began to clean it up. When they got to the Menorah which lit the temple, there was only enough oil to last for one day. It takes 8 days to make more oil, but they wanted to show that they had faith and so they lit the Menorah with the oil anyway.. the oil that should've lasted for one day, lasted for the 8 days it would take to make more. Hence, the 8 nights of Chanukah and the 8 candles.

Hope this helps!
and yes, the world would be better if we understood other faiths.
Blessings!
K

Answer 2

No, Jews don't believe in Easter, except for the part about Jesus celebrating the Passover. Which Christians have transformed into the "Last Super." (No negative implied.)
Easter, it could be said is the defining moment in time. A line in a sense that Jews never crossed. You see, up the point of the Crucifixtion, Jesus's followers were other Jews with a different point of view. But, once Jesus was crucified, this codified into a new religion. Some believe, some don't. But one thing is for sure. Easter is the line a person must cross, pun intended. To believe in Easter, to believe that Jesus wasn't simply crucified, like thousands of other Jews, but actually did so to "save us," is that line that makes you Christian. God knows Jesus suffered, like everyone else who died this horrible way ... but Jews don't accept Jesus as their "personal savior." This does not make Jews bad or Christians better in my mind. Different beliefs are great, until they cause people to hate and kill one another. Unfortunately, there's too much of that in the name of religious beliefs. An open mind, tolerance, love, and understanding are really all that's needed and that is something no religion should have a problem with!

Answer 3

Those of the Jewish faith celebrate Passover, that last 7 days, which marks the exodus of the Israelites (Jews) from under Egyptian slavery. They went on to form their own nation.

Hanukkah is celebrated at the end of ther year near or on the Christian Christmas and last 8 days.

Answer 4

No, we do not celebrate Easter. Easter is all about J.C. and he has nothing to do with our religion. In fact, in our religion, J.C. is not a nice guy :-( (Happy Easter by the way)

Instead, around this time we celebrate Passover, which is a celebration of G-d freeing us from slavery in Egypt.

We don't celebrate Xmas, either, for the same reason we don't celebrate Easter. We celebrate Chanukkah in December instead--a celebration of Judah the Maccabbee's victory and the miracle of oil lasting for 8 days. (The holiday lasts 8 days and we light a candle on the menorah every night) Lighting the candles signifies the miracle of the oil in the Temple burning 8 days when it should only have lasted one.

The male coming-of-age is called a bar mitzvah. Boys have one at 13, girls have a bat mitzvah at 12. Bar mitzvah means "son of the commandment" and bat mitzvah means "daughter of the commandment." It means that the child is now counted as an adult in their daily Judaism.

If you have any other questions, feel free to email or IM me, I am usually available

Peace, Shalom, Salaam

Answer 5

We Jews don't celebrate Easter because it is nothing to do with us just as Christians don't celebrate Chanukah or Ramadan because it is nothing to do with their religion. As for the poster who suggested that Jews are cheap maybe you were not aware that Jews are obliged to give between 10-20% of our income to charity.

Answer 6

They have passover, which falls close to Easter in the calender. Since the Jewish faith doesn't recognize Jesus as anything more than a prophet, they don't celebrate Easter.

Answer 7

No, the Jews celebrate Passover which is around the same time as Easter.

Answer 8

The tradition of a male coming of age is "bar mitzvah"; for a girl it is "bat mitzvah". :)

As for Easter, Jews don't celebrate it. Passover, which they do celebrate, is nothing to do with Easter whatsoever.

Easter has its origins in Paganism, where there are many stories of dying, resurrecting gods and god-men. Jesus is just the latest in a long line. But the Christian spin on it is that Jesus bodily resurrected and ascended to heaven - which has nothing whatsoever to do with Judaism at all.

Jews do not accept Jesus as Messiah, since he did not fulfill the requirements of Messiah. No one has as yet, and when someone does fulfill those requirements, no one will be able to miss it. The whole world will know straight away, and there won't be any need to convince anyone of the fact.

"Jews for Jesus" or "Messianic Jews" are actually Christian by definition, even if they culturally identify as Jews. Judaism by its very nature cannot incorporate Jesus, and as Christians believe Jesus is God, and Jews do not, it's easy to see the problem.

As has been stated, Passover is about the Jews' defiance while in Egypt. Many Egyptians worshipped certain animals, including sheep, and eating sheep on the night of Passover was the ultimate act of rebellion. The blood the Jews smeared on their doorposts signified to the angel of death, not to touch the people within that house - and God sent that curse of death to take the firstborn of everything and everyone that wasn't protected by that lamb's blood.

"The blood of the lamb" is where confusion arises. It's a term many Christians can be heard to say, as they claim that Jesus was the "sacrificial lamb" to atone for our sins - but as you can see, this is NOTHING to do with that the Pesach ("Passover") lamb was for. The blood of the Pesach lamb was to act as a signal to the curse of death for that one night. It was NOTHING do to with atonement for sin of any sort. As far as sin sacrifice is concerned, Jewish scripture teaches us that an animal sacrifice (such as a goat without blemish) is only to be used for accidental sins, and it is not the only means of atonement. Blood is not required at all - otherwise Jews who didn't have animals, couldn't make atonement. There are other means listed, including birds, flour, and plain and simple repentance.

So, in a nutshell: Ostara is Pagan in origin, celebrating new life, and in many traditions, the rebirth of "The God"; Easter is the Christian version of this, celebrating the new life of Jesus when he resurrected, and Passover is nothing to do with either of these things.

Answer 9

The Messianic Jews, who acknowledge Jesus IS the true Son of God and the promised Messiah, celebrate Easter. They call him Yeshua. This is not a FULL conversion to Christianity, by the way. The Jews who call themselves Messianic Jews just believe Jesus IS the True Son of God, and the Promised Messiah, and yet they still keep the many Jewish customs and practices. They still celebrate Passover, Hanukkah, Yom Kippur, Rosh Hashana, etc. Yet they now celebrate Christmas, Easter, Lent, Ash Wednesday, the Pentacost, the Advent, etc. If you go to www.youtube.com and do a search for 'messianic judaism', or something along those lines, you will find very good videos explaining the beliefs of the Messianic Jew. IN fact, go here and check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xic8SPOy62I

Answer 10

No, they don't. They have Passover. And around Xmas time they have Chanukkah. Chanukkah is to remember the time when Judas Maccabeus rededicated the Temple after its desecration. Then they realised that the oil that was used for the lamp in the Temple miraculously lasted for 8 days.