Masseuse: [Some question about church attendance]
Me: Oh. I’m Jewish.
Masseuse: Oh… Like Christian Jewish?
Me: Nope. Just Jewish Jewish.
Masseuse: …Oh.
On the bright side, the awkwardness ended there, and the rest of the time went pleasantly. But that was a conversation-stopper.
I had a chiropractor who started with the same thing but it went on and on and on for a couple months. I got tired of it and found someone else. It wasn't that he was rude really, it just made me uncomfortable because I felt like he was waiting for me to realize I was wrong and become Catholic or something.
Haha, I had a similar issue with my primary care doctor. He is an atheist and liked to criticize me for being a "smart girl" sucked into religion. I would have had no issue with it if he weren't such a jerk about it.
Christian Jewish? Who the heck asks someone if they're Messianic?
HAHAHAHA! too funny."christian Jewish"!?
Perhaps their only affiliation with Jews is messianic?
"Christian Jewish"? Really?
I have a friend who sounds like your atheist doctor; he's a great guy, but get a little alcohol in him, and he turns into an atheism evangelist. On the bright side, he's actually Jewish himself, and he looked out for me during Pesach when I almost grabbed a cookie he was offering (out of habit on both our parts) and said, "Wait! No! You can't have that!" So maybe less jerky than the aforementioned doctor. Heh.
The "I'm Jewish" thing doesn't usually give people much pause, perhaps because I live in an area with a reasonable number of Jewish people (well, for now- I'm moving overseas, and I expect that to change), but if the conversion aspect of my Jewish identity comes up, that throws a lot of people for a loop.
I saw a television interview with Ann Coulter in which she said, with conviction, that Christians are perfected Jews. I can see how someone coming from that perspective might assume that any Jew is a Christian Jew.
I've heard that (the Coulter thing) as well. The first time, it made my vision go red, but what can you even say? Chances are that if someone's using that kind of reasoning (also insert "completed" in place of "perfected"- that's a favorite of the Messianic crowd), there's really nothing you can say to them that's likely to bring them back to reality town.
alarbean: I'm pretty sure that that's actually a Christian tenet. I recently heard someone reading from Romans (so sometimes I listen to Christian talk radio), and it said quite plainly that Jews are the dead limbs on the olive tree, until they "believe", then they can be "grafted on again".
Anyway, someone once asked me during a class: "But do you have Jewish blood?" It was awkward. It's also getting a little annoying when people try to weave Christianity into my history, like: "So if you convert, you can never go back to Christianity?" And I said: "I'm not 'going back' to anything, because I never was a Christian!"
I've run into this quite a few times. My favorite are the ones that tell me I can become a messianic and have the 'best of both worlds.' I know (hope?) they mean well, but bleh.
I like the "Christians grafted onto the Jewish tree" then we will all become one when cheezus cripes come back for the "second coming.
Crystaldecadenz: I know I'm a bit late, but I wanted to clear up something. I can't speak for all Christians, but I definitely don't believe that Jews are "the dead limbs on the olive tree." My church teaches that Jews are our spiritual family, that spiritually we are descendant from them, and so should treat them with utmost respect. Our church has an Israeli flag hung in the sanctuary to show support for Israel. It floors me how some Christians have such little respect or care for a people that G-d has obviously shown immense love and favor toward.