Until fairly recently, the understanding that Jesus was a Jew was generally unchallenged. In recent years, however, a new generation of anti-Israel activists and academics are now trying to claim that actually Jesus wasn’t just a Jew, but a Palestinian.
First, let’s back up a little. The last century has seen many schools of thought aimed at forcing us to question our basic beliefs. Some of these have led to great advances: the beliefs that women should have equal rights, that black people should have equal rights, that homophobia has no place in modern-society. All worthy causes. Others have challenged long-held conceptions, that “drinking is manly” or that women should be paid less than men.
Join the fight for Israel’s fair coverage in the news
One of the conceptions challenged in recent years is the almost universal depiction of Jesus as white. Given that Jesus is described as living in the Holy Land, this would make him a native of the Middle East. In other words, there’s every reason to be concerned that depictions of Jesus as fair-skinned are inaccurate.
If only things ended there. A radical core of activists now seem bent on co-opting “brown” identity and excluding Jews, thus denying the historical truth that Jesus was in fact Jewish.
So… was Jesus a Jew or was he a Palestinian?
For the benefit of anyone exposed to this false claim, a brief recap of history is in order:
Jesus was born in Judea, a client kingdom of the Roman Empire, and identified as a Jew. Jews living there at the time would most likely have described themselves as living in the Land of Israel. Anyone referring to “Palestine” in the first century C.E. would have earned themselves strange look, especially from the indigenous Aramaic-speaking Jews. The land was subject to all the religious laws in Judaism that apply in Land of Israel.
A century later, the area was renamed. After a Jewish revolt was crushed in the 2nd Century CE, the vast majority of Jews were exiled and the Roman emperor Hadrian subsequently had the region entitled “Syria Palestina” after the Jews’ ancient enemies, the Philistines, in an antagonistic move designed to demonstrate that the Jews were no longer owners of the land.
Put simply, an Aramaic-speaking Jew living a century before this change of name would never have called himself Palestinian.
Indeed, while the New Testament mentions Israel and the Jews repeatedly, Palestine is not mentioned even once. Take for example the second chapter of Matthew, which begins thus:
“Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the reign of King Herod. About that time some wise men from eastern lands arrived in Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the newborn king of the Jews?’” “Indeed, it is believed that the cross above Jesus’ head bore the sign ‘INRI’ – ‘Iesvs Nazarenvs Rex Ivdaeorvm,’ which means Jesus of Nazareth King of the Jews in Latin.
As for Jesus’ appearance, while it’s hard to determine for certain how any specific individual would have appeared, some documentation does exist on what Jesus’ contemporaries would have looked like. The Jewish Mishna (Negaim 2:1) records one rabbi describing “The children of Israel – [may] I atone for them – are like cedar wood, neither black, nor white, but in between.”
The entrance of Arabs to the Holy Land occurred only some 700 years after Jesus was crucified, when Arab conquerors took the area. The people identifying as Palestinian today are Arab, and hence it is clear that Jesus, quite simply, was not a Palestinian or an Arab, but a Jew.
Who cares whether Jesus was a Jew or a Palestinian?
Jews, on the whole, don’t tend to think about Jesus very much. But facts matter. History matters. If Jesus was not a Jew, but a Palestinian, then that serves a political end, as it calls into question the legitimacy of the Jewish connection to the Holy Land while suggesting that the Palestinians have ancient roots there.
Far from being an innocent claim, the assertion that Jesus was Palestinian serves to invalidate Jewish history. This is particularly useful to political activists and politicians who seek to undermine the Jewish people’s connection to the land of Israel.
This precise issue erupted in 2013 when a Christmas message released by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas referred to Jesus as a “Palestinian” messenger of hope. The claim came to prominence again in 2019 when, a few months apart, both congresswoman Ilhan Omar and activist Linda Sarsour asserted that Jesus was Palestinian.
In April, Democrat representative Ilhan Omar shared a tweet which said: “Don’t they [American Christians] know we’re Christian too? Do they even consider us human? Don’t they know Jesus was a Palestinian?”
The following day, a New York Times op-ed written by Eric Copage, a former editor at the New York Times Magazine and ex-reporter for the NYT, called into question whether Jesus was white, as he is popularly depicted. In Copage’s 600-plus words, he found no need to acknowledge the basic truth that Jesus was Jewish. He did, however, make space to call Jesus a Palestinian.
Let's just get this straight: the author asks what Jesus looked like, then calls him Palestinian, and totally omits the fact that Jesus was Jewish?!
Apparently this claptrap passes for legitimate, quality opinion at the @nytimes.https://t.co/m81rHm1295
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 20, 2019
A few months later, Omar and Copage were joined by Linda Sarsour. In a Twitter exchange, Sarsour asserted that “Jesus was Palestinian of Nazareth”, claiming that he was “described in the Quran as being brown-copper skinned with woolly hair.”
Jesus was Palestinian of Nazareth and is described in the Quran as being brown copper skinned with wooly hair.
— Linda Sarsour (@lsarsour) July 6, 2019
When numerous people pointed out to her that Jesus was Jewish, Sarsour doubled down, responding: “Palestinian is a nationality not a religion. Your point is not negated. Jews lived with Palestinians in peaceful co-existence before there was a state of Israel.”
Got it. So couldn’t Jesus be both Jewish *and* Palestinian?
This point is central to the ‘Jesus was Palestinian’ argument. Those claiming that Jesus was Palestinian generally do admit that Jesus was a Jew, or at least don’t attempt to deny it. Instead, they attempt to claim that as nationalities and religions are mutually exclusive, there’s no need to be offended by the statement that Jesus was of Palestinian nationality.
Quite apart from the fact that Jews and Arabs living in the land over the centuries before the establishment of Israel did not simply leave in “peaceful co-existence”, the suggestion that a person 2,000 years ago could have identified as both Palestinian and Jewish is patently false.
In the face of such attacks, Jews around the world have been quick to oppose those claiming that Jesus was Palestinian. Following the publication of Copage’s piece, Jeremy Burton, the executive director of Boston’s Jewish Community Relations Council, tweeted his response: “Important to point out that no, Jesus did not identify as Palestinian. He was a Judean Jew and for him, the term Palestine was that of the Roman occupier.”
Writing about Sarsour’s tweets, the Jerusalem Post’s Seth Frantzman described the claim as “a modern day attempt at replacement theology: to replace historical Jewish connections to the land 2,000 years ago, recreating an imagined history of Palestinians in place of Jews.”
There is no disputing the fact that places where Jesus is recorded to have traveled and resided, such as Bethlehem and Nazareth, are now Palestinian or Arab cities. However there is also no disputing the fact that these places were Jewish when Jesus was alive.
As Seth Frantzman wrote: “There is no reason to repackage Jesus as Palestinian. He can be a historical figure from Bethlehem or Nazareth without being ‘Palestinian.’ Sarsour’s attempt to reference the Quran is interesting because she seems to not mention other aspects of how Jesus is described in Islamic theology. For instance, he is seen as a messenger to the ‘Children of Israel’ and an adherent of the laws of Moses. He is linked to the line of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and the Tribes of Israel, as well as kings David and Solomon.”
No, Jesus was not a Philistine, either…
A variation of this claim, that Jesus was actually a Philistine, also features as a staple of anti-Israel propaganda, including the roundly debunked notion that Palestinians are actually Canaanites.
The idea that Palestinians are Philistines is equally false.
Unlike modern day Jews and Palestinians, the Philistines were an ancient, non-Semitic, sea-faring people, whose form of worship was unconnected to the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam.
In other words, the Philistine ethnicity, culture and religion are all entirely different from that of modern day Palestinians.
The Philistine connection to the Israelites began when the former invaded and occupied a portion of the Kingdom of Israel in about 1000 BCE, but were later defeated by ancient Israel’s King David.
In roughly the seventh century BCE, the Philistines were conquered by the Kingdom of Babylonia and subsequently wiped out as a distinct culture.
In other words, in addition to being culturally, ethnically and religiously unrelated to Jews or Palestinians, the Philistines no longer exist.
However you look at it, the truth is in no doubt: Jesus was a Jew.
Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.
