Jesus wasn’t a Christian, Mary wasn’t a Catholic, and John wasn’t a Baptist, as the joke goes. They were all Jewish! But a shocking number of people don’t seem to get it.
Another joke using the same anachronistic irony is that Mary and Joseph couldn’t find a room at the inn because it was Christmas Eve! Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Christianity in general didn’t exist until long after Jesus Christ (the word Christ means Messiah in Greek).
Yet ignorant activists, fueled by hatred, are raging about Israeli actress Noa Cohen who was chosen to play the role of Mary in a new production for Netflix. In a thread of furious posts on X collated by user @koshercockney, one person described the casting as “so disrespectful” and “literally Palestinian erasure”. The internet was flooded with protests of an equally ridiculous nature.
“The internet is having a melt down that a Jewish woman of the land 2,000 years ago is being played by a Jewish woman of the land today. Why? Because it reminds us of Jewish indigeneity before conquests & defeats their white colonizer narrative – a lie they’ll die to protect.” – Elicia Le Bon
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Adeel Amjad complained on X, “I’m not a Christian but Christianity revolves around Jesus and Mary being Jews by race and are Christian by religion. So if the production team and actors representing are not Christian it just make it the whole move false.”
When Iranian lawyer and pro-Israel activist, Elica Le Bon, pointed out the absurdity and challenged Amjad’s faulty assumption that Christ could follow Christ, in other words that Jesus could possibly be a follower of Himself, the scathing response came,
“Enough of ur verbal diarrhoea elica despite me being a Muslim i have been to school trips many times to churches and they explained to me what I learned. U are lawyer not qualified to teach me this topic.”
Yes, it’s true, Mary, the mother of Jesus, was Jewish. More than that, she was Israeli. Even worse, she was a Zionist. Hear her heart when she got the news that she was going to give birth to the Jewish Messiah in her prayer honoring God:
“He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”
(Luke 1:54-55)
The movie is currently being filmed out in the Judean desert, close to Jericho, and many the actors are Israeli. There are also big names like Anthony Hopkins, who plays King Herod.
A friend who went to the set reported back that the women playing Mary mother of Jesus and Mary Magdalene were profoundly affected by the roles they had been given to play. The main character, Noa Cohen, said it was bringing her light and hope in a season of darkness and heaviness that has been over the whole country since October 7. The man playing Jesus has also been moved by the significance of his role in the production that is making its way to Netflix. What a great opportunity for all these Israeli actors to learn more about Jesus!
Jesus was not a Palestinian, no matter how many people claim it in error. He born as a Jew in Judea, and so was his mother. Jesus is the Son of David from the tribe of Judah, and He will return to Jerusalem as the Lion of Judah. Mary was a Jewish Israelite who cared about God’s servant Israel, and who believed God had mercy on her nation, as he still does today.
Please pray for the Israeli actors and the whole team involved as they delve into the wonderful story of Jesus, and that they would realize it’s a very Jewish story that happened right here in Israel, and that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah promised in the Hebrew Scriptures. Let’s pray too for those who are spitting with rage, that they would come to know and love the God of Israel, and Jesus, King of the Jews. May God continue to help His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, just as Mary prayed, to Abraham and to his offspring forever. Amen.
