Criticism of Judaism

Criticism of Judaism refers to criticism of Jewish religious doctrines, texts, laws and practices. Early criticism originated in inter-faith polemics between Christianity and Judaism. Important disputations in the Middle Ages gave rise to widely publicized criticisms. Modern criticisms also reflect the inter-branch Jewish schisms between Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism.

Baruch Spinoza,Mordecai Kaplan, and prominent atheists have criticized Judaism because its theology and religious texts describe a personal God who has conversations with important figures from ancient Judaism (Moses, Abraham, etc.) and forms relationships and covenants with the Jewish people. Spinoza and Kaplan instead believed God is abstract, impersonal, or a force of nature. Theologian and philosopher Franz Rosenzweig suggested that the two viewpoints are both valid and are complementary within Judaism.

Most branches of Judaism consider Jews to be the "chosen people" in the sense that they have special role to "preserve God's revelations" or to "affirm our common humanity". This attitude is reflected, for example, in the policy statement of Reform Judaism which holds that Jews have a responsibility to "cooperate with all men in the establishment of the kingdom of God, of universal brotherhood, Justice, truth and peace on earth." Some secular and critics affiliated with other religions claim the concept implies favoritism or superiority, as have some Jewish critics, such as Baruch Spinoza. Many Jews find the concept of chosenness problematic or an anachronism, and such concerns led to the formation of Reconstructionist Judaism, whose founder, Mordecai Kaplan, rejected the concept of the Jews as the chosen people and argued that the view of the Jews as the chosen people was ethnocentric.

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