Discussion about religion - me and 2 gentiles.
Catholicism. Protestantism. Judaism... which inevitably lead to a discussion about anti-Semitism.
We talk about transubstantiation. About [Christ's] blood really being in the wafer. And now I understand how the blood libel came about. I never understood why anyone would ever imagine there was blood in [Passover] Matzah, which is only bread afterall. That's all it's meant to be and all it actually is. Blood is never an ingredient of bread - so the blood libel always struck me as particularly perverse. I didn't get where it came from.
But reading the Old Testament through the New Testament, maybe it makes some sense - because blood IS part of bread there, in the New Testament...
I said this to S and C, so he said that it was also mixed up with the Paschal Lamb, "not that he knew anything about that". I realised that was an opportunity to explain from a Jewish perspecitve what that's all about. I suddenly feared that maybe he thinks there is something true to the idea of a sacrifice, or something. I didn't take up the opportunity to explain, though, because I was scared to. I didn't want to further underline my difference. And I didn't want to find out that somehow he believes that Jewish people have a real concept of the sacrifical lamb instead of a symbolic one. Who knows what kind of wierd things people secretly believe and I just didn't want to find out...