The Bible Says What? ‘God didn’t actually call Jews the Chosen People’
Rabbi Charley Baginsky takes a controversial topic from the Torah and offers a progressive Jewish response
“And God has distinguished you today to be for God a treasured people, as God spoke to you, and to observe all God’s commandments, and to make you supreme over all the nations that God made, for praise, for renown, and for splendour, so that you will be a holy people to the Eternal your God.”
‘How odd of God to choose the Jews,’ wrote William Norman Ewer, in probably a slightly antisemitic turn of rhyme. But he had a point.
Throughout history, including in the Torah itself, we have not been the most popular or most fortunate of people.
Today, we are in many ways ambivalent about this ‘chosenness’, at times we are even downright uncomfortable. It is understandable. Yet, the often-repeated claim that the Jews are the chosen people does not actually exist in the Torah or in any classical Jewish literature.
The closest we get to it is in the verse above, which says that we are an am segulah, a treasured people and an am kedushah, a holy people.
These two things might look very different from being a ‘chosen people’, but we know they express the special relationship we have with God – our own living covenant.
It is not that this special relationship makes us better than anyone else, but simply that there is a mutual understanding between us, that we have agreed to have a relationship that is different and unique from all others.
Let’s remember the potential for hope this has to provide us with. There is a reassurance that we will never be forgotten.
We will always exist in relationship to each other, and God.
- Rabbi Charley Baginsky is interim director of Liberal Judaism
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
