Baruch Spinoza,[1] Mordecai Kaplan,[2] and prominent atheists[3] have criticized Judaism because its theology and religious texts describe a personal God who has conversations with important figures (Moses, Abraham, etc.)
[4] Most branches of Judaism consider Jews to be the "chosen people," in the sense that they have a special role to "preserve God's revelations"[5] or to "affirm our common humanity.
"[6] 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.
The Orthodox treated Reform as rank heresy, as no more than a religion of convenience which, if followed, would lead Jews altogether out of Judaism.
In many interpretations of this criticism made prior to the mid 20th century, Judaism was held to be fundamentally flawed by the sin of self-righteousness.
[26] Sanders' interpretation asserts Judaism is instead best understood as a "covenantal nominism", in which God's grace is given and affirmed in the covenant, to which the appropriate response is to live within the bounds established in order to preserve the relationship.
Dunn argues that Paul does not see his position as a betrayal of Judaism, but rather,Paul attacks the way in which the Jews of his time regarded the works or the law as a boundary marker demarcating who is and who is not 'in' the people of God; he attacks their narrow, racially, ethnically, and geographically defined notion of God's people and, in its place, sets out a more 'open', inclusive, form of Judaism (based on faith in Christ).
[29] The Roman Catholic church formally disavowed its long complicity in antisemitism by issuing a proclamation entitled Nostra aetate in 1965, which repudiated the notion that the Jewish people bore any guilt for Jesus' death.
In his polemic against Judaism, Ibn Hazm provided a list of what he said were chronological and geographical inaccuracies and contradictions; theological impossibilities (anthropomorphic expressions, stories of fornication and whoredom, and the attributing of sins to prophets), as well as lack of reliable transmission (tawatur) of the text.
Kant believed that Judaism fails to "satisfy the essential criteria of [a] religion" by requiring external obedience to moral laws, having a secular focus, and lacking concern for immortality.
Calls for the abolition of kosher slaughter have been made in 2008 by Germany's federal chamber of veterinarians,[38] and in 2011 by the Party for Animals in the Dutch parliament.
[37] Research conducted by Temple Grandin and Joe M. Regenstein shows that, practiced correctly with proper restraint systems, kosher slaughter results in little pain and suffering, and notes that behavioral reactions to the incision made during kosher slaughter are less than those to noises such as clanging or hissing, inversion or pressure during restraint.
[40] The Jewish practice of brit milah, or circumcision of infant males, has been attacked in both ancient and modern times as "painful" and "cruel," or tantamount to genital mutilation.
According to the Talmud, the consul Titus Flavius Clemens was condemned to death by the Roman Senate in 95 CE for circumcising himself and converting to Judaism.
"[45] The act of metzitzah b'peh, which is characterized by the oral suction of a newborn's genital wound during circumcision to draw away blood, and is performed chiefly by ultra-Orthodox Jews, has been described by critics as "gruesome."