Jean-Marie Élie Setbon - From the Kippah to the Cross: A Jews Conversion to Catholicism

FROM THE KIPPAH TO THE CROSS

Jean-Marie lie Setbon

A Jews Conversion
to Catholicism

In collaboration with Astrid de Larminat

Translated by C. A. Thompson-Briggs

IGNATIUS PRESS SAN FRANCISCO

Original French edition:
De la kippa la Croix
2013 by ditions Salvator, Paris
All rights reserved

Scripture quotations have been taken from the Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible, Second Catholic Edition, 2006 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

Cover design / illustration by John Herreid

2015 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-62164-018-9 (PB)
ISBN: 978-1-68149-652-8 (E)
Library of Congress Control Number 2014959625
Printed in the United States of America

To the memory of all my Jewish brothers and sisters
who have taken the plunge into Christ,
and especially Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger,
Rabbi David Drach, Franois Libermann,
and Hermann Cohen

To the memory of my mother

To the memory of my first wife, Martine
To my wife, Ptronille

To my eight children: Rachel, Dborah, Rbecca,
Myriam, Raphal, Gabriel, Louis, and Nathanal

To My Patron Saint

You, Saint John the Evangelist ,

You who lay upon the heart of our God and Savior, Jesus ,

You who were His beloved ,

I put myself under your patronage, under your protection .

John means God compassionate

But in your name, there is also the word grace, the grace divine .

Thus you, Saint John, who had that grace divine to lay upon the heart of God ,

You who saw the Word and who proclaimed it to us ,

You who were converted to Christ, to what He is and represents ,

You who have given us
the Gospel,
the Letters,
the Apocalypse ,

Pray for me ,

That I may be evermore a child of God ,

That I may be evermore converted each day ,

That I may become evermore your little brother ,

That this book, which testifies to what Jesus has done and to what He continues to do in my life ,

May touch the heart of each person who reads it .

Amen .

Christ turned around Saint Paul, my dear travelling companion, in three days on the road to Damascus. Jesus worked at me for more than thirty years! He has been drawing me to Him since I was a little boy, when I knew nothing about God or religion because my family was nonobservant. Finally, in 2008, He gave me the last push, which enabled me to take the great plunge from the Torah into the Gospel. This is what I am going to describe in this book, the story of my life with God. Rereading it, I feel it is the story of a fool. God chose what is foolish in the world (1 Cor 1:27). Saint Paul says that. Does not God Himself often behave like a total fool in the Old and New Testamentsfor example, when He asks His prophet Hosea to marry a prostitute? Saint Paul writes that what is folly in the eyes of men is wisdom in the eyes of God (see 1 Cor 1:18-30).

For as long as I can remember, I have been drawn to Jesus, so much so that as a teenager I wanted to convert to Christianity. But I knew that this would scandalize my family because when a Jew converts, his family, even if not religious, experiences it as a betrayal. Gods ways are mysterious: I wanted to be a Christian, and I became an ultra-Orthodox Jew, and then a Hasidic Jew. My heart lead me to Jesus but my head refused to follow and my Jewish identity fought back hard. Finally at the end of a long development, one day God lifted a veil from my eyes. And then everything became clearhe gave me a new understanding, and I saw things in a different light. This book tells the story of a conversion, but above all it is the story of a man who fought for a very long time against the Trinitarian God, who was waiting for him and giving him signs.

I was encouraged to write this account by many people to whom I spoke about my journey. At any rate, as the apostles Peter and John said to the priests who had arrested them and wanted to forbid them from pronouncing the Name of Jesus, it is impossible for me not to speak about what I have seen and heard. I am burning to share this discovery of Jesus, who has changed my life, and to share it widely, and not only with the people who attend the conferences I give on the Scriptures. The time has come to bear witness openly and without fear. I feel inwardly pushed to do so.

I address this testimony to all my brothers. First, to those who call themselves nonbelievers but who feel they are seeking God deep within without knowing who He is. I am thinking of some people who are reluctant to approach religion because it would cut them off from their families or their intellectual milieus. Some may be afraid of the Catholic Church, either because they see the Church in a bad light due to what the media reports about her, or because their Catholic parents passed on a narrow and false vision of the Gospel to them. Some may even imagine that the Church wants to confine them, to prevent them from being human, when it is just the opposite . I am also thinking of those who hold a grudge against Christians because of wrongs they have committed throughout history; I will return to this later.

I also address this book to my Jewish brothers, who, when they learned that I had converted, banned me from the Jewish community without trying to understand why I took this step and committed what is an unimaginable transgression for the ultra-Orthodox Hasidic Jew I was, who had been taught to hate Jesus. They thought that I was angry with the God of the Jews because of the ordeals I had gone throughnot at all! Mine is not an exceptional case. Many Jews have converted, starting with the first apostles. I hope that my Jewish brothers, brothers according to the flesh, will have the curiosity or will do me the favor of reading what I have to say in order to try to understand. For it is so heartbreaking to hear it said or claimed that I have betrayed the faith of my people, when I love Judaism in all its parts and with every fiber of my being.

Finally, I wrote this book for my Christian brothers. I hope it will enliven their faith by bringing home to them how blessed they are to know this God who loves them as they are, this God who lets Himself be approached and loved, in a personal relationship, and not only through the observation of laws, important as they are. For that is truly the heart of Christianity and what Jesus revealed: the relationship of love between God and each one of us that changes our way of living with our brothers. I want to bear witness to this. I cannot keep silent about it.

I was born June 10, 1964, at Lariboisire Hospital in Paris. My parents named me Jean-Marc: Jean, after my maternal grandfather, and Marc because my mother thought Jean by itself sounded a little old-fashioned. Without realizing it, my parents had given me the names of two evangelists (that is, John and Mark, respectively). I definitely see a veiled message from Providence in this. Moreover, was it an accident that, since I was sick, I was not circumcised on the eighth day as Jewish Law requires? I was circumcised when I was a year old. My grandfather Jean was my godfather. I do not know what Hebrew name I was given on that occasion, or even if I was given one.

It may be hard to believe, but for several years I was totally ignorant of being Jewish. And I was going to learn it in a rather unusual way. One day, at school, I began to call one of my classmates a dirty Jew. The teacher punished me very severely. I found her reaction a little excessive; I did not understand why she was so upset. For me, it was an insult like any other. When I came home, I told my mother what happened. She looked at me and responded simply: Jean-Marc, you are Jewish. End of story. What, me, I was Jewish? But what did that mean, Jewish?