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Jews are still waiting for a Messiah. However, they are not waiting for a Christian Messiah such as Jesus was, but a Jewish Messiah that will reign as a King on Earth and bring about the End Times.

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10y ago
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10y ago

It depends on what you are asking. If you are asking what does Judaism say about Jesus, see Part A below. If you are asking what person in Judaism occupies the same position as Jesus in Judaism, see Part B below.

Part A) What does Judaism say about Jesus?

Judaism makes no comment or reference to Jesus at all. According to our tradition, the vast majority of the Jews at the time didn't hear of him. The Torah-sages (Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai, Rabbi Yonatan ben Uziel, Chanina ben Dosa, Bava ben Buta, Shimon ben Hillel, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Yehoshua, Rabbi Akiva, and hundreds of others) were active at that time and their yeshivot (Torah-academies) were flourishing. Their tens of thousands of disciples and hundeds of thousands of sympathizers were active in the Jewish world in that generation; they were the leaders and the forefront of Judaism. As Josephus (Antiquities book 18) writes, "the cities give great attestations to them." The great majority of Jews loved their sages and their Torah.

The unlearned class of the Amei-haaretz (ignoramuses) was a small fringe of society, but even they would and did lay down their lives in order not to violate anything of the Torah. As one ancient historian famously wrote:

Hecateus declares again, "what regard we (Jews) have for our laws; and we resolve to endure anything rather than transgress them." And he adds: "They [Jews] may be stripped on this account, and have torments inflicted upon them, and be brought to the most terrible kinds of death, but they meet these tortures after an extraordinary manner, beyond all other people, and will not renounce the religion of their forefathers."

No one (even any who did hear of Jesus) - would have given heed to what was and is considered unacceptable for us. The few who came in contact with him soon lost interest, and the early Christians felt the need to turn to non-Jewish centers of population in order to gain adherents, while the Jews remained Jews.

Rather, you might prefer to ask "What does Judaism not say" about Jesus. And the answer is that we do not believe that he is or was anything other than a regular human being. We may also note that according to our tradition, prophecy ceased about 340 years before the birth of Jesus; and public miracles stopped even earlier.

Part B) What person in Judaism occupies the same position as Jesus in Judaism?

Jews are still waiting. Christians hold that Jesus is the Messiah, which is a unique position in Judaism. There are numerous supernatural events that must occur to make someone certifiably the Messiah. Some of those events include bringing peace to all humanity, ending violence in nature, the creation of a Jewish Kingdom in Israel, etc. Since these events have not come to pass, Jews conclude that the Messiah has not come yet. All of the various Messianic Candidates (of whom Jesus was just one of many - and not even the first, see Zerubbabel; or the most convincing, who was Shabbetai Tzvi) are not accepted as valid Messiahs by Jews and have gone into the ashbin of history. The only reason why Jesus is so popular is because Christianity spread, from the Aegean to the rest of Europe and abroad.

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Q: What is Judaism's identity of Jesus?
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