Jewish Attitudes Toward Non-Jews.
Judaism maintains that the righteous of all nations have a place in the world to come. This has been the majority rule since the days of the Talmud. Judaism generally recognizes that Christians and Muslims worship the same God that we do and those who follow the tenets of their religions can be considered righteous in the eyes of God.
Contrary to popular belief, Judaism does not maintain that Jews are better than other people. Although we refer to ourselves as God’s chosen people, we do not believe that God chose the Jews because of any inherent superiority. According to the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b), God offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth, and the Jews were the only ones who accepted it. The story goes on to say that the Jews were offered the Torah last, and accepted it only because God held a mountain over their heads! (In Ex. 19:17, the words generally translated as “at the foot of the mountain” literally mean “underneath the mountain”!) Another traditional story suggests that God chose the Jewish nation because they were the lowliest of nations, and their success would be attributed to God’s might rather than their own ability. Clearly, these are not the ideas of a people who think they are better than other nations.
Because of our acceptance of Torah, Jews have a special status in the eyes of God, but we lose that special status when we abandon Torah. Furthermore, the blessings that we received from God by accepting the Torah come with a high price: Jews have a greater responsibility than non-Jews. While non-Jews are only obligated to obey the seven commandments given to Noah, Jews are responsible for fulfilling the 613 mitzvot in the Torah, thus God will punish Jews for doing things that would not be a sin for non-Jews.
