New Zealand lawmaker says Jesus’s mom was ‘Palestinian refugee’

A lawmaker for New Zealand’s Greens Party says Jesus’s mother Mary and her husband Joseph were Palestinian refugees.

Golriz Ghahraman on Thursday wrote on Twitter: “They were literally Palestinian refugees. And she (Mary) normally had her hair covered because that’s what modesty looked like in her culture…”

She had been answering a tweet suggesting that as described by the New Testament, the parents of Christ were refugees.

Ghahraman’s tweet, which has since been deleted without explanation, prompted criticism from Jewish community representatives.

A spokesperson of the New Zealand Jewish Council, Juliet Moses, tells the Jewish Telegraphic Agency: “Ms. Ghahraman, by refusing to acknowledge that Jesus was Jewish, including when many people pointed out her error, is continuing to erase that connection, a favorite tactic of those who aim to delegitimize the modern day Jewish presence in the land.”

She also says that “calling Mary and Joseph Palestinian refugees is ahistorical and disrespectful to the Jewish community, and no doubt the Christian community too.”

— JTA