Salvation came from the Jews
In his book, Salvation is from the Jews (a quote from John 4:22), Roy H. Schoeman, a Jewish convert to Catholicism, explains the critical salvific role played by Jews and Judaism. From pp. 20-21:
…three of the roles that the Jewish people were called upon to play in salvation history — first, to give themselves completely to God, resulting in a uniquely intimate covenant between them and God; second, by their loyalty and virtue to bring blessing, and eventually the ultimate blessing of the Redeemer, to all of mankind; and third, to foreshadow prophetically later salvation history in their own history.
Yet this does not exhaust the role that the Jews were to play. The Jews were also to host the Incarnation itself, to be the people among whom God would become man. If God were to be on a uniquely intimate basis with the Jews and eventually to incarnate among them, they would have to be free from all involvement with other deities, free from all spiritual pollution. Hence the severity of the restrictions in the Old Testament against any form of idolatry or sorcery, both of which establish ties between the practitioners and fallen spirits. This purity, and the development of virtue and piety among at least some of the Jews, would have to reach its ultimate fruition later in producing an individual of such devotion and virtue that she could give her flesh to be the flesh of the God-man, that she could be His human mother. This individual was, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Salvation is also for the Jews
I love St. Paul because he, though a Jew, was the apostle who most championed the bringing of the gospel — the good news of Jesus Christ — to non-Jews or the Gentiles. Christians through the ages and throughout the world have St. Paul to thank. (See “The saint whom Christ struck blind”)
In a powerful passage in his Letter to the Romans, however, St. Paul specifically addresses unbelieving Jews. That should be a reminder to us, however difficult, that we are to pray for, not curse, them.
Romans 11:13-15, 29-32
Brothers and sisters:
I am speaking to you Gentiles.
Inasmuch as I am the apostle to the Gentiles,
I glory in my ministry in order to make my race jealous
and thus save some of them.
For if their rejection is the reconciliation of the world,
what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?
For the gifts and the call of God are irrevocable.
Just as you once disobeyed God
but have now received mercy because of their disobedience,
so they have now disobeyed in order that,
by virtue of the mercy shown to you,
they too may now receive mercy.
For God delivered all to disobedience,
that he might have mercy upon all.
In His peace and love,
~Eowyn
