Abrahamic religions tradition claims that the Jews are descended from Abraham, and adherents of Judaism derive their spiritual identity from Abraham as the first of the three "fathers" or biblical Patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. All the major Abrahamic religions claim a direct lineage to Abraham, although in Christianity this is understood in spiritual terms: Adam Dodds argues that the term "Abrahamic faiths", while helpful, can be considered misleading, as it conveys an unspecified historical and theological commonality that is problematic on closer examination. While there is commonality among the religions, in large measure their shared ancestry is peripheral to their respective
Christianity and Judaism and professional lives, forcible relocation and ghettoization, mandatory dress codes, and at times humiliating actions and torture. All had major effects on Jewish cultures. There have also been non-coercive outreach and missionary efforts such as the Church of England's Ministry Among Jewish People, founded in 1809. For Martin Buber, Judaism and Christianity were variations on the same theme of messianism. Buber made this theme the basis of a famous definition of the tension between Judaism and Christianity: Pre-messianically, our destinies are divided. Now to the Christian, the Jew is the incomprehensibly obdurate man who declines to see what has happened;