Roy Schoeman

Roy H. Schoeman (born in 1951 in New York City) is a Catholic and author who has converted from Judaism to the Catholic Church. Due to his decision of faith, he gave up a career in the field of economics and is now devoted to the Christian mission.

Life
Roy Schoeman's Jewish parents fled from Nazi Germany to New York, where he was born and grew up. He received his Jewish education from non-Orthodox rabbis such as Arthur Hertzberg and Arthur Green, who taught at a "non-denominational" rabbinical college in the United States. The charismatic-Hasidic rabbi Shlomo Carlebach also influenced him.

He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Harvard Business School, where he received an MBA magna cum laude and lectured on marketing. In retrospect, he describes his childhood and youth as very religious, but he left this belief behind in the course of his career. He also speaks of a growing feeling of senselessness despite his success. He attributes his devotion to Christianity to the influence of apparitions of the Virgin Mary. He counts the Carthusian priest Marcellin Theeuwes among his Christian teachers.

Today he gives lectures and appears as a conference speaker and on television shows in Christian media.

Religious theses
In his work The Salvation comes from the Jews, Schoeman has detailed his views on the role of Judaism in Christian salvation history. He sees in Christianity the completion of Judaism and therefore invites Jews to become Jewish Christians and thereby to continue to cultivate Jewish culture.

"Any Jew who does not accept Jesus has not understood the true role of Judaism in the history of salvation."

- Roy Schoeman

In the Holocaust he suspects diabolic influence and entertains the interpretation that this suffering is expiatory in preparation for the coming return of Christ (parousia). He also traces the influence of National Socialist ideas on Arab rulers and warns of the influence of Muslim anti-Semitism.

Praise and criticism
Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke praised Schoeman's book, Honey from the Rock:

""Roy Schoeman's work, Honey from the Rock illuminates the essential link between the Jewish faith and Catholicism through the lives of those who were born into the Jewish faith and have come to know the fulfillment of their faith in Christ and His Catholic Church. […] Honey from the Rock illustrates in a most concrete way the truth expounded so well by Roy Schoeman in his earlier work, Salvation is from the Jews, which I also wholeheartedly recommend.""

- Raymond L. Burke

Schoeman's statements on the mission to the Jews were also criticized from various sides. Though Schoeman's statements are philosemitic, he has also been criticized by Jews for his interpretation of Judaism.

Publications

 * Role of Judaism in salvation history, Steubenville, Ohio: Franciscan University of Steubenville, 2004.
 * Salvation Is from the Jews, Ignatius Press, 2004, ISBN 0-89870-975-X, German: Salvation comes from the Jews. God's plan for his people (Augsburg 2007).
 * https://web.archive.org/web/20071029044625/http://www.christenundjuden.org///de/?item=589
 * Honey from the rock. Sixteen Jews Find the Sweetness of Christ, Ignatius Press, 2007, ISBN 1-58617-115-1.
 * Judaism: from the Catholic perspective, London: Catholic Truth Society, 2008, ISBN 978-1-86082-426-5.