Just a thought to process:
While I understand that this conversation is trying to find some type/anti-type conncetion between the Pharisees of Jesus' day and what is seen in the JWs today, it's not a very kind course to take using the "Pharisee" as a term as one might accuse those who do such as being anti-Semitic.
All Jews of today come from the Pharisees. Theirs was the only branch of Judaism to survive the Roman invasion of Palestine. The Sadducees' worship was connected to the physicial Temple in Jerusalem, and when it was destroyed their brand of Judaism went with them. When Masada fell to the Romans, the Essenes and all other branches went down with that last stronghold.
It should also be understood that the Pharisees as depicted in the New Testament is not meant to reflect their branch of Judaism as a whole. By the time the first century ended, the author of the gospel of John was using a generic term, "the Jews," most of the time. The reason? Christian theology was already in development to the point of seeing that while there were enemies to the Christian faith among the Pharisees, these Jews as a whole were not the "enemy."
In fact, even John's attempt to be generic about the first enemies to the gospel as "the Jews" seemed to receive correction from Christ himself. In Revelation 2:9 Christ calls Christians "Jews" by contrasting enemies of the Church as "those who claim to be Jews and are not, but rather are members of the assembly of Satan."
It would be best to abandon Watchtower terminology, which is insulting to the basic dignity of people who embrace beliefs and philosophies that differ from the JWs. It would be more accurate to say that the WT acts like those early enemies of the first century congregation. The Jews have received enough persecution through the centuries without ex-JWs adding to the anti-semetic heap.
