Posted on 06/23/2008 7:00:18 AM PDT by Androcles
Messianic Jews say they are persecuted in Israel
Members of tiny community who believe Jesus was the Messiah complain of threats, harassment and police indifference. 'It is their right according to freedom of religion to maintain their religious lifestyle,' rights group says
Associated Press Published: 06.22.08, 22:15 / Israel Jewish Scene
Safety pins and screws are still lodged in 15-year-old Ami Ortiz's body three months after he opened a booby-trapped gift basket sent to his family. The explosion severed two toes, damaged his hearing and harmed a promising basketball career.
Police say they are still searching for the assailants. But to the Ortiz family the motive of the attackers is clear: The Ortizes are Jews who believe that Jesus was the Messiah.
Israel's tiny community of Messianic Jews, a mixed group of
The March 20 bombing was the worst incident so far. In October, a mysterious fire damaged a Jerusalem church used by Messianic Jews, and last month ultra-Orthodox Jews torched a stack of Christian holy books distributed by missionaries.
Israel's Foreign Ministry and two chief rabbis were quick to condemn the burning, but the Ortiz family says vigorous police action is needed.
"I believe that it will happen again, if not to us, then to other Messianic believers," said Ami's mother, Leah Ortiz, a 54-year-old native of South Orange, N.J.
Proselytizing is strongly discouraged in Israel, a state that was established for a people that suffered centuries of persecution for not accepting Jesus and has little tolerance for missionary work.
At the same time, Israel has warm relations with US evangelical groups, which strongly support its cause, but these generally refrain from proselytizing inside Israel. Even the Mormon church, which has mission work at its core worldwide, agreed when it opened a campus in Jerusalem to refrain from missionary activity.
"Historically the core of Christianity ... was 'convert or die,' so it was seen and is still seen as an assault on Jewish existence itself," said Rabbi David Rosen, who oversees interfaith affairs for the American Jewish Committee. "When you are called to join another religion, you are being called on to betray your people."
Messianic Jews consider themselves Jewish, observing the holy days and reciting many of the same prayers. The Ortiz family lights candles on the Jewish Sabbath, shuns pork and eats matzoth on Passover.
Ami Ortiz, interviewed at the Tel Aviv hospital where he is being treated, comes across as no different from any Jewish Israeli his age. He's a sabra, or native-born Israeli, who speaks English with a Hebrew accent, has an older brother in an elite Israeli army unit and was hoping to join the youth squad of Maccabi Tel Aviv, a league-topping basketball team.
But his religion also holds that one can embrace Jesus — Ami calls him by his Hebrew name, Yeshua — as the Messiah and remain Jewish. Orthodox Jews, on the other hand, believe that the Messiah has yet to come, that he will do so only when he chooses, and that any attempt to pre-empt his coming is a grievous sin.
Rabbi Sholom Dov Lifschitz, head of the ultra-Orthodox Yad Leahim organization that campaigns against missionary activity in Israel, says Messianic Jews give him "great pain."
"They are provoking ... it's a miracle that worse things don't happen," he said.
Messianic activists appear to have had some success among couples with one non-Jewish spouse, as well as immigrants from Ethiopia and the former Soviet Union who have loose ties to Judaism.
Or Yehuda, a town in central Israel with many immigrants as well as ultra-Orthodox Jews including a deputy mayor, Uri Aharon, was the scene of the May 15 book-burning.
Ami Dahan, a local police official, says hundreds of Christian religious books were burned on May 15 in an empty lot in town. He said Deputy Mayor Uzi Aharon, has been questioned on suspicion that he instructed youths to collect the books from homes where they had been distributed and told them to burn them.
Worship under protection of armed guard
Aharon denies ordering the burning. He says the books were collected from a neighborhood of mostly Ethiopian immigrants who are easily persuaded by missionaries.
"There are three missionaries who live and work in the town, and every Saturday they take people to worship and try to brainwash them," Aharon said.
Many Messianic Jews say they recognize the sensitivities involved and do not distribute religious material or conduct high-profile campaigns. But Aharon noted a recent "Jews for Jesus" campaign with signs on buses that equated two similar Hebrew words — "Jesus" and "salvation." Public outrage quickly forced the bus company to remove the signs.
Lawyer Dan Yakir of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel says the law allows missionaries to preach provided they don't offer gifts or money or go after minors.
"It is their right according to freedom of religion to maintain their religious lifestyle and disseminate their beliefs, including through literature," he said.
But the obstacles are evident, raised not just from religious activists but by the state.
Calev Myers, a lawyer who represents Messianic Jews, said he has fought 200 legal cases in the past two years. Most involve authorities' attempts to close down houses of worship, revoke the citizenship of believers or refuse to register their children as Israelis. In one case, Israel has accused a German religion student of missionary activity and has tried — so far unsuccessfully — to deport her.
In incidents of violence, police are reluctant to press charges, Myers said.
The book-burning caused shock among US evangelicals.
Dave Parsons, spokesman of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem, which represents evangelical Christian communities, said the test would be how vigorously authorities pursued the case.
"We believe there is a link to a series of incidents here in the land that involve harassment, intimidation and physical violence," he said.
The Ortiz family moved from the United States to Israel in 1985, qualifying as immigrants under Israel's Law of Return because Leah, the mother, is Jewish. In 1989 they moved into Ariel, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank, and established a small Messianic group which now numbers 60, most of them immigrants from the former Soviet Union, according to David Ortiz, the pastor and Ami's father.
He said that he built the community through conversations with friends and neighbors, but did not actually go door-to-door distributing religious material to strangers in the traditional sense of missionary work. David Ortiz says he has also proselytized in the Palestinian areas — prompting Islamic leaders there to warn against contact with him. Ortiz said he had "no problem" if Messianic Jews discuss their religious views with others and persuade them to believe in Jesus.
When the family began holding study sessions, a rabbi warned Ortiz not to speak about Jesus outside the home.
In 2005, fliers were distributed in Ariel warning that there were believers of Jesus in the community. One day, two men wearing the black skullcaps of Orthodox Jews knocked on the door and photographed Ortiz when he answered. Recently the photo turned up on a flier with the family's address.
When the basket was left at the door Ami wasn't surprised, since it was Purim, a holiday when Jews exchange gifts.
"I opened it up and I heard it and then I was on the floor and I didn't hear anything, I didn't see anything," the lanky boy recalls.
Ami was in critical condition, with severe gashes in his legs and feet and one that just missed his jugular vein. His tryout for the Maccabi team was canceled.
His family initially suspected Palestinians; Ariel is in the heart of the West Bank and surrounded by Palestinian towns and villages and, like most Jewish settlements, has been the target of Palestinian attacks. But police immediately told him the bomb was more sophisticated than those made by Palestinians since it contained plastic explosives.
"Nobody ever suspected that a Jewish group would do such a thing, that they would put a bomb in somebody else's house," David Ortiz said.
Police have since told the family that Palestinians were not behind the bombing. The family has footage from a security camera of a man delivering the package, according to a person close to the family who spoke on condition of anonymity because police say disclosing details could harm the investigation.
Police spokesman Danny Poleg would not discuss the case, saying only that no arrests have been made.
Meanwhile, the Messianic Jewish believers are taking no chances. These days they worship under the protection of an armed guard.
“Messianic Jews say they are persecuted in Israel”
A jew persecuted in Israel? Who ever heard of such a thing?
(sarcasm)
What's your point?
Too bad they see the need to punish people for actions in history that aren't connected to these Messianic Jews. This may seem obvious, but Jesus and most of his disciples were Jews.
I have never heard of a Messianic Jew, or someone who is an Orthodox Christian (Bible-believing) leaving such "gifts" for "nonbelievers".
Why behave like Hamas or such?
What is the objective standard?
Because:
a. Because the people who proclaim this have a vastly different definition of Messiah than "others".
b. Because these people are still Jews in a Jewish country.
c.The Israelis who proclaim this are in the minority of the Chabad movement itself.
A jew persecuted in Israel? Who ever heard of such a thing?
What’s your point?
Ever read the Bible?
Zec 12:10 And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
From the NT:
Rom 11:24For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree?
Rom 11:25For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
Rom 11:26And so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written, There shall come out of Sion the Deliverer, and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
Rom 11:27For this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins.
Rom 11:28As concerning the gospel, they are enemies for your sakes: but as touching the election, they are beloved for the fathers' sakes.
For most of world Jewry and much of Chabad the Rebbe contributed great things to advocate following Halacha, making Torah meaningful, teaching people proper values, serving as an example and much more even for non-Jews included. The Rebbe was a great leader for world Jewry. the differences are night and day. The Rebbe never sought to change the Torah and Halachik structure. He strengthened it with all the energy he had at all times bringing thousands of unobservant Jews to higher levels of observance. Far from breaking apart the Torah world, he built it up.
The Rebbe built on the teachings of the previous Rebbe, his father in law, and campaigned to bring Moshiach now. Those followers who wanted him to be more than he was permitted to be, to be the Moshiach, have missed the bigger picture. its hard to lose someone like him, but his teachings and message of yiddishkeit, Torah and doing as many mitzvas as possible as the way to bring Moshiach live on. Chabad has expanded in presence world wide since his passing in 1994 due to his strength of leadership. gimel tamuz (Yartzeit) coming up July 6.
the short answer: the differences are night and day.
You are right. Violence has no place in a religion that bills itself as one of peace and/or love.
They actually vary significantly among themselves on the details of messiahship, as do other Jews - most Jews would argue that a dead man cannot be the current Messiah of Israel. But certain Chabadniks differ on that point.
Because these people are still Jews in a Jewish country
As are the Jewish followers of Jesus living in Israel.
The Israelis who proclaim this are in the minority of the Chabad movement itself
Indeed. And the Jews who consider Jesus the Messiah are also a tiny minority of Jews.
I would point out that the Chabad community not only possesses a faction who believe that the Messiah has come, they also are at the forefront of the Jewish movement to proselytize Gentiles into Noachism.
The real reason why Jews who believe Jesus to be the Messiah are so hated is because so many Gentiles agree with them.
Yet a faction of Chabad intends to recreate this situation: a community of Gentiles who both believe in the G-d of the Torah and who consider a deceased Jewish rabbi to be the King Messiah of Israel.
In “Our Father”, why didn’t Jesus teach to pray to himself?
I have a friend in Israel who is a Messianic Jew. She says her family can’t even worship openly in their own home because the downstairs neighbors that just moved in are hostile to Believers, much more than the last people who lived there. They have to be VERY careful so they won’t be targeted.
The latest news is that now they know that Avi was given the bomb by someone dressed as an Israeli soldier.
No. They do not vary significantly at all. The specific definitions for who the Messiah are well known. That portion that the Messiah "could come from among the dead" is cited by only a tiny fraction of Chabadniks.
As are the Jewish followers of Jesus living in Israel.
It is debatable that a Jew who "accepts Jesus" is still a Jew. The very fact that a Jew would do this most probably separates them from the Jewish nation. Most opinions I have heard/read state that these Jews are apostates who no longer are Jews. I have known a number of "Messianic Jews" who had to jump in a mikvah to become Jews again (along with fulfilling other requirements).
The real reason why Jews who believe Jesus to be the Messiah are so hated is because so many Gentiles agree with them.
Uh, no. There are lots of reasons, most of which have more to do with Christian mass murder and hatred.
It doesn't seem like a topic many in Israel are willing to calmly debate.
There are lots of reasons, most of which have more to do with Christian mass murder and hatred.
We could have a nice, lengthy argument about this, of course. The story of Jewish and Christian relations begins historically with Jews who did not believe the claims of Jesus' Jewish followers expelling Jesus' Jewish followers from the synagogues and also hunting down and killing some of these Jewish followers of Jesus, leading to a cycle of violence between the communities that continued for centuries.
In their defense, the Jews who first decided to exile and kill other Jews for taking Jesus too seriously probably never anticipated that so many millions of Gentiles would be converted by that ragtag band of malcontents in years to come.
In 2008 one would hope that these methods for settling differences - mail bombs, book burnings, etc. - would be considered beneath any serious interlocutor.
Yes, but for whatever reason doing so didn't cause me to post nonsense on the internet.
“Yes, but for whatever reason doing so didn’t cause me to post nonsense on the internet.”
There is this famous jew in the Bible. He was persecuted pretty severely. Maybe you’ve heard of him? Goes by the name of Jesus.
And some posters work at FR full time bending the news and views around here?
That's very disturbing. Hopefully it was only someone dressed as one rather than a genuine soldier abusing the trust his uniform engenders. Do you have any more detail on this?
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