Messianic Jews and Israel

Arutz Sheva IsraelNationalNews.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On February 20, 2002, the Israeli Supreme Court ruled that the Interior Ministry must register as Jews those who were converted by the Reform or Conservative movements in Israel or abroad. This ruling has not only set in motion a wave which will flood Israel with non-Jews who actually think they are Jews, but has opened the flood gates to the proselytizing Christians. The Christian sect deceitfully calling itself ‘messianic Judaism’ is gaining incredible momentum and educating its members as to how to make aliyah.

Certain branches of Evangelical Christianity have spent over one billion dollars in the last decade to convert Jews to Christianity. Under the guise of ‘Jews for Jesus’ and ‘Hebrew Christians,’ a new threat of spiritual terrorism has emerged in the form of ‘messianic congregations,’ whose theological tenets are identical to the Christian fundamentalists who created them. Their ultimate goal is the eradication of the Jewish people through assimilation to Christianity.

Since the late 1950’s Eretz Israel has had a small population of evangelical Christians, as well as its share of Jewish converts to Christianity. Today, the latter call themselves ‘messianic Jews,’ but don’t let the term fool you — they are not Jewish. This is probably the only fact that both Maimonides and the secular Israeli Supreme court agree on. According to the Court, Christian converts from Judaism are no longer Jews under the ‘Law of Return,’ which deals primarily with Jewish immigration. Though the law is in effect, it is not one hundred percent effective. Christians under this ambiguous term ‘messianic Jews’ are in an active campaign to circumvent these regulations, with the end objective of making aliyah.

The ‘messianics’ have the specific intent of being accepted as Jews in Israel. So much so that they have developed a political action group that lobbies the government, even using Holocaust survivors that have converted to Christianity as spokespersons. These people have a highly strategic plan, are well financed by mainstream Christian groups and have a single goal, to remove Jews from following the faith of their ancestors. Calling it a “significant breakthrough,” messianic Judaism has been officially recognized by the Registrar of Non-Profit Societies, which is a department within Israel’s Ministry of Interior. There you will find this Christian group with an official sounding name Vaad Poala Lma’an Yahadut Meshichit (Action Committee for Messianic Judaism).

According to Yad L'achim (an Israeli anti-missionary organization) there are over 5,000 converts from Judaism in over 38 different groups. Just over a month ago, a Christian newspaper wrote an article about how Christians pretending to be Jews are on duty in the IDF and are ‘witnessing’ to Jewish soldiers about Jesus. The same newspaper talks about Jews in Haifa, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, who have all now adopted Christianity as their religion. These people have congregations in Israel where they worship their god and continually proselytize other Jews — with some measure of success.

Generally speaking, ‘messianics’ are Jews who have converted and worship Jesus (whom they call Yeshua). However, not all of these messianics are Jews from birth. There are many ‘messianic rabbis’ who are ‘converting’ Christians to Judaism, so these Christians can go missionize to ‘other Jews’ about Jesus. The messianics are also cranking out ‘Jewish Rabbis’ and ‘scholars’ with ‘Master of Theology in Rabbinical Studies’ degrees via the Internet. Anyone can get one. Simply pay the required few thousand dollars and they will send you the study from home material. When you are finished, then you too can convert Christians to ‘Judaism.’

By suggesting that messianics make aliyah from the West, their Christian backers are attempting to expand their influence and make further inroads into Israeli society. In Israel, they can integrate into society and, with a stealth approach, encroach on the Jewish populace. In America, these Christians even fill a few seats at many orthodox congregations. A few years ago, there was a notorious case of two Christians who were stopped from making aliyah after having spent at least a year living as orthodox Jews. Just recently, a Chabad House in Florida removed a Christian who had been there for several months deceiving the community into believing that he was a Jew. Why are they in our congregations? Because they want to appear to be Jews so that they can ultimately make aliyah and continue proselytizing inside Israel. Once they are armed with basic Jewish knowledge, they attempt to infiltrate genuine Jewish communities, spreading inaccurate and intentionally deceiving lessons from the Torah.

The lines are indeed blurring on who is a Jew, and who is not. ---------------------------------- S. Alfassa Marks is the Founder of the Judaic Alert News Service, which tracks the progress and activities of groups posing as authentic Jews. He is also a columnist for the Heritage, the Jewish newspaper of central Florida.

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Shalom...kezekiel

I Agree with You!

What about Jews who practice Witchcraft and Satanism....?

They are readily accepted and called...Brother!

I am a Jewish Born Again Believer In Yeshua/Jesus The Christ, The Risen Jewish Messiah!

I was born of a Jewish Mother, I am a JEW...NOTHING has Changed, I'm still a JEW and will die a JEW.

I Live my life everyday as a Messianic/Born Again JEW.

Just because I am Born Again and Believe that my JEWISH Messiah IS who HE says He IS...is No reason to declare that I am Not a JEW!

It's almost like saying that an Italian person who was once a Catholic, and then becomes Born Again is No Longer Italian.

That is both Heretical and Genetically Impossible.

How can anyone STOP being what they were Born to be?

As for "Crystalk"...I really wish that YOU would NOT portray yourself as some kind of EXPERT or AUTHORITY on the BIBLE/God's Holy Word, Messianic Judaism or Judaism.

Sometimes Your rambling comments make no sense, and Please Stop quoting Holy Scripture (both Old and New Testaments) Out of it's Context in order to suit Your own agenda.

Todah Rabbah.

I have no agenda, except truth as I see it, am not a member of any cult or religious society of any kind, and have never claimed to be any kind of expert.

I have just as much right to post here as anyone, and this post was pulled directly off of Israel National News. Sheesh, and I thought we were agreed on virtually everything in the world, S2! What a letdown.

"for thousands of years they have done one thing perfectly, kept the Torah word for word. To them it is their history, and their revelation of the view God allowed them to have of Himself... Imagine that your view of God was limited to the first five books of the bible." I found your post very expressive of your respectful interaction with another religion. Although Judaism is based on those first five books of the Bible, they have not been a limitation. Judaism has maintained itself, undergone change and yet maintained its identity. So they have done very well. They can say with the Psalmist "I walk within my house with a perfect heart." (101)

Sorry, S7, I should have typed S7.

Every point you make there may be a perfectly valid argument, I have no quarrel with any of it, you are quarreling not with me but with the author of the Arutz-sheva article, and therefore with the very long-standing Jewish policy of expelling all persons who have converted to Christianity.

Just what part of my wonderful, truth-enhancing, FR-enhancing, world-saving comments (especially if on this thread) is it you don't like? You haven't dared to point out anywhere I was wrong, have you?

99% of the attacks on me in any forum, are because I have in all Innocence, reminded somebody of something that is undeniably true, but which they hate to admit and are trying to hide from.

You point out that some Rabbinical scholars, reading the Gospels, "would definitely recongnize midrash, or a type of reworking of various forms to bring them into accord with earlier forms". Ah - you have touched on a hot issue. Not to mention that the legendary aspects of Jesus' life, most especially the "eat my flesh and drink my blood" are most clearly and directly related to the Greek mystery religions which were interacting with Judaism in the classical world. (Dionysius was known as the "Good Shepherd" and the "true vine". His followers drank wine which represented his blood.) Both Jewish and Islamic critics of the Gospels have hammered on this point, and not without reason.

Yet another way of looking at it would be to say that Christ was the culmination of the pagan myths, the truth of all the different lights given to mankind. (This relates to your argument, that the story is valuable, regardless of its historical content.) C.S. Lewis, a Christian scholar not disconcerted by classical mythology, suggested that these were forerunners of the true tale.

Finally, in historical mode, one could suggest that the unique transforming power of Christianity was that it combined the monethiesm of the Semitic religion, with the creativity and drama of the Greek one. Thus, Greek and Jewish thought which are so influential, but so different from each other, were linked.

I have now looked back clear to the heading, and nowhere did I ever quote one word out of Holy Scripture of the Old or New Testaments. That is very usual and par for the course with me, I don't like proof-texting and trying to use scripture to prove one's points and arguments in a secular forum.

There is quite a bit of Scripture posted on this thread, but it has not been posted by me, not a word of it.

You owe me an apology for false accusation. I am not even a major poster of religion or theology, except where like here, they affect some current societal legal matter.

Very well put.

I really like that "orthodox" sense of Christianity which I get from an "Anglican Catholic" church literally around the corner from me, where incense and holy water are readily burned and splashed about, and the mass is chanted. (The First Lesson of which is always from the Old Testament.) The sense of theatre is wonderful. The Communion, deep.

It's real for me.

Though I also feel the challenge of the historical Christ, and so would be willing to cast as much in meaning onto Hamlet or, say, Twelfth Night as to the Gospels.... Which, in other words, would not lessen either's import one wit.

E'en so, I would still raise the Jewish reservations, variously expressed above, to at least some sense of Yeshua as masheach in general.

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