This is a massively long answer that I wrote and I sincerely hope all Christians and Jews who are here will please read from beginning to end.
I am taking a massive leap of faith here. It is a leap of my faith in human nature and my faith in God. I am trusting that the people I have connected to me at least, even if no other readers can, will read this very pointed essay and not be stirred to hate through my blunt opinions and not think that I am harboring hate to Christians or to Christianity in general. When I write here and use the word Christians, I am primarily speaking about the efforts of evangelic Christians and the behaviors and words spoken to me of their own beliefs over decades. I give here my strongly held views with emotion-laden words along with as much rationale why I hold these views as I can. I want to work with others to find solutions. I want a just world of brotherhood for my child. I know loving parents all over the world want that for their children, too. With that cautionary introduction, I now proceed.
The “Messianic Jewish” campaign has swept North America since its slow beginning in 1967. It has too many supporters from too many churches and too many adherents for Jews to continue to dismiss it as an insignificant fringe cult. Now it is aggressively spreading across Europe and working in Israel funded with massive multi-million dollar a year campaigns from North American Christian missions. It is the worst thing to happen to the Jewish people since the Nazis.
You read that right. I equated them with Nazis. I can imagine the reaction from a few of my Christian readers at this moment. I have experienced them already. Before you dismiss my accusation as one of hate or one meant to inflame emotion, I ask that you please read this entirely and carefully. Please take a few deep breaths before you proceed so this feeling does not make you overlook why I say this. I do not say that lightly and more importantly I do not believe those who espouse what they call Messianic Judaism want to see Jews dead., even though some already tell me, I am “spiritually dead”.
They want to be known as Jews, many sincerely believe they are the fulfillment of Jewish destiny. Despite this perhaps sincere desire by many of them, I view them as perhaps the single largest threat facing the Jewish people today. They are doing the work of the Nazi, though not in terms of their rabid viciousness in torture or killing, but because the results of their efforts if successful will be exactly the same results as what the Nazis wanted. If all Jews die or if all Jews convert away from Judaism, there would be no more faith in God through the eternal covenant of Israel. The “New Covenant” and the replacement theology would replace the Jewish faith. Judaism would disappear. I do not believe their efforts will succeed in converting Jews but they are succeeding in creating Jew hate! The beliefs of the evangelic Hebrew Christian “Messianic Jew” are contradictory to Judaism. This is something with which every sect of Judaism is in complete agreement.
In my opinion, it is perhaps even more of a threat to Judaism in future generations than the Islamic Jihad. I know that is a very strong statement, especially in current light of the world situation with millions of Islamic Jihadists dedicated to wiping Jews off the planet. My statement may also be considered outlandish by evangelic Christians who believe they are supporting Israel’s existence (until Jesus arrives to convert us all or torment those who won‘t convert for eternity). Jews in Israel may condemn what I say when they think of the support to Israel’s economy the Christians bring. Many churches strongly ally themselves to support of the existence of Israel. The country of Israel honors and respects the rights of Christians to their holy places within Israel and their right to their own worship in Israel. Israel does not honor attempts of the Christian to convert Jews and it angers Jews that in Israel, the Jewish homeland, there are Christians posing as Jews to convert the Jew.
I say that this form of Christian evangelism cloaking itself as “fulfilled Judaism” in falsehood is the worst threat we have because of how it is affecting the way non-Jews view Judaism and Jews. Jews comprise less than 1 percent of the world’s population and while the stereotype has it that we control the media and views everyone has about us..the reality is far different.
The evangelic campaigns here and abroad are insidious as a destructive force to Judaism because they are creating a wave of Jew hate here in my own country the likes of which I never thought possible. They are dividing Jews from our Christian neighbors like nothing before in my lifetime. This creates a mind set in people who do not view themselves as “haters” of justifying atrocities done to Jews. I have heard it said countless times by people who claim to love Jews and Israel that Israel deserves suffering because they “reject” Jesus.
Jewish identity is determined by Jewish law. One serious issue is that to many, it has left the arena of Jewish law and entered into “debate” with non-Jewish public opinion often being given more credibility for legitimacy than that of the Jewish community. The Christian community increasingly embraces the Hebrew Christian “Messianic” as legitimately speaking for authentic Judaism, and as Jews who are persecuted by their very own people. These Christians then come to view Jews as intolerant or bigoted! Jews crying out against Judaism being misrepresented by Christian evangelics who spend two hundred and fifty million dollars a year to convert the world’s 14 million Jews to Christianity are not persecuting the Christian “messianic”; they are desperately trying to stop the lies about Judaism!
When Churches that claim they respect the Jewish people and Israel allow these individuals to speak in public forum as representatives of the Jewish people to teach about Judaism, they are disrespecting the Jewish community completely. It is especially hurtful to see this happening in some churches where there was previous goodwill between the Jewish and Christian community. Many Jews still ignore this as an insignificant cult fringe element that will die off and disappear because “Messianic Judaism” appears as so illogical and contradictory to Jewish thinking. I still hear many Jews often saying aloud such things as, “How can any Jew fall for it? Only those uneducated to Judaism fall for it. What does it matter what Christians think Judaism is about, they’ve had it wrong for 2000 years and Torah is still here? Jews are still here and our covenant is still here.” The problem with that attitude is that head in the sand thinking by many in the Jewish community creates an illusion of acceptance that fosters its very spread!
. It is the larger widespread acceptance by non-Jews that is also a part of the insidious nature to this movement. Because Jews are few in number and often fail to speak out clearly on this issue, the few Jewish voices who call for the Christian churches to not allow them to speak FOR Judaism, are often ignored or insulted. I know that the majority who speak out try very hard to do so while maintaining respect and brotherhood. Yet I also know we are actually often being silenced as being bigoted to “ our own”. This leads to Jewish communities afraid to speak out for fear of a backlash or being presented to the community as being a bigot when bigotry is one of the main things we are trying to combat and prevent! They fear it because it happens! So only a small number of Jews like me are risking our social standings and reputations to try to appeal to reason.
When individual Jews like me in small Jewish communities surrounded by Christians try to speak out, we are sometimes actually silenced in public venues. I once wrote a letter to the editor of my local newspaper to address a problem whereby a Jews for Jesus missionary was teaching as a representative of the Jewish faith, classes on Jewish belief in a local church. This particular church was one that the Jewish community had longstanding association with in interfaith activities. I had contacted the church first and met up against the very accusations the Jews for Jesus missionary taught, that I was being bigoted to a different form of Judaism and that he indeed was a Jewish scholar and authority. I asked that he not be considered an authority on Jewish belief because he clearly indicates he is not in his own biography. I pointed out his own statements on his own page whereby he admits he had little to no religious upbringing in Judaism in addition to his affiliation as a spokesperson for a Christian evangelic organization. Many of other things I wrote about in attempt to educate on this issue have previously appeared in statement on my public blog in trying to educate my Christian neighbors. . In it, I was calling out for my fellow community members who are Christian to reject Christian missionaries as representatives of the Jewish people.
The editor telephoned me, saying she would not print my letter because it would create hate. She freely acknowledged my letter itself displayed no hate in content or tone, but still would not print it. I have seen letters in that paper of outright Jew hate that dripped with venom. She said that we were always free to reply to them. In essence, I was told I can reply to rabid violent speech or lies if they were printed in a letter, but I cannot reply to insidious deception that creates hate in a paid ad in their newspaper? Another irony to their editorial policy about not promoting hate on their editorial page: Charley Reese appears in that newspaper, and hardly a week goes by that letters of praise for him are not printed.. I said to her, “Are you telling me the Christian posing as Jew who says in his lectures that Jews are taught to hate Jews who believe in Jesus, isn’t creating hate?” Even after I gave her the web address showing his precise words that said this, the absurdity of her rationale did was never acknowledged. I was trying to educate to STOP hate and dissention between Christians and Jews.
I say nothing here with any desire to create hate. My efforts are to stop it. I am earnestly trying to highlight what is sadly happening now and perhaps touch at least one additional person to become dedicated to help stop the spread of hate through misinformation.
And while I am most strongly appealing to all my fellow Jews to wake up and speak out on this, I have come to the realization that this is not something the Jewish people can do on our own. I am appealing to Christians to help by speaking out against this deception.
I do not see Christians being condemned for speaking out against the KKK, the Christian Identity Movement or the Westboro Baptist church as promoting or creating hate. In fact, I see Christian groups being formed to speak out against them and rightfully so! It is a righteous expression of faith to speak out against people who hijack your faith to spread lies in the name of your faith
I know that my writing may stir up harsh feelings among people whose identity is to believe they are of the Jewish faith but who worship what they know as “Messianic Judaism“. Does the evangelic Hebrew Christian realize what harsh feelings they are stirring up within their own children in teaching them a false identity and teaching that Jews who do not “accept Yeshuah” hate them for their beliefs. This teaches those children to mistrust Jews and believe that the very people they identify with in name, reject them as their own out of hate! These young people then go on to ally themselves with evangelic Christians (because their beliefs are identical) while cloaking their dogma in Jewish custom and practice that is often more outwardly Jewish “looking” than that of modern Orthodox Jews! They also assign meaning to deeply reverent Jewish customs or prayers which were never intended and usually offensive or contradictory to the aspect of faith the custom is intended to honor.
The customs and rituals of Jewish people around the world developed to honor the laws of Torah and teach each generation about the faith of Judaism. To see these customs and rituals used to honor a replacement theology is extremely disturbing to the believing Jew for whom these things have deep spiritual significance. The feeling of a Jew watching a Christian use the Passover to represent Jesus as a deity, or represent the blood of the Passover lamb as a sin sacrifice rather than what Torah states as the purpose and try to change every deeply significant aspect of the service and remove the meaning to replace it with another is incredibly painful to the faithful Jew. The Passover is deeply important as a part of our spiritual identity as Jews and of our connection to God. . How can a people who claim to love Torah or who claim to love Jews do such a thing?
If you claim to love the Jewish people and then try to tell us that every aspect of our longstanding faith in God and customs to honor this faith are topsy turvy what message are you giving us?
Would a Christian wish to see their customs and rituals they perform to honor their faith in Jesus being used to justify a belief in Vishnu or Allah or any other deity that Christianity does not believe to be a deity? Why do Christians expect Jews to EMBRACE their doing so to Judaism or demand that we tolerate them? Why is a Jew speaking out against such a hijacking called intolerant as an accusation of bigotry? What kind of logic allows accusations of hate to be hurled unchallenged to Jews when we cry out for others to stop trying to hijack Judaism? The tolerance of brotherhood does not require that one must accept misrepresentation and ignore it.
They also speak of the Jewish faith as being narrow and blinded to God. Christians and the Christian religion should not define for the Jewish people the dogma of Judaism. This is what I see happening today. I see Christians teaching other Christians what is and isn’t REAL Judaism and the Christians ignoring the Jewish voice of what the faith of Judaism is. I see a widespread practice has emerged whereby Christians presenting themselves as Jews go to churches and teach their fellow Christians that Jews are taught to hate Jesus and Jews who come to embrace him. That is the most dangerous lie of all being spread today.
Judaism does not teach this. I know of no Jewish synagogue, rabbi or Jewish parent who teaches our children to hate Christians or those who convert to Christianity. It pains us to see one convert away from Judaism, but we do not hate them as a people or teach our children to do so. I cannot deny that there are individual Jews who hate or become bigots or individuals who choose to hate a Jew who converts and then misleads other Jews. No one is immune to feelings of hate and no group immune to bigotry. Some Jews, who have felt abuse and hate, react likewise. That too, is human nature. It is not the best part of our nature but no group is immune and no individual is immune to responding to ignorance and hate with feelings of hate. Jews are also known for being hardest on our own that turn to bigotry.
I find myself often feeling hate when I see someone teach others to hate, especially to teach a child to hate.. I am human. I try very hard to do my best not to let my gut reaction to such abuse lead me into irrational behavior in response. Instead, I resort to writing things such as this to try to counter hatreds through ignorance by education..
What I hate is teaching children lies. Teaching lies instills fear and hate of others.. When I hear someone tell a Jewish child, “You are the kind of “unbelieving” Jew who hates me because I believe in Yeshua“, .the level of frustration I feel is off the chart. That is a lie without a shred of truth, but one that cannot easily be refuted. No matter what the Jew who was told this responds with, they will not be believed or trusted because the speaker revealed they already don’t trust the Jew and that they hold so many misconceptions about Judaism!
I can understand sometimes the denial by Jews in not dealing with this because this task can feel overwhelming at such a moment ..What CAN we do other than educate? But who will listen? Are their voices already louder and more accepted as being “Jewish” among non-Jews?
A Jew who embraces the Jewish faith and refuses to abandon it for acceptance of the New Testament dogma is not an “unbelieving“ but a “believing Jew“. Jews simply hate our religion being DERAILED. Jews the world over loathe seeing every aspect of Jewish life HIJACKED and completely misrepresented to support beliefs that are completely contradictory to the faith of Israel. I hate watching children be taught lies! I cannot hate those children who grow up thinking they are Jewish. I am greatly saddened, often to the point of tears because they are being taught that believing Jews hate them! That means they have NO CLUE what Judaism’s CORE ESSENCE of TORAH teaches us about being Jews! To Israel, the chosen part means the Jew chooses to be a light unto the nations in our path of life in Tikkun Olam. Tikkun Olam is Repair of the World, fixing what is wrong and working alongside ALL peoples in our walk with God and the ongoing creation of life in the world. Evangelizing, selling, or coercion is not necessary if your life reflects a walk with God, NO MATTER WHAT religion you embrace.
It makes no difference if you are a Jew or not for Jews to embrace you in brotherhood! Jews believe that ANYONE CAN WALK with GOD in righteousness! There are righteous among all peoples and every human, Jew or Gentile, atheist, theist, agnostic etc, has worth.
However, you cannot be of the Jewish faith if you do not accept the TERMS OF THE COVENANT OF TORAH. And Jews do NOT believe you are walking with righteousness if you are MISREPRESENTING Judaism! The differences in the sects of Judaism have to do more with observances and customs of how to honor this covenant, not over the nature of God or the covenant itself. The prophetic belief is that in the messianic age one day all will come to know God. “Faith” will essentially be unnecessary because “knowing” and understanding will replace that. This has not happened and you are free to believe it will not ever happen. I cannot help but hope with faith that it will one day happen because right now religiosity, bigotry and greed are tearing apart the human species and the balance of life on earth itself.
As Jews, I call out to every Jewish parent to teach our Jewish children what Judaism is so they are not fooled by the missionary who appeals to their desire to belong to a larger group. It is a natural desire to want to share in belief with all around you and to feel connection in that manner. Once a child is an adult, they can choose to remain in the path of Judaism or not, however they will know the difference between coercion based on deceit or embracing a belief because their heart and mind lead them to do so.
I believe that it is important to realize that if one feels a genuine love for Jewish identity and things Jewish and Israel, you would NOT try so very hard to remove from the Jewish nation/family/religion the very thing that has kept our existence intact. It is not the food or symbols, it is the faith. The covenant is not about RACE. There is no Jewish “race”.
Ruth, a GENTILE became a Jew by adopting the faith. That is right IN the Tanakh. Ruth a Moabite, a person who was of a nation cursed for eternity in Torah, became a Jew. Gentiles can become fully Jewish according to Jewish law. It was true then and it is true now. If you want to be a Jew, you can. However, it is and has never been necessary to become a Jew to know God or be blessed by God. If you want to call yourself a Jew and be honest about it, the way you do that is through adoption of the Jewish faith.
The fact is that the majority of these people claiming to be Messianic Jews were never of the Jewish faith to begin with and are technically not even Jewish by birth or heritage. The largest number are converts from other evangelic Protestant Christian denominations who wished to feel a connection to the Jewish people, the land of Israel itself and their adaptation of the Hebrew Bible they know as the Old Testament. There are more Christians claiming to be Jews in some communities of the United States now than there are Jewish people. The surrounding larger non-Jewish community and their children come to see the outward Jewish appearance of those people and base their belief of what is and is not Jewish on those Christians posing as Jews. This should be disturbing to any Jew and I believe it should disturb Christians who respect honesty.
Our eternal covenant and Torah as it is written has withstood more than 2000 years of previous attempts to obliterate it.. I don’t believe this campaign is going to obliterate Judaism now, however, I believe it may one day cause the greatest suffering Jews have ever seen if it continues to be ignored. The spread of this particular form of replacement theology and it’s acceptance by the Christian community and their public endorsement of the so-called RABBIS (Christian ministers) as representative of the Jewish faith is insulting to Jews everywhere.
History has shown from the days of the Torah, that the worst calamities befall the Jewish people as a nation happen when the Jewish people in large numbers STRAY from the Torah or try to pervert it by introducing idolatrous elements into it. I can now finally understand how this happened in the past as I see it happening yet again.. Do we want the Jewish people divided from within so that we are more vulnerable to assaults from without to tear us apart, leaving us easy prey for perhaps the greatest suffering that Jews have ever known? Or do we want to let our light shine clearly as a light unto the nations and our voices call out clearly for honesty, justice and mercy in our walk alongside every other people?
Hillel’s words come to my mind. If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am for myself alone, what am I? If not now, when?
Please do not remain silent for fear of reprisal, being silent will only ensure that the message of those who misrepresent Judaism is louder than the example of your life.
Fellow Jews, when faced with voices who misrepresent Judaism, speak up and educate in peace and respect. Do not ignore it and think it will go away. It will not. The failure of the Jewish community to speak clearly to the world who and what we are as a people of FAITH to our families and our neighbors has actually aided this deception through indifference and fear. Often we fear simply being called “paranoid” because Jews are supposed to all have a persecution complex, or so I have heard countless times in recent years. Our FEAR of being accused of being bigots, the very kind of people Jews teach our children to not be, is silencing us and actually empowering their deception through mistaken appearance of approval.
Here is only one tool of many that you can use to help clear up some of the misconceptions. http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/
The following are messages I want to share with evangelic Christians dedicated to converting the Jews, the Christian with an identity crisis who considers himself a Jew and to all Jews:
The sincere faith of the Jewish people is belief the covenant is eternal and there shall always be at least a remnant remaining steadfast in our connection to our fellow man and to HaShem through it. The Jews may dwindle in numbers and one day be either converted or killed into near oblivion but we won‘t ever disappear entirely.
We are the stubborn, stiff-necked ones you teach your children to distrust because we will not worship through Yeshuah or believe that his sacrifice could atone for our sin. It is the ultimate heresy to Torah to believe in a man-god. We can and shall never believe that because it would mean to abandon our faith and place a barrier to our connection to God whom we believe is the only entity from whom we seek atonement. We believe that our very existence as a nation depends on not abandoning the eternal covenant. Its precepts are as valid today as they were then. We believe that how we treat you and everyone else on this planet is the most important way we can show God and our fellow man that we try to live in a path of as a light unto the nations. (The very role of Israel) To be a Jew means to live this, no matter what you will do to us.
Words to consider for my both my Jewish friends (and especially Jewish parents) and for my Christian friends who feel any affinity for Israel. If you are a Jew and you feel you must follow Jesus, be honest and DO NOT REPRESENT THAT AS JUDAISM, even if you were born to a Jewish mother. Misrepresenting what faith you follow is what angers the Jewish people most. You have separated yourself from the covenant of the Jew.
Do not teach your child to evangelize to Jewish children, especially by saying “keep this from your parents; they don’t know they’re leading you to hell”. If you are a Christian, please do not try to convert the Jew by misrepresenting your dogma as “fulfilled” Judaism. Judaism has been fulfilling in faith for all who embrace it for 4000 years and shall continue to be so. People who choose it find within its precepts the connection to the Divine that gives us the strength to endure adversity, as well as to appreciate and enjoy the blessings of life and this world. Judaism is world affirming; we strive to work to better the world around us for ALL. I want to leave this world a better place than I found it. It is what Boy Scouts teach about a campsite, and Jews teach about how we are to live in the world. Leave it better than you found it.
I have found the relationship between Christian, Jew and Muslim in a horrible condition. I want to help fix that. I am one middle-aged mom in Arkansas. I am not arrogant or crazy enough to think I can figure this out all by myself when the greatest leaders of the past and our world leaders today cannot seem to get this straightened out. I know that we do not all pray to the same deity for help but I know we can still have our voices used collectively together to ask for the same things that we say we all want. Peace, justice, mercy, honesty, understanding, respect, brotherhood, unity, and cooperation rather than competition. Isn’t this what we all want?
Silently ignoring or dismissing groups hijacking Judaism is not a path of peace. Appeasement of haters is not working to peace. Making compromise with people who want to kill you is not working for peace. Until you want to sit down side by side with someone you cannot get along with but know they have as much right to exist as you do, you are not ready for the job to work toward peace. Tackling and facing tough questions and finding people who really are ready to sit down at a table to achieve peace is the work ahead of us. If we decide to stop the hate, to speak and live in honesty and respect to one another every day, to teach all our children to live and let live, perhaps a new generation won‘t find the same mess I see now. If we do this in every community, every day of our lives as we go about the mundane yet essential survival and family tasks that take precedence in our lives, every one of my readers can create a wave of change that may indeed change the whole world. Maybe your life and my life will inspire one other person to live like this. Let this be the thing we ALL evangelize. Come to think of it, perhaps I am that crazy to think I can change the world, after all. I am also crazy enough to think that each of YOU can, too.
AM YISRAEL CHAI and let ALL people live ----- in peace
SHALOM!
Copyright © 2007 mama_pajama_