Messianic Jews are a source of endless curiosity and controversy. Numerous times over the years, Jews have passionately told me how Messianic groups like Jews for Jesus dont deserve a drop of ink on newsprint. That youre a Jew or a Christian, but not something in between.
They bristle that followers of Christ can be quasi-Jewish. Messianic Jewish congregations typically carry Hebrew names, and some media have wrongly lumped them in lists with traditional Jewish congregations. Bad mistake. Traditional Jews dont accept that Jesus Christ was the Messiah prophesied in scripture to restore Israel to its ancient glory and redeem humankind. Messianic congregations borrow richly from both faiths.
Jesus was a Jew, we know, and his followers and the early church came out of Judaism. But Judaism continued on through two millennia still waiting, while the sectthat was spun off andbelieved Jesus was divine, evolved into Christianity. Its been said that next to monotheism, Judaisms most influential idea was that God would send his agent to earth, the anointed one to usher in the Kingdom of God.
Harrumph typically go rabbis before they talk about Jews for Jesus, which is typically a thorn in their sides.
Beth Shapiro, a writer for the Jewish News of Greater Phoenix, recently produced a front-page story, Messianic groups fly under Valleys radar in which she found the Jewish community has been minimally affected by those who would pull Jews into Jesus-was-the-Messiah camp. In fact, she found that some drawn to Messianic Jewish experiences, including some who had been only Christians, have sort of just kept on going in their explorations of Judaism and ended up wholly Jews.
The unanticipated consequence of the Messianic movement is that some convert to Judaism, said Patricia Power, an undergraduate adviser in the religious studies department at Arizona State University. Its not a one-way street. Shapiro said Power had grown up Catholic, joined a Bible church, then a Messianic group and finally Judaism because it spoke to her academically, intellectually and spiritually.
Now Power is part of Temple Chai, a Reform Jewish congregation in Phoenix. Power plans to earn a doctorate in religious studies and will examine identity formation in marginal Jewish groups, predominantly American Messianic groups. Shell also look at the Chabad Lubivitch movement Jews, whose Orthodox Jewish tradition has been marginalized because of their Messianic beliefs.
Power tells the Jewish News that the impact in the Valley of Messianic groups is virtually nil and has not grown has it has done on the East Coast. She says Valley rabbis have had minimal contact with people who say they are Messianic Jews. Maynard Bell, executive director of the Arizona chapter of the American Jewish Committee, noting about 100,000 Jews living in the metro area, said Messianic Jews can be counted in three figures, but, instead, they are more of an annoyance. Jews’ losses to the Messianic movement, he said, pale to Jews lost to intermarriage, assimilation and apathy.
Nevertheless, Jewish organizations have been formed to counter Messianic Judaism. One of them is Jews for Judaism. Its Los Angles office director and founder, Rabbi Bentzion Kravitz, told the Jewish News that it is training students in high school and college to mobilize students against Messianic evangelicals efforts. But he acknowledge that the Internet, with its many means of reaching people, makes that effort difficult.
Interestingly, Daniel Juster, the first president and then general secretary of the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations, was in the Valley on Wednesday speaking at Yeshua HaMashiach Messianic Congregation in Mesa. Juster is author of such books as Jewishness and Jesus and One People, Many Tribes and is touted as acclaimed international speaker on the relationship of Israel and the church.
