Are they Jewish, or are they Christian?
I hadn’t heard of them before but I just got given a brochure by a bloke from the *Jews for Jesus * group and it’s not terribly clear. Neither is their Australian website.
According to whom? They consider themselves Jewish, obviously. My limited experience is that a lot of Jews think of them as wolves in sheep’s clothing.
No mainstream Jewish sect considers them Jewish.
Probably better to say that no mainstream Jewish sect considers them to represent an authentic Jewish theology.
Because obviously, some of the individual persons so involved are going to have authentic Jewish heritage.
What about Christians for Moses?
“You don’t have to be Jewish to love Leviticus”
Depends on how you definite jewish. Is it strictly an issue of religious beliefs where if you believe x, y, and z then that means you’re jewish?
Is it strictly an issue of heritage? Unless x, y, and z in your family were jewish then you aren’t.
Anyway, the complications go one for awhile and I’m sure there are a few threads out there debating what makesup the jewish identify.
Here’s one to start you off.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=199885&highlight=jewish
The trouble is even if you’ve defined your terms, when you’re dealing with issues of self-identity things are pretty fluid. For example, lets say we go with a religious definition and say you must be an Orthodox jew and believe in X, Y, and Z to be a real Jew. Fine, question answered.
However, this state lasts only along as people go along with it. If enough people decide to incorporate… say, a belief in the devine qualities of Bob into the tenets of their faith and still identify themselves as members of the jewish religion, guess what, they are. Now, to clear up confusion this splinter group will probably get a stubtitle to their name just to distinguish themselves such as, Bobbists Reformation Jews, however, it becomes progressively harder to say who is a ‘true’ JJew. That’s the trouble with self-identity, it’s a self-thing.
They are lying liars, and they lie.
Jews For Jesus was founded by a Baptist minister who changed his name to Goldstein. The organization is funded by various Christian groups. Its endgoal is the conversion of all Jews to Christianity. Here in Philadelphia, Jews For Jesus offer services to Soviet immigrants. They also print pamphlets in Russian explaining to Soviet Jews, who were forbidden by law to study or practice Judaism in the USSR and thus often have very little knowledge of it, that Jesus is an essential part of Judaism.
There is a sound Wikipedia page Jews for Jesus, which confirms the charlatan nature of the organisation. In short form: It is a Christian evangelical front.
Doc Cathode:
Nitpick: Rosen, actually. And he didn’t change his last name, that was always true, he changed his first name to “Moishe.”
Correct in the essentials, though.
I noticed my error when I read the Wikipedia page. I’m now trying to figure out who I was thinking of.
Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine?
About what?
No, he’s founder of Jews for Juggs. Many people get that mixed up though.
Walloon
They lie about being Jews.
They lie about wanting converts to continue to practice Judaism.
They lie about what Judaism is.
Yeah, but regardless of the sins of the organization, if any particular member was born of a jewish woman and now believes in the divinity of Christ’s, he’s not a liar.
–Cliffy
It is indeed a lie to claim, as Jews For Jesus do, that accepting the divinity of Jesus is compatible with Judaism.
True enough, however, most of the J4Js that I’ve encountered are ignorant people who have been duped.
I’ll take a crack at this, until someone more knowlegeable comes along.
Here is an answer from one Orthodox rabbi. There’s a lot of blah blah blah (he is a rabbi, after all!); the last paragraph is the only important one.
I’m not sure I entirely agree with him that a Jew is a Jew, no matter what, in all times and places.
If a Jew undergoes a Christian conversion, he is obviously not a practicing Jew, although his Jewish heritage remains unchanged. If he later says, “Oops, I made a mistake,” I doubt there would be any difficulty in his being welcomed back into the Jewish fold.
On the other hand, if “he” is a “she,” and she has children who are then raised Christian, I’m not sure what the Conservative or Orthodox position would be concerning the children. I believe the Reform branch would consider them Christian.
Early in our relationship, when I was somewhat worried about being accepted for conversion to Judaism, my fiance told me not to worry about it. They’d take me, because they were not going to be willing to take the risk of losing her. She was right, as usual.
I think the same thing obtains here. What with the amount of assimilation of Jews, it is unlikely that many congregations would write off a Jew simply because he made the really incredibly stupid mistake of buying into the Messianic Jews. In better times, they might have been more inclined to throw the bum out (see Spinoza).
I think it is important to note that the person that began J4J was indeed a "Jew,"or as much of one as anybody can legitimately call oneself such. The fact that he was also a Baptist is addressed in the Wikipedia article, and having read much of their literature, and that of other Messianic Jews, it can fairly be said that he was not trying to trick anybody so much as creating a synthesis between his culture and faith.
The organization sometimes defines themselves as “completed Jews” in light of Jesus’ words “I came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it,” Jesus himself being Jew, and being the final sacrifice for sin as typified in Old Testament practices.
Targeting Jews for “conversion/completion” is nothing new, since the early church was exclusively Jewish (cf. Book of Acts, chap 1-10, New Testament.)
Ah, so the Baptist minister is as much a Jew as ZevSteinhart, CMKeller or myself. Thank you so much for clearing that up.
If you’ll excuse me, I have to go out and have my circumcision reversed, eat a bacon cheeseburger with a side of lobster, and worship Vishnu, because none of that will make me any less of a Jew.
Words cannot express my thanks, or the true majesty of your wisdom Handsome Harry