You know what? Fuck it. I over-reacted. I apologize. Genuinely, no sarcasm, I apologize.
Some of what I said is true, but nonetheless, I overreacted.
All Dopers are the same, right?
It was kind of fun and interesting when it was about that. Then it got all weird, but weird in typical Doper fashion. 
Not hard to pigeonhole at all. “Messianic Jews” are Christians who want to dress up in the rituals and trappings of Judaism. Belief that Jesus was/is the Messiah is the very definition of a Christian. The Messianic movement is an outreach arm of the Baptists that targets (among others) Jews who feel estranged from or forgotten by the Jewish community. This includes, but is not limited to, college students away from home who are looking for a place to belong, old people who may feel forgotten/neglected by the synagogues and other Jewish institutions in their city. These groups are told they can still be Jews, wear the tallit, light candles, whatever, but accept Jesus as the Messiah. Once they do that, they’re Christians. From the Christian side, it may seem like a fuzzy line, a distinction without a difference (“What’s the big deal?”), but from the Jewish side, it’s a chasm.
Ok, y’all, back to the name-calling! 
I don’t doubt that it’s a chasm, and I don’t think that it’s a distinction without a difference.
That said, I have met Messianic Jews who are ethnically Jewish, who grew up observant, and who describe themselves as Jews, not as Christians.
That’s all I meant by “hard to pigeonhole” – I was just going by how some of those (few) I’ve met identify. So some do identify as Jewish. Other Jews may call them Christians.
Also the one bunch I’ve run into in my life had religious practices (rituals and so on) that would be completely alien to any other Christian sect. Some wore yarmulkes. They had services on Saturday. And so on.
So, again, hard (for me, at least) to pigeonhole.
Ethnically, culturally and traditionally they would be Jewish. Theologically, they are Christian.
I’d say that Christians are pretty hard to pigeonhole anyway. You have everything from twice a year Methodists to hardcore Westboro Baptists. Seventh Day Adventists also hold their services on Saturday. There are some churches where you just don’t show up naked, and some where there is finery or vestments required.
OK, fine, no problem. My experience with Messianic Jews is limited to one particular bunch on a university campus some years ago. They said they were Jews. By “hard to pigeonhole,” I just meant that I wasn’t sure whether I should go by what they said and consider them to be Jews, or consider them Christians, which they seemed not to want to be considered.
As to whether they were theologically Christians, in one sense, yes, since they considered Jesus to be divine, to be God Himself. On the other hand (and at this point my recollection is a bit hazy), they weren’t trinitarian, which most Christian sects are.
Sorry, this is a side trip. If I was wrong to consider them to be Jews and not Christians, I apologize to anyone this may offend. I was just going by what they called themselves.
ETA: I suppose not that much of a detour, since it’s part of whatever Dark Sponge was saying (which I still don’t understand).
According to traditional Judaism, a Jew who commits heresy (e.g. by joining another religion or worshipping Jesus as God) is still a Jew, he’s just not a very good one. Orthodox Judaism is entirely defined by either birth or a specific conversion process and once you’re in there is no way to get out.
According to the Israeli government, Jews who have chosen to convert to another religion are no longer “part of the Jewish people” and do not have access to, e.g., the Law of Return entitling them to immigrate to Israel.
Almost all “Messianic Jews” are Jewish-born political conservatives who needed to become Christian in order to advance in their social realm. The rare exceptions I have ever met are the exact opposite - extremely squishy liberal Jews who spent a lot of time around black Christians and came to believe that it was impossible to have respectable racial politics while maintaining that the majority religious belief of black Americans is incorrect.
If their theology includes Jesus being divine, they’re not following Judaism.
I do not doubt that at all. On the other hand, they said otherwise.
It doesn’t matter. I’m not sure what Dark Sponge was referring to – he said they’d have a lot to say about something, perhaps those parts of the Torah that are “forbidden.” No idea what he was talking about.
My only take on the post that prompted this thread was that anything that’s talking about “forbidden” parts of Torah, or the Talmud, has, in my experience, been the start of a walk down a path to anti-Semitism. Now, in fairness, perhaps that’s not where Dark Sponge was going. As I said, I didn’t really understand the point he/she was trying to make.
Its possible that whomever Dark Sponge got this idea from was (possibly intentionally) confusing the Torah with the study of Kabbalah which to my understanding (as a non-Jew who skimmed a wikipedia article) may have been forbidden by certain Jewish traditions at various times in history. But that is a very esoteric field of study and any restriction of it certainly wouldn’t have prevented Jews from reading the parts of the Torah that Christian believe refer to Jesus.
Where did you get this from?
Pulled directly from ass, no doubt, like many statements from this bozo.
What are you, the fucking lawyer for fake Jews? How many prominent “Messianic Jews” can you name who aren’t involved in Republican politics? This isn’t any kind of controversial statement.
It looks like Jews for Jesus is a branch of Messianic Judaism, and there’s a shitload of former drug addicts who are J4Js. My step-uncle and many of his friends, for example.
I don’t know any famous ones. This page seems to name some, but only Jay Sekolow seems to a conservative Republican.
Bozo.
So can everyone else.
Jay Sekulow is the only person listed on that page who joined a “Messianic Jewish” movement so that would be a 100% hit rate.
Josh Groban and Kathie Lee Gifford are people who were raised and remain Christian, do not attend Messianic Jewish churches, and happen to have some Jewish ancestry.
Israel Zolli converted to Catholicism and was never involved with Messianic Judaism, which didn’t even exist during his lifetime.
Bob Dylan was raised Jewish. He converted to Christianity at age 38 through the Vineyard Church, which is not a Messianic Jewish movement but a fairly normal branch of evangelical Protestantism, and then a few years later abandoned it and went back to being a secular person of Jewish background.
Man, you’re a dumbass.
Anyway, as I said, I do know some Jews for Jesus and they are NOT Republican operatives, so your 100% hit rate is as much bullshit as everything else you post. That page wasn’t my page – it was the only page that had a list of prominent Messianic Jews. Are you saying there’s only one prominent Messianic Jew and that’s the justification for your “can you name any who aren’t involved in Republican Politics”?
When you’re trying to refute something that someone said, it’s not very effective to give only one example, where that one example is consistent with what they said.
I gave multiple examples. I’m not planning on researching Bob Dylan’s or Josh Groban’s religious history. And, I also gave the example of my step-uncle and his friends.
The dumbass in question gave zero examples, of course.
OK. They’re not Messianic Jews. Never have been, never have claimed to be. So you definitely will have to keep obstinately refusing to “research their religious history” (listen to literally anyone or do 5 seconds of Googling) if you want to maintain your insistence that Bob Dylan and Josh Groban are Messianic Jews, for whatever goddamn reason you are doing so.