On the other hand, this sounds like wonderful preparation for a boring, meaningless adulthood surrounded by smart-asses.
If you say so, but I’ve known ~15 Messianic Jews. Every single one was partly or fully an ethnic Jew. I’ve never heard of Messianic Jews that weren’t (which doesn’t mean they don’t exist…)
I think there are some gentiles that get involved with Jews for Jesus, but AFAIK they do not claim to be Jews.
Adding: Jews for Jesus has a “stories” section. Without looking at them all, every one of them appear to be ethnic Jews.
I don’t quite see how your post contradicts CitizenPained’s - I’m sure there are plenty of non-ethnic-Jewish Jews for Jesus and plenty of of ethnic Jewish Jews for Jesus. It was started by a Jewish convert to Christianity and targets Jewish people, after all.
And I’m not surprised the organisation’s own website doesn’t include stories of people saying “yes, I’m a member because I grew up Christian and think all Jewish people should convert to Christianity”! The organisation is aimed at converting Jewish people, so of course it’s going to have friendly I-was-Jewish-once-just-like-you “stories” on its website.
Pretty well every Jew understands “Jews for Jesus” as simply the latest in a long, long line of Christian attempts to convert Jews - by hook or by crook. This attempt is particularly obnoxious because it attempts to convert by stealth - claiming to be Jews themselves, for the purpose of making conversion appear acceptable to Jews.
What is necessary to understand is that Jews think attempting to prostheletize anyone is, basically, extremely rude. Jews generally do not prostheletize others (except in the case of some Jewish sects like the Lubavitchers who prostheletize other Jews - and are widely disapproved of for this reason); Jews generally do not like it when others attempt to prostheletize them.
Indeed, Judaism may well be unique among the theistic religions in holding that there is no need to be of their religion to be considered fully “righteous”. A non-Jew is, in Judaism, considered fully equal to a Jew if he or she abides by the so-called “Noahide” laws (basically, no murdering, no stealing kind of thing).
As pointed out though, JfJ works though deception, maniuplation and half-truths. They are some truly vile people who don’t even have the decency to be honest in their attempts at conversion. We’ve done this dance (a few times before, actually).
It is elucidative that in internal-communications within Christianity, JfJ refers to themselves as an Evangelical Christian group, but to Jews they represent themselves as Jews.
Aside: Finn, you had better send me a PM when you try the recipe. 
No prob, I’ll try to make it soonish, laziness permitting.
Well, Passover permitting, too, depending on your adherence level.
But see, I’ve never seen anyone who calls themself a “Messianic Jew” who was not ethnically Jewish. I’m not saying they don’t exist, but I’ve never seen one.
They may well be the horrible, terrible people some Jews think they are; that’s irrelevant. My point is that AFICT, they (or at least the vast majority) are in fact of Jewish descent. The Jewish community is (IMO) within their rights to say that such persons are “no longer truly Jewish” or somesuch; but if they are descendants of Abraham who grew up going to synagogues and spinning dreidels (and indeed, in some cases surviving the Holocaust), it seems dishonest to me to pretend that they have no more connection to Judaism than someone who comes from 12 generations of Methodists.
In the same way, I could see and understand a Native American tribe declaring that anyone converting to a white man’s religion was no longer Apache or Sioux; but that wouldn’t change the facts of the outcast’s genetics and personal history.
Again, correct me if I’m wrong; but I’ve known quite a few “Jewish Christians,” and AFAIK they all were of Jewish descent, and certainly the website seems to have many dozens of similar stories.
If anyone knows of comparable numbers of gentiles passing themselves off as Jews, I’d like to see a cite.
IIRC the cite I provided for the original “don’t date Jews” advice from JfJ lists the leadership for JfJ, most of whom are not Jewish by ethnicity.
- I don’t know where that is
- That isn’t the question, anyway. “Jews for Jesus,” as an organization may well be led by Gentiles, but unless those leaders are themselves claiming to be Jews, it’s a moot point.
Five minutes Googling finds these:
http://www.jerusalemvision.com/Main_files/PersonalTestimony.htm
http://www.wordofmessiah.org/about-sam.html
Are they all liars? Again, they may be ex-Jews, or outcasts, or infidels, or whatever. But acting as if they have no more claim to Jewishness than I do is misleading.
Indeed.
They have converted to Christianity, so they are ex-Jews by definition. They may “claim Jewishness” as much as they want, but that doesn’t make them Jewish, since they have deliberately chosen to embrace a new and different religion.
The only reason for them to proclaim a “claim to Jewishness” is as part of an attempt to convert Jews, which most Jews really find obnoxiously rude.
I take it you have spoken to lots of them personally, and this is why you know their motivations so well?
I’ve only spoken to one of them personally. It is, however, a reasonable extrapolation of “testimonials” presented on websites of organizations that are, after all, expressly concerned with converting Jews.
Many of the “testimonials” sound, to my Jewish ear, as patently false - littered with inappropriate “yiddishisms” to add an air of reality and larded with silly details that no Jew on earth could possibly get wrong.
To take a random example, look at this:
This guy was allegedly educated as a Reform (not “Reformed”) Jew - hey, just like me - and his “religious studies centered around Jewish history, Hebrew and humanitarian concepts” - but he thought Jews were a majority? Only in HS did he discover that Jews were, in fact, a minority?
Not on this planet. Simply put, that’s not credible. It has to be written by someone who has no idea what it is like growing up with a Reform Jewish education and experience, pretty well all of which endlessly emphasizes the threatened minority status of Jews generally (often to an degree that may be described as sorta paranoid). Even if his neighbourhood was 100% Jewish, he would know this. It is a basic and bedrock feature of the Jewish educational experience.
Either he’s a complete moron who paid no attention to his education, his education was totally unlike Reform Jewish education everywhere else – or it was written by someone who hasn’t a clue about growing up Jewish.
My money is on the last.
Yep. I grew up in a town that was 98% Jewish and I was raised in a Reform congregation… And the notion that Jews were a majority would have been beyond absurd.
Oh, and furt, the link I mentioned is in the post I just linked for you. As for your question about how many of them are lying, the real question is how many “testimonials” are honest. You’re dealing with a cult that aims at converting Jews to Christianity by calling Christians, Jews. There is a reason that “Messianic Jews” are held in contempt by many Christians and virtually all Jews but, say, Mormon missionaries are not.
If you found a website for penis enlargement pills, would you demand proof of their claims, or ask people to disprove them? I mean, they’ve got testimonials and everything, some of them even signed with plausible names.
What FinnnAgain said. Messianic Jewish organizations are based on deceit. They lie to Jews in order to get them to convert to Christianity. Think about that. Then ask yourself why you should believe anything a Messianic “Jew” says.
Again, I *personally *have met people who were converted Jews. In a couple of cases I have been to their homes and met their family members (some of whom were not converted). The issue is not whether or not the average Messianic Jew is a horrible, evil person. I find that highly dubious claim, reflective of paranoia, and evidence of lazy generalizing … but I’m not interested in debating it.
I am challenging the suggestion that the majority – or even many – of Messianic Jews are not, in fact ethnically Jewish, and I am asking for a cite.
This is a remarkable claim, and runs counter to my personal experience, to what a bit of looking tells me, and what I know both of human nature in general, and of evangelicals in particular. I’ve known several Gentiles who were very interested in evangelizing Jews, but none who actually claimed to be Jews.
If ya’ll are not making that claim, say so. If you are, I’m asking for cites for that remarkable claim. And no, “one sentence in this one guy’s account doesn’t sound right to me” won’t cut it.
Correct. The issue is that the organizations are dishonest, manipulative organizations that aim at converting one ethnic group, and only that ethnic group, via fraud. Even when provided links showin you how JfJ operates, you’d rather shift talk to their membership.
And even then, we have an organization that operates via dishonesty and rather than trying to prove that their claims are accurate, you’re demanding that others prove the negative.
Your anecdotal fallacy is neither convincing, nor does it render reason into “paranoia” or “lazy thinking.” You can call a valid, sound argument “dubious” all you want, but it’s somewhat obvious handwaving, backed up by Google Vomit… And when that’s shown to be a questionable veracity, you handwave that away too.
No, you are not. You’re position that they’re a majority, based in an anecdotal fallacy, and then trying to shift the burden of proof and insulting people as “paranoid” if they point out that there’s no reason to take a proven dishonest set of organizations at their word. Do you have any cite to back up your claims, at all, or just the folks you’ve met?
Of course the people they trick into converting will be Jews, because this are the people they aim at tricking unto converting. Even when a cite was offered showing you what the people leadin the effort are really about, first you said you didn’t see the cite and then you ignored it when I pointed out it’s location.