In Israel there is a Jewish Christian cult called “Messianic Jews”. Who are they and are they any different from regular Christians? What does Judaism say about their claims?
This Christian cult has about 10,000 members in Israel and calls itself “Messianic Jews”. They are centered in Jaffa but they also have activities in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Carmiel and Yad Hashmona. In America this group has 200,000 members and they call themselves “Jews for Jesus”. This is their name even though quite a lot of them aren’t Jewish. This cult is part of the Evangelist movement which doesn’t differentiate between Jews and non-Jews and is not Jewish despite its misleading name.
People who know exactly what this cult’s beliefs are stays away from the strange group and pays it no mind. The ones who can fall prey to this Christian Missionary group are people who aren’t familiar with its claims. This is actually the preferred modus operandi of this missionary group, to tell you that they have information that “the rabbis hid from you about Jesus and the Bible”.
They will try to create an atmosphere of “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” of conspiracy where rabbis are schemers, liars and shysters whereas they (Jews for Jesus) know the truth and are very faithful to the Bible and its interpretation. They will quote from the scriptures and mainly talk about prophecies and later on portray Jesus as a historical personality that thanks to the falsification of the rabbis, is misunderstood. He was originally called “Yeshua” hinting to salvation and the rabbis called him Yeshu which stands for yimach shemo vzichro, obliterate his name and memory.
The missionaries come out with publications saying “Yeshu, Jesus= Yeshua= Salvation.” They’ll claim that “the rabbis are hiding the truth about Yeshua and hide the prophecies about him from the masses for thousands of years to distance Jews from finding out the truth found in the scriptures.” These missionaries claim that it is sufficient just to read the scriptures simply to see clear proofs of believing in the “Crucified One”.
For some reason ‘those scheming and evil “Elders of Zion” who hide the prophecies of the scriptures about Yeshua, during these millennia have actually taught and still teach the scripture in its entirety and perhaps they “forgot” to erase these prophecies about Christianity that are oh so clear according to these missionaries.
As you can easily understand the success of this cult depends on their ability to create the atmosphere of secrecy and conspiracy, claiming there is information in the scriptures that is not available to the masses because the rabbis concealed this truth for thousands of years from their pupils.
If this ancient lie about our sages wasn’t enough, in addidtion, these apostates will also pose as kosher Jews who abide Jewish law. They pose as keeping kosher and place a mezuzah on their entrances and sometimes even put on Tefillin, all with the purpose of hiding their abandonment of Torah and Mitzvoth. They’ll also fail to tell you they have nothing against intermarriage.
Jews for Jesus/ Messianic Jews will often hide their Christian identity and many Christian tenets focusing instead on the scriptures, prophecies and mitzvoth of the Torah. What they really believe they save for those who are already entrapped having “progressed” in the cult’s studies.
The missionaries Jews for Jesus really do not want you to know that there many prominent rabbis already had many debates with Christians and these debates are documented. Not only were the Christian claims not hidden, they were written down and methodically shot down one by one in books published hundreds of years ago. Amongst these you will find the famous debate of Rabbi Joseph Albo (The Tortosa Debate), and the debate of the Ramban (Nachmanides), where the sages address all the Christian claims about the trinity and prophecy. Anyone reading these debates can easily deal with any claim of a missionary.
It is ironic that these missionaries repeatedly claim “The rabbis are hiding the truth” are doing exactly that, hiding the truth about their cult and their strange ideas from the people come to hear what they have to say. As our sages say: “Whoever disqualifies someone, is guilty of that fault.”
We believe that if people know what this cult is really about they will want to stay away from them and not get entrapped in their snares.
This was an introduction. G-d willing, we will each day add another segment until we complete 10 segments.