My unprovable, possibly far-out, but hopeful belief is that Jews will some day accept Messianic Jews as their own, and that this brave example will help inspire people all over the world to creatively re-think long-held categories and narratives in a conscious and positively transformative way. Jesus may or may not be personally involved in this transformation, but if there’s an afterlife as promised, I hope he is.

Part 1: Back in the Day

In 1960, a 12-year-old boy named Daniel Juster was shooting baskets in the driveway of his family’s home in River Edge, New Jersey when he unexpectedly heard the voice of God tell him, “You should be relating to me.”

Daniel hadn’t had a religious upbringing, but his Jewish father had died three and a half years earlier, and his thoughts were occupied by spiritual matters. After young Dan heard God’s voice, he started attending church with some Gentile cousins, without any objection from his nominally-Christian mother. He came to accept Jesus, and after majoring in philosophy at Wheaton, a Christian college in Illinois, he did graduate work at Trinity and McCormick seminaries, got his M. Div., and was ordained a Presbyterian minister.

His first assignment, in 1972, was with a Hebrew Christian congregation in Chicago — people who, like himself, were Jewish by birth or background but had converted to Christianity. He and his congregation wanted to know if believing in Jesus meant that they had to completely give up their Jewishness, or whether they could retain this identity.

With the encouragement of his congregation’s board of elders, Juster studied the question for a year and a half. He learned about an obscure movement called Messianic Judaism, which argued that, in spite of centuries of historical precedent, Jewish believers in Jesus have a divine mandate to continue living as Jews, without leaving their identities and communities behind. Juster became convinced, and with the unanimous support of the elders, he changed the congregation’s name to Adat Ha Tikvah, moved the weekend service to Shabbat on Saturday, and steered it towards Messianic Judaism.

Marc Chagall, Calvary (1912)

Some members left. The problem, of course, is that under most people’s definitions of the word “Jew,” it is impossible for a person to be a Jew and a Christian at the same time. A Jew can adhere to the practices of another religion, disregard religion entirely as an atheist, eschew Jewish commandments by eating pork, commit murder — but once they accept Jesus Christ, they are out of the tribe. Belief in the divinity of Christ as an entity separate from God violates the core tenet that a Jew shall accept no other god but Yahweh.

Messianic Jews use a different definition [see notes at right], describing themselves as Jews who believe in Jesus. Their quietly growing movement now has over 500 congregations worldwide, mostly in the U.S., Israel, and Ukraine.

Most Jews see Messianic Judaism as a threat rather than a legitimate form of Judaism; given thousands of years of Jewish history, it’s easy to see why. I once would have thought the same way (I am an agnostic and non-religious Jewish-American guy). But now I believe that overall, Messianic Judaism is a positive force that holds great promise, and that it should be accepted. It’s good for the Jews, perhaps just what our tribe needs.

Jews for Jesus?

“Oh, you mean the Jews for Jesus.”

That’s the reaction I got from my mother and others when I told them that I was researching an article on Messianic Judaism. The answer is no: the organization Jews for Jesus and the Messianic Judaism movement are two different things, although their raisons and histories are intertwined, and many Messianic rabbis have old connections to JFJ. According to Boaz Michael, founder of the MJ ministry First Fruits of Zion, there has been infighting over the past 20 years over whether Jews For Jesus should be called part of Messianic Judaism. But as sociologist and non-Messianic rabbi Shoshanah Feher writes, “many Messianics cringe when they are mistaken for members of Jews for Jesus.”

I first heard about Messianic Judaism several years ago, when I met an Israeli Messianic Jew named Gaddie through a mutual friend. I was intrigued, and when I started reaching out to Messianics and Jews for Jesus for this article, I expected that they might either assume that I was writing something negative and therefore not talk with me, or else see me as fresh meat and try to convert me. As it turned out, they did neither. They uniformly respected my non-belief and gave me their time with no strings attached. They all seemed like normal, well-adjusted people, not cult members or wackos (of which I’ve known a few).

I also talked with authorities and scholars with views of Messianic Judaism from outside the movement, including a sympathetic Anglican vicar, an unsympathetic (but interested and helpful) rabbi, and non-Messianic religious scholars who explore the connections between Judaism and early Christianity.

I like the take of one such scholar, Professor Daniel Boyarin at UC Berkeley, who is himself orthodox Jewish. Over the phone, he told me that he’s been meeting quite a number of Messianic Jews lately, and although he doesn’t personally identify with their theological position, “it seems to make about as much sense as any other theological position. So, fine — so they have a theological position.” He gave this last point a gently distancing “mazel tov” inflection, then continued: “The ones I’ve met have been sincere, very well-educated, and are working with the best of scholarship. They are not working out of ignorance or talking nonsense. I like to engage in respectful conversations with such people, and I learn from them too.”

Jesus Freaks

Many Jews view Messianic Judaism as simply Christianity relabeled with a name that’s specifically designed to mislead them into converting. As Rabbi David Wolpe writes, “’Messianic Jew’ is a terrible misnomer that owes more to marketing savvy than any theological truth.” Because you cannot be a Jew if you’re a Christian, the project of converting Jews to Christianity is equivalent to destroying Judaism. Throughout history, the argument continues, countless foes have attempted to wipe out the Jewish people, by converting them through violence and torture, or just killing them outright. Messianic Judaism is an insidious new threat that seeks the same end through gentler means.

Within its premises, this view makes perfect sense. But the history of the term “Messianic Judaism” shows that it is not meant as a trick, and although Jews may see themselves as a center of attention, the Messianic Judaism movement isn’t all about them. Messianic congregations are congregations like any others, not elaborate fronts for conversion operations.

The term “Messianic Jew” was coined around the turn of the 20th Century, when some Jewish converts to Christianity began rejecting the well-worn path of assimilation, arguing from scripture that it was against God’s plan. Instead, numerous New Testament passages make it clear that there are two types of believers in Christ; for example, Romans 11 likens Gentile believers to wild olive branches grafted onto a pruned olive tree, growing alongside the remaining original branches. And Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians should remain distinct — at least until the End Times, when under dramatic circumstances witnessed by the entire world, all remaining Jews will come to believe in Yeshua (Jesus in Hebrew).

This new view remained fairly obscure until the hippie-led Jesus Movement (a.k.a. the “Jesus Freaks”) of the late 1960s and early 1970s. This movement sought to recapture the world-changing communitarianism of the early Church and distance itself from the hierarchical, politicized Christianity that emerged later. This was the psychedelic era: minds were expanding, the global consciousness was rising, and parallels to 1st Century Judea were obvious; Jesus and his followers were pacifist rebels opposing the imperial war machine of Rome. Jesus even looked like a hippie.

Meantime, American Jews were feeling newly righteous and proud of their ethnic identity. Israel (which had more Jewish support than it does today) had gained a stunning victory in the Six Day War in 1967; books like The Joys of Yiddish and Sheila Levine occupied the bestseller lists; and Jewish heartthrob swimmer Mark Spitz dominated the 1972 Olympics in Munich, winning seven gold medals against a heartbreaking backdrop of Palestinian terrorism. Being Jewish was hip, and Jewish Americans did not want to give up their ethnic identity.

Traditionally, Jews who sought to retain their Jewishness after finding Jesus had identified themselves as Hebrew Christians, and this was the term used by old-line evangelical organizations like the Hebrew Christian Alliance of America (HCAA). But the spirit of the times demanded a new identity, and Messianic Jewish congregations sprouted up. In 1970, Hebrew Christian missionary Martin Chernoff saw the words “Messianic Judaism” in a vision, which led him and his wife Yohanna to start Congregation Beth Messiah in their living room in Cincinnati. Other Messianic Jewish congregations formed independently around the same time or soon after in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington DC, and Chicago (Juster’s Adat Ha Tikvah).

Messianic Judaism found rich soil in an open-minded new generation of Jewish converts. The radical, rule-breaking identity fit the spirit of the times, letting its adherents retain their Jewishness (which was never just about religion anyway) while distancing themselves from established Christianity and its centuries of anti-Semitic and un-Christlike baggage.

Daniel Juster recalls the experience of his three friends Eitan Shishkoff, Russ Resnik, and Richard Rubenstein, who also became leading figures in the movement. “They were hippie farmers living up in the mountains of New Mexico. One day, one of these psychedelic-painted Jesus Volkswagens drives up, and they all think it’s crazy. But the next thing you know, they’re having visions of Yeshua, and they become believers. Were they taking LSD or something? I never did any drugs myself, but that’s the kind of thing that was happening back then. It was wild.”

Back at the HCAA, young Messianics and their kin were swelling the membership rolls. A missionary named Manny Brotman, who founded the organization’s new youth wing, pushed for the HCAA to change its name to the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA). When Martin Chernoff was elected president of the HCAA in 1973, he agreed. Support for the change grew, and in 1975, at the organization’s annual convention, members voted to change the name . The MJAA was born, and with institutional support from the evangelical Christians, the Messianic Judaism meme had officially arrived.

Messianic Congregations

In the U.S. today, most MJ congregations belong to either the MJAA or the Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations (UMJC), and the cultures of these two organizations differ. The MJAA has more ties with mainline Christian evangelical organizations and leans more in that direction, with its right-wing politics and emphasis on outreach and conversion via television and video (e.g. Jewish Voice Ministries, Zola Levitt Ministries). UMJC congregations, meanwhile, identify more with mainstream Jewish communities, make more of whether its members would be considered Jewish under traditional definitions, and are more likely to keep kosher and otherwise follow Jewish law. These are generalizations, with overlap and exceptions, but they not unfairly cover the overall spectrum.

Very few MJ rabbis are ordained by mainstream Jewish yeshivas (religious schools), usually only those who came to Jesus after having been regular rabbis. But the MJAA and UMJC each oversee their own specifically Messianic Jewish yeshivas (the MJAA’s through its subsidiary, the International Alliance of Messianic Congregations or IAMCS). According to Rabbi Barney Kasden of the UMJC, they ordain about 6 new rabbis each year, and the larger MJAA probably ordains at least as many (the MJAA did not respond to my queries and calls). It’s possible that traditional rabbis learn the Talmud better than their Messianic kin, but either way, at least a dozen new Messianic Jewish rabbis each year go out into the world ready to establish new congregations.

Marc Chagall, White Crucifixion (1938)

Roughly half of all Messianic Jewish congregants in the U.S. were previously Jewish. The rest are Gentiles who feel called to Messianic Judaism, but who may not identify personally as Jews themselves. As Shoshana Feher writes, Messianic Jewish congregations have an unspoken hierarchy. Those who were born Jewish have the highest status, and below them stand two other categories: the Gentiles and the Roots Seekers, who are people born and raised Gentile, but who seek or claim Jewish ethnicity through their own genealogical work.

With Gentile and Roots-Seeker congregants unofficially occupying a second-class, “separate but equal” position, some argue that MJ rabbis should be able to convert Gentiles to Messianic Judaism — and therefore to Judaism as a whole, even if the conversion is not recognized by other Jews. Other MJ rabbis are exclusionist, opposing the prospect of converting Gentiles unless they follow Jewish law. The issue has not been resolved, and for now, Gentile MJ congregants who are queried for their religion might want to check the “It’s complicated” box.

Complicating matters further is another growing phenomenon, the Hebrew Roots movement (a.k.a. “Hebraic Roots,” “Jewish Roots,” “Restored Covenant”) which consists of Gentile Christians who follow Jewish law and traditions. Some do this partially out of personal interest, to be closer to Jesus and as a more authentic form of Christianity. Others do it with Chasidic-level strictness because they believe that Jesus wanted both Jewish and Gentile followers of his to obey the Torah — the “One Law” doctrine. Many such Torah-observant Christians are Latinos who suspect or claim crypto-Jewish ancestry buried during the Spanish Inquisition — a possibility that is supported by recent genetic research and books like Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean.

From the strict Messianic Judaism perspective, Hebrew Roots is a positive development only so long as it isn’t One Law, which eliminates the distinction between Jew and Gentile. But practically, Messianic Jewish and Hebrew Roots worshippers often belong to each other’s congregations, because it’s the only one in town that worships Jesus using Hebrew prayers. Many congregations welcome both Messianic Jews and Hebrew Roots Christians explicitly, including the largest Messianic congregation in the country, Baruch HaShem in Dallas.

(For more on Hebrew Roots Christians and the Roots-Seekers among them, see Menachem Kaiser’s fantastic article, reported from the Revive convention in Dallas.)

Not surprisingly, Messianic congregations are friendly to intermarried couples and their families. As Rabbi David Rudolph writes in Messianic Judaism: An Introduction: “A growing number of intermarrieds (i.e., Jews married to Gentiles) are embracing Messianic Judaism as an option for their families. Given that one out of every two American Jews intermarries, the Messianic Jewish community in North America is poised to grow exponentially [sic].”

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