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Messianic Jews Are Still Jewish

I have heard it said many times that “Jews who accept Yeshua are no longer Jewish.” My response to this assertion is this: prove it. In order for that argument to be considered valid, it would need to be applied consistently by the Jewish community in other similar cases. Show me how it is. I’ll tell you up front that it is not. For instance:

• Many Jews in Chabad believe that the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson was the Messiah, yet they are still considered to be normative by the rest of Judaism. (The only dissent to this idea that I have seen is in the writings of David Berger.)
• How many athiest or agnostic Jews are there in the world? They are not considered to have lost their Jewishness because of their beliefs about G-d.
• What about Buddhist Jews? This is one of the most interesting points in this conversation. There are a large and growning number of Jews (Israelis, specifically) who are looking to Eastern religions for a “higher level” of spirituality. These Jews are not considered to be non-Jews, either.

The same issue can be brought up about those who do not follow Jewish tradition or Torah, such as many Reform, Conservative and unaffiliated Jews. Does straying from Jewish tradition or Torah make someone a non-Jew? If so, who’s definition of acceptable halacha is considered to be “right.”

Therein lies the rub. If someone wants to be consistent in their application of the “loss of Jewishness,” then they will have to kick out every person who does not hold to their own standards of Jewish thought and practice. That is really the only way to have consistency; however, it is not the most common response of the purveyors of this argument. Responding in such a way would make it hard to be Jewish in the Modern world, since there are so many forms of Judaism and so many differences of opinion on practice.

The most common response, instead, is to say that people who fall into the above categories are Jews, they just may not be what some people consider to be “good Jews,” a position that I would say holds much more weight.

A line of defense typically brought up at this point in the discussion is that the history of the Church changes the equation, i.e. “Well, a believer in Yeshua can’t be a Jew because the Church has persecuted the Jews for hundreds of years and has forced Jews to convert.”

Okay, let’s overlook the obvious change of subject and the emotional nature of the argument for a moment.

What about the Conversos? They were Jews in Spain who “converted” to Christianity during the Inquisition, but who actually continued to follow Jewish practices in secret. What about those Jews who broke while being tortured and confessed belief in Yeshua right before they were killed (that happened a lot in the Inquisition—force the Jew to “convert” and then kill him before he gets a chance to renounce it).

Were those people no longer Jews? Did they lose their Jewishness through the Christian “conversions” that they underwent, whether willingly or unwillingly? If those people are still considered Jews (which they are, by all or most of Judaism), then the whole argument that “the history of the Church’s persecution of the Jews makes someone who accepts Yeshua a gentile” is nullified.

This issue needs to be seriously addressed in the Jewish community if we are to be accepted.

‏תּוֹרָה‎ — The first five books of the Bible. Alternately, refers to the entire body of commandments of G-d. The Torah is read in the synagogue on a yearly schedule, starting and finishing on Simchat Torah.

‏הֲלָכָה‎ — Literally, “the way to go.” Jewish Law, the practical application of the mitzvot found in the Torah she’biktav and Torah shebal peh. More...