Back to our roots.

This past month, we went to a Messianic Jewish congregation on the north coast of Israel. There we met many believers in the Messiah. The elder that spoke to us after the Hebrew service was a Russian Jew, and provided an interesting translation experience: he, a Russian speaking Jew, spoke not Hebrew, but English to a Swiss interpreter for French listeners. His story was one of finding his Jewish roots in the Old Testament when he first began to read the Bible – having come from a completely atheistic background – and then furthering his identity in the New Testament as a follower of Jesus the Messiah. He came to know Jesus through a conference in the Ukraine that he reluctantly attended after convincing himself that he would just go to protect his wife (she invited him to the conference) from religious people and ideas.

This elder spoke to us about the challenge for Christians living in the nation of Israel today. He said the pressure and persecution from the ultra-orthodox Jewish society that is around him and his congregation is heavy on him and his family. Certain sects of the religious Jewish people in Israel equate Yeshua as dangerous and a means of undermining their society. He and his family have received hate mail from these Jewish groups, and those in his neighborhood have put postcards in all of the mailboxes warning his friends and neighbors to separate from him and his family because they are “dangerous mission people.” He later stated that these fundamentalist Jews seem to have a mission against the Christian faith, and many of the Israelis in society and government listen to them because they are considered the spiritual leaders of Israel.

For “mission people,” the ramifications of speaking about Jesus go even deeper. He stated that Messianic Jews are discriminated against and have even been fired from their jobs for believing in Jesus. With all of these injustices, the elder pointed out that the Israeli government either does nothing and turns a blind eye or does very little and 'goes easy' on those who are committing these sometimes violent acts against the Messianic Jews - as in the case of the bomb disguised as a gift that was left on a Messianic Jewish family's doorstep during Purim on March 20th, 2008 nearly killing a 15 year old boy - for which the Israeli police have made no charges or arrests over a year later. The Israeli government seems to have no problem with Christians from other countries that send millions of dollars in financial suport to Israel every year. Yet, they appear to take issue with Jewish Christians within their own country. Why is this?

Jewish Christians are not considered Jewish anymore by the Israeli government. In fact, many believers that were in the congregation are awaiting the results of their citizenship status in Israel, and for that reason, we were not allowed to photograph them. If the Israeli government found out that they were Christians they could be denied citizenship in Israel or given problems with the government. It appears that the Israeli government would like to keep the nation away from Messianic believers. One believer from Germany had his citizenship taken away and was sent back to Germany because of that reason. He and his family (wife and kids) have been separated for a while now.

There are also laws against evangelizing Jewish people. For instance, it is illegal - with possible imprisonment - to openly tell a person under the age of 18 years about Jesus. Why 18? Our guess is because the statistics of people coming to faith in Jesus after age 18 is substantially lower than before age 18. Israel was created for Jewish people, but if these Jewish people are Christians then it seems that they are no longer welcome.

Sadly, many people from various religions - including Christianity - discriminate based on what someone believes or doesn't believe. Without slipping into an "all religions are one" universalism, we can still affirm that religious differences are never a justification for persecution or violence. We as Christians, in particular, should consider how we have condoned others to act on certain beliefs, and/or how we simply keep quiet about unequal treatment of other human beings of any religion. We also need to re-evaluate how we, ourselves, carry out - in word and deed - some of our beliefs.

The scriptures of Romans 11 speak of how Gentiles have been grafted into the kingdom of God as wild olive branches, and we have our roots in the faith of our fathers from long ago. We delighted to join in worship of Jesus, the Messiah, with our fellow Jewish brothers and sisters in Christ. This is yet another example of the church that is "caught between" the Muslim world and the Israeli government, and we will not soon forget these wonderful believers.