Any other Messianic Jews Here?

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EqualinHim said:
We just don’t like the pagan, man-made, and commercial aspects of holidays like Christmas or Easter and we think there is beauty behind celebrating the same feasts that Y’Shua (that’s ‘Jesus’ in hebrew) himself celebrated. We still celebrate his life, death and resurrection, but just in a different way. Instead of Christmas, there is Sukkot which is followed by Hanukkah. And instead of Easter, we celebrate Pesach (Passover).

If I had a choice between choosing Passover and Easter, I would choose Passover in a heartbeat. It has so much spiritual significance. And for the first two centuries of the existence of the christian faith, christians actually celebrated their own form of passover. They didn’t start celebrating ‘easter sunday’ until after constantine. We prefer to think of ourselves as doing things in a kind of old-fashioned way. After all, the basics of passover haven’t changed for about 3500 years.

Also, we’re not ‘tea-totalers’…xD (due to a command to drink wine during certain festivals). Nor do we sit and stay silent in our pews. Our services are very ‘active’ in comparison to most Christian churches. We dance a lot, during service. And our order of worship is unique to us as well. My congregation uses the following order most nights:
  1. Shofar blows, everyone finds their seat and stands by it.
  2. Woman of the congregation stands, lights the candle, and proceeds with the traditional blessings.
  3. Regular announcements.
  4. Worship.
    5.Liturgy (the singing of the shema prayers, the ma’tovu, Oseh Shalom and other parts of the liturgy)
  5. Offering song.
  6. Message, sometimes given after more prayer and worship.
  7. Close with prayer and/or aaronic blessing.
Weddings are also beautiful, and we also practice bar and bat mitzahs too. Instead of Halloween, we celebrate Purim in March. Oh, you should have seen some of the costumes. Of course for celebrations with the congregation we are not allowed to do anything related to anything detestable (no vampires, demons, spirits, false gods/goddesses, or anything inappropriate such as a nazi costume) but there was quite a variety of costumes…xD
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As Catholics we believe Christ Jesus fulfilled all of the feasts of Israel, and not just the spring feasts as I’ve noticed many Protestant/Messianic websites I’ve seen online teach. If you are interested in how the Catholic Church understands this, and this relates to the sacraments of the Apostolic church, I recommend a book called 'The Crucified Rabbi ’ by Taylor Marshall, another good resource is this:

salvationhistory.com/studies/lesson/calendar_as_catechism_the_seven_feasts_of_ancient_israel
 
josie_L said:
Is that why 3 million Polish Catholics were killed?? Because they were so eager to participate in WWII?

P.S. And yes, Meltzerboy, he did open a can of worms, i.e., not sure why Andrew brought this up considering it is more than 50 years after the fact?
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Sorry for the offensive post. But it is a fact that the Poles and Russians did hate the Jews. And I am Russian Orthodox so I am even offending myself! But with Holocost remembrance day fast approaching…we must never forget.
 
andrewstx said:
Sorry for the offensive post. But it is a fact that the Poles and Russians did hate the Jews. And I am Russian Orthodox so I am even offending myself! But with Holocost remembrance day fast approaching…we must never forget.
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👍 Lest we forget.

I would say ‘some Poles’ and ‘some Russians’ hated the Jews. Not the entire or the majority of Poles and Russians as your statement implies.

In fact I would wager that the majority of Poles and Russians hated the Germans/Nazis more judging by the ferocity with which the Russians fought the Germans. The Nazis considered Poles to be racially inferior and the Nazi occupation of Poland was exceptionally brutal.

ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005473
 
7_Sorrows said:
I am just confused then as to what your problem is. As a hebrew catholic can’t you continue to honor the jewish holidays… and why use dio and not dios. Maybe you didn’t hear the s at the end. I have been around spanish speakers in the past 40 years. It is your decision but you seem happy complaining. You have been a catholic longer than I have.
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I think I get what’s going on.

It can be easy to read my comments as complaints if you don’t have the right from of reference for what I was saying.

I wasn’t writing about not being able to honor my Jewish culture or about stating how “evil” people can be. I was simply listing the details to what amounts to a life with a lot of pushes and pulls.

There is good and bad. Because people don’t know where I am coming from, they have often projected their own preconceived ideas upon me.

Others, like my friend who, due to his upbringing in a family that believed associating with anyone but Protestant Fundamentalists was a bad thing, reacted with some very harsh words about me “eating in his home, not far away from his mother.” He apologized for what he realized was ingrained bigotry that he hadn’t realized was in him, a gut reaction based on how he has been taught to act as a child. Is he still me friend? Yes. I love him dearly. Am I welcome in his house? I don’t know, but we don’t live close enough together for such a gathering anyway so it isn’t an issue.

Have people criticized me for my speech? Yes, but only because they just didn’t know any better.

To illustrate, you question about not hearing the “s” in “Dios.” In Ladino, Sephardic Jews generally don’t write or pronounce the “s” because they aren’t speaking Spanish, but Judeo-Spanish. In Sephardi culture the Shema (“Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One”, when said in Ladino would sound like: “The Lord our Gods” because of the “s.” So in Ladino, Sephardi Jews don’t use it. It’s not because we never hear it. It’s because we don’t have it in our word for God. Ladino is not Spanish, and in fact is often spelled out in Hebrew letters. And it is generally only spoken by Sephardic Jews. (What Yiddish is to Ashkenazi Jews, Ladino is to Sephardi).

None of what I wrote was a complaint. It was a comment on how life is filled with good and the not so good. If I wanted to be a worshipping member of Judaism, the way to that has been open since 1996 when a rabbi declared by lineage as Jewish. My family would have had the opportunity after the Spanish Inquisition to leave after members of the Church persecuted them and expelled them from Spain. They didn’t because they had been Catholic since the time of the apostles.

It isn’t a complaint that my family suffered persecution in the Spanish Inquisition. It’s just a fact. It isn’t a complaint that all my relatives who managed to remain in Europe after 1492 perished in Nazi concentration camps. That too is just a fact. It’s not a happy one, I assure you. But I am not complaining about Catholics, Spaniards, Germans, or the world in general. You may have confused or projected a preconceived idea on what I said.

It also wasn’t a very easy thing to hear a fellow Catholic tell me to leave the Church and convert to Judaism, but you did that write that. You are not the only Catholic who has done that. But I believe regardless of how painful hearing that again and again, most people just don’t realize what they are saying. (You weren’t being malicious, were you? I hope not.) It’s not a complaint that I write what you and other say. It’s just telling you how my life is.

I don’t have to leave my faith in the Messiah. As a Jew it my own business how I respond to the Messiah issue. It’s a Jewish concept, after all. Some Jews don’t believe in a personal Messiah. Others have accepted other persons as the Messiah. I have who I believe in as my Lord.

Whatever you may believe about me, I can’t complain about what happens to me due to my faith in Jesus Christ. If it means being misunderstood or hated or told to leave and go back where I came from, so it be it. Just because I say it’s hard to be a Christian of Jewish origin doesn’t mean I’m complaining.
 
Delson, are you aware of the Latino crypto-Jews? As I understand they converted during the Spanish Inquisition (hope I’m not opening another can of worms) but remained Jewish at heart? I hear that Columbus was one of them.

I was born in New Mexico, and apparently there are a number of them there. They would be Sephardi of course. The University of New Mexico press has a book about them. Apparently they have a shull nearby in Texas in the barrio of a local city and they have services in Spanish/Ladino.
 
andrewstx said:
Sorry for the offensive post. But it is a fact that the Poles and Russians did hate the Jews. And I am Russian Orthodox so I am even offending myself! But with Holocost remembrance day fast approaching…we must never forget.
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Just speaking for myself, my point was that things have changed a lot in the last several decades.

Certainly, I agree with you that we should not forget the Shoah (Holocaust).
 
andrewstx said:
Delson, are you aware of the Latino crypto-Jews? As I understand they converted during the Spanish Inquisition (hope I’m not opening another can of worms) but remained Jewish at heart? I hear that Columbus was one of them.

I was born in New Mexico, and apparently there are a number of them there. They would be Sephardi of course. The University of New Mexico press has a book about them. Apparently they have a shull nearby in Texas in the barrio of a local city and they have services in Spanish/Ladino.
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Yes. It appears that my mother’s side of the family are what would be considered crypto-Jews. It is not clear whether they converted before or due to the Spanish Inquisition. The documents of my ancestors who were called before the Inquisition generally have their names on them.

My father’s side of the family has a different oral history. According to what we’ve been able to learn over the past 16 years, they are of the tribe of Judah. Some of them are believed to be the Jews in Sefarad mentioned in Obadiah 1:20. Others were Judeans during the time of Christ and, according to what we understand from consistent oral and written histories, a handful became Christians during the time of the Apostles.

The information is sketchy, but we have reports of the family being in Rome next and then being expelled, and then showing up in Spain to reunite with those who apparently were already there. So technically speaking these in my father’s line were not all converts but original Christians.

And the way both families act fit the pattern of both Crypto-Jews and/or Jewish Christians depending on which you are talking about. My mother’s side is very “hush-hush” about their “culture,” yet their Ladino is the most pronounced, where my father’s side has always been very open about it, has stories about the time the family settled in Mexico, and have even recently been linked to the Sephardi Jews who established Monterrey, where many of my relatives live.
 
No. I was not being malicious in my posts but I am not going to follow this thread any longer. You are a catholic who has jewish roots. You have the best of both worlds. I don’t know my ancestry but always felt like I had a jewish soul. My hebrew teacher told me people who felt that way were standing at the bottom of mt. Sinai when Moses descended with the ten commandments. I also wanted to be catholic so I had to wrestle with that for many years.
When I became catholic I lost many jewish friends. I felt their hatred of catholicism. I will never forget how hurt I was.
If I had a catholic friend who became jewish I would still want to remain friends with him or her. In fact I had a very close jewish male friend who I kept in touch with every day through e-mail for 5 years andwe are no longer in contact because of my conversion to catholicism. I suppose your reference to Dio and Dios is about judaism and one God and catholicism and the trinity.
I feel you are really wanting to make theological arguments between
Jewish theology and christian theology. My best male friend’s last name was Jacobs by the way.
This is my final post on this thread.
 
7_Sorrows said:
No. I was not being malicious in my posts but I am not going to follow this thread any longer. You are a catholic who has jewish roots. You have the best of both worlds. I don’t know my ancestry but always felt like I had a jewish soul. My hebrew teacher told me people who felt that way were standing at the bottom of mt. Sinai when Moses descended with the ten commandments. I also wanted to be catholic so I had to wrestle with that for many years.
When I became catholic I lost many jewish friends. I felt their hatred of catholicism. I will never forget how hurt I was.
If I had a catholic friend who became jewish I would still want to remain friends with him or her. In fact I had a very close jewish male friend who I kept in touch with every day through e-mail for 5 years andwe are no longer in contact because of my conversion to catholicism. I suppose your reference to Dio and Dios is about judaism and one God and catholicism and the trinity.
I feel you are really wanting to make theological arguments between
Jewish theology and christian theology. My best male friend’s last name was Jacobs by the way.
This is my final post on this thread.
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Obviously that is why 7 Sorrows misunderstood where I was coming from. Being from a similar background and having had a best friend with the last name Jacobs (in my case “Jacobs” is a screen name–I have a Sephardic, not an Ashkenazi name in real life) they may have been projecting a lot that was never there in the first place.

If I wanted to make theological arguments between Jewish theology and Christianity I would not be engaged in what you can read in my other threads (just click on my statics and you will see what I generally talk about on this site). I work at defending the Catholic faith, even professionally.

I have faced this type of misunderstanding before from other people because I don’t fit into a preconceived mold (like most of us don’t). So people can get upset when they meet me. That’s not a complaint, mind you. I’m just saying it happens a lot.

For whatever it’s worth, I may not be the best writer, but I was trying to get across that I believe we should all keep learning how to step out of our comfort zones and preconceived ideas It isn’t easy, and I’m sure I don’t do it as well as I would like to think that I do. But we should at least try.
 
So am I correct in my thought that to be a Messianic Jew and attend Messianic Jewish Synagogue, one MUST be of Jewish decent and then believe, usually, in the Trinity and that Jesus was THE Messiah?

So, a gentile, cannot, by definition, be a Messianic Jew and attend Synagogue?
 
TexanKnight said:
So am I correct in my thought that to be a Messianic Jew and attend Messianic Jewish Synagogue, one MUST be of Jewish decent and then believe, usually, in the Trinity and that Jesus was THE Messiah?

So, a gentile, cannot, by definition, be a Messianic Jew and attend Synagogue?
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No. The Messianic Jewish movement is an Evangelical Christian one, made up of groups consisting of Gentile and Jewish Christians. For example, some of the groups associated with the MJAA (Messianic Jewish Alliance of America) invite Gentile Christians to adopt Jewish practices.

I am not a Messianic Jew because I am a Roman Catholic. I’m a Jew, by the definition of most I know and by DNA and a paper trail, but I am not a Messianic Jew because that is actually a denominational group made up of Protestants Evangelicals. I, on the other hand, happen to be a Jew who believe that Jesus is the Messiah, but that doesn’t make me a Messianic Jew because I would have to reject Roman Catholicism to do that.

And I probably wouldn’t have as many Orthodox and other Jewish friends since Messianic Jews and actual Judaism are at odds and don’t have the working relationship Catholicism and Judaism has.
 
TexanKnight said:
So am I correct in my thought that to be a Messianic Jew and attend Messianic Jewish Synagogue, one MUST be of Jewish decent and then believe, usually, in the Trinity and that Jesus was THE Messiah?

So, a gentile, cannot, by definition, be a Messianic Jew and attend Synagogue?
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I haven’t had time to read this whole thread. But, since my dad was a convert to Christianity from Judaism and since I live near the college in Pennsylvania where the MJAA holds their main annual conference, I’ve had experience with Messianic Jews since the mid-1990’s.

People who are not ethnically Jews are welcome to be equal members at Messianic Jewish services. What I heard in person from MJAA leaders, and likewise read, is that they consider a person a Jew if their mother or father is Jewish. So, yes, TexanKnight, a gentile is not a Messianic Jew from what I was told directly from the main leaders of Messianic Jewish congregations.

I, however, despite my interest and reading about Judaism, don’t think of myself as Jewish, though my dad was. I was raised with Christian influence, and I’ve learned about Judaism as an adult.

From what I did read of this thread, I’ve seen mainly misconceptions about Messianic Judaism. I don’t know if I have the time available to try to clear things up, and frankly I usually just let these threads go by because it seems like people are convinced they already get what makes Messianic Jews tick despite little study from first hand sources and meager personal experience.

And now I’m off to engage in another exercise in futility which I hope will be more productive: a springtime reorganization of my work studio.
 
The MJAA site is the place to get OFFICIAL information on the Messianic Jewish movement: mjaa.org.

Like all things religious, it is very easy to misunderstand one another or to use a word or phrase that will give a completely mistaken impression or insult another.

It is also true that SOME people consider all Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah as Messianic Jews, and that isn’t correct. So one needs to use the right phraseology as to avoid confusion.
 
DelsonJacobs said:
The MJAA site is the place to get OFFICIAL information on the Messianic Jewish movement: mjaa.org.

Like all things religious, it is very easy to misunderstand one another or to use a word or phrase that will give a completely mistaken impression or insult another.

It is also true that SOME people consider all Jews who accept Jesus as the Messiah as Messianic Jews, and that isn’t correct. So one needs to use the right phraseology as to avoid confusion.
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Okay. Another post. So are you are saying that you yourself don’t want to be labeled as a messianic jew but as a catholic with jewish roots?
I apologize if I sounded rude but we do have people who post on here who have ulterior motives to their posts.
 
DelsonJacobs said:
The MJAA site is the place to get OFFICIAL information on the Messianic Jewish movement: mjaa.org.
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Yes, more or less…the UMJC (Union of Messianic Jewish Congregations), is the other large Messianic Jewish body, and then there are some congregations affiliated with neither group for various reasons.
 
7_Sorrows said:
Okay. Another post. So are you are saying that you yourself don’t want to be labeled as a messianic jew but as a catholic with jewish roots?
I apologize if I sounded rude but we do have people who post on here who have ulterior motives to their posts.
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I might be mistaken, but I believe his objection to being labeled as a messianic Jew is rooted in the fact that Messianic Judiasm is a separate, non-Catholic, Christian faith. He is Catholic, of Jewish descent and heritage, not a member of that other faith (or groups of faith, if that is more accurate).
 
7_Sorrows said:
Okay. Another post. So are you are saying that you yourself don’t want to be labeled as a messianic jew but as a catholic with jewish roots?
I apologize if I sounded rude but we do have people who post on here who have ulterior motives to their posts.
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No. “Messianic Jews” are those who belong to that particular religion or that particular movement. It’s a denomination, like Catholicism is a denomination.

Messianic Jews have a set of religious beliefs, which reject the Magisterium and the Roman Catholic faith. They believe in Sola Scriptura and have an evangelical approach to Christian theology. You can see the basics of their beliefs here: mjaa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=rd_aboutus_statement_of_faith

As Evangelical Christians, they are Protestants in the Christian sense, and thus you find a general anti-Catholic view among them. See this blog for example on how one Messianic Jew views Catholicism: messianicdrew.blogspot.com/2011/06/messianic-look-at-roman-catholic-claims.html

The Messianic Jew in their blog above teaches falsehoods about Catholicism, setting several “strawman” arguments about our faith and how the Church really feels about Jews. (Compare the statements on the USCCB website about relations with the Jews: usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/liturgical-resources/lent/questions-answers-catholic-jewish-relations.cfm)

I am a Roman Catholic. Like my fellow Catholics I have an ethnicity. My godson, for example, is an Irish Catholic. One of my best friends is a Mexican-American Catholic. I am a Hebrew or Jewish Catholic. Or just a Catholic. Or even just a Jew. Or just another guy.

But I am not a Messianic Jew because that is a totally different religious organization that I don’t subscribe to.

And it’s okay about the other stuff. Sometimes people can have ulterior motives on forums. We would be naïve if we thought or acted otherwise. Apology accepted, water under the bridge 🙂
 
FreciaMarie said:
I might be mistaken, but I believe his objection to being labeled as a messianic Jew is rooted in the fact that Messianic Judiasm is a separate, non-Catholic, Christian faith. He is Catholic, of Jewish descent and heritage, not a member of that other faith (or groups of faith, if that is more accurate).
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Yes. That is exactly what I mean. Thank you.
 
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