Jews: I am getting mixed signals, can you help me get this straight?

Question

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I see Jews saying things like this:
“We believe that Jewishness is a birthright. It is inherited from our parents. Our people are not of one culture; we have diverse cultural expressions (Ashkenazi/Sephardi, Georgian/Russian, Ethiopian, Persian, etc.). Our people are not of one religion. While Judaism might be the traditional religion for many Jewish people, Jews are still considered Jewish even though they might be atheists or even if they embrace other beliefs.”

And yet, I see others saying that if you believe Jesus is the Messiah, then you definitely are not a Jew.

In fact, many Jews readily agree that you can be a Jew and an atheist…but just not a Jew who believes in Jesus.

So, basically, a Jew can be a Jew and believe absolutely ANYTHING and still be a Jew, EXCEPT that Jesus is the Messiah, the Anointed One of God, the Prophet who was prophesied to come?

Does this mean that the ONLY way to “lose” your “Jewishness” is by believing in Jesus?

Does anybody else find this profoundly sad and ironic…especially since “Christianity” is nothing more than “Judaism fulfilled” – through and by her own Messiah, the Son of David, Lamb of God, and Lion of Judah - Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua)?
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Answer 1

Yes, it is an interesting conundrum, isn't it?! Especially since Jesus was Jewish, as were all of His Apostles, *and* Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul the Apostle!

If the Jewish people would study their own Scriptures, they would see that Jesus indeed fulfilled the prophesies of the coming Messiah in Isaiah 9:1-7 and Micah 5:2, having descended from King David through his mother's natural lineage (Matthew 1:1-17) and receiving the legal authority to rule as King of the Jews from his adopted father Josph's, lineage (Luke 3:23-38). Jesus could not have been the natural son of Joseph, because of the prophecy in (Jeremiah 22:24-30) that no descendent (seed) of King Jeconiah (Jehoiachin) would ever sit on the throne of David.

Mary, Jesus' mother, and her older cousin, Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist, were perhaps the first two Jewish women to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, while he was still *in utero*! Of course the shepherds in the fields outside of Bethlehem came to see the baby Jesus and recognized Him as Emmanuel, which translated means "God with us"). The shepherds were just simple peasants, rather than learned men, and didn't have pompous positions in the Sanhedrin to lose, as did the Pharisees and Sadducees.

The righteous and devout man Simeon, in Jerusalem, recognized the child Jesus as Messiah, when his parents brought him to the temple as the custom of the Law required, as did the prophetress, Anna.

There were many othe Jewish people who recognized Jesus' Messiahship, such as John the Baptist, Nicodemus, Zacchaeus, Mary, Martha and their brother Lazarus.
The vast crowds to which he preached would have usually been comprised of mostly Jews, and there were many who came to him individually, sometimes at night or in secret, for healing!

However, I have met many Jewish people who *do* believe Jesus Christ *is* Messiah! Some of these people call themselves, "Messianic" or "Completed" Jews!

Answer 2

You wrote: "Does anybody else find this profoundly sad and ironic…especially since “Christianity” is nothing more than “Judaism fulfilled” – through and by her own Messiah, the Son of David, Lamb of God, and Lion of Judah - Jesus of Nazareth (Yeshua)?"

This shows how much you do not know about Judaism. No human being has ever fulfilled the requirements of the Jewish messiah. Christians worship a human as G-d, and that is certainly their right. However, to say that worshipping a human is the fulfillment of Judaism is pure ignorance.

Answer 3

I've been thinking about this.
Actually, it's simple.
Ten Commandments:
"Thou shalt have no other gods before Me".
Christianity, to Jews, is the deification of a man, Jesus, and the worship of a three-part G-d, the Trinity. If you believe in this, then according to Jewish interpretation of Torah, you've violated this essential commandment to worship One, immutable, Eternal Creator.
So a Jew can be an atheist, or, in theory, even a Buddhist or Taoist, because those belief-systems do not require an acceptance of any concept of G-d which violates Jewish beliefs.
However, if a Jew became a Wiccan, the same problems arise as with a Jew becoming a Christian, "...no other gods...". So being Wiccan is as mutually exclusive with being a Jew as is being a Christian.
Therefore, no, it's not true that "the ONLY way to “lose” your “Jewishness” is by believing in Jesus".
As for the rest of it, we are an ancient, scattered people. We've had the time and the space to diversify, and, while we Jews remain true to our essential religious beliefs and texts, in many other ways, we have diversified a lot. Under the tent of Avinu Avraham, there is room for many seemingly conflicting beliefs. If the world of non-Jews don't understand us, I suppose that isn't surprising.
But, when we do our best to explain it to you, **please** don't tell us that WE have it wrong!!

Answer 4

This really is very simple. You can be a Jew through A) being a practicing Jew through birth right or conversion B) Or, being born a Jew and not practicing.

And, yes, you can not be a Jew if you believe thagt Jesus is the son of God, or the messiah, or is God, really we find this whole jesus definition as a deity thing a bit confusing. So, if you believe jesus is God then you are a Christian not a Jew. How is this confusing.

BTW - You do appear to have a huge issue with Jewish folks, and it is not reflecting well on you.

Answer 5

I can make this perfectly clear for you. I answered your last post and you ignored my comments but still...

Think of being Jewish as a nationality, and you will understand. Think of us as Israelites. So just as, say, an American citizen can live outside the country, and may never celebrate a single American custom, they do not stop being American. So as a Jew, even if I were to never observe a single festival or fast or anything, I remain Jewish.

A person is Jewish if:
a) they are born to a Jewish mother
b) they convert to Judaism.

If they convert, they are then as Jewish as anyone born into the faith.

The only time a person STOPS being Jewish is if they embrace another theology. So a 'messianic jew' cannot possibly be Jewish, because every single one of them believes:
a) Jesus was the messiah/saviour
b) Jesus is the son of G-d and was G-d made flesh

Do you appreciate that these beliefs are in TOTAL OPPOSITION and CONTRADICTION to Judaism?

To claim you can hold these beliefs, and STILL be Jewish, is utter nonsense!

Only one thing can define who is Jewish: Jewish law. Nothing else and nobody else gets to define who is Jewish.

So despite your previous claims in your other post, nothing has changed. A 'messianic jew' is a Christian. A Jew is a Jew.

Re Christianity: it is NOT 'Judaism fulfilled' - this claim is the height of arrogance.

Judaism needs no 'completion' nor 'fulfillment'. It is complete as a theology already. Christianity claims it 'completes' Judaism to give itself authenticity. It is nonsense!

Does Islam 'complete' Christianity??????????

No? Same logic!

To answer your question: no, it is not the case that only a belief in Jesus stops someone being Jewish. As I stated, embracing any other religion, means you are not Jewish. Would you argue that you could be both Muslim and Catholic?
You would not - equally you cannot be both Jewish and Christian. They directly contradict one another, they are mutually exclusive.


There is a really good site that I think you would find fascinating; it deals with the very issues you are raising: http://www.jewsforjudaism.com

EDIT TO 'DUH 2' - are you seriously trying to tell us that you don't know Luther was a rabid anti semite? Have you not READ all of his raving and ranting against Jews and Judaism? Or is it just that you agree with it....?

*******************EDIT TO TREBOR

You could not be more arrogant if you tried. What do you mean, 'if the Jews would read their own scriptures'???
WE UNDERSTAND THEM - WHICH IS MORE THAN YOU DO.

You have ignored every single word that any Jew has said here. You then have the sheer NERVE to tell us that you know Torah better than us - and you don't think this is disrespectful and absurd?

IF YOU knew Hebrew properly YOU would KNOW that Jesus is not predicted in the Torah: you are just relying on wrongly translated Hebrew!!!

Answer 6

Mama Pajama and Mark S are right.

Also:

The reason you only ever hear about belief in Jesus as being a way to expel yourself from the community, as opposed to belief in any other particular religion, is that (1) Christians (not all Christians, but only Christians) are the only ones actively working to undermine Judaism by converting Jews, (2) only Christians have come up with the deceptive tactic of pretending to be Jews in order to convert them, (3) only Christianity is based fundamentally on rejecting and eliminating Judaism.

When we start hearing about groups calling themselves "Jews for Buddha", and saying "Buddhists are the true Jews," and "if Jews weren't so dense they would realize Buddha is the completion of Judaism," and "I celebrate my Jewishness by worshipping a human being who is now dead, whose name is Buddha," then you will start hearing about how becoming Buddhist is incompatible with Judaism. For now, that's just not an issue.

Until then, the "Messianic Jews" are the only sneaky game in town.

Answer 7

Why are you so confrontational? I thought you were trying to win us over. Yes, we are Jews, but to address us as "Jews:" gets you started on the wrong foot. It is a clue as to what to expect from the question that follows. It would be the same if you said Muslims!, or Christians! -- we expect accusations to follow. How about some self restraint and a softening of the tone? If it's our opinion you want, it's our opinion you'll get. Unfortunately you're getting responses from Christians instead of Jews -- or is that what you really wanted all along?

Judaism is a way of life, and believing in idols or man-made gods is NOT part of that life. A Jew who converts to Christianity is basically excommunicated from the Jewish community, but can return at any time when they repent their idol worship.

Judaism is not just a religion -- it's a national identity. Being a Jew is not the same as being a Christian. Christianity is purely a religious belief. You could be British, American, French and still be a Christian.

Not so the Jews.

The Jews can certainly become citizens of the countries in which they live and they often look and act like everyone else, but all the while, they and everyone else knows they are different. If they choose to deny this fact, the rest of the world will always remind them of it.

Being a Jew is being part of a distinct people and a nation, which does have a land, does have a language, does have a history and a world mission.

Most importantly, Jews have a specific relationship with God which is not just a religious/spiritual identity; it's an all-encompassing view of the world -- how to live every second of life -- which is unique in the world.

The Jewish national identity was forged by the experience at Mount Sinai where we committed to a mission, and a specific way of life to be lived in accordance with the commandments of the Torah, which is the guidebook for accomplishing that mission on a personal and national level. 4

http://aish.com/literacy/jewishhistory/Crash_Course_in_Jewish_History_Part_11_Mount_Sinai.asp
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Answer 8

Oh, I'm Agnostic by choice and Jewish by blood.
Does that mean I can call myself Jewish still?
Some people say I can't,
I think thats lame.
I still call myself and Agnostic-Jew.

Answer 9

Great question!


Most Jewish scholars agree that you cannot convert away from Judaism (there are a minority who say you can convert away). However, this by no means implies that a Jew who joins another religion has the same standing as a Jew who has remained Jewish. A Jew who practices another religion, whether it be Christianity (in any of its forms, including Messianic "Judaism"), Islam or anything else, is known as an "apostate." An apostate is someone who has removed themselves from the Jewish people by joining another faith. The apostate cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery. Nor can the apostate be counted for a minyan, the minimum of ten adult Jews (or adult Jewish men, depending on one's denomination) needed for saying certain prayers. For nearly all practical purposes, they have the same status in the Jewish community as non-Jews. The only differences is that they do not have to undergo a full conversion to rejoin the Jewish community, though there is a process known as "Teshuvah" that they must go through to come back to the Jewish community with full Jewish status.

So, once we delve into Jewish law we see that a Jew who joins another religion, though still Jewish, has ostensibly the status of a non-Jew and is no longer able to participate as a full member of the Jewish community. The apostate has the weakest of all grasps to their Jewish identity, they are Jewish by birth but otherwise have no position in the Jewish community.

This then brings us to a discussion on the difference between "doing Jewish" and "being Jewish." By "doing Jewish", I am referring to someone who is actually practicing Jewish beliefs and laws. By "being Jewish", I mean someone who has been born Jewish. Now, there are many people who are born Jewish but are not practicing Judaism. For instance, if a Jewish person murders a family, the Jewish person may be "born Jewish" but certainly was not "doing Jewish" as murder is a violation of the Ten Commandments.

Similarly, we can see examples of this in the Jewish Bible. The prime example of this would be the Jews who worshipped the Golden Calf at Mount Sinai. These individuals were unquestionably Jewish by their birth, thus we can argue that they were "being Jewish." However, were they "doing Jewish?" The Bible is quite clear that these individuals, though born Jewish, were not practicing Judaism. The worship of the Golden Calf, though it was a monotheistic form of worship, was clearly a violation of the Biblical law regarding the making of idols. Thus, they were not "doing Jewish." Similarly, in the Prophets we see countless reprimands of people who were undeniably Jewish by birth, but had entered into apostasy by worshipping gods such as Baal and Ashtoret. They were not "doing Jewish" but "doing pagan" and had violated the very underpinning of Judaism. That they were "being Jewish" by their birth was clearly not sufficient. One must also "do Jewish" in their actions.

Along the same lines, many of Jesus' original followers were unquestionably born Jewish. However, by adopting non-Jewish beliefs, such as thinking that Jesus was a god (a violation of several places in the Jewish Bible, Numbers 23:19 and Hoshea 11:9 provide a few examples of this), were no longer "doing Jewish." The same is true for individuals in the Messianic movement today. The Messianic movement was created by Christianity, and its beliefs and values reflect Christianity. By practicing Messianic "Judaism", the individual who was "born Jewish" is no longer "doing Jewish." They have removed themselves from the Jewish community by their practice and beliefs. Unfortunately, too few of these individuals have an understanding of the difference between "being Jewish" and "doing Jewish", mistakenly believing that they can both believe in Jesus and still have the same status in Jewish community as before. They not only have lost status, but also have lost the practice of Judaism. As has been pointed out in the Talmud, the emphasis for us is on the action, the "doing Jewish.

Answer 10

I don't have an answer for you on this, since I am a Christian, but it is a very interesting and thoughtfully presented question.

I have a brother in law who is Jewish and believes that Jesus is the Messiah, and his relatives tell him he's not Jewish anymore, which upsets him, because he still identifies himself as being Jewish.

Hmm.

Answer 11

Just to set the record straight, a Jew can never cease to be a Jew. The reason so many poeple say that a Jew who embraces Christianity is no longer a Jew is because their choice of religious expression is completely foreign to Judaism. Since these people live their lives completely divorced from Judaism and the Jewish community, there are Jews who say that these folks are not Jews at all. They're still Jews inasmuch as the gates of tshuvah (repentance) are open to them, and they may rejoin the Jewish people should they wish. You might be asking how a Jewish Atheist could somehow be more Jewish than a Jewish Christian, when both religions (Atheism and Christianity) contradict Judaism. I think the reason Jews have a more visceral reaction to Christianity and Jews who assimilate into it than secularism is that it isn't atheists who have been viciously persecuting us for two thousand years.

So, Christians engage in twenty long centuries of hatred, discrimination, torture, mass murder, inquisitions, pogroms and holocausts against the Jews, and then the evangelical Christians start asking how a Jew could possibly hesitate to worship Jesus, a heretical Jew in whose name these barbaric crimes were committed. Does anybody else find this profoundly sad and ironic?

You schmuck - how can we get it through your thick skull that Christianity is not "Judaism fulfilled," but a separate religion entirely? I'm not even making a value judgment here, whether its good or bad, that's irrelevant. The fact is that Christianity is a SEPARATE religion from Judaism. It started out as a Jewish cult about 2,000 years ago and quickly went beyond the pale of normative Judaism, branching off into a separate religion. Simple historical fact.

"Does this mean that the ONLY way to “lose” your “Jewishness” is by believing in Jesus?"

Again, a Jew can never lose their Jewishness. But believing in Jesus (read: embracing Christianity) is possibly the most effective way to alienate oneself from the Jewish community, because to do so requires one to simultaneously abandon G-d's Torah and to embrace the traditions of those who have spent the last 2,000 years doing everything in their power to exterminate us, either physically or spiritually.

A Jewish atheist and a Jewish Christian have both abandoned Judaism. But at least the atheist has the decency not to pretend his religion is the "fulfillment" of Judaism, and not to join in the ongoing campaign to destroy his fellow Jews as a nation!

Am I getting through to you at all?

And where are you getting this "Son of David" nonsense? The Messiah is supposed to be the descendant both of King David and of King Solomon. That means that his father would have to be a descendant of Kings David and Solomon (this is how tribal affiliation still works - our Priests and Levites are patrilineal descendants of Priest and Levites - contrast this to matrilineal descent, which determines who is and isn't Jewish by birth). So here's the problem... if Jesus is the son of Joseph, this

1) contradicts Christianity's claims of a "virgin birth"

and

2) the Gospels themselves give conflicting genealogies for Joseph, including one that doesn't go through Solomon at all!

And if Christianity's doctrine of the virgin birth were true, Christianity disproves itself because

1) Jesus couldn't be descended from David if Mary was a virgin.

and

2) Jesus couldn't even be the "Lion of Judah" (or "of Judah" at all!) if Mary was a virgin.

Don't you see? There's simply no winning this from a logical standpoint. Either you have to admit, as many Christian theologians do, that Jesus genealogy was invented to lend credibility to his messianic claims, and is not meant to be understood literally; or, you have to denounce the entire idea of the virgin birth; or, you have to have a lot of FAITH. And not the good kind of faith, that is simply another word for trust in G-d. I'm talking about blind faith. The kind where you have to stop thinking and JUST BELIEVE. That may be well and good for you, but Judaism is really more of a thinking man's religion, and the underlying basis of religion, for us, has to be coherent, and can't just completely contradict itself on such a fundamental level.

On the off chance you're still reading (I doubt it - in fact, I bet you'll probably choose as the best answer the first guy to shout "amen!"), and you actually want to understand why Jews don't embrace Christianity like they do in your perfect world, I can recommend a few resources for you:

Lectures by Rabbi Leib Kelemen, including the true story of Christmas, and rational approaches to both the divine origin of our Torah and our oral tradition:

http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/Rabbi_Lawrence_Kelemen.htm

Jewish responses to the evangelical proselytizing of Jews (anti-missionary lectures):

http://www.simpletoremember.com/audio/anti-missionary-mp3s.htm

If you're comfortable enough in your faith to realize that what you believe is the truth and we're just a bunch of misguided fools, then listening to the above lectures would only serve to strengthen your faith, wouldn't it?

And lastly, Jews for Judaism (the Jewish response to Jews for Jesus):

http://www.jewsforjudaism.org

I hope you found this information helpful, though I doubt it. Well, I hope SOMEBODY out there found this information helpful. And if you have any further questions that aren't addressed by the materials I recommended (doubtful), feel free to contract me directly.