Moti and Eitan from One For Israel have produced a new video explaining the gospel of Yeshua the Messiah, to Israeli Jews, using Jerusalem as the backdrop. The video is a reasoned critique of the human condition – we are inclined to sin, and we use religion as a sticky plaster to try to cover our sins, but our own piety cannot please God – only forgiveness on his terms via trust in Yeshua.

Writing on Interfaithfulness, Stuart Dauermann responds to Moti and Eitan by comparing their attitude towards Judaism, to an anti-Zionist attitude towards Israel:

Here is one way to understand why this is offensive. There are people who hate the Jewish State, but say “Some of my best friends are Jews, and I have nothing against the Jewish people.” But somehow, we Jews have serious issues with anyone who rabidly opposes the only Jewish State in the world while the states around Israel are a study in human rights abuses. Somehow the statement “I like Jews but I hate Zionists” belongs in the same category as “I like you Jim. You’re not like other black people.”

Similarly, claiming to love the Jewish people, while categorically dismissing and ridiculing their leadership cadre which for thousands of years has guarded, transmitted, and preserved Jewish culture and the Jewish people sets off my stench detector

The beauty of internet videos, is they are not intrusive. If you don’t like the video, you can ignore it. If it starts playing automatically, you can close it down. Moti and Eitan cannot be accused of standing on a street corner and pushing literature into people’s faces – they are simply producing content. If you disagree with that content, you don’t have to watch it, and you can even make your content which you think is better.

But the fact that Moti and Eitan are getting hundreds of thousands of views on their videos prove that their work is relevant to the Israeli public watching them. They have the attention of intrigued, non-believing Jewish viewers – something that other Messianic ministries can only dream about.

This – plus the fact Moti and Eitan are savvy, urbane and likeable – means that other Messianic Jews have no other choice but to pay attention to them. To stay relevant, Messianic Jewish commentators have to talk about Moti and Eitan, even if they dislike their content.

But Dauermann’s comparison of Moti and Eitan to anti-Zionists is particularly vile and nasty, because both have completed their national service – Moti in the IDF, and Eitan as a medic in Magen David Adom for eight years.

Anti-Zionists want for the state of Israel to disappear, which would inevitably lead to harm to its Jewish population who are in the region to stay, not to be pushed into the sea.

Moti and Eitan have been loyal servants of their country, and not only that, they believe strongly that God chose Israel and keeps Israel in an unbreakable covenant. To compare Moti and Eitan to anti-Zionists is to seek to muddy their characters and good names in a false way.

For someone who wants us to listen more to the teachers of Judaism, this is unacceptable lashon hara.

To insult them further, Dauermann implies that Moti and Eitan are on the same moral level as an anti-black racist who has one black friend, because they “love the Jewish people” but reject rabbinical leadership.

Moti and Eitan’s position is pretty consistent with the outlook of most Jews in the world, which is that whilst the principle of ahavat yisrael is important, we don’t need rabbis to tell us how to do this. In some cases, ahavat yisrael may mean challenging rabbis.

Indeed, just as Moti and Eitan are culturally aware of their own societal trends in Israel, so Dauermann ought to be aware of what’s going on in the Jewish community in his own country. With a plethora of scandals highlighting the misdemeanours of American rabbis, even the Jewish press is awake to the fact that many of these men are far from sages.

Without the Holy Spirit indwelling someone and giving him authority to speak from God’s word, I would hesitate to call anyone a sage or a teacher.

Dauermann has no specific criticism of anything Moti and Eitan have said; no factual corrections, and no highlighting of where he thinks their arguments could be improved. Instead, Dauermann criticises Moti and Eitan for believing that rabbinical authority is not relevant for Messianic Jews.

Moti and Eitan’s position is consistent with Yeshua’s teachings, with Paul’s outlook on rabbinical authority after his road to Damascus experience, and that of the author of the New Testament book of Hebrews.

Dauermann teaches something rather different; that disobedience to Torah commandments is disobedience to God himself:

“Calling Jews back to Torah is inextricably part of the message of repentance and faith we are commissioned to proclaim.” (p.34 Son of David) …. “If the measure of Jewish sin is disobedience to Torah, then Jewish repentance requires are return to Torah living. (p.41) … “there can be no such thing as Jewish restoration apart from Jews returning to covenant obedience, the mitzvot of Torah. (p. 45)

No wonder Orthodox Jews are less interested in this kind of message than in One For Israel’s. If this argument is true, then they don’t need to change really anything about their lives, so they might as well just carry on living the way they have been.

Whereas Eitan and Moti are proclaiming a life-changing message with a challenge, and that is why they are more relevant. But in Dauermann’s ideology, such Messianic Jews who do not follow Jewish halachah are in fact comparable to Osama Bin Laden himself.

Frankly, Dauermann ought to apologise to Eitan and Moti and rescind his blog post.

If I were an Orthodox Jew, I would call this a chilul hashem.

In this enlightening, in-studio encounter with Rabbi Natan Lopes Cardozo — one of the great Jewish thinkers of our times — VOI’s Ari Abramowitz and Jeremy Gimpel discuss with him whether Israel should be banning or engaging Christian missionaries. Hear his refreshingly revolutionary perspective on this national dilemma.

http://www.voiceofisrael.com/christian-missionaries-banned-embraced/

Last month’s issue of Israel Today magazine turned its focus to the attitudes of Israeli Messianic Jews towards Musalaha – an organisation which claims to seek reconciliation between believers in Jesus in the Holy Land, but whose leader Salim Munayer misleadingly suggests that Hamas’ terror tunnels were actually defensive and practical in nature.

Whilst some Messianic Jews want to see the best in Musalaha, and see an opportunity for genuine discussion and fellowship, a growing number of Israeli Messianic voices are not convinced.

Here are some leaders quoted in Israel Today.

Avi Mizrachi of Adonai Roi Congregation & Director of Dugit Messianic Outreach Centre in Tel Aviv:

“I have had the opportunity to meet and speak with Father Naddaf. My wife, Chaya, and I would like to continue strengthening the relationship with Father Naddaf because of his strong stand for the nation of Israel. We fully support him. We do not and have not supported Musalaha for many years now.“

Meno Kalisher, pastor of Jerusalem Assembly House of Redemption:

“I certainly do not see eye-to-eye with Salim regarding Israel. He holds to Replacement Theology. I do not know Father Naddaf personally, but I can only assume that he discovered God’s plan for Israel and realizes that those who bless Israel will in turn be blessed. Like many local Christians I have met, Father Naddaf knows that Israelis aren’t better than anyone else, but he understands that God has a plan. And if you stand against Israel, you stand against God. This has nothing to do with Israel; it’s all about God. Also, if you want to be blessed, you need to be a blessing. If you don’t work or pay taxes or serve in the army, you have far less right to complain. 

The topic of Christ at the Checkpoint 4 is “religious extremism”, and one of their main speakers is John Azumah.

Azumah has a few things to say about this topic.

In an article about Boko Haram for Lausanne, theologian John Azumah tried to contextualise the group’s massacres against Christians, claimed Boko Haram’s beliefs had been distorted by the media, and suggested that Nigeria’s Christians were the radicalised ones who now needed counselling.

Azumah’s piece concluded in positive terms, suggesting Boko Haram are in fact an anti-secular group could be an example for evangelicals:

“Lastly, ‘de-secularisation’ groups like Boko Haram may be calling the evangelical communion to a long overdue conversation about the effects of the secularisation of society and culture on religious commitment.”

The structure of this sentence expresses approaching admiration Islamist terrorists who murder Christians, because they are an “anti-secular force”.

But really, is any of this surprising? Christ at the Checkpoint is organised by the Bethlehem Bible College. One of their board members thinks suicide bombers make a “supreme sacrifice“, and another thinks they are “martyrs“.

There are clear connections between Bethlehem Bible College staffers and PFLP networks. Moreover, Bethlehem Bible College produced a pro-Hamas video last summer, whilst its teacher Salim Munayer claims Hamas used its terror tunnels for food and drink, and defending Gaza .

Christ at the Checkpoint is not against religious extremism; it is facilitating it.

RPP would encourage Israeli Messianic Jews to speak at the next CATC conference in order to point out the charade of CATC itself, and publicly challenge the ideological justifications and equivalences towards terrorism which emanate from the Bethlehem Bible College.

We encourage prayer for any Israeli believer whose conscience does allow them to speak at CATC, and we urge them to simply highlight the religious extremism of Christ at the Checkpoint.

Last time round, CATC’s guest of honour (who didn’t show up in the end) was a man who oversaw a re-enactment of the Sbarro restaurant suicide bombing, which killed 15 people, including 7 children and a pregnant woman.

Messianic leaders from Israel neglected to mention the depravity of this terror re-enactment by the CATC’s intended guest of honour, when they spoke at CATC last year.

Without this challenge, there is little purpose of Israeli Messianics participating in Christ at the Checkpoint.

John Azumah’s attitude to Boko Haram is of a piece with Bethlehem Bible College’s attitudes towards Hamas and the PFLP, and it merits a robust challenge.

Read about Eli Yishai’s Yahad rally on Ynet.

This seems to spell the end of Eli Yishai’s political career, at least for now. His “Yahad” party with Baruch Marzel was an electoral disaster – religious voters opted for Shas and United Torah Judaism, whereas nationalist voters went with Jewish Home and Likud.

Under Yishai’s watch as Interior Minister, officials with sympathies towards Yad L’Achim have had someone free rein to persecute Israeli Jewish citizens who chose out of their own free will to worship Yeshua as Moshiach. This prompted a Mabat Sheni documentaryin 2011. (Two years prior, RPP had called for an investigation into the relationship between Yishai and Yad L’Achim).

Baruch Marzel was the self-proclaimed right-hand man to Kahane, who champions freeing the Rabin murderer Yigal Amir. Marzel is a former Kach spokesman who has dozens of convictions for nationalist-based criminal activities.

Let us hope that this spells the end of neo-Kahanist influence on the Knesset.

This is excellent from Dr Gary Habermas of Biola University, one of the world’s leading scholars on the resurrection of Yeshua: