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Hi Joseph,
Thank you for reading my blog and inviting me to read yours. I have been reading your latest posting “Gentiles in the Messianic movement…” I don’t feel equipped enough to comment there, not knowing much of Jewish terminology. But I do know a little. I have had some discussions with Jews (not Messianics) on a couple of discussion boards.
Anyway, I plan to read more of your blogs in the coming days and weeks. Perhaps later I’ll feel like I could join the discussion, but I am a little shy about doing so at this point. You probably have heard of Derek Leman and perhaps exchanged ideas with him, but if not here is a link to his blog: . I have found many of his postings very interesting as well.
May our Father bless you and your work here. I will remember you in my prayers, and I hope to become more familiar with your blog and perhaps join in at a later date.
Eddie
Thanks Eddie,
Please make yourself at home as you feel comfortable
Regards
Joseph
Ken, that’s an absolutely disgusting website, accusing Jews of a Soviet Holocaust, recommending Mel Gibson(!), promoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-Semitic forgery which says the Jews have conspired to control the world, linking to websites glorifying the British fascist Ezra Pound, promoting the anti-Semite Henry Ford’s International Jew, etc etc.
I haven’t come across anything quite so vile before – You shouldn’t pay websites like that any attention whatsoever.
Consider posting about rabbis and mixed faith weddings. Would her children be allowed to live in Israel? Would mom and dad be allowed to visit?
Is a Jewish wedding ahead for Chelsea Clinton?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jCs8M2GCSCZZjLZJxNzBJrzdsMegD9E80ALO0
NEW YORK — Her mother is a churchgoing Methodist. Her father is a Southern Baptist. Yet could Chelsea Clinton be planning one of the biggest Jewish weddings of the year?
The 30-year-old graduate student and her Jewish fiance, Marc Mezvinsky, 32, announced their engagement in November and told friends they were looking to a possible summer ceremony.
The families have revealed no specifics about the wedding.
Representatives for Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Chelsea Clinton declined to answer questions about it, noting the family’s wish for privacy. In a Feb. 7 interview on CNN, Hillary Clinton would go no further than to say her daughter hadn’t yet found a dress.
That hasn’t stopped the speculation. The bride and groom have a range of choices, including conversion or a melding their two traditions into one ceremony.
The talk has been strongest in the Jewish community. There has been more rejoicing than lamenting about this interfaith union that brings a former first daughter a step closer to the fold. Still, they wonder: Has Chelsea been searching for a rabbi along with her gown?
“If they had a Jewish wedding officiated by a rabbi, I think that would be something really positive,” said Ed Case, president of InterfaithFamily.com, which supports Jewish outreach to interfaith couples. “It’s so important for the Jewish community to have interfaith couples engaging in Jewish life.”
Chelsea Clinton grew up attending Methodist church with her mother. Bill Clinton has been close to his pastor in Arkansas, but the Southern Baptist Convention rebuked him years ago over his support for gay relationships and abortion rights.
Last year, Chelsea, a graduate student at Columbia University’s School of Public Health, was seen attending Yom Kippur services with Marc at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, the flagship for Conservative Judaism, according to news reports.
Mezvinsky is a son of former Pennsylvania Rep. Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky and former Iowa Rep. Ed Mezvinsky, longtime friends of the Clintons. His parents, who are divorced, had attended a Conservative Jewish synagogue in Pennsylvania.
Hillary Clinton has strong ties of her own to the Jewish community from serving as a senator from New York.
“She has probably been in more temples by far than either you or I,” said Rabbi Jerome Davidson, rabbi emeritus at Temple Beth-El of Great Neck, which Hillary Clinton has visited.
No one is saying, though, what route Marc and Chelsea will take.
Conversion was the choice in one recent high-society mixed-faith romance. Ivanka Trump became Jewish to marry New York real estate executive Jared Kushner last year. But Chelsea does have other options if she would like to embrace Jewish traditions while remaining Christian.
Some rabbis will officiate at interfaith marriages even though major Jewish movements bar or discourage them from presiding. Interfaithfamily.com links interfaith couples with rabbis and cantors. Only a small number will co-officiate with clergy of another faith.
One of those is Rabbi Harold White, senior Jewish chaplain at Georgetown University, a Jesuit school, who performed the 2002 marriage of Ari Fleischer, press secretary under President George W. Bush, and Fleischer’s wife, Rebecca, who is Catholic. The ceremony was co-led by a priest and included a chuppah, or canopy, which is customary for Jewish weddings, a traditional glass-breaking, and a marriage contract, or ketubah.
A Methodist wedding would be far less complex.
The United Methodist Church allows local congregations and pastors to decide whether they should allow weddings involving one partner who is not a baptized Christian. The denomination’s Book of Worship allows ministers to adapt the wedding ceremony within limits, according to the Rev. Taylor Burton-Edwards of the Methodist General Board of Discipleship.
The high rate of intermarriage has been an obsession in the Jewish community, which has struggled with how welcoming it should be to mixed-faith couples.
Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben of Kehillath Israel, a Reconstructionist congregation in Pacific Palasades, Calif., said even if Chelsea doesn’t have a Jewish wedding or convert, she should still be considered part of the community.
“There are Jews by birth and Jews by choice and Jews by association,” said Reuben, who has officiated at interfaith weddings for years and presided at the 2003 vow renewal of Ozzy Osbourne and his wife, Sharon, whose father is Jewish. “She’s marrying into the Jewish family.”
Have you read this website for Reform Jews in Israel?
http://religionandstateinisrael.blogspot.com/
They complain about unfairness, but they don’t suffer the physical violence Christians do. Interesting. It would be good to read and maybe build some common activities with them for mutual interests like freedom to speak etc.
Joel Katz runs this, he seems pretty fair all round.
Apparently orthodox religious legal violations are not limited to Israel. This is an article about a PUBLIC school system in the USA. (For you Brits, the word PUBLIC in English means owned by the government. In the UK they no longer speak real English so the word public means private in real English. :-0 )
School Guidance Director Sues, Claiming Animus From Orthodox Jewish Board Members
In Lawrence, New York, the school district’s guidance director who was denied tenure filed a lawsuit charging that his dismissal stems from the ongoing tension between Orthodox Jews who took control of the Lawrence school board in 2006 and the community’s non-Orthodox residents. (See prior posting.) According to Sunday’s Newsday, Jay Silverstein (a Duke-educated psychologist) says he was advised by his superintendent that he would be more likely to get tenure if he became friendlier with board members and with a fellow administrator who was said to be Orthodox and influential. Silverstein, who plans to run for the school board in May, is Jewish, but non-practicing. Co-workers praise Silverstein’s job performance, but school board president Murray Forman called Silverstein’s action “another frivolous lawsuit.” [Thanks to Joel Katz (Relig. & State In Israel) for the lead.]
Posted by Howard Friedman
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/
HOw would you all classify this group? As MK or what? Thanks. They seem to not want to be called Jews and they don’t like the concept of conversion. Is this the same as Kinzer?
JEWISH EVANGELISM
ONE THING THAT JEWISH EVANGELISM DOES NOT MEAN IS CONVERTING THE JEWISH PEOPLE. BY AND LARGE, THE JEWISH PEOPLE ALREADY BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB. JEWISH EVANGELISM DOES MEAN MAKING JEWISH PEOPLE AWARE THAT THEY ARE SINNERS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES, AND THAT THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB HAS PROVIDED A SIN OFFERING FOR THEM.
The Apostle Saul-Paul set an example for us to follow today. Though he was called of God to be a witness primarily to the Gentile people amongst “the nations”, it is evident through his writings and teachings that Saul-Paul also ministered to the Jewish people wherever he went. It is clear that he had a heavy burden on his heart for his brothers and sisters in the flesh for he wrote in Romans 10:1, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
Please remember that as you make the Messiah of Israel known to Jewish people, do so according to the Biblical injunction found in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts”. By trusting in the arm of the LORD (His Spirit), and not in the arm of our flesh, we can effectively declare God’s redemption through Y’shua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) to the Jewish people.
The proper order for witnessing God’s salvation should never be twisted around. God says “to the Jew first” in Romans 1:16. Unfortunately, in the history of the Church all too often people have neglected witnessing to Jewish people at all.
The Jewish people should never be persuaded to renounce their heritage when they accept Y’shua (Jesus) as Lord. Neither should a Jewish person be taught that his/her faith in the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been abrogated. As Jews, they will always be Jewish (culturally and racially) even after becoming born-again children of God through Y’shua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ). Thus, a “completed” Jew is a much better term to use than a “converted” Jew because the latter implies that the person’s very identity has been taken away.
God is speaking even now to His people of the Abrahamic covenant, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Will you be the one to help a Jewish person understand his/her sin problem?
This is their website
http://www.shalom-peace.com/JewishEvan.html#3
HOw would you all classify this group? As MK or what? Thanks. They seem to not want to be called Jews and they don’t like the concept of conversion. Is this the same as Kinzer?
JEWISH EVANGELISM
ONE THING THAT JEWISH EVANGELISM DOES NOT MEAN IS CONVERTING THE JEWISH PEOPLE. BY AND LARGE, THE JEWISH PEOPLE ALREADY BELIEVE IN ONE GOD, THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB. JEWISH EVANGELISM DOES MEAN MAKING JEWISH PEOPLE AWARE THAT THEY ARE SINNERS ACCORDING TO THE SCRIPTURES, AND THAT THE GOD OF ABRAHAM, ISAAC, AND JACOB HAS PROVIDED A SIN OFFERING FOR THEM.
The Apostle Saul-Paul set an example for us to follow today. Though he was called of God to be a witness primarily to the Gentile people amongst “the nations”, it is evident through his writings and teachings that Saul-Paul also ministered to the Jewish people wherever he went. It is clear that he had a heavy burden on his heart for his brothers and sisters in the flesh for he wrote in Romans 10:1, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.”
Please remember that as you make the Messiah of Israel known to Jewish people, do so according to the Biblical injunction found in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts”. By trusting in the arm of the LORD (His Spirit), and not in the arm of our flesh, we can effectively declare God’s redemption through Y’shua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ) to the Jewish people.
The proper order for witnessing God’s salvation should never be twisted around. God says “to the Jew first” in Romans 1:16. Unfortunately, in the history of the Church all too often people have neglected witnessing to Jewish people at all.
The Jewish people should never be persuaded to renounce their heritage when they accept Y’shua (Jesus) as Lord. Neither should a Jewish person be taught that his/her faith in the God of their fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been abrogated. As Jews, they will always be Jewish (culturally and racially) even after becoming born-again children of God through Y’shua HaMashiach (Jesus Christ). Thus, a “completed” Jew is a much better term to use than a “converted” Jew because the latter implies that the person’s very identity has been taken away.
God is speaking even now to His people of the Abrahamic covenant, “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool” (Isaiah 1:18). Will you be the one to help a Jewish person understand his/her sin problem?
Ken,
Apparently the American way also now includes blood libel, holocaust denial and demonization of the jews. Go…Go…USA!!!!
Makes me proud to not be an American!!!!!!
Ken,
Are you a jew, cause if your not…I don’t really see what horse you have in the race…period!!!!!!
MIke writes:
“Apparently the American way also now includes blood libel, holocaust denial and demonization of the jews. Go…Go…USA!!!!”
Kenny replies:
Yes the American Way does in fact include holocaust denial. Free speech allow debate upon all topics. This is fair game.
The American Way does not include libel or slander, child pornography (thanks to us Bible-believing, born again Christians), obscenity ( ditto! ), death threats, and plots to violently overthrow the government.
I don’t know how you define “demonization” of the Jews, but we Christians have been accused of demonizing for our belief that Jews (and Catholics and Baptists and Hindus and etc. ) are all going to hell without repentence and faith in Yeshua as Messiah and Master and God. We will not back down.
Yes the American Way does in fact include holocaust denial.
Really? I don’t think it should, or does in reality.
Yes, expressing differening views of the holocaust is free speech protected by the first amendment regardless of prevailing opinion. Similar examples legal free speech include adult porn and abortion counselling. Many people consider evangelism to be hate speech and have tried to use the force of government to censor us. Non-violent hate speech too is protected by the US First Amendment as long as there is no advocacy of unlawful activity.
Porn and abortion recommendations have not always been part of the American Way. I am certain we will outlaw these practices again. It will probably take a war or national crisis, but it will happen. God has everything under control. I am content to wait and be ready to act.
Annonymous poster here writes:
Makes me glad to not be an American!!!!!!
Kenny replies:
Yes, we Americans are glad for it too.
>>> Are you a jew, cause if your not…I don’t really see what horse you have in the race…period!!!!!! <<<
Ken:
I am a Gentile of northern European lineage. I will not reveal where my family or that of my spouse originate, but we all have blue eyes.
I have been 'grafted in' to the family of G-d through the undeserved, free gift of Christ and am happy and grateful.
My dog is very much in this fight, if by fight you mean the Rosh Pine Project. My concern is for everyone's religious freedom. I believe in the freedom to evangelize. I do not believe in violence or economic intimidation or other deprivation of human rights because of faith.
As a Christian I know that my faith suffers the most persecution for its evangelism. When one of my brothers or sisters suffers, I suffer too.
Am not speech-making… am most sincere.
Israel passes law to make marriages secular for those with no faith.
Under Israeli law, marriage is handled by religious authorities of each recognized religious community– Jewish, Christian, Muslim and Druze. Israel has had no civil marriage, though civil marriages performed in other countries are recognized. (Background.) Israel’s Knesset yesterday by a vote of 56-4 passed a civil union bill that allows a man and woman both of whom have no religious affiliation to, for the first time, enter a civil union though a new marriage registrar bureau. The bill was introduced by the Israel Beiteinu party. The bill passed with the two major Jewish religious parties that are part of the governing coalition– Shas and United Torah Judaism– not voting because no agreement had been reached on a controversial companion bill on conversion. Today’s Jerusalem Post and YNet News report on the complex situation. Opponents of the civil union bill are concerned that it would increase the power of the Chief Rabbinate by allowing it a say in whether a person in fact was not a member of a religious community. The bill will apply primarily to individuals who consider themselves to be Jewish, but who do not meet the Orthodox halachic criteria for being considered Jewish. Opponents are also concerned over how these civil unions will be recognized in other countries.
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/
Still unclear is marriage among those with non-ultraorthodox faiths.
hav yu seen thygodisone.com
is this a noahide site mccabe?
I am an Expat American. Born in Bogota, but raised in the USA. I have returned to Colombia.
I am looking for a Natsarim, Messianic, Hebrew, Israelite congregation in Bogota, Colombia.
Can anyone assist with some recommendations?
Thank you,
Jaime Álvaro Burbano Cuellar
Land Line 57-12-510-77-87
Cellular 57-12-312-256-5093
Bogota, Colombia
USA # 630-701-6725
Joseph,
You may consider a new thread on this good news. Seems the gov’t has some courage for religious equality after all. The military and courts resist the extremists over marriage… and that reflects upon the battle for equality.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Israeli Government Appoints Alternative Marriage Registrars To Validate Conversions By Military Rabbis
Today’s Jerusalem Post reports on the latest developments in the ongoing tensions within the governmental religious establishment over standards and procedures for conversion to Judaism. On Sunday, the government informed the High Court of Justice that the Chief Rabbinate had appointed four new rabbinical judges from the state-administered conversion courts to act as marriage registrars who could register marriages, allowing couples to bypass city registrars. At issue is the refusal in four cities by marriage registrars to recognize the validity of conversions carried out in the army by state-administered conversion courts. The government’s announcement came in a brief filed with the High Court in a case challenging the four registrars who had refused to accept conversions performed in the IDF that were not not approved by the Chief Rabbinate. Some 4,500 soldiers have been converted by military chaplains.
From religionclause.blog
Please don’t associate yourself with Judaism. Judaism teaches one God with none beside Him (Isaiah 45:21). Not three persons with dissimilar characteristics, and contradicting each other.
For example, God should be omniscient. But in Matthew 24:36 Jesus does not know the day or the hour of judgment day.
God should be omnipotent. But in John 17:11. Jesus prays for believers “that they may be one as we are one”. Didn’t happen.
God should not contradict himself. But in Mark 7:19 “Jesus declared all foods clean.”
The Los Angeles Jewish Journal reported last week that on May 19, two proponents filed a Notice of Intent To Circulate Petition (full text) with the Santa Monica (CA) City Clerk’s Office indicating that they plan to seek signatures for a ballot measure banning circumcision of males under 18. The proposed measure is identical to the one that will appear on San Francisco’s ballot in November. (See prior posting.) The measure specifically excludes any exception based on belief that circumcision “is required as a matter of custom or ritual.” The language of this exclusion is apparently based on similar language in the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1995 (18 USC 116(c)).
http://religionclause.blogspot.com/
May be of interest to some.
I think you guys should link RPP to a discussion forum site and put every article title as a thread on that site, so people could comment there instead of here. Everyone puts comments all over this blog in crazy places that are impossible to keep track of. If you had a regular discussion forum for comments, they would be easy to follow. Or maybe you can set the blog to only accept comments at the end and not all over the place in each comment section.
Well done on your website. As a Catholic Christian in Ireland I support the growth of the Messianic Jewish Movement and that it might indeed be a bridge between Christianity and Orthodox Jewry. Is it not helping to heal the original schism in the Church? I quote below the words of leading Catholic theologian – Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa in his book The Mystery of Christmas.
Blessings from Ireland
Messianic Jews – healing Great Original Schism
The reconstitution of the Jewish Nation is a wonderful sign and opportunity for the Church itself, the importance of which we are not yet able to grasp. Only now can Israel take up again the question of Jesus of Nazareth and, to a certain degree, this is what is happening. Quite a few in the Jewish religion have started to acknowledge Jesus as ‘the glory of Israel’ They openly acknowledge Jesus as the Messiah and call themselves ‘Messianic Jews’. These help us to overcome certain gloomy prospects of ours, making us realise that the great original schism afflicting the Church and impoverishing it, is not so much the schism between East & West or between Catholics & Protestants, as the more radical one between the Church & Israel.
I hope to find time in the future, to more completely read through your website. In the meantime, I offer this thought: ever since the late 1880′s the only feasible path for influencing thought amongst the Jews resident in the Land of Israel has been actual, boots-on-the-ground military service amongst them. So get your butts over to the Lishkat Giyus and start carrying your share of the burden. If you REALLY want Israeli people to think you’ve got your act together, prove that your family-system results in children who can pass the screening to get into elite units. Any other path isn’t really ever going to work. history proves it.
Hi Al, most if not all Israeli Messianic Jews do that already!
Just wanted to thank you mfor posting photo’s and video of bizarre Messianicdance etc. You have greatly increased traffic to our website. We are in hope of many Jewish salvations. We Are excited and love all the new traffic. Amazing how God can use even the lost to bless. Keep up the hatefulness and judgmental ways your doing wonders for our congregation- even new Jewish members.
Hopscotch you are more than welcome. Which bizarre ‘Messianic dance’ are you referring to? You failed to leave your url and increase your web traffic even more, considering you think it is so great.
Thanks for your hateful judgementalness in tagging us as lost!
Islam is also growing and getting new Jewish members… your point is!?
I am lost as to what you are trying to achieve…