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Messianic Jews - minorities in the Jewish state

By: David Lee

Produced and Edited by: Sarah Wagner

Messianic Jews - minorities in the Jewish state

In the United States, Christians, Muslims, and Jews have shown the ability to share a common identity as an American. In Israel, having Jewish familial roots is the only direct passage to citizenship. Messianic Jews – Jews who unconventionally believe in Jesus – share in the Jewish heritage, but have been an outlier within the Jewish establishment for decades.

Jew, but not Jewish

“Basically, the only group of Jewish people who can show clear Jewish heritage but not permitted to immigrate to Israel,” said Jamie Cohen, a founder of the Israeli law office Cohen, Decker, Pex & Brosh.

“They’re either rejected out of hand by one of the Jewish [immigration] agencies or there’s no movement [in the application process],” said Cohen.

He and his partners assist individuals or families who get “stuck” in their immigration to Israel.

The Israeli statute called the Law of Return allows any person with a Jewish father or grandfather to immigrate to Israel. However, there is another law that terminates Jewish citizenship if one makes conversion from Judaism to another religion. Messianic Jews usually end up “stuck” between these two laws.

“Our lawyers set up meetings with the ministry [of immigration] and we throw petitions, and if we can’t get a satisfactory answer from the ministry we take it to the high courts,” said Cohen.

Precedentsin the Israeli Supreme Court have shown a reluctance to side with Messianic Jews in cases ranging from immigration to marriage – what Cohen calls “gross injustice.”

Messianic Jews in today’s Israel

Photo Courtesy of: Wikimedia Commons

Idan Pinhas is a Messianic Jew who grew up in a traditional Jewish family in Israel. As a manager of a museum in the Old City of Jerusalem, he attends an Anglican church in the same area.

“My dad became a Christian when I was young; my mom divorced him for that,” said Pinhas.

He describes the divisions in his family as a typical consequence for Orthodox Jews who have converted to Christianity.

“You do get some pressure from the family. They don’t want to talk to you, they don’t want to invite you to family events,” said Pinhas.

He also mentioned situations where people would slap, spit, or curse at Messianic Jews advocating their faith in the streets. Yet, the injustices that Cohen mentioned are more extensive.

“MessianicJewish houses of worship are picketed or blockaded by ultra-orthodox communities, and police are reluctant to intervene,” said Cohen. “When you try to bring a case against [the offenders], the police won’t cooperate even if the Messianic Jews were hurt,” continued Cohen.

Pinhas emphasized that groups like Yad L’Achim meddled with the Ministry of Interior – which handles immigration to Israel – to discourage the population of Messianic Jews in Israel.

“These [Orthodox Jewish] parties basically have a monopoly over the Ministry of Interior,” said Pinhas. “These non-governmental groups inform the ministry about Messianic groups in Israel, and the ministry takes action,” continued Pinhas.

Yad L’Achim refused to comment, but another orthodox group shared its counter-missionary work. 

The Preservation Movement

“It’s an educational organization that starts with children and schools,” said Rabbi Chaim Malinowitz, the American Liaison for Lev L’Achim.

Meaning “Heart to Brothers,” Lev L’Achim has the goal of transferring Jewish children in secular schools to religious schools that teach the Torah – the Hebrew bible. Other objectives include preventing intermarriage and “saving” Jews from missionary work and assimilation to non-Jewish groups.

“I do not believe every Jewish person has the right to choose their own religion,” said Malinowitz. “I don’t think God left it up to us to decide if we should follow the rules and guidelines found in the Torah and the Bible,” continued Malinowitz.

Outreach Judaism – founded by Rabbi Tovia Singer – works outside of Israel and, also, has its focus on discrediting the Messianic movement.   

“What the Messianic movement is doing is keeping superficial traditions and customs that are not biblical, but are very visible and striking,” said Singer. “So, they jettisoned the core tenant of the Jewish faith and they’re lighting Hanukkah candles and wearing a kippah.”

Likewise, Messianic Jews have become a controversy in that their existence brought out a fundamental question about Jews: can you be Jewish without the Jewish religion?

“Israel walks a very strange line: Israel is a democracy – it has a justice on the Supreme Court who is Arabic; but, it is a Jewish state. So, it’s a very difficult balancing act,” said Singer.

Can you be Christian, and a Jew?

Professor David Randolph, the Director of Messianic Jewish Studies at the King’s University, explained why Messianic Jews would want to keep their Jewish identity even when they abandoned the Jewish faith.

Israeli people praying at the Western Wall.  Photo Courtesy of: Wikimedia Commons

“In the New Testament [of the Bible], Jesus, his apostles, and his first followers were Jews; Jesus’ ministry was almost entirely in the land of Israel,” said Randolph.

Centuries later, Jesus’ movement of replacing the Jewish doctrine for the Christian counterpart made Jews the minority and the non-Jews the overwhelming majority. Here, Rudolph describes two different purposes for today’s Messianic movement: missionary purposes and an emphasis on Jews as God’s chosen people.

“The maintenance of the Jewish identity is important because of evangelism purposes – Greeks to the Greeks and the Jews to the Jews,” said Pinhas.

In addition to orthodox groups accusing the Messianic movement to be a deceptive Christian cult, the political status quo of Israel also does not make life easier for Messianic Jews.

“I hate to say it, but to battle with the religious establishment – especially this establishment which tends to be ultra-orthodox – you’re just not going to win [cases for Messianic Jews],” said Cohen.

Still, ordinary citizens like Pinhas have seen changes throughout their time in Israel, which they hope will bring a different Israel.  “The people have changed so the court decisions might have to change as well; and there is a strong pool in our society to go against [further discrimination],” said Pinhas.

Critics Question Essebsi’s Motives on Women’s Rights

By: William Edwards

Produced & Edited by: Lindsey Curnutte

Tunisian president Beji Caid Essebsi, photo via PressTV

“The state is obliged to achieve full equality between women and men,” Tunisia's president, 90-year-old Beji Caid Essebsi, proclaimed in an August speech leading up to the repeal of a 1973 law that forbid Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men.

The new legislation was celebrated by women's rights groups as another illustration of why many in the West consider Tunisia one of the most free and secular countries in the North Africa and Middle East regions.

Pro-women's rights legislation or distraction?

But the timing of the law's passage has drawn criticism. It came a day after a new law granting amnesty to corrupt government officials in the pre-revolution Zine El Abidine Ben Ali regime was introduced, and four days after some of those same former ministers under Ben Ali were put back into positions of power. Groups like Human Rights Watch and journalists, diplomats and academics say Essebsi and his administration are using women's rights advances as a means to distract from policies that are unpopular both domestically and internationally.

"I think it’s great that Tunisian women can marry non-Muslim men... But at the same time it’s also very dangerous that it came at a time when a very dangerous law was passed," said Tunisian author Samar Samir Mezghanni, who is also a PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge and was listed among the top 100 most powerful Arab women by Arabian Business in 2013. 

"So I don’t think it’s a time of celebration, I think it’s a time of further pressure on political representatives, and a larger and stronger fight against patriarchal and oppressive not just systems but also mindsets and societal norms."

Essebsi’s push to pass the marriage equality law received wide attention in the international media and on social networks. Fadil Aliriza, a Tunis-based journalist and researcher who has written about Tunisian politics for Foreign Policy and The Washington Post, said the level of attention was not warranted if thought of in terms of the range of affect the law will have on the Tunisian public, which is 99 percent Muslim, compared to the reconciliation law and the reinstatement of old regime figures into positions of power.

“When you look at the numbers, how many Tunisian women are going to be marrying foreigners? That’s something that’s reserved for people who have really good foreign language skills, who are in circles where they meet a lot of foreigners, who might travel a lot--essentially people who have made it to the upper class, not to say that there isn’t social mobility and everyone shouldn’t have the right to marry foreigners,” Aliriza said. 

“It just practically isn’t going to affect that many people, whereas this anti-democratic reconciliation law, which was passed against the wishes of so many Tunisians, was a huge step back for democracy for an entire country.”

Tunisian women participating in a rally, photo via Idea.Net

Aliriza and those skeptical of Essebsi’s motives see the recent marriage equality law as an attempt to stay in the good graces of foreign governments and international organizations like the International Monetary Fund, who provide developmental funding to Tunisia. Aliriza also said the move serves Essebsi’s domestic interests as well, as his secular Nidaa Tounes party tries to retain its majority in parliament from the more Islamist Ennahda Party.

“One theory I’ve seen from Tunisian analysts is that actually this is a way of signaling by the president that ‘Hey, if you really want to remember what our party is about, it’s anti-Islamist discourse.’ And so when we talk about women’s rights, that’s something that can really be one of those culture war issues, just sort of like a buzzword that brings people back into the fold,” Aliriza said. “So there’s sort of a nuanced domestic angle to this as well.”

Others say the marriage equality law is both Essebsi’s way of repaying women who voted for him, and an attempt to secure their votes in future elections.

“Almost 1 million women voted for Caid Essebsi in the presidential elections. Certainly, Caid Essebsi is not known for his feminist positions,” said Samir Ben Romdhane, an editor at Agence Tunis Afrique Presse. “But he needs first to reward these women and second not to lose them in case he, or anyone else he supports, will stand candidate in the next presidential elections.”

The repeal of the marriage ban has been a controversial topic in Tunisia, as it goes against Islamic law. It has been denounced in public statements by several Muslim leaders worldwide. People critical of the timing of the repeal, like Max Gallien, a PhD student focusing on international development at the London School of Economics, have said that this is part of the reason it has been effective in moving public discussion away from the unpopular reconciliation legislation.

But while the strategy of using women’s rights often works to change public discourse, Gallien said, its effectiveness isn’t always as clear at the intergovernmental level and among those familiar with political strategy.

“It's not entirely new, I don't think it's entirely surprising. That doesn't make it any less concerning,” Gallien said. “A lot of people I've talked to in the last couple of days, including in the U.K. foreign office, I think they're very clued in as to what's going on, they have some very good analysis on Tunisia and they're not, I don't think, that easily fooled.”

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