Who Is A Jew?

We wouM have died at Auschwitz as Jews, but are not permiitted to live in Israel as Jews.

How extraordinary! Yet this statement by a representative of the "Messianic Jews" graphically sums up the strange paradox that two people of Jewish blood should be denied citizenship in the State of Israel; a state which was founded to provide nationhood for Jews who had been widely dispersed among other nations for nineteen centuries.

The matter was highlighted last autumn when the Israeli High Court of Justice ruled against an application for citizenship by a couple who were both born of Jewish parents in South Mrica. They had been married in an Orthodox synagogue. The lady involved had lost an aunt and an uncle in the Holocaust. Other members of her family had been among Israel's pioneers. Two of her sons did service in the Israeli army as parotroopers. Then why should Israeli citizenship be denied? Simply because of their religious faith - they belong to a movement known as "Messianic Jews", and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ as Israel's true Messiah.

The situation is governed by the

Israeli "Law of Return". This guarantees citizenship to all the world's Jews. A Jew is defined as someone who is born to a Jewish mother, or one who has converted to Judaism: but any Jew who is a "member of another religion" is excluded from citizenship. Not that the Law of Return requires Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to practise Judaism. A majority of the nation's citizens today are "non-ohservant" in that regard. Indeed, like many of the State's founders, a lot of people in Israel are atheists or agnostics. Yet the principle remains that apostates to other religions lose their communal rights, including eligibility for citizenship. They are classed as illegal aliens, unable to work or receive government services.

Messianic Jews are perhaps best known through the "Jews for Jesus" Group based in San Francisco. In October 1981 we commented in

"Focus" on this group's plans to extend its witness among Jews in Britain. Its adherents accept both Old and New Testament Scripture as the Word of God' but do not identify thernselves

by the term "Christian", doubtless to emphasize their continuing Jewishness and promote their witness among their own people. They tend to use the Hebrew name Yeshua instead of Jesus, and celebrate such Jewish festivals as Passover and Hanukkah. From the prophetic Word they proclaim the future return of Messiah for the deliverance of Israel.

In the case under discussion Israel's High Court of Justice ruled that belief in Jesus as the Messiah is incompatible with the Jewish faith, which holds that the Messiah is yet to come. One Jerusalem rabbi reflected a view widely held in Judaism when he remarked:

Jesus may have seen himself as a Jewish rabbi, but we can't change what happened after that. Through history Jesus became a symbol of our enemies. In his name we were persecuted, maligned, called Christ killers. We're touching on a nerve ending that has not healed.

The strength of feeling against the Lord Jesus among many in Israel is further illustrated by the fact that in the case under review it was one of the defendant's sons who reported to the authorities that his mother had become a believer in Jesus; reminder of a more

terrible day to come when "children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death" (Mat. 10:21).

Modern Israel's definition of a Jew contrasts sharply with the apostle Paul's comment in Romans 2:28,29

For he is not a Jew which is one out~ardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh:

but he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, not in the letter.

This is referred to in Colossians 2:11 as "a circumcision not made with hands ... the circumcision of Christ"; which can come about only as a result of saving faith in the Lord Jesus. From this point of view it is only the Jew who believes in Jesus who has the hallmark of a true Israelite. Thankfully we recognize the continuing work of the Holy Spifit in the conversion to Christ of many Jewish people worldwide. Yet the Israeli High Court's interpretation of the Law of Return well illustrates the truth of Romans

11:8:

According as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear; unto this very day.

unknown | Aug 1993
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