Jewish community's perception Jews for Jesus has a contentious relationship with the Jewish community, and its methods have generated controversy. All Jewish authorities, as well as the governing bodies of the
State of Israel, hold the view that
Messianic Judaism, the religious movement with which Jews for Jesus is affiliated, is not a sect of
Judaism but a form of
Christianity. Additionally,
Gentiles who convert to Messianic Judaism are not recognized as Jewish by any Jewish movement. However, Jews for Jesus says they "cannot support any efforts by Gentile believers to convert to any type of Judaism." Belief in Jesus as
deity,
Son of God, or even a non-divine
Christ/
Messiah or
prophet (as in
Islam), is held as incompatible with Judaism by most
Jewish religious movements. However, there has been some debate of that point by Jewish scholars.
Daniel Boyarin, a Jewish historian of religion and professor of Talmudic culture at UC Berkeley, writes in one of his books: Most (if not all) of the ideas and practices of the Jesus movement of the first century and the beginning of the second century—and even later—can be safely understood as part of the ideas and practices that we understand to be "Judaism."... The ideas of Trinity and incarnation, or certainly the germs of those ideas, were already present among Jewish believers well before Jesus came on the scene to incarnate in himself, as it were, those theological notions and take up his messianic calling.
Dan Cohn-Sherbok, a rabbi of Reform Judaism and professor of Jewish Theology at the University of Wales, implies that Messianic Judaism should be embraced in the Jewish community:...the non-Orthodox rejection of Messianic Jews is more difficult to comprehend given the multidimensional character of contemporary Jewish life ... There is simply no consensus among non-Orthodox Jews concerning the central tenets of the faith, nor is there any agreement about Jewish observance. Instead, the various branches of non-Orthodox Judaism embrace a totally heterogeneous range of viewpoints ... in my view Messianic Judaism constitutes an innovative, exciting, and extremely interesting development on the Jewish scene.In a 2013
Pew Forum study, 60% of American Jews said that belief in Jesus as the Messiah was not "compatible with being Jewish", while 34% found it compatible and 4% did not know. A 2017 survey that included Messianic Jews "found that 21 percent of Jewish millennials believe Jesus was 'God in human form who lived among people in the 1st century.'" An additional question on faith in the survey found that 14% of participants identified with Christianity, and 10% believed in a hybrid of Christian and Jewish beliefs. In 1993 the Task Force on Missionaries and Cults of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York (JCRCNY) issued a statement which has been endorsed by the four major Jewish denominations:
Orthodox Judaism,
Conservative Judaism,
Reform Judaism, and
Reconstructionist Judaism, as well as national Jewish organizations. Based on this statement, the Spiritual Deception Prevention Project at the JCRCNY stated: The director of
counter-missionary group Torah Atlanta, Rabbi Efraim Davidson, stated: "Jews for Jesus use aggressive proselytizing to target disenfranchised or unaffiliated Jews, Russian immigrants and college students," and that "their techniques are manipulative, deceptive and anti-Semitic."
Christian community's perception Some
Western Christians object to evangelism which is directed at
Jews because they believe that Jewish religious practices are valid. Some
Liberal Protestant denominations have issued statements criticizing evangelism of Jews including the
United Church of Christ and the
Presbyterian Church USA, which said in 1988 that
Jews have their own covenant with God. The Board of Governors of the
Long Island Council of Churches opposes proselytizing, and voiced their sentiments in a statement that "noted with alarm" the "
subterfuge and dishonesty" inherent in the "mixing [of] religious symbols in ways which distort their essential meaning," and named Jews for Jesus as one of the three groups about whom such behavior was alleged.
Leighton Ford, a former vice president of the
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the current president of Leighton Ford Ministries, supports the work of Jews for Jesus:The first followers of Jesus were all Jews – women and men so touched and changed by him that they had to tell their friends and neighbors ... Like their first century counterparts, the people I know in Jews for Jesus have good news they share lovingly and boldly!In 2003, the sponsorship of Jews for Jesus by
All Souls Church, Langham Place, a conservative evangelical church in London, including a launch event on
Rosh Hashanah to start a UK mission targeting the Jewish community, led to the Interfaith Alliance UK, a coalition of Jewish, Christian and Islamic religious leaders, issuing a letter of protest to the
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Perceptions of other organizations The
InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington includes
Muslims,
Jews, and
Christian groups. The leaders of the Conference state that they "support the right of all religions to share their message in the spirit of good will"; however, Rev. Clark Lobenstine has condemned the "proselytizing efforts" of "Jews for Jesus and other messianic Jewish groups." His wording matched the Conference's 1987 "Statement on Proselytism", so it is unclear which claims are directed at Jews for Jesus in particular. ''America's Religions. An Educator's Guide to Beliefs and Practices'' contains "[a] note about Jews for Jesus,
Messianic Jews,
Hebrew Christians, and similar groups: Jews in these groups who have converted to Christianity but continue to observe various Jewish practices are no longer considered part of the Jewish
community in the usual sense". Several other organizations oppose the identification of Jews for Jesus as a Jewish group.
Controversies 1987 – Freedom of speech In
Board of Airport Commissioners of Los Angeles v. Jews for Jesus, Inc. the
United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in favor of Jews for Jesus in a
free speech case against the
Los Angeles International Airport.
1998 and 2005–2006 – Online name Jews for Jesus has been involved in litigation regarding Internet use of its name. In 1998 they sued Steven Brodsky for
cybersquatting—registering the domain name jewsforjesus.org for a site criticizing the organization. The domain now belongs to Jews for Jesus and is used for their main site. In 2005 Jews for Jesus sued
Google for allowing a
Blogspot user to put up a site at the third-level subdomain
jewsforjesus.blogspot.com. In September 2006
Christianity Today reported: "Jews for Jesus settled out of court with a critical blogger identified as 'Whistle Blower' on jewsforjesus.blogspot.com. The evangelistic ministry assumed control of the site."
2006 – misuse of Jackie Mason name In 2006 comedian and actor
Jackie Mason filed a lawsuit against Jews for Jesus, alleging that the organization unlawfully distributed a pamphlet that used his name and likeness in a way that suggested he was a member of the group. Jackie Mason was Jewish, but not associated with Jews for Jesus. Jews for Jesus issued a detailed response to the allegation on their website. A judge of the
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York denied a preliminary injunction against Jews for Jesus over the pamphlet, finding the distribution of the pamphlet to be protected by the
First Amendment, and also stated that the pamphlet did not suggest that Mason was a Christian. In December 2006, Mason dropped the lawsuit against Jews for Jesus after they issued a letter of apology to him. The group's executive director,
David Brickner, stated in the letter to Mason that he wanted "to convey my sincere apologies for any distress that you felt over our tract." Brickner continued that he believed its publication was protected by the
Constitution, but the group was willing in the interest of peace and love for Israel to retire the pamphlet. Mason replied in front of the federal court in Manhattan where he accepted the apology, "There's no such thing as a Jew for Jesus. It's like saying a black man is for the
KKK. You can't be a table and a chair. You're either a Jew or a
Gentile."
That Jew Died for You video In 2014, Jews for Jesus published a three-minute
YouTube video called
That Jew Died for You, to coincide with
Passover,
Holy Week and
Holocaust Remembrance Day on 28 April. A long-haired Jesus dragging a large wooden cross appears in the film until an
Auschwitz concentration camp guard sends him to the gas chambers and says "just another Jew" in German. Jews for Jesus said that the objective of the film was for Jesus to be identified with the victims rather than the perpetrators of the Holocaust and that "the
Holocaust has been used – perhaps more than any other event or topic – to prevent Jewish people from considering the good news of Jesus."
Fox News Channel and
History refused to play an advertisement for the film. == References in popular culture ==