Category: Messianic Judaism

Daniel Juster, Th. D., Restoration from Zion of Tikkun International

I have been involved in efforts for many years to see the Church come into alignment with the restored Messianic Jewish community. Our own ministry in Tikkun International has been deeply committed to this (see Asher Intrater’s new book Alignment). The Toward Jerusalem Council II project is very much given to this task, to see the Church in all its streams, officially commit itself and declare its stand of alignment and support for the restored Messianic Jewish community. We have traveled in Europe to site where regional and international Church councils declared both anti-Semitism and the rejection of the Messianic Jewish life in decrees from 307 A. D. in Alvira, Spain and then in several councils after. On our journeys Church leaders practiced prayerful repentance for these actions. We have included Church leaders who have repented for the Holocaust including at Aushwitz. One of the things I noted in trips to such places as Nuremburg, Germany, is the great spiritual desert where the worst crimes were committed. This is so common in Europe, there are so few who are followers of Yeshua. How can the Gospel ever flourish were there as been such sin without adequate repentance? From studying spiritual warfare, the evidence is clear to me that darkness rules where there is such sin, and it is intergenerational as taught in the Torah, “visiting the sins of the fathers to the children to the third and fourth generation.” Many will be lost due to these sins, for the descendants cannot respond to the gospel in significant numbers. The key to overcome and redeem such people is a group that can represent them, repent and pray for forgiveness. If we have a few from their ranks we can see a door opening for repentance and forgiveness.

In the weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal on January 20, there was a book review of Anatomy of a Genocide by Omer Bartov. Bartov’s mother immigrated to Israel in the mid 1930s from the twon of Buczacz in Ukraine. The family members who did not emigrate were murdered. This is not unique, and the usual horrible features of the Nazi genocide are repeated. We are so familiar with the terrible and oft repeated atrocities. However, this book adds a level of evil that is beyond the normal unspeakable horror. The evil is not that townspeople supported the Nazi’s in their quest of murder. Rather it is that those who seemed to be friends with the victims changed from friends to enemies and practiced relished sadism in a way that alarms us and shows the depravity of human beings. “Killers knew their victims personally, and most of the time such familiarity only added to the sadistic glee with which they slaughtered children or buried entire families in mass graves. Many of the perpetrators were known as decent folk before the killings began, not displaying any particular tendencies toward violence or ideologically fueled hatred. Afterward they were able to return to their normal lives without a trace of their capacities for cruelty or any indication of remorse or shame. The bloodshed left no stain.” Or did it?

Years ago I used to entertain the thought that very civilized people who seemed to behave with graciousness, could have a lurking root of evil within that could be tapped given the right circumstances. This real inner evil can only be removed through the cross and conversion on a deep level. This view seems even more correct given the story of this town. But then a second question looms. How can the descendants of these people in this town receive the Gospel. The hardness toward the Gospel often has roots in the depth of sin. It is a judgment of God that leads to Hell for many. So the key here is to have massive prayer for such a town and to find some who will respond and then to begin the repentance for that town. I think only then can we see the Gospel take root and make great gains. Yes, we do want to see all people saved and come to the knowledge of the truth, but such roots of sin will require much prayer for this to happen.

Before 1970 there were attempts to produce a Jewish expression of faith in Yeshua, and we can be thankful for such attempts. There was Edward Brotsky, the Jewish Baptist in Toronto and later Philadelphia, and others. But it was shortly before 1970 that a Jewish Evangelist, Manny Brotman, anointed by the Spirt in Evangelism, and with great passion, was able in his preaching and witness to win many Jewish people to Yeshua and fostered the idea of Messianic Jewish congregations.

In Cincinnati, Ohio, the Chernoff family began to entertain such ideas. Marty Chernoff, who had been a Baptist missionary and had been “baptised in the Spirit” and saw a vision to build a congregation on the basis of the idea of “Messianic Judaism” as the key term. There was an outpouring of the Spirit on the young people, which they describe as waves and waves of the Spirit upon them. The was much Holy Spirit laughter. Then there was Joe Finklestein, in Philadelphia, a chemist, who attracted Jewish young people to his home, and the same power of the Spirit was experienced. They called his group “the fink zoo.” They and Herb Links, a Presbyterian Jewish leader, connectedl to what was happening in Cincinnati. They began to influence the Hebrew Christian Alliance of America, later renamed teh Messianic Jewish Alliance.

Unbeknownst to them, a two young Assemblies of God ministers, Ray Gannon and Phil Goble, experienced a mighty anointing of the Spirit in evangelism and saw scores of Jewish people come to know Yeshua. They planted Temple Beth Immanuel, and it soon had 150 people, very large in those days. (Today this congregation still exists and is known as Ahavat Tzioni). David Stern, who later became famous for his Jewish New Testament and Commentary, was its cantor. He was a professor of economics at U. C. L. A. and also later taught at Fuller Seminary.

I also came to know these people in the early 1970s. But in 1972 when I started, I was still running form a bad experience in the Charismatic world. (see my book Dynamics of Spiritual Deception on this). Though scholarship, I came to believe that Jews who are called to faith in Yeshua were called to identity and live as Jews. This was so very early, 1972-1974. Then Manny Brotman had his sharing seminars in Washington, D. C. (1973). Paul Liberman and Sid Roth began Beth Messiah Congregation. Shortly after, Manny became the first Rabbi. And by 1976 through spiritual healing ministry at Adat Ha Tikvah, the new name of my congregation in Chicago, I was pulled back to the charismatic orientation I later would become the leader of Beth Messiah Synagoguge near Washington, D. C. in January 1978. The following summer we would immerse 26 Jews in the name of Yeshua.

This is why the Chernoff family speaks about the Messianic Jewish Movement as the Jewish revival. It was a supernatural move of the Holy Spirit that tracked with the Jesus movement of those days.

Now as we debate the issues of the Jewish percentages on Messianic Jewish Diaspora congregations (not our problem here in Israel-we have different problems), we have to ask why there were no major questions about Jewish numbers or percentages in those days. We had a wonderful Jewish percentage and a wonderful minority of Gentiles who were called to the movement. The reason was that we were in the middle of a Holy Spirit power thing that was winning Jewish people left and right. That took care of the demographics.

Today we spend much time on theological debate and questions of authenticity. I have been involved in this and worked hard, even to writing several books on such issues. But in the beginning we did not have so much theology, and so much Rabbinic understanding or orientation, but there was power and effectiveness.

Acts 2 at Shavuot (Pentecost) is the template for the move of God among the Jewish people and Acts 13-15 applies the same Holy Spirit power to the mission to the Gentiles. So I am convinced that the problems of the Messianic Jewish movement in the Diaspora (and in Israel as well, but in different ways) will not be solved by getting the rules right for Jews and Gentiles. These things will not fall into proper order until we have a new outpouring of the Spirit for the successful reaching of our people. When thousands of our people come to Yeshua in our movement in the Diaspora and then thousands more in Israel, through a mighty outpouring of the Spirit, our perspective on all these things will be different. We will have the wonderful and massive challenge of disciple making.

The origins of a successful movement often tell us about the founding principles that must be recovered to see this success continue into the future in new generations. The Messianic Jewish Movement began as a mighty move of the Spirit, it was a fully charismatic movement, and nothing else will enable us to solve the problems we face today. I would advise that we spend much more energy praying and seeking God for such an outpouring than debating the issues. And everyone who knows me knows I am theologically oriented!! But this is my view after almost 45 years in this thing!!