IRVING GATELL PARA ENLACE JUDÍO

August 24, 2012- In recent days, Mexico City has been flooded by the propaganda of an event of supposed Jewish music and dance, with the presence of Rabbi Jonathan Bernis.Almost immediately, the Central Committee of the Jewish Community of Mexico has sent a statement (read it here) unchecking the event, and clarifying that it is an event promoted by the so -called “messianic Jews”, and that it does not have any type of linkWith the Jewish community of Mexico.

Many of our members were taken by surprise.Some were already planning to attend the event.Inevitably, many have arisen the question: who are the "messianic Jews"?

Next, I allow myself to make a series of details on the identity of these groups, the result of almost twenty years of participating in controversies related to these tangled issues of Jewish identity.

The first thing to say is that messianic Jews are not Jews, either by personal origin, or by socio-historical origin, or beliefs.

The "messianic Jews" present themselves as "Jews who recognize that Yehoshúa is the Messiah", or "Jews who follow the Mashiaj Yehoshua."When making this statement, they intend to be part of the historical, social and religious identity that is Judaism.

Beliefs of messianic Jews

None of the so -called "messianic rabbis" is a true graduate of a Yeshivá.Their pseudo-yeshivot are, in all the details, Protestant seminars.Even many of his "rabbis" are shepherds who, at some point in his ministry, have convinced themselves that they have the right to consider themselves Jews, and after some “update” courses they have gone from being shepherds to being rabbis.

To date, the messianic movement has no unified beliefs.For example, their leaders do not agree with circumcision.Some think you have to practice it.Others, that the important thing is the "circumcision of the heart" and that, therefore, it is not necessary to physically circulate men.The vast majority of messianic Jews reject the need for a Halajá, following the idea of the New Testament that the follower of Messiah Yehoshúa was already released from the "yoke of the law."

Another idea in which there are no consensus is the one regarding the nature of the Messiah.

Does your beliefs have any Jew?No, ultimately.His concept of Messiah and his concept of Torah are, one hundred percent, Christians.

Origin of messianic Judaism

The "messianic" movement did not emerge spontaneously from Judaism as a trend that would rethink the theme of Jesus of Nazareth and, as a consequence, would accept him as Messiah.The origin of this movement is in the Church of England (also called Anglican or Episcopal), one of the main trends of European Protestantism.

His background is the doctrines of Anglo-Israelism (British Israelism, in English), an ideological tendency that began to consolidate towards the 18th century, which became a definite form between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and that nurtured the heterodox trends of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism.

What do I mean by this?To that in that period, Protestantism was going through a phase that all religions pass: define the limits of their possible beliefs.And this is only possible when a dissident group appears with a new proposal, and the other groups react by saying something like “ah, no;that if not!"

The Anglo-Israelite beliefs of the 18th century said that Anglo-Sajones were direct descendants of a lost tribe of Israel. In the nineteenth century, this idea reached its classical form thanks to the theologian Edward Hine, according to which the English are descendants ofThe Efraim tribe.It is not a difficult idea to interpret at a sociological level: at that time, England was becoming the greatest colonial power in the world, and much of its theology was focused on demonstrating that they were the bearers of “correct Christianity”, which is why thewhich they had the preference of D-os.The climax of this theology that justified the English colonial expansion, was to propose that the English were a physical part of Israel and, therefore, the promises made by D-os to the physical Israel were true heritage of the English.

It is enough to review some phrases of the anthem and ifue feet, written by Edward Blake and musicalized by Hubert Parry, and that remains the extra-official national anthem of the English: "... until we rebuild Jerusalem in the green countryside of England ...".

This belief did not mean a break with traditional Protestantism.It was not an official doctrine, but the body of fundamental beliefs of churches such as Anglican, Presbyterian, Methodist or Lutheran (the great Protestant denominations) was not opposed.However, when Anglo-Israelism arrived in the United States (which had little to have become independent) began to generate increasingly radical postures.

Thus, in 1838 a young volatile presbyterian began publishing his mystical experiences in a newspaper.That was the beginning of what we know today as a Mormon church.Joseph Smith, his founder, went too far in his attempts to "renew" the Christian faith, and began to preach that he had received a new complement to the "written revelation": Mormon's book, New Testament continuity, writing "truly inspired. ”Unanimously, the traditional Protestant churches rejected the doctrines of Joseph Smith, and mormonism was left out of the spectrum of churches identified with Protestantism.

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Anglo-Israelite ideas played an important role in making mormonism: according to this Church, the American native peoples are direct descendants of two Jewish patriarchs-Laman and Nephi-, who fled from Jerusalem during the Babylonian siege (towards the year 600 aec), and that reached a "new promised land", located in what today are the United States of America.Again the idea that an Anglo-Sajona Protestant nation is part of Israel and, therefore, heiress of the promises that D-os made in the Bible to the Jewish people.

A few years later, a Methodist preacher - William Miller - concluded (thanks to his brave investigations) that Jesus Christ would have returned to earth in 1843. When he failed, he "corrected" his investigations and said that in 1844. when he returnedTo fail, it was depressed and withdrew from the prediction business.

Strangely, their disappointed followers found two ways to reorganize themselves (both in their ideas and in their religious habits), and from there two new protest crib slopes emerged: the witnesses of J. and the adventists of the seventh day. The former were rejected byThe other Protestant churches because they denied the deity of Jesus Christ, as well as the existence of ultraterrene life.The latter, because they rejected to continue meeting on Sunday, arguing that D-We had ordered Israel to keep Saturday as a sacred day.

Anglo-Israelism had a strong influence on these two ideological ruptures, since one of his fundamental ideas was that the required requirement for the return of Jesus Christ is the conversion of the Jews.And all these movements, assuming as the restoration of "true faith", also assumed that such conversion of the Jewish people was imminent.

It is interesting how these three dissidents of Protestantism explored some line of Anglo-Israelism.The three groups have - until the date - the conviction that the return of Jesus Christ is imminent.Even the official name of Mormonism is Church of Jesus Christ of the last days.Mormonism resumed another special emphasis: the idea that Israel's lost tribes are the ultimate origin of traditionally viewed nations as "Gentiles."The witnesses of J. recovered another emphasis of obvious Jewish profile: deny that a human being is same, trying to recover true monotheism.On the other hand, the Adventists left the real day to worship D-Os: on Saturday (to date, they meet on Saturdays, but in no way use Jewish customs; their liturgical habits are typicallyProtestants).

At the same time that these dissidents were created and consolidated in the United States, another new form of Anglo-Israelite community was consolidated in England: the Hebrew-Christian alliance of Great Britain (1867).This group was integrated with members of the Church of England with some Jewish origin (converts to Christianity or children or grandchildren of some Jewish convert, usually in the Anglican Church).Naturally, this group aroused suspicions and discomfort in some Christian leaders, and therefore they systematically dedicated themselves to clarifying that they had no intention of abandoning Christianity, but that - by the opposite - they intended to consolidate themselves as the missionary arm of the Christian Church to achievethe conversion of the Jews (so that everything could be ready for the return of Jesus Christ).

Thanks to this, the Hebrew-Christian alliances flourished and remained within the Church of England (even in 1981 they continued to publish magazines of this type of groups).However, in the United States the history was different: inevitably following the steps of the heterodoxies that had already broken with traditional Protestantism, the Hebrew-Christian Alliance of America (founded in 1915) came to become the first Judeo-Masonic alliance in1925. Your goal?"Recover" his Jewish identity, although still believing in Jesus.

As in the Hebrew-Christian Alliance of Great Britain, this movement was basically integrated by some Jews turned into Christianity, and other children or grandchildren of converts.It is worth noting that those who were born Jews, in general had received a very precarious one - if it is not that religious formation.

For almost half a century, the Judeo-Masonic movement passed without penalty or glory.Far from emancipating Christianity to reinforce his supposed Jewish identity, he behaved as a discreet Protestant or Evangelical tendency, and most of its members frequented Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, congregational or Pentecostal churches.

This situation only came to change until the 70’s, under the leadership of Moshe Rosen and Martin Chernoff (another pair of Jews with a very limited religious formation, which in their youth became Christianity).

Each one raised different strategies to "rekindle" the messianic movement.Rosen's idea was totally Christian, and he founded a group that is assumed as perfectly evangelical and Protestant, but that believes that the Jews can be convinced if we see Protestants with Kaftan, Barba, Hat and Peyes.And that is the Jews for Jesus group.The fundamental idea of Rosen was that the Jews had to feel comfortable with the idea that following the Messiah Yehoshúa did not force us to give up our identity, and that is why he designed - literately - a Protestant church where people dress like Jews.

Chernoff wanted to resume the original idea that generated the Judeo-Meical Movement in 1925: to emancipate Christianity and consolidate Jewish identity.Using music ("Davidic praises," he called him) as his main promotional tool, his leadership generated a true boom and in the course of the next two decades hundreds of new "messianic synagogues were opened."However, in the 90’s, the messianic Jews ran into a severe crisis: their "synagogues" were not made up of Jews who had believed in the Messiah Yehoshúa, but by Christians who now felt Jewish.The consequence was that, contrary to the original plan, the "messianic synagogues" were exactly equal to any other Protestant or evangelical church.Perhaps, the only difference is that in some men Kipá got.

If there were Jews in these groups, they were people who in most cases did not qualify as hasty Jews (children or grandchildren of Jews but not by the maternal line).Therefore, they were unable to contribute some "Jewish identity" to the movement.

In the 90’s, two messianic theologians tried to rethink the guidelines of the movement without much success: David Stern and John dried.To date, they are still unable to emancipate Christianity, and messianic leaders interact permanently with Protestant leaders, while maintaining an absolute, irreconcilable distance, with true Judaism.

Electronic books about messianic Judaism

As a result of almost two decades in this anti-missionary work, I am about to start the publication of seven books where I analyze in detail the phenomenon of the "Jews who follow the Messiah Yehoshúa" and their beliefs.

The first book is about to be published (a little before Rosh Hashaná).In the first part I explode in detail the characteristics of Anglo-Israelism, the origin of the messianic movement, as well as its latest derivations (the so-called Nazarenes, Netzaritas, Natzratim, or the Efraimitas).In the second part, he analyzed his main beliefs to greater detail, showing the total incompatibility they have with Torah and true Judaism.

Initially, the books are going to be published as downloadable e-books from the publishing house, at a price of $ 2.99 USD, and its publication will be notified by means of a link Judío.com.