Soc.Culture.Jewish Newsgroups Frequently Asked Questions and Answers URL: www.scjfaq.org/faq/17-01.html

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Question 17.1:
Are groups calling themselves "Jews for Jesus" or "Messianic Jews[sic]" Jewish movements?

No. Once you start reading their literature that they mail available to members (and on their web pages), it is clear that they are Christian organizations whose intent it to bring Jews to Christianity. Sadly, for many of these organizations, their membership includes persons who are technically Jewish, but who believe and practice Christianity.

This is illustrated best by some examples:

• Jews for Jesus. The following is a description of the Jews-for-Jesus ministry, from the member profile page of the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (http://www.ecfa.org/mbrprof.asp?memberid=207):

  Jews for Jesus is an outreach by Jewish Christian evangelists. Our methods vary from conventional missionary work like personal visitation and tract distribution to large display media ads proclaiming Christ in secular newspapers and magazines.

• Messianic Judaism. Messianic Jews are organized into the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (http://www.mjaa.org/). The description of this organization at the "About MJAA" page (http://www.mjaa.org/about.ihtml) clearly states as a goal:

  Most importantly--To introduce our Jewish brothers and sisters to the Messiah Yeshua.

Both of these organizations, and other similar groups, are clearly missionary organizations whose goal is to bring Jesus to the Jewish people.

The FAQ is a collection of documents that is an attempt to answer questions that are continually asked on the soc.culture.jewish family of newsgroups. It was written by cooperating laypeople from the various Judaic movements. You should not make any assumption as to accuracy and/or authoritativeness of the answers provided herein. In all cases, it is always best to consult a competent authority--your local rabbi is a good place to start.

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© (c) 1993-2004 Daniel P. Faigin <maintainer@scjfaq.org>