There is a difference between allowing Messianic Jews to "hang out", and letting them make aliyah, no?
What of this?
http://www.mjaa.org/position/aliyah.html
Messianic Aliyah
The following document originally appeared as a full-page advertisement in The Jerusalem Post International Edition (week ending may 5, 1990 Page 4). It is a response to the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court to deny the Right of Return to Gary and Shirley Beresford, a Messianic Jewish couple from South Africa, on the basis of their faith in Yeshua. The Beresfords continue their struggle to stay in our Jewish homeland as olim to this day. p.lsh {font-family: georgia, times, serif; font-weight: bold; font-size: larger; text-align: center;}AN OPEN LETTER
To the
Supreme Court of Israel
from the
Executive Committee
of the
Messianic Jewish Alliance of America
and the
International Alliance of Messianic Congregations and Synagogues
We mark with grievous concern the decision of the Israeli Supreme Court on December 25, 1989 regarding Messianic Jews and the Law of Return. The Jerusalem Post (January 8, 1990) quoted Israeli Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon's statement, "(In) the last two thousand years of history...the Jewish people has decided that Messianic Jews do not belong to the Jewish nation...and have no right to force themselves on it."
We would like to ask, "When was such a decision made, and by whom?"
If Judge Elon it referring to halachah (rabbinic law and commentary), most of the Israeli nation is hiloni (secular. religiously unaffiliated). and does not subscribe to halachah, nor do they wish to give the Orthodox Jewish community the right to define for them, "Who Is A Jew." If given the opportunity, these same Orthodox factions would disqualify most of the current Jewish nation from Jewish identity. If the Israeli nation does not wish to submit the question of their own Jewish identities to these men, why do they submit ours?
Judge Aharon Barak said, "the criteria for deciding who is a Jew should not be halachic, but based on the majority consensus of the Jewish nation". Why then is he ignoring the results of the l988 Dahaf Poll published in the Jerusalem Post, which found that 78% of the Israeli public favored Messianic Jews coming into Israel under the Law of Return, provided that the olim (immigrants) in question were really of Jewish lineage, held to their historic heritage, and served in the IDF when called upon to do so?
The core of the issue in the Supreme Court s decision seems to be that the right to make aliyah is contingent upon the content of an individual s faith, and that Messianic Jews faith in Yeshua of Nazareth renders them non-Jewish. When the issue of Jewishness is discussed, there can be only two accurate levels of discussion: they are (1) Jewish national identity and (2) Jewish faith-identity.
NATIONAL IDENTITY
Jewish national identity has never been, nor is at present, contingent upon the faith held by a person of blood-Jewish lineage. Much of the modern Israeli nation is patently agnostic, or walking a path widely aberrant from the one which the Orthodox Jews wish to set for the nation, yet they are Israeli. The Supreme Court decision referred repeatedly to the 1970 amendment to the Law of Return, which says that "a Jew who has willingly professed another faith" is not qualified for Israeli citizenship. David Ben-Gurion actively adopted the practice of yoga, many of the Founding Fathers of the nation were widely disparate in their beliefs, and they all remained Israeli. This is because of a clear principle: a person who is born Jewish is Jewish. and their national identity cannot be affected by the content of their faith.
In Israel, one can be an atheist and be lsraeli, a Baha'i follower and be Israeli, a Hindu and be Israeli, a Buddhist and be Israeli, or even a murderer and still be lsraeli. Yet, if a Jew who truly clings to his national identity and the heritage of his faith happens to believe in the way hundreds and thousands of Jewish people in the first century did, that Yeshua of Nazareth is the Messiah of Israel...he is told, "You are not a part of the Israeli nation." Since even Judge Elon had to admit in his decision that, "It was true that Messianic Jews were a legitimate Jewish sect in the first century,'' the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America can only oppose the Court's current stand as discriminatory and inconsistent.
It is the contention of the Messianic Jew that the ultimate arbiter of Jewish identity is the G-d of Israel Who imparted it. The yardstick He has given is the Holy Scriptures (Tanakh). If the issue is whether Jewish national identity should be connected with one's faith, the Scriptures are clear. An individual of Jewish parentage has never been excluded from identity with the commonwealth of Israel because of religious persuasion or faith.
One of the many examples of this principle can be found in the life of the prophet Eliyahu (Elijah). When the entire nation was apostate, as in the idol worship of the ten northern tribes, the Scriptures state that Elijah told King Ahab to gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel (I Kings 18:20). Clearly he was referring to an Israeli nation wholly given to Ba al worship. Their national identity was not questioned, only the veracity of their faith.
FAITH IDENTITY
If the issue in question is whether Messianic Jews are Jews by faith, it should be clarified that Messianic Jews do not subscribe to the rabbinic system of Judaism initiated by Yochanan Ben-Zakkai following the destruction of the Second Temple, nor the Talmudists who succeeded him. Messianic Judaism recognizes only the Scriptures as Divinely inspired and absolute, whereas rabbinic Judaism believes that the Oral Law (Mishnah, Talmud, and other rabbinic commentaries) is equal in authority with the Scriptures. While Messianic Jews respect the Oral Laws as a source of man- originated religious thinking, they see no scriptural basis for according it supernatural authority, and consider its decisions to be the arbitrary rulings of men.
Messianic Jews believe the Scriptures teach clearly that when G-d brought eternal atonement for sin to the Jewish people and all the nations through the sacrificial death of the Messiah Yeshua, the Passover Lamb of G-d, He removed the Temple and the sacrificial systems because it was His will to do so. We see no scriptural support for the rabbinic system of Judaism and consider the Tanakh to be the final authority on Jewish faith.
However, as regards our right to make Aliyah, this is merely a side point: there are many Jewish people who do not recognize the validity of the Hebrew Scriptures at all, and they are not denied the right to make Aliyah! Whatever a person of Jewish birth may believe, it is clear that, "You don't have to be rabbinic to be Jewish."
Furthermore, if the issue is that our faith in Yeshua of Nazareth somehow negates our Jewish identity, it should be noted that inclusion in the nation of Israel has never been based upon an individual s accurate recognition of the Messiah. In addition to being un-Scriptural, it is also inconsistent with Jewish history. This is graphically illustrated in the life of Rabbi Akiva, one of the eminent figures in Rabbinic Judaism. He declared Bar Kochba to be "the King and Messiah." Bar Kochba was killed, his messiahship is accepted by no one, and yet the Jewish identity of Akiva and his followers has never been brought into question. They were misguided, but they were still definitely Jewish and Israeli at every step along the way. Messianic Jews have no more professed another failth than did Akiva and his disciples. Within the context of our Judaism we have made an assertion, based on the words of the prophets in our own Tanakh, about whom we believe the Messiah to be.
The matter can be further summarized thus: while we enthusiastically embrace our Jewish national identity, and are fervent Zionists, we do not accept the rabbinic system of faith. This attitude is common to the great majority of the Jewish people, yet their national identity is considered intact. Ethiopian Jewry, for example, holds this view, and they are welcomed by Israel for aliyah under the Law of Return.
In the accounting of the six million who perished in the Holocaust, those people who were annihilated by Adolf Hitler because they had only one Jewish great-grandparent are reckoned as Jews, even though they were entirely assimilated and disassociated by choice from their Jewishness. They were Jewish enough to die for it, and Jewish enough to be numbered among our honored Jewish dead. We, who are of even more visible Jewish blood, heritage, and committment, must be included as well.
If the December 25th decision is not reversed, Messianic Jews will be the only Jewish people denied access to their homeland on the basis of the content of their faith. Even more seriously, it introduces the dangerous judicial precedent of exclusion from Jewish citizenship on th basis of religious affiliation. Who will be next? Will it be the Reformed, the Reconstructionists, or some yet-to-be-defined group of Jews who do not meet the religious criteria of the datim (Orthodox)?
If our people should ever face another Holocaust, is it the intention of the Government of Israel to shut the doors of our homeland on any Jews who do not qualify according to the religious standards set by the datim?
For the last 75 years, the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America has been the leading representative organization for American Jews who believe in Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). It is estimated that there are now at least 100,000 such Messianic Jews in some 15 countries, including Israel. Furthermore, there are over 250 known Messianic synagogues worldwide, and the number is rapidly growing. Can the Supreme Court justly turn its back on such a large number of Jewish people, as so many nations in World War II did to our people fleeing Nazi concentration camps? The answer must be a resounding No. Israel is also our refuge and homeland. In the wake of the Holocaust, to refuse Messianic Jews, or ANY group of Jewish people, the right to immigrate as Jews under the Law of Return is unconscionable.
The Messianic Jewish Alliance of America rejects the 25 December 1989 Israeli Suprreme Court decision as diametrically opposite to the very reason for the existence of the State of Israel. As Jews who treasure our heritage and our tie with our homeland, Eretz Yisrael, we plead with the men of the Supreme Court not to issue a White Paper against us like the infamous one issued in 1939, nor bar us from free immigration to our homeland. If the Modern Israeli nation is to fulfill the destiny her founding fathers envisioned for her - to be a refuge for the weary, returning exiles from all nations - how can she shut her doors to her own children and still retain that destiny?
The decision rendered by the Israeli Supreme Court on the case of Gary and Shirley Beresford contradicts the original intention of the Law of Return, which was to ensure the physical survival of the Jewish people. It was not intended to promote a particular religious presuasion within the frameworl of the Jewish nation.
We therefore humbly request, as fellow Jews, and as fervent followers of the Hebrew Scriptures, that we be accorded the same respect, recognition, and rights as the rest of the nation whose heritage, history, and destiny we share. Please, do not let rabbinic halakhah be the Decree of Exile which banishes many tens of thousands of Jewish people from their Jewish homeland. Ahavat Zion is one of the cornerstones of our lives.
We are Jews. We were born as Jews, and we will die as Jews
As Jews, we fervently petition the Supreme Court of Israel to reverse the Beresford Decision, and allow any Jew who so wishes to come home.
I never noticed. I always just called him HaShem or G-d.
