#“Messianism”

[advanced-fangirlism]

This episode was insane but Troy was real for this

[thejewitches]

No antisemitism, bigotry, or proselytization will be accepted. We will be watching closely & utilizing the delete and block buttons as needed.

Are you unclear on the history of Messianic Christianity? Here is a resource, unaffiliated with us in any way! We encourage you to read it.

We wrote this because we’ve been caught in the trap of messianic “resources” made to trick Jews.

This post was chosen by our Patrons, who support us in the work we do. Become a Patron now.

Like we say, context is key. Jews have been using fish as protective symbols for centuries…but that isn’t the same as the Jesus fish! Red flags come in varying shades. Always use context & look for more before making assumptions.

Remember: interfaith solidarity doesn’t include coercion, trickery, subterfuge, appropriation & lying.

[stannisbaratheon]

You came into this world together, and you go out of it together.

Bruce Greenwood as Roderick Usher and Mary McDonnell as Madeline Usher in THE FALL OF THE HOUSE OF USHER (2023)

[indecisiveavocado]

Hello! You are (probably) wrong about Messianic "Judaism"

You have probably been referred here because you were making some awful arguments about Messianic "Judaism".

That's ok, that's why you're here.

How in depth do you want me to go?

One sentence

Messianic "Jews", "Jews" for Jesus, and other movements like that are not Jewish, they are Christian.

Two sentences

Messianic "Jews", "Jews" for Jesus, and other movements like that are not Jewish, they are Christian. They may sincerely believe they are Jewish, and they may look superficially Jewish, but they are still Christian.

A paragraph

Messianic "Jews" and other movements that claim to be Jewish but believe Jesus was the Messiah are not Jewish. They are Christian. They may sincerely believe that they are Jewish, but that doesn't change it. If I sincerely believe that I am, say, Muslim, that does not make me Muslim. They believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and Judaism does not. They are Christians roleplaying as Jews.

Questions

But there are Jewish athiests!

Yes. But Jewish atheists and agnostics are generally honest about it. Judaism is flexible on the degree of belief in God you need. It is not flexible on Jesus not being the Messiah. (Plus, athiests haven't genocided us for coming up on 2000 years, so they have a degree of goodwill Christians don't have as much of.)

But Chabad--

[Edit: This originally said the group of Chabadniks who think their Rebbe was the Messiah were not Jewish.]

The Chabadniks who think their Rebbe was the Messiah are still Jewish, but Messianics are not. Why?

First, consider degree of departure. Beliefs about the Messiah are important in Judaism, certainly; but not as much as monotheism. Allegedly, one Rabbi in Talmud, Elisha ben Abuya, questioned the monotheistic aspect, and henceforth he was referred to as 'Acher' (Other). The Sh'ma affirms the monotheistic aspect of Judaism. Of Rambam's thirteen principles of faith, one deals with the Messiah. Four deal with monotheism in some way or another. From a Jewish view, Christianity is, at best, questionably monotheistic.

Second, the intent differs. Chabad tries to get nonobservant Jews more observant (even with a few quirks in religious practice). Messianic Christianity tries to pull Jews away from Judaism.

Finally, of course, how widespread the thing is varies. In Chabad, it is a minor group, and certainly not a core tenet. In Messianic Christianity, it is a core tenet of it and indeed a major distinguishing aspect from Jewish denominations.

But they must have some merit! If they didn't believe Jesus was the Messiah--

And if my grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon.

How can it be this simple?

Christianity (regardless of how much they fight over it) is fundamentally a broad group. It's easily broad enough to include Messianic Christians without blinking.

You're anti-Messianic practices!

I am, yes. I am against the lying and misrepresentation their liturgy, beliefs, etc consist of. I am against the image of Judaism they project. If they stopped pretending to be Jewish (or converted to actual Judaism), I would have no problem with them. But, again: if Grandma had wheels, she'd be a wagon. A fundamental part of Messianic Christianity is pretending to be Jewish by culturally appropriating Jewish practices, which is very sketchy given that Christians have consistently genocided Jews, including forcibly converting us.

Jews: if you see someone insistent Messianic Christianity is Judaism, feel free to direct them here!

[tranquil-slaughterhouse]

Why did spongebobssquarepants reblog a lengthy argument from a right-winger without any refutation from someone else???

[ladyphlogiston]

Part of what makes Christianity at large not a cult is there is no Secret Knowledge. It's all there. You can't level up.

My sister, discussing gnostic heresies

[hailruth]

Hello! I came across this blog while looking at menorahs and wanted to ask why Messianic Judaism/Messianic Jews are disliked. I used to be part of the Messianic Jewish circle but escaped as of a couple of months ago as it didn’t seem to correct preserve history and was using the Bible for fetishizing extreme punishment (like the Hebrew Roots/Hebrew Israelite movements). I understand they wanted to preserve historical traditions but something still felt very off and predatory about it. What are the red flags one should look out for when this group tries to indoctrinate someone?

disclaimer: i'm writing this on mobile so there's a high chance of spelling/grammar mistakes. look back for any future edits or comments with resource or corrections. tumblr kept deleting some very important paragraphs and i'm too frustrated to make this a very polished post.

okay, first things first: messianic judaism never has been and never will be jewish. they are not accepted by any jewish denominations and the christian consensus is that they are christian. institutions such as the u.s. military (where messianic "jewish" chaplains have to wear the insignia of the cross meant for christian chaplains and not the ten commandments for jewish chaplains) and the supreme court of israel agree that they are christian. judaism is not just a religion, it is an ethnicity and a tribe. the majority of messianics have no connection to judaism in the slightest. people who have converted to actual judaism have gone through a lengthy process of assimilation into this ethnicity. their language, calendar (and very conception of time), diet, clothing, body, community, family, etc. is changed forever once they convert. you can't just decide to be jewish, as messianics have done. the fact that some messianic "jews" are ethnically jewish is incidental and means nothing for the jewishness of the religion.

i was so thankful when this post came out about a year ago because it condenses the main points i've been making for a while: "messianic christian red flags" (by jewitches on instagram). it has a list of things to look out for which can help you spot messianic "judaism" masquerading as actual judaism. but i will still explain my arguments in this post. i also recommend jews for judaism.

however, there's still some points i want to outline in this post. most importantly: the goal of messianic "judaism" is not to preserve any kind of history, but to target jews for conversion to christianity. there are claims that it grew out of a movement of jews who converted to christianity but kept onto some jewish practices (which would make them apostates). but this is absolutely not what the movement is, it's very clear that it actually came to be in order to eradicate judaism (by converting all jews to christianity). as the post i linked above points out, two good examples are that the board of missions to the jews became chosen people ministries and the hebrew christian alliance of america became the messianic jewish alliance of america. these were christian orgs whose entire purpose was to target jews for christian conversion, who rebranded to messianic orgs because the function of messianic judaism is to convert jews.

the messianic movement and organizations target jews via extremely deceptive and predatory tactics. the biggest issue that every jew faces when trying to google anything about judaism (which is often the case for jews who already don't know much about their religion and don't have a community with a rabbi to go to) is messianic sources doing their absolute best to look jewish. often times, you have to scour a site providing "information" on jewish holidays, traditions, etc. until you finally encounter something about "yeshua." the post linked above is very helpful for avoiding these sites. this isn't just a digital phenomenon. messianic churches are often disguised as synagogues and mark themselves as such on sites like google maps (i know there have been initiatives to get their labeling changed to that of churches on these sites). there are countless examples of these churches pretending to be synagogues in order to lure in and hopefully convert jews who do not know better.

messianics constantly pretend to be real jews in order to infiltrate jewish communities. i don't have to explain how weird it is to pretend to be of a certain ethnicity in order to force your way into their rituals and lives. this ties into the entire fake synagogue issue from the previous paragraph, but extends far further than that. a few years ago, for example, a jewish politician invited who she thought was a rabbi to pray at an event. this "rabbi" ended up being a messianic. jews across the country were, of course, deeply disturbed by this and it was condemned. messianics aren't stupid, they know what we think and what they are doing, this is an intentional action. there are countless examples of this and it is never anything but vile.

if you want to pretend that judaism is this perfect precursor to jesus whose entire function was to predict his arrival, you're going to have to smash it to unrecognizable bits in order to build anything that'll support such a cause. it's never going to work. many core beliefs of christianity are antithetical to judaism, making the two fundamentally incompatible and different religions. saying otherwise is ahistorical and disrespectful to the thousands of years of separate cultural development of these two religions.

i haven't proofread this and refuse to do so at the moment, but i don't want to keep you waiting on a response. i hope this can help you understand why jews are very much not fans of messianics. if you have any further questions/something isn't clear, feel free to ask whenever.

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

I didn't know that Jewish people and Messianic Jews didn't get along, is it because of the different beliefs or is there a larger historical/cultural context?

I'm probably not the 100% best person to ask but basically it's like this:

It's because Messianics aren't Jewish. They're Christians cosplaying as Jews. They've only existed since the 1960s and even Wikipedia says they're a branch of Christianity that "incorporates some elements of Judaism and other Jewish traditions into the Christian movement of evangelicalism."

And since a) Judaism is a closed religion, and b) Christians have spent hundreds of years persecuting and killing Jews for their religion and traditions, it's kind of deeply offensive for them to do that.

[jewish-vents]

Jews 🤝 asexual people

excluded from communities of marginalized people because we’re “basically” white/straight and therefore do not experience oppression, even though that’s willfully ignoring the many, many cases of people doing and saying terrible things to us because we’re jewish/ace

Don't forget people trying to 'correct'/'fix' us (messianic people, people who think being asexual is 'just a phase') like our existence is somehow a glitch in the matrix. - 🦦ྀི <- is both so felt compelled to answer

[is-the-thing-actually-jewish]

So, ummm...

https://www.tumblr.com/themussarcenter?source=share

This Tumblr just started following me, and idk, I have a bad feeling about it. It's like they're trying too hard to be Jewish. Plus, mussar isn't something that you can do??? It's a moral code.

There's something sus about this.

Rating: NOT JEWISH—WELL KNOWN MESSIANIC MISSIONARY

Izzy, as those who know him unaffectionately call him, is a Christian Missionary cosplaying as a Jew; he's associated with a number of Messianic groups, regularly remakes his tumblr accounts to get around blocks and bans, and actively stalks Judaism-related tags here on Tumblr trying to find fresh victims who aren't already wise to who and what he is.

Literally just mentioning Judaism on your blog is enough to summon him (over on my fandom blog, I kept my Judaism quiet for years, and within literal days of going public on that he had followed me there), and "themussarcenter" is just one of several urls he uses and reuses. @jumblr-protector-golem has a list, in his own dedicated subsection, of the regular urls that he reuses. The man is, to put it bluntly, obsessed and creepy even by the standards of Messianics.

—Mod Joseph

[notaplaceofhonour]

no fucking thank you!

[shaperaverse-brainrot]

I made an animatic! Mining Planet 9A (I am waiting so very patiently for Puppetshades Part Three, can you tell?)

[creature-wizard]

God, so many of these "Messianic prophecies" are just quote mined from King David's psalms where he's literally talking about his own experiences and his own sentiments.

You know. I'm gonna go out on a limb here and suggest that if the actual Messianic prophecies fail to support your belief that Jesus is the Messiah so much that you have to start quote mining like this...

You should maybe consider that you're just.. wrong?

[indecisiveavocado]

the complete beginner's guide to judaism, part 1.5: don't trust these guys

no seriously.

The following groups are not to be trusted:

Messianic groups. They are not Jewish. They are Christian. More here.

Many, many, antizionist 'Jewish' groups. Quite frequently, you do not need to be Jewish to join, which often makes their claims dubious at best and flat-out wrong at worst. The fact that they actively promote themselves to non-Jews and are unclear about membership numbers means that in all likelihood a significant portion of their community is non-Jewish. There may be some legitamete ones, or I may be wrong and they may be Jewish. But I am skeptical.

Why am I skeptical? Because so many of them include 'Jew' in the name. And then you learn they let non-Jews join, which feels fundamentally duplicitous and designed to deceive Jews, non-Jews, and the media into thinking they are a legitamete Jewish voice, when they very well might be composed mostly of non-Jews. I do not trust them to be honest after that switcharoo (and, often, their many misrepresentations of basic facts).

The following organizations fit into this mold:

Jews Against White Supremacy/JAWS:

Jews For Racial And Economic Justice/JFREJ.

Jewish Voice for Peace/JVP (one of the biggest organizations in this sphere).

IfNotNow (EDIT Feb. 13 2025: in addition to this, although they aren't loud about it, one of their founders is an Evangelical Christian named Seth Woody):

There are of course many other pretenders. But these are some of the most easily-identifiable yet common pitfalls.

[jewish-sideblog]

I don’t know how many times I gotta say it to goyim. Converts are ethnically Jewish. Ethnically refers to cultural groups, which can be influenced by but are not defined by genetics and ancestry. Judaism is an ethnoreligion, meaning our religion and culture are intrinsically linked and often indistinguishable from one another. In order to adopt our faith, you must adopt our culture and community. If you convert to an ethnoreligion, you convert both your ethnicity and your religion.

[heritageposts]

I also love & take much inspiration from Benjamin in times of intense danger & fear but I’m surprised that you do as well since you are so explicit about your disgust for zionism (I don’t think Israel should exist - I don’t think it’s possible for states to exist ethically, basically - but my relationship with Judaism & thus zionism seems a bit different from yours?). how do you manage his fraught relationship with cultural vs. political zionism in his work?

There isn't really much of a 'fraught' relationship to speak of; in short, Benjamin was never a Zionist. He repeatedly criticized Zionism, warning Scholem as early as 1916 that the whole Zionist movement was underpinned by a "racial ideology."

What I guess might lead to some confusion is Benjamin's concept of cultural Zionism, which he used early on to describe his own work. But this self-described 'Zionism' had nothing at all to do with Palestine; the aim was never to free Jewish culture from the European, but to rescue European culture through Jewish spirituality (and Marxism). Establishing a new center for Jewish culture in Palestine - the way Scholem wanted - never interested him, let alone the prospect of colonizing the land.