so as a modern Orthodox Jew. Truthfully, at this time in my life, it
was more a case of Orthodox Judaism being the Judaism I
preferred not to practice. I was far from God, although I was open
to all sorts of religious and spiritual ideas, all except Christianity!
Because I knew virtually nothing about the tenets of Christian
faith, my major objections to the message of Jesus were not
theological or biblical. They stemmed from the deeply ingrained
cultural and historical memory I referred to earlier. I was raised in
New York City and lived in a very Jewish community. I knew
some Christians at school, mostly ethnic Catholics who didn’t
seem to like Jewish people! At least that was my impression. In fact,
everything I knew about Christianity was negative towards the
Jews. I also believed that those who perpetrated the Holocaust
were Christians and knew that my grandparents had moved to the
United States to get away from the Christians that were
persecuting them in Russia.
So, you might ask, what was it that brought me over the line
to faith in Jesus? How did I reconcile
who I was as a Jew with belief that He
was the Messiah?
Briefly, there were three reasons why
I ultimately became a follower of Jesus.
First of all, I met Gentile Christians
who loved the Jewish people. They
might not have known much about
Judaism, but they showed God’s love to
all. They especially enjoyed meeting
Jewish people, as they were avid Bible
students and understood the importance
of the Jewish people and Israel in the
plan of God.
Also, I began reading the story and
BECAUSE OF
ANTISEMITISM,
JEWISH PEOPLE ARE
OFTEN RESISTANT TO
words of Jesus in the Gospels because of
my encounters with these Gentile
Christians, who eventually helped two
of my best friends come to faith in
Yeshua. In what seemed like a miracle
to me, I found a New Testament in a phone booth in the middle
of a campground in the Redwood Forest…a long story! As I
began reading the New Testament, I immediately felt a deeply
emotional conflict. On one hand, I felt so guilty reading this book
which I thought was the inspiration for millennia of antisemitism.
Yet, on the other hand, I was unmistakably drawn to the
compelling words of Jesus. On top of that, my close reading led
me to the surprising conclusion that the gospels were not
antisemitic as I had thought. In fact, they seemed so Jewish!
THE CHURCH.
However, what really put me over the line was the person of
Jesus Himself. I just fell in love with Him. He was strong, bold,
courageous, truthful, and so deeply spiritual. His words grabbed
hold of my heart in ways that I cannot even explain. It became
obvious to me that He was the Messiah and the fulfillment of all
that my Jewish people hoped for through the centuries. I found
myself asking how Jesus could possibly have inspired hatred of the
Jewish people when He was so clearly Jewish, with a great love
for His people. And I confess, this is a dark mystery I do not fully
understand to this day. As He said at a moment of intense rejection
by the Jewish leaders of His day, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the
prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to
gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her
wings, and you were unwilling” (Matthew 23:37).
And so I was left staring at the chasm between myself as a
Jewish person, feeling the burden of thousands of years of
intransigence towards Jesus, while at the same time wanting to
embrace Jesus as my Messiah. Without, I hope, sounding trite—
for me, the bridge was actually Jesus Himself. He reflected the
depths of spirituality I was longing for, but could not quite find
within the Judaism in which I was raised. I did not want to reject
Judaism or who I was as a Jew, but I desperately wanted to know
SPECIAL EDITION | THE CHOSEN PEOPLE | 3
God intimately and personally. Jesus
became my Messiah, Redeemer, and
my Bridge to my heavenly Father. I
finally understood what He meant
when He said, “I am the way, and the
truth, and the life; no one comes to the
Father but through Me” (John 14:6).
Coming to faith in Jesus as my
Messiah was the most difficult and most
profoundly wonderful decision I ever
made in my life. I now follow Yeshua,
the Jewish Messiah and join arms with
any others who do the same, although
I try to be clear-sighted about the
failings of people and institutions. There
remains much to lament on that score.
I hope that you enjoy the rest of this
newsletter as we look at some difficult
New Testament passages that have been
interpreted in an antisemitic way
throughout the years. We are going to try and help you know to
how to handle these texts and understand them within a firstcentury
Jewish context—which is the key to unlocking their
meaning. I also asked my friend Dennis to share his story, and I
hope you enjoy it. It is my prayer that you will reflect upon what
you read and ask God to show you if Jesus is indeed the Jewish
Messiah for all.
Mitch
1. Direct quote from the following article written by Dr. Mitch Glaser. https://jewsforjesus.org/publications/
havurah/havurah-mm88-02/the-egg-and-miriam-or-a-post-easter-assessment/
38 BCE
Anti-Jewish riots in Alexandria / Jews
confined to one quarter of the city
70 CE
1,000,000+ Jews perish / 97,000 enslaved
following the destruction of the Second Temple
132–135
580,000 Jews are killed/Hadrian orders the expulsion
of Jews from Judea (renamed Syria Palaestina)
63 BCE
12,000 Jews die / many sent into the
diaspora—Pompey’s conquest
/