Millennia ago, before rabbis existed or conversion was invented, thousands who were not born Jewish became part of the Jewish community through a very simple act: They married a Jew.

Sarah was the first, followed in turn by Rebecca, Leah and Rachel. Thousands more followed — both biblical characters and many more whose lives as Jews were never explicitly recorded in the Bible. In effect, our ancestors said to them, “If you marry us, you’re one of us.”

Centuries later, at a time when the number of American Jews marrying non-Jews has reached an all-time high — 80 percent of Reform-raised Jews who married in 2000-2013 married non-Jews — thousands are again choosing to join the Jewish people, but nowhere near as many as we would like.

Unbeknownst to even keen observers of Jewish life, about half of those who identify as Jews but were not born Jewish never underwent formal rabbinic conversion. The 2013 Pew survey of American Jews found 79,000 adult Jewish converts, but another 83,000 who identify as Jews even though they reported no Jewish parents and had not undergone conversion.

Also See: So You Want To Convert To Judaism

How did they become Jewish? Many married Jews. Others have Jewish grandparents or more distant Jewish ancestry and are reclaiming their roots. Some do call themselves fully Jewish, but many say they are “partially Jewish,” a newly burgeoning group first documented in the Jewish Community Study of New York: 2011.

To take a real example: One of us is good friends with a well-known scholar in Jewish life. She (a born-Jew) and her husband, born Protestant, raised their children as Jews. He never converted, but he did learn to read Hebrew, say Kiddush on Friday nights, and fully participate in all the Jewish holiday preparations and ceremonies. According to his wife, if asked if he is Jewish, partially Jewish or non-Jewish, he’d answer, “Jewish!”

This seemingly novel phenomenon of joining the Jewish people without rabbinic formalities should not be surprising. In today’s America, more and more social identities are personally chosen and socially constructed. Religious identities have become among the most fluid, with more intermarriage and more people changing their religious identities than ever before.

Here’s an added appeal to newcomers: Jews have become the most admired religious group in America, a Pew center study reported last year, having risen from the least socially desirable ethnic group in the early 1960s, according to a study at the time. Or as Matthew 20:16 puts it so well, “Those who are last now will be first.”

Even more significant may be those who marry Jews who think of themselves not as Jewish but as “fellow travelers,” like the biblical category of “ger toshav,” or “resident supporter.” Some become part of our community because they sense an opportunity to feel part of something important and meaningful. And they often do this despite the fact that we don’t exactly put out the welcome mat for them.
We know that where both parents identify as Jews, nearly all their children identify as Jews as well. And when only one parent sees himself/herself as Jewish, only a minority of their children grow up as Jews. Aside from raising the inmarriage rate, how can we create more households where both partners see themselves as part of the Jewish people?

One answer is for all of us to change the way we think of, and treat, those who love and marry our children, family members and friends. Basically we should agree and fully internalize the idea: If you marry a Jew, you’re fully part of our community until proven otherwise. The default option is that you’re in. If you don’t want to be seen as part of the community, you need to opt out, or “unsubscribe.” (And if you do, unlike those pesky email lists, we’ll respect your choice.)

In other words, born Jews would undergo a subtle but critical shift in the way they relate to family members and friends not born Jewish. It would mean fully including them in holiday practices, life-cycle ceremonies, and Jewishly centered social action and political activities. It would mean concretizing (if not promoting) the social reality that rabbinic conversion is not the only way to join the Jewish people or function Jewishly in a Jewish family. It would also mean that more intermarried couples would come to see themselves — and be seen by others — as inmarried.

The widespread presumption of Jewish-by-marriage will set many couples on upward Jewish journeys. Most critically, their children will see themselves far more often as Jewish, if for no other reason than both their parents see themselves as members of the Jewish people.

Also See: 10 Questions About Jewish Conversion You Want to Know but are Afraid to Ask

This is going to take some work. We have overdeveloped muscles of defense when it comes to who’s in and who’s out. These muscles have been strengthened by anti-Semitism, to be sure. For much of the 20th century, as the Jewish community in America both acculturated and tried to maintain deep connections to Jewish tradition and culture, there was an ongoing struggle about how and if it was possible to engage fully in American life and still preserve high inmarriage rates.

Jews today are facing an unprecedented opportunity to share our rich tradition with thousands who are searching for meaning and looking to raise healthy and happy children with a deep connection to community.

Certainly, some who marry us will decide to officially “join” the Jewish people through rabbinic conversion. Our arms should be wide open and encouraging to those on this path. Conversion classes and experiences need to be excellent, accessible and, frankly, more affordable in order to attract larger numbers. Our community needs to set this as a priority.

But for those who choose to be part of our community without formal conversion — who come to the Passover seder and drive their children to Hebrew school, who sit shiva with us, or who bring their sons into the community at a brit milah, who shep naches at their daughters’ bat mitzvah and who go to Israel on vacation — we say welcome. It’s a pleasure to know you. Come learn. You’re one of us if you want to be.

Op-Ed by Steven M. Cohen, a research professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive, and Rabbi Joy Levitt is the executive director of the JCC Manhattan.

Según tomado de, http://www.virtualjerusalem.com/news.php?Itemid=16511 el martes, 7 de abril de 2015.

Archaeologist believes he’s found site of Jesus’s trial by Pontius Pilate
Jerusalem Old City dig uncovers 2,700 years of history, with layers from the time of the First Temple through the Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods
BY BEN SALES April 6, 2015, 5:24 pm 12

The entrance to a former Ottoman prison known as the Kishle in Jerusalem’s Old City. (photo credit: JTA/Oded Antman)NEWSROOM

JERUSALEM (JTA) — When Amit Re’em embarked on a 1999 excavation of an abandoned Ottoman prison in the Old City of Jerusalem, he didn’t expect anything revolutionary.

The dig was primarily aimed at inspecting the site before it was transformed into an event space for the nearby Tower of David Museum, and Re’em, then just 28, hoped at most to uncover some remains of a Herodian palace, or maybe part of a wall from the second century.
He did find those things — along with much more.

In one 49 meters by 9 meters (160 feet by 30 feet) space, Re’em unearthed an archaeological timeline of Jerusalem dating back 2,700 years. Layers from nearly every era of the city’s history lay on top of each other, from the time of the First Temple through the Roman, Crusader and Ottoman periods, and up to Israel’s independence in 1948.

Remains from those eras are strewn throughout the Old City, but rarely are they found so close together or so well preserved.

Amit Re’em (photo credit: Courtesy)
“The strength of the remains and the layering of them one on top of each other is like an open book, the whole historical and archaeological sequence of Jerusalem laid out in front of our eyes,” Re’em told JTA. “We expected to find things, but the strength that we saw them in was beyond our expectations.”

Called the Kishle — Turkish for prison — the site was built as a jail by the Ottoman Turks in the 1800s and used by the British in the 1940s to hold captured Jewish militia members. A map of Greater Israel etched by an imprisoned member of the pre-state Irgun militia is still visible on the wall.

Below the prison lay the foundations of a fortification wall built in the eighth century BCE by the ancient Jewish King Hezekiah, who like later rulers took advantage of the site’s strategic high ground. Across the room are remains of another defensive wall built 600 years later by the Hasmoneans, who ruled Jerusalem after the Maccabees revolt.

The room also houses remains of the wall of a massive Herodian palace built near the beginning of the Common Era, as well as basins from the Crusader period that were likely used to dye clothes and tan leather. The current walls of the Old City, built by the Ottomans in the 16th century, sit atop the Herodian wall and later served as the outer wall of the prison.

Re’em also believes the room may have been the site of Jesus’ trial by Pontius Pilate. Pilate would have tried Jesus in a prominent location like Herod’s palace, Re’em said, noting that the original route of the Via Dolorosa that Jesus followed to his crucifixion passed the spot where the Kishle now stands.

Pilate presents Jesus, as depicted in Ecce Home (Behold the man) by Antonio Ciseri, 1871

“A lot of times you expect something and don’t find it because you didn’t get down to the lower layers because of logistics, budget, you name it,” Re’em said. “On the other hand, archaeological layers and remains are [sometimes] destroyed. Here we were lucky the remains weren’t damaged or destroyed. We could dig for two years from the top down to the bottom.”

Re’em’s findings convinced the Tower of David Museum not to build on the site. But since the dig ended in 2001, the room remained closed due to budget constraints until the museum’s new director, Eilat Lieber, opened it to the public last year.

A room beneath a former Ottoman prison, known as the Kishle, in Jerusalem’s Old City, where layers of ancient history were uncovered. (photo credit: JTA/Hamutal Wachtel)

The room has not been changed since 2001 and looks like an active archaeological dig. Lieber hopes to place a glass floor above the remains and to augment them with 3-D imaging that will show what the space looked like in different periods.

“It’s like a hello from different historical eras that connect us to this place and allow us to understand what was here,” Lieber told JTA. “What remains are stones, but behind the stones are what was here, who the characters were.”

Many of Re’em’s conclusions about the room are based on dating techniques and inferences from historic sources. The claim that the walls belonged to Herod’s palace come in part from the writings of the historian Josephus Flavius. Re’em’s belief that the basins were used for cloth dying is derived from an account by Benjamin of Tudela, a medieval Jewish traveler, plus remnants of red dye on the basin walls.

But Re’em added that at a certain point, dating and accuracy become less important than what the site means to visitors looking for a spiritual experience.

“As an archaeologist who works in Jerusalem, it doesn’t matter where the real location of Jesus’s trial was,” he said. “What matters is what people believe.

“At the Kishle site, people can touch the stones of the Herodian palace. Whoever wants can see this place as the location of the trial of Jesus.”

Segun tomado de, http://www.timesofisrael.com/archaeologist-believes-hes-found-site-of-jesuss-trial-by-pontius-pilate/ el lunes, 6 de abril de 2015.

When did Christian art begin singling out Jews?
In ‘Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography,’ Sara Lipton analyzes of a rich trove Christian art and raises serious questions about widely accepted views on Europe and its Jews.
By Robert Chazan | Apr. 5, 2015 | 3:49 PM | 4

Derick Baegert, ‘Crucifixion,’ Dortmund, ca. 1475. Propsteikirche, Dortmund.

“Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography,” by Sara Lipton, Metropolitan Books, 416 pages, $37

Those wishing to gain insight into the maturation of Jewish studies over the past few decades would be well served to immerse themselves in Sara Lipton’s recent book, “Dark Mirror: The Medieval Origins of Anti-Jewish Iconography.”

Lipton has amassed a rich trove of Christian art as data for her study, and has brought to bear on these materials the eye and mind of a well-trained and sophisticated art historian. She has analyzed Christian art and iconography from multiple and original perspectives, and used them to buttress some recent and important themes in the history of Europe and its Jews. At the same time, Lipton has raised serious questions with respect to well-worn and widely accepted perspectives on the history of Europe and its Jews.

Lipton’s early observations about the book’s title serve as a fitting introduction to the complex thinking that readers will encounter in its pages: “It is perhaps more than a little ironic that a book that often seeks to modulate the too-blackened canvas of medieval Jewish history with shades of gray should be entitled ‘Dark Mirror.’ I have chosen this title, overworked metaphor and all, in part because it acknowledges that Christian images of Jews were indeed often dark and hostile.

But it is also intended as a warning that these images provide only a distorted view of the period: that Christian art must not be seen as transparently ‘mirroring’ either prevailing Christian attitudes or actual Jewish status. Indeed, I argue throughout this book that anti-Jewish imagery was a significant factor in the creation of the attitudes and conditions it is often held to reflect.”

These ruminations serve as a warning to readers that they are about to be exposed to complicated and astute observations on the relationship of art to life, to the reinforcement of many prevailing modern stereotypes of anti-Jewish attitudes in medieval Christian Europe, and to the undermining of some of these stereotypes of ubiquitous and implacable Christian hatred of Jews.

‘The Ritual Murder of Simon of Trent.’ Hartmann Schedel, Liber Chronicarum, fol. 254v, Nuremberg, 1493.

The most important data utilized by Lipton are presented in the 112 illustrations that usefully accompany the text. Lipton organizes her materials into six chronologically arranged chapters, which enables her to highlight major changes that took place in medieval European society and in its artistic depictions of Jews – from traditional imagery of Jewish denial of Christ and responsibility for his crucifixion, to medieval imagery of Jews as usurers and murderers of Christian contemporaries. (Chapter Six – “Where are the Jewish Women?” – stands outside the basic chronological organization but nonetheless presents fascinating issues.)

Perhaps the most important perspective brought to bear by Lipton reminds her readers that Christian art was addressed to Christians, meaning that efforts to understand the portrayal of Jews must begin with understanding the Christian purposes of these depictions. In order to grasp these purposes, she begins quite properly with traditional Christian thinking, focused at the outset on Paul and Augustine.

It is the Pauline and Augustinian legacy (indeed Augustine saw himself as simply an explicator of his teacher Paul) that Lipton emphasizes in the first appearances of Jews in medieval Christian art, in the early 11th century, as deniers of Christ. She convincingly refutes the occasionally expressed view that Jews were introduced into Christian art as a result of heightened anti-Jewish animosity unleashed by the First Crusade.

In rebutting this view, Lipton reinforces the growing sense that the violence associated with the First Crusade must not be exaggerated. This anti-Jewish violence played no role in the papal call to the crusade, or within the Christian armies that successfully conquered Jerusalem in 1099; it was vigorously repudiated by the key spiritual figure that dominated the Second Crusade.

A sequence of horrors

In a more general way, and as she promises in her explication of the title of the book, Lipton — like others writing of late on medieval European Jewry — dismisses the portrayal of medieval European Jewish history as a sequence of unremitting horrors. This view, formulated as part of the pre-modern sense of tragic post-70 C.E. Jewish history, was espoused by many in the earliest wave of modern Jewish history writers, most notably and most influentially by Heinrich Graetz. Recently, a number of historians of medieval European Jewry have distanced themselves from this simplistic paradigm.

There were certainly well-documented negative developments over the medieval centuries: accelerating limitations on Jewish life demanded by the leadership of the Church; the spate of expulsions from major European states beginning at the end of the 13th century; the outbreak of periodic anti-Jewish violence; the reflections of intensifying animosity in Christian literary sources; and the evidence provided by Lipton of similar intensification of animosity in the realm of Christian art.

Nonetheless, Lipton — like others — warns against facile exaggeration of this negativity. During the late-medieval centuries and despite the difficulties endured, European Jewry continued to grow and to constitute an ever-increasing segment of world Jewry, eventually coming to dominate the world Jewish scene.

‘Christ Among the Doctors’ by Albrecht Durer, 1506.

At the same time, Lipton reinforces the sense projected by a number of recent students of medieval Jewish history that anti-Jewish animus did in fact intensify over the course of the late medieval centuries. Post-Holocaust ruminations on the factors that paved the way to genocide focused heavily on the legacy of traditional Christian thinking. This initially led to the clarification of negativity toward Judaism and Jews in classical Christian theology.

With the passage of time, the perception emerged that Christian views of Judaism and Jews were hardly static, that there was noticeable change from antiquity through the Middle Ages, and that new and major anti-Jewish themes emerged over the course of the medieval centuries.

Lipton’s six chronological chapters trace the deterioration of Christian imagery of Jews during these medieval centuries – which, again, she insists must be seen against the backdrop of evolving Christian sensibilities, sensitivities and needs.

While each of these chapters addresses an identifiable stage in the process of deterioration of the imagery of Jews, to this reader the transition with the most impact appears in the chapter covering the years 1220 to 1300. During this period, the formats in which imagery of the Jews appears proliferated markedly.

Equally if not more important was the change in focus: “In moralizing imagery in various types of artwork, coins and coin-filled bags signified moneylending or avarice; cats, which were associated with hunting and nighttime and symbolized heresy, were shown with Jews; and crows, which collected shiny objects, and toads, which swelled themselves up, signaled greed and usury, the illicit amassing of wealth. Through these and other images, Jews, traditionally used to signify the outdated past, came to be identified with the most ‘modern’ of activities and tendencies — moneylending, philosophy, heresy, curiosity.”

The transformation of European Jews from a relic of the outdated past to a source of present-day danger was a giant step in the deterioration of the imagery of medieval European Jewry.

A miniature from Grandes Chroniques de France depicting the expulsion of the Jews. Image from Wikimedia Commons.

Lipton’s insistence on the complexity of the issues with which she deals and on the importance of maintaining balance and perspective — Jewish circumstances were hardly uniformly dolorous, but deteriorating imagery of Jews can be discerned and traced — is ultimately grounded in the fundamental ambivalence with which Christians (and perhaps especially medieval Christians) viewed the Jews of antiquity and their Jewish contemporaries.

On the one hand, Jews had paved the way for Jesus, who fulfilled the divinely revealed prophecies that foretold his advent and activities; on the other hand, Jews had themselves failed to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ life and activities; the supposed divine punishment visited upon post-70 Jews served as a convincing sign of the reality of divine reward and punishment in the cosmos in general, and of the truth of Christianity more specifically.

Full awareness of this combination of positives and negatives is evident throughout Lipton’s excellent study, and underlies the complexity and sophistication with which she treats her important subject.

Robert Chazan is Scheuer Professor of Jewish History at New York University.

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/life/books/.premium-1.650547 el lunes, 6 de abril de 2015.

The pagan goddess behind the holiday of ‘Easter’

Most languages use Aramaic to describe Jesus’s resurrection. Why is English different? Meet the ‘woman’ to blame

BY AMANDA BORSCHEL-DAN April 5, 2015, 3:54 pm 101

The goddess Ostara, or Ēostre, 1884, by Johannes Gehrts. (photo credit: Wikipedia)

Why do only English speakers celebrate “Easter”? Most other peoples of the world call the holiday observed by Christians this Sunday by some variant of the word “Pascha.” (Eastern Orthodox churches will observe the holiday on April 12.)

Blame it on a woman — and no ordinary woman at that — a goddess.
As recounted by the English monk Bede, the 7th-8th century “father of English history,” the former pagans in England called April, or the month marking Jesus’s resurrection, “Ēosturmōnaþ” — Old English for the “Month of Ēostre.”

According to Bede in his “De temporum ratione” (“The Reckoning of Time”), the Christian holiday “was called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honor feasts were celebrated in that month.”

Ēostre is variously depicted by scholars as a fertility goddess and a goddess of dawn and light. The dawn connection could explain a linguistic link between Ēostre and the word “east.”

An academic and a Christian missionary, Bede’s reference to Ēostre (or Ostara) is textually unique, to the extent that many throughout the centuries have asserted it was fabricated. It was only in the 1950s that archeological evidence was found supporting his claim of such a goddess in England. But recently, work was done at the University of Leicester on place names and their connections to Ēostre, which, arguably, buttress Bede’s version.

In almost every other international language, the holiday is called by some permutation of “Pesach,” the Hebrew word for the Passover holiday/sacrifice.

According to an essay by Hebrew University Prof. Steven Fassberg, during the period of history marking the birth of the Christian church, both Hebrew and Aramaic were used in the Galilee, where Jesus’s ministry was based. In Aramaic, the holiday is called “Pascha.”

The Hebrew word “pesach” is a noun, but it can also be inflected as a verb to mean, depending on the biblical context, “skip over” in a physical sense (according to rabbinical scholar Rashi), or more spiritually as “spare” (as used in the Aramaic translation by Roman convert to Judaism Onkelos in the first century CE).

The authors of the Septuagint, the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek completed in 132 BCE, also used the more spiritual connotations of the word, as in to save or to hide. This Greek version of the Old Testament was eventually used by most early Christians in the Roman Empire.

The Gospel of John, written in Greek around the first-second century CE, goes further and uses the Passover motif in calling Jesus the “lamb of God” — an allusion to the priestly Passover sacrifice on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.

Garbed in white and sounding silver trumpets, priests-in-training prepare for a practice Passover sacrifice. (Courtesy of The Temple Institute)

Interestingly, only the Hebrew noun “Pesach” is transmitted to Aramaic, not the verb forms, where it begins to take on a further meaning — the Christian observance of Jesus’s resurrection.

Today, Modern Hebrew has readopted the Aramaic word “Pascha” to mean the Christian celebration of Jesus’s resurrection, not the Jewish Passover.

So how is it that one of the two major Christian holidays was named by Anglo Saxons after a pagan deity? And how is it that this name was not only tolerated, but eventually became its normative moniker throughout the English-speaking world?

According to the 1835 “Deutsche Mythologie” by Jacob Grimm, “This Ostarâ, like the [Anglo-Saxon] Eástre, must in heathen religion have denoted a higher being, whose worship was so firmly rooted, that the Christian teachers tolerated the name, and applied it to one of their own grandest anniversaries.”

In other words, early Church fathers seemed to take the tack that if you can’t beat them, join them — and “usurp” an existing holiday for Christian purposes.

Historically Easter is not the first instance of a pagan ritual described by Bede that is now imbued with Christian meaning. Also in “The Reckoning of Time,” Bede describes the Anglo-Saxon Pagans’ “Mōdraniht,” (Old English for “Night of the Mothers”) that was held on December 24, or Christmas Eve.

Many Christians are uncomfortable in acknowledging the Easter holiday’s pagan name. Others are taking a more philosophical approach and making a valiant effort to rebrand it. “In an attempt to honor God, many have desired to move away from the term Easter, using Resurrection Day in its place,” writes one website.

But for today, Christians around the world observe Easter with prayer and feasting on a traditional meal, which at many tables includes grandmother’s famous recipe for “paschal” lamb.

Segun tomado de, http://www.timesofisrael.com/the-pagan-goddess-behind-the-holiday-of-easter/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=7817648b6c-2015_04_05&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-7817648b6c-54798245 el domingo, 5 de abril de 2015.

¿Quiénes son los judíos mesiánicos hispanos?

Escrito por Brenda M. Teixeira

Conozcamos más a fondo al pueblo que Dios eligió; su cultura y amor por Yeshúa.
El judío mesiánico es toda persona de ascendencia judía que cree que Yeshúa (Jesús) es el Mesías. Lo que no implica que abandona sus raíces hebreas, sino que mantiene su identidad cultural y espiritual, pero Yeshúa es el centro de su judaísmo. Es decir celebran todas las fiestas judías, leen la Torá, se congregan los shabats (sábados) en sinagogas, el líder espiritual es un rabino, celebran Bar Mitzvahs (ceremonia que da testimonio público del judaísmo del chico de 13 años, 12 en las niñas) y así por el estilo conservan todas sus tradiciones. Una de sus posturas es que Yeshúa era judío, al igual que los apóstoles, por tanto hoy día ellos también pueden ser discípulos sin perder su identidad.

Lo cierto es que la raíz del cristianismo es el judaísmo. Los primeros cristianos o creyentes fueron miles de judíos que hace más de 2,000 años depositaron su confianza en el Mesías–Jesús. A sus congregaciones se fueron incorporando gentiles (no judíos) que iban aceptando al Maestro como su Señor y Salvador, con el tiempo estos superaron la cantidad de creyentes judíos.

La división entre gentiles y judíos fue surgiendo a raíz de acontecimientos como el Concilio de Nicea promulgado por la Iglesia Católica en el 325 d.C., donde se desligó a la Iglesia de todo contenido judío. Es decir todo hebreo que escogía seguir a Jesús debía asimilar el cristianismo establecido por los gentiles y abandonar su estilo de vida judío. Este sentimiento antisemita fue floreciendo entre los gentiles. Así por siglos a través de la historia el pueblo judío en general fue sufriendo de grandes persecuciones como lo fueron la Inquisición española, las masacres de judíos en Europa y Rusia, Las Cruzadas y el Holocausto en la Segunda Guerra Mundial. Sólo en este último hecho histórico alrededor de seis millones de judíos fueron asesinados por los nazis.

Al abogado ruso Joseph Rabinowitz (1837-1899) se le conoce como el padre del judaísmo mesiánico moderno. Este una vez expresó: “Hay dos asuntos que me consumen; uno es el Mesías Yeshúa; el otro es Israel”. El también fundador de la Congregación Los Israelitas del Nuevo Pacto abogó porque la prioridad fuera una relación íntima con Yeshúa, sin abandonar la identidad hebrea.

El rabino mesiánico David Levine escribió en su libro In That Day (En ese día): “Pienso que es posible tener ambos, un fuerte énfasis en Yeshúa, poniéndolo en el centro, y un fuerte énfasis en la naturaleza judía. Este es el caso del judaísmo mesiánico”. Otro creyente judío lo expuso de esta manera: “He vivido toda mi vida como judío. Cuando acepté al Mesías la única cosa que me pidió que le entregara fue mi pecado, no mi identidad judía”, manifestó Jeffrey Levinson, 47 años.

Semántica mesiánica

La pregunta que muchos se hacen es por qué prefieren llamarse judíos mesiánicos y no cristianos. Según nos explicó el rabino mexicano Mijael Ávila, el término cristiano procede del griego y ellos prefieren utilizar el término hebreo mesiánico que es simplemente una manera diferente de llamarse, no mejor. A esta misma pregunta la Directora de la Alianza de Judíos Mesiánicos de México, Myriam G. Levy, 30 años, contestó: “Porque somos judíos, no cambiamos de religión al entregar nuestra vida al Mesías, simplemente nuestra fe cobra plenitud en el Señor”. Por otro lado, optan por no llamarse cristianos porque para muchos judíos esa palabra significa “no judío” y “perseguidor” de judíos.

La terminología en el judaísmo mesiánico es diferente a la que solemos escuchar en el cristianismo. Por ejemplo prefieren llamar a Jesús por su nombre hebreoYeshúa (significa “salvación”), además por siglos sufrieron persecución “en el nombre de Jesús”; un pastor es para ellos un rabino; se congregan en una sinagoga no en una iglesia; en vez del Cuerpo de Cristo lo llaman el Cuerpo del Mesías; cuando no se trata de un texto bíblico para no usar el nombre de Dios en vano y en señal de respeto, escriben ya sea D-os, Di-s o D-s; utilizan el nombre hebreo del Espíritu Santo que es Ruach HaKodesh; leen la Torá–estos son los cinco libros de Moisés (Génesis, Éxodo, Levítico, Números y Deuteronomio); el Tanaj es el Viejo Testamento que en realidad prefieren llamarlo el Antiguo Pacto; Brit Chadasha es el nombre hebreo para el Nuevo Testamento (Nuevo Pacto); no se llaman convertidos sino creyentes, gentil en hebreo es goyim. Entre sus costumbres está no usar cruces en sus sinagogas ya que representan muerte y acoso, la estrella de David es el símbolo que prevalece en sus santuarios. Joel Chernoff, hijo de Martin Chernoff –rabino que en 1970 fundó Beth Messiah, la primera congregación mesiánica en EE.UU.–aclaró: “Los judíos mesiánicos no hacen de los símbolos algo sagrado, simplemente de la verdad detrás de ellos”. Joel Chernoff es el actual presidente de la Alianza Internacional de Judíos Mesiánicos (IMJA, por sus siglas en inglés).

Una de las razones principales por la cual escogen estos nombres diferentes es para distanciarse de una historia de persecución, dado que muchas de estas palabras acarrean connotaciones negativas que significaron años de sufrimientos, aparte que son muy cuidadosos de conservar sus raíces hebreas en todo lo posible.

Los judíos mesiánicos consideran que cuando un judío cree en Yeshúa, no se está convirtiendo a otra religión. Está regresando al Dios de Israel y al Mesías prometido del pueblo judío. “Un judío mesiánico es una persona de ascendencia hebrea y que profesa creer en Yeshúa como su Mesías e hijo de D-os, por lo cual no deja de ser judío, más bien viene a ser un judío completo”, señaló el salmista venezolano mesiánico Adam ben Joshua Hernández, éste ha grabado varios discos compactos siendo el más reciente Berajot (Bendiciones) por Vida Music.

En Latinoamérica existe una fuerte herencia judía que proviene de los sefarditas (de la palabra hebrea Sefarad que significa “muy lejos”). Estos son los alrededor de 750,000 judíos de España que fueron expulsados por los reyes católicos Fernando e Isabel en 1492. Unos se quedaron y optaron por convertirse al catolicismo y cambiaron sus nombres por temor a ser castigados en la Inquisición. Muchos inmigraron a tierras lejanas, aunque también por miedo a la opresión cambiaron sus nombres y se convirtieron al catolicismo. Otros huyeron, pero practicaban en secreto su religión. De hecho, hoy día existen organizaciones como la Asociación de Fieles Católicos de Tradición Hebrea y la Confederación de Judíos Mesiánicos Católicos.

Hay más de 400 congregaciones mesiánicas mundialmente, en lugares como: América del Sur, Canadá, Centroamérica, EE.UU., Europa, Israel, México, Rusia y Sur África, lo que hace poco más de treinta años no existía. Se estima que en EE.UU. hay alrededor de 200,000 hebreos-cristianos. Según la IMJA en Argentina ha existido por más de 70 años una comunidad mesiánica. En 1936 se estableció la primera congregación mesiánica en Buenos Aires. Según el almanaque Time publicado en el 2000, siete millones de judíos viven en ese país. La revista Religion Today informó que hay más de 13 ministerios mesiánicos en la capital argentina que alcanzan a la comunidad hebrea. De igual forma este tipo de ministerios y congregaciones se han esparcido por Paraguay, México, Colombia, Venezuela y muchos otros países en Hispanoamérica.

A las congregaciones mesiánicas alrededor del mundo generalmente también asisten gentiles, es decir que no se circunscriben únicamente a su comunidad hebrea. Aunque su enfoque como dice la Palabra es primero compartirle el Evangelio a los judíos. Así lo manifestó el apóstol Pablo: “Porque no me avergüenzo del evangelio, porque es poder de Dios para salvación a todo aquel que cree; al judío primeramente, y también al griego (gentil)” (Romanos 1:16).

Este cambio espiritual judío mesiánico se hizo notable a finales de los años sesenta, especialmente luego que el pueblo judío ganó el control de Jerusalén en la Guerra de los Seis Días en 1967. Hoy día están bien organizados local e internacionalmente, algunas de las alianzas que existen son: Alianza Internacional de Judíos Mesiánicos, Federación Internacional de Judíos Mesiánicos y Jews for Jesus (Judíos para Jesús), entre otras.

Retos que enfrentan

En 1989 la Corte Suprema de Israel le negó a Gary y Shirley Beresford la ciudadanía israelí bajo el argumento de que al estos creer que Yeshúa es el Mesías “habían abandonado la religión judía”. Los judíos ortodoxos especialmente no los reconocen como judíos, aunque se haya dicho que una vez la persona tenga herencia judía se considera judía aunque no practique la religión, incluso aunque sea ateo, pero aún así ellos no los aceptan. Algunos llegan a ser hasta desheredados por sus familiares.

También han experimentado el rechazo y la falta de entendimiento de la comunidad cristiana. “Un aspecto que nos afecta es que algunas iglesias al no entender a fondo el viejo problema del ‘judaizamiento’ cuando un judío acepta al Mesías pronto le quieren quitar sus raíces y cultura, privando a nuestro movimiento de un testigo a nuestro pueblo. ¿Acaso cuando un mexicano, argentino o peruano acepta a Jesús renuncia a su pueblo y cultura?”, manifestó Levy.

La Iglesia cristiana muchas veces no ha sabido comprender las diferencias culturales y en ocasiones los han tildado de legalistas por su apego a las tradiciones hebreas. Algo que los mismos mesiánicos aceptan que puede suceder como en cualquier otra denominación cristiana. Esta experiencia la tuvo la Sra. Chavale Felsher quien en 1999 alega que “regresó a Yeshúa”. Luego de vivir años de no practicar nada, pasó a una “adoración al judaísmo en vez de a Dios”, como lo describió. La tradición se interpuso en sus creencias en Yeshúa y se ofuscó en la misma olvidándose de la esencia verdadera, pero se arrepintió y regresó a su primer amor; Yeshúa.

Las metas de la gran mayoría de las congregaciones judío mesiánicas alrededor de las naciones son establecer alianzas con otras comunidades mesiánicas mundiales, continuar esparciendo las buenas noticias (Evangelio) sin perder su perspectiva judía, ayudarse mutuamente en caso de persecución, apoyarse unos a otros para continuar creciendo en su fe en Yeshúa y lograr cada día relaciones más estrechas y amistosas con las iglesias y el pueblo de Israel.

¿Cómo aceptó a Yeshúa?

Quizás algunos se pregunten cómo es posible que un judío acepte que Jesús es el Mesías. Como bien indica la Palabra: “Porque nada hay imposible para Dios” (Lucas 1:37) y “Dios no hace acepción de personas” (Hechos 10:34).

Este es el breve testimonio de Hernández: “Yo acepté a Yeshúa como mi salvador en la escuela dominical a los 7 años. ¿Cómo es esto siendo judío? Es que yo aún siendo de ascendencia judía me crié en un hogar cristiano y fui expuesto a la fe desde pequeño. Luego al llegar a la adultez retomé mis raíces y eso me ha ayudado para poder compartir de esa riqueza hebrea con todos mis hermanos latinoamericanos”. Por su parte Levinson compartió: “Mi hermano gemelo estaba muriendo de cáncer y yo estaba desesperado por el dolor. Agarré las Sagradas Escrituras y al leer Juan 14:6, ‘Yo soy el camino la verdad y la vida; nadie viene al Padre, sino por mí’, sin poner un pie en una iglesia encontré al Mesías. Mi hermano murió y Yeshúa llenó el vacío en mi corazón”.

Le preguntamos al rabino Ávila: “¿Cuál es el lugar de los judíos mesiánicos hispanos dentro del plan de Dios?” Quien respondió: “Los judíos mesiánicos conforman el llamado Cuerpo del Mesías junto a diversas denominaciones cristianas existentes, y como tal están suscritos a los planes proféticos que el Eterno tiene para Su pueblo”.

“Porque no hay diferencia entre judío y griego, pues el mismo que es Señor de todos, es rico para con todos los que le invocan; porque todo aquel que invocare el nombre del Señor, será salvo” (Romanos 10:12-13). Las tradiciones no son las mismas, pero un mismo amor nos une; que prevalezca el respeto y el entendimiento entre Su pueblo, continuemos aceptándonos como hermanos que somos. Shalom (paz).

Segun tomado de, http://vidacristiana.com/articulos-de-revista/articulos/7703-quines-son-los-judos-mesinicos-hispanos

NOTA: El CEJSPR no está afiliado a ningún grupo judío mesiánico. Esta información se ha depositado tan solo como lo que es, información para beneficio de quienes deseen conocerla.

The tomb of Hulda the Prophetess: Who’s really in that coffin?

To Jews it’s Hulda, adviser to King Josiah 2700 years ago. Christians and Muslims believe very different women are lying in that ancient Jerusalemite sepulchre. By Miriam Feinberg Vamosh | Mar. 25, 2015 | 2:48 AM

The first floor of Hulda’s Tomb. To the right of the prayer rugs, ancient steps lead down to the tomb. Photo by Ana Maria Vargas

Visiting the tombs of the dearly departed in the hope of gaining celestial favor is a practice that goes back into prehistory. But whose support exactly are we getting? In the case of the purported “Tomb of Hulda the Prophetess” on the Mount of Olives in Israel, that question really is begged.

“Don’t worry,” the service person who gave me my new cellphone told me. “All your numbers are in there.” A prophetess, she wasn’t: Virtually all were gone. Among the few that remained was the number for “Hulda’s tomb caretaker.” Whew! That meant I could still call Hulda’s tomb, and Hulda’s tomb could call me back to confirm. Well, not in the creepy sense, like poor Elva Keen getting a call from the grave in Twilight Zone’s 1964 segment, “Night Call.”

The phone number belonged to the guard with the key to Hulda’s Tomb, who is usually to be found at the Dome of the Ascension next door. Indeed, a lot of sites in the Holy Land are venerated by the believers of one religion and zealously guarded by another. But back to Hulda.

Who was Hulda?

Around 2,700 years ago, in the latest round of upheavals, King Josiah, the Israelite leader from 641 to 609 BCE, aspired to purge the land of idol worship, after his own grandfather King Manasseh permitted idolatrous worship in the Temple. Josiah ordered the Temple renovated for proper worship of the one god, during which a scroll – ancient even then – with Deuteronomic texts was found.

The star prophet of the time, Jeremiah, was apparently out of town. But Hulda, wife of Shallum son of Hope, one of the king’s courtiers (and, the sages suggest, Jeremiah’s cousin), was available for interpretation. She warned Josiah that indeed, the punishments listed by the book for idol worship would apply, though only after Josiah’s time, because he was righteous (2 Kings 22:14–20; 2 Chron. 34: 22–28). Her warning led the Jews to renew their covenant with Yahweh.

Hulda’s tomb may have been located within Jerusalem at one point and later removed, for biblical reasons. In any case, by the Middle Ages, Jewish pilgrims write that they had visited Hulda’s tomb at the top of the Mount of Olives – apparently the same place you’ll find it if you call the caretaker for an appointment.

Rabbi Moshe Basulo, who visited Jerusalem in 1522, writes that the tomb was guarded by a Muslim, whom one would pay for oil to light a memorial lamp.

Not everyone was convinced the site was Hulda’s tomb. In the early nineteenth century, Rabbi Yehosaf Schartz wrote: “And now the hearer will hear and the viewer will see a wondrous thing: How a big mistake, a lie and a deceit and everything is in the hands of the masses of our people to say and believe that there is the grave of Hulda the Prophetess…and now, dear reader. Does the knowledgeable and understanding heart not pain over this thing that Israel goes to worship at a foreign tomb, saying that it is the tomb of the righteous woman Hulda the Prophetess, may we be protected through her.”

Hulda who?

When visiting the tomb, you descend a steep flight of stone stairs to the cenotaph (the tomb marker), which lies within a niche.

An ancient tradition says that if you walk all the way around the tomb, you earn a special blessing. Obviously the larger you are, the harder this is. Zev Vilnay writes that the guard at the tomb in his day told him: how “he once saw with his own eyes how an overweight woman tried to go around the tomb and reached a point where she could go neither backward or forward. She cried out ‘Mother Hulda, save me.’ Immediately she was relieved and went around the tomb with no difficulty. That is a sign that the great righteous woman was in her place in Paradise and Allah knows the truth.”

Hulda’s Tomb marker (note the narrow space in back). Photo: Ana Vargas
But to Christians, this very same tomb is occupied by St. Pelagia, a 5th-century actress and singer from Antioch known for her beauty who, at the behest of her bishop, St. Nonnus, left her old life behind, disguised herself as a man and came to Jerusalem, where she lived alone in a monastic cell and died in 457 CE.

St. Pelagia among the courtesans, with St. Nonnus praying for her, 14th-century manuscript. Photo: Wikimedia commons.

The squeezing tradition made it across the religious divide: Christian visitors paying their respects to St. Pelagia wrote that managing to circumnavigate even the narrow back of the tomb would get you a ticket to Paradise.

Or somebody completely different

Moving onto Muslim tradition, this is the tomb of Sit’ Raba’a al-Aduwiyyeh. She was born a slave in Basra, Iraq, in the year 714. According to the story, when her master saw a golden halo surrounding her as she prayed, he decided to free her.

She rose to fame as a sufi, a mystic in the Islamic tradition, and is said to have written love poetry to God, whom she called “my hope, my tranquility, my joy.” She died in 815 CE.

So, who is buried there, if anybody? We don’t know. But note that the Bible says no one knows Moses’ burial site (Deut. 34:6–7): “And he buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day”, ostensibly so the site would not become a focus of idolatrous worship.

There are ardent seekers of righteousness and justice among all humanity. We split, splice, slice and dice ourselves into our own tiny human slots (or allow it to be done to us). The story of Hulda’s tomb might indicate we have more in common than we sometimes realize.

Segun tomado de, http://www.haaretz.com/life/archaeology/.premium-1.648502  el miercoles, 25 de marzo de 2015.