1.1 A Long History in Short
Jewish Christianity ... dragged out a miserable existence for several hundred years, before it disappeared, probably not earlier then in 635, with the first Arabic invasion. Its „unclear intermediate position” between the law-free gentile Christianity of Pauline observance and the real Judaism hardly allowed another end. The future of the church was with gentile Christianity. (Schmidt 1965: 57. English ed.)
At the latest since then, Jews, who believed in Jesus as their Messiah, had little choice but entirely to renounce their Jewishness and to assimilate into gentile Christianity (Sobel 1974: 132-136, Stern 1988: 7-8, 1991: 243-244). The movement, which once set out around the Jewish carpenter and wandering rabbi from Nazareth (Pritz 1992), had changed into its cultural reversal, a gentile movement, called the „church” (Benhayim 1985: 69). Its often even violent and cruel mission to the Jews, proved a „repeated failure” (Sobel 1974). The undertow of reformation brought new attempts to convert Jews, but changed little, if anything at all ( Neill et al 1975: 250-251, Schmidt 1975: 515, 537). During World War II, meanwhile secularized anti-Judaism reached an unprecedented climax in the Holocaust (Begov 1983).
2When the late Lucie Begov returned from Auschwitz to Vienna, she made it her life-goal to find out how the Holocaust became possible at all. She concluded and conveyed her message:
As long as the common inheritance of the peoples of Christian tradition remains preserved, as long as there are a 'Jewish question' and an anti-Semitism among the peoples, the free, democratic West-Europe, which is at stake here, will not be able to achieve its contribution to the harmonization of humanity, to the realization of a today still utopian, better world (Begov 1983: 307, English ed.).)
One thousand five hundred years of Christian anti-Judaism, pogroms and forced conversions rendered the name and the message of the ancient Jew from Nazareth an abhorrence to the Jewry. „Gentile”, which means unbeliever, and „Christian” became to them synonyms. Only modern times brought something new (Burkhardt, Geldbach and Heimbucher 1978: 281-282).
The formation of the Hebrew Christian movement is one of the most significant attempts to overcome the long-standing refusal of the Jews to willingly convert in large numbers. This development had its roots in the missionary failures of the nineteenth century and emerged as a continuous force during the early 1900s. (Sobel 1974: 175)
Sobel concentrated his study on the development of the movement in the U. S. For 1974 he assumed only two hundred and fifty Hebrew Christians for Israel (Sobel 1974: 50-51). At the end of his study, he concluded
that the movement will not be notably successful, but time alone will tell. It is conceivable (as many Hebrew Christians hope) that a resurgent Hebrew Christianity with more visible and stronger Hebraic roots will grow from the soil of the Jewish state in Israel; such growth will be more realistically indigenous, thus suffering less from the stultifying and enervating ambivalence that marks the phenomenon in the West. It is further conceivable that a more intelligent and farseeing leadership will continue to emerge to give Hebrew Christianity the vision and determination that it sorely lacks, replacing present and past flaccidity with solid muscle fibre. It is possible that the movement will break loose from the straitjacket placed on it by the overwhelming bleakness that makes its people a festival-less and dour community whose satisfactions cannot be communicated. (Sobel 1974: 317-318)
Sobel had little hope for the „Ugly Duckling” Hebrew Christianity. Like a fifth wheel on a car, it is to him „The Thirteenth Tribe” to the twelve tribes of Israel. He regarded only „the soil of the Jewish state” and „a more intelligent and farseeing leadership” possibly able to cause a change. Until today, various Messianic Jewish authors have referred to his writings. At times it seemed as if he rendered them a service, as if his criticism and remarks became a guideline for improvement. Interestingly, Israeli Messianic Jews themselves considered that (Stern 1991a: 89). This could become another interesting study.
Before Sobel, immediately after Israel's modern renaissance, Weiner, a „liberal” rabbi from the US, scanned Israel's Christian and Jewish religious scenery. In his heartwarming „Journal of Religious Encounters in the Holy Land, The Wild Goats of Ein Gedi”, he tells of his sensing a wordless dialogue between a historic faith and a landscape. He traced beginnings of a Judaisation of Christianity. Such a process could, he envisioned even, „also bring back Jews to a point in history when Judaism was not yet separated from Christianity - or concerned about proving how different it was from Christianity” (Weiner 1961: 115-116). Weiner and Sobel seem to share a kind of mysticism regarding the land, „the soil”, the landscape of Israel. Sobel however left no doubt that he did not share Weiner's optimistic view of a return of both bodies, Judaism and Christianity, to a point before their separation, or „the schism” (Miskotte 1966: 171-176).
In 1974, when Sobel published his study, evangelicals considered in Lausanne how to evangelize the world. Then they neglected their Jewish fellow believers' need and right for a Jewish identity. Their issued Lausanne Covenant explicated neither on the particular historical and theological Jewish roots of Christianity nor on the possible role of a contemporary mission to the Jews (J. D. Douglas 1990: 19-24). Historians may once judge if this contributed to it that Hebrew Christianity in the U. S. resolutely asserted a programmatic change in 1975. The „Hebrew Christian Alliance of America”, HCAA, became The „Messianic Jewish Alliance of America”, MJAA (Greene 1998). Israeli Jewish believers in Jesus followed this shift probably only in 1979, and maybe with a modified intent, as the name „Israeli Messianic Jewish (Hebrew Christian) Alliance”, IMJ(HC)A suggests. 3The name could also indicate that the Israeli alliance consciously embraced pluriformity.)
In 1989, at the „International Congress on World Evangelization”, „Lausanne II in Manila”, Messianic Jews had achieved a beginning recognition of their cause in the „Lausanne Movement”. Besides being mentioned in the issued manifesto and resulting documentation, at the congress Messianic Jews had also their seminars on Jewish evangelism (J. D. Douglas 1990: 29, 444-446). Sobel traced the movement's roots and saw „its only logical base in Protestant fundamentalism” (Sobel 1974: 308). While I regarded the Israeli movement evangelical, at least one of its leaders called himself proudly a „fundamentalist”. Today, the Messianic Jewish movement seems to prosper all over, especially in North America. In 1998, Israel's Messianic Jews comprise about five thousand adherents in approximately fifty groups (Nerel 1998). While the movement's size and position still appears marginal to Judaism and Christianity, their leaders are not content with a marginal role in the church and claim centrality (Kjær-Hansen 1996: 13).
Since Weiner and Sobel, Israeli anti-missionary organizations watched the Israeli adherents of the movement (Sobel and Beit-Hallahmi 1991). Still, it appears as if since them nobody gave a social science account on the Israeli branch in English. 4I had nearly finished this essay when I found a recent Dutch study of the movement (Meijer 1997, 1998). While it appears like a social science study, its intent is theological, performed by an agrarian engineer, who associated himself with one particular group. The study measures statements of Messianic Jewish leaders against conservative Dutch Protestant theology. Ordinary members and women get little to no voice. The publication shows many tables and long quotes from interviews, related to and structured after Dutch theological issues. The colored pictures and the text of the later and much smaller publication, intended for wider Dutch public, largely ignore the cultural plurality of the movement. Its pictures represent only one particular side of the movement, which shapes its life after the synagogue, which presents not even the majority part of it. I observed that Christian organizations like to stuff their publications on Israel with pictures of an Orthodox Jewish appearance. Yet at the same time, they may not at all appreciate believers in Jesus actually living the Orthodox Jewish way. Apparently, their publications 'sell' better with an Orthodox Jewish vernier. I will not treat this study here for two reasons. Firstly, because of its narrowing theological national particularity and limitation. Secondly, because it seems to disregard the security of the respondents, which is contradictory to my approach.)
Even an Israeli specialist like Beit-Hallahmi mentions Messianic Jews only sideways (Beit-Hallahmi 1991: 210, 216). What has come of Weiner's „Judaisation” and Sobel's „hope” for Hebrew Christians, now called Messianic Jews, on Israel's „soil”? Is there still „no Hebrew Christian church”, „no specific Hebrew Christian theology”, „no leadership cadre that could build a „bridge” to „normative Judaism” (Sobel 1974: 54)? Are there still no „role model types” to break free from „marginality” (idem)? What has come of the „Ugly Duckling” in Israel since Weiner and Sobel? How does it live and thrive, laugh and cry? What internal aspirations and external forces shape it? How is its relationship to Christianity and Judaism? To attempt to contribute answers on such questions is the purpose of this essay. To give an account of the nature of this attempt, next I will explicate on the theory of research, analysis and synthesis of this study.