1.2.1 Research Population and Contextual Interpretation
Already Sobel and Zaretsky acknowledged Hebrew Christianity as „movement” (Sobel 1974, Zaretsky 1974). Since then, its adherents chose „Messianic Jewish” as new name and identity, and have become a worldwide phenomenon. To straighten the language for this paper, and since I concentrate on them, I will call its Israeli adherents from now on simply „the movement”.
Saperstein collected and published „Essential Papers on Messianic Movements and Personalities in Jewish History” (1992). The phenomenon I studied, he mentioned not even once. A group of people, willing to act according to a programme that enables significant change, he regards a „movement”. The broader the population that supports and acts upon such a programme, and the longer the period it defines itself by its loyalty to leaders who embody such a programme, the more justified can it be considered a social movement, according to Saperstein. He regards a movement as „messianic” if it expects and aspires a fundamental change for Jewish society, is motivated and energised by hope for redemption, and, follows a figure of a Messiah (Saperstein 1992: 2-3). Saperstein regards also early Christianity, which was predominantly Jewish, as messianic (Saperstein 1992: 21). I appreciate that he labels very different groups in history as Messianic Jewish. Nevertheless, in this study I will use the term only for contemporary Jews who regard Jesus from Nazareth as Messiah and hold on to some kind of Jewish identity. By Saperstein's criteria the whole of contemporary Israelis, which identify themselves as Messianic Jews, can be regarded a „messianic movement”. In Israel they call themselves „Meshichit Jehudim”, „Messianic Jews” (Benhayim 1996: 53). Some regard the Russian Jew Joseph Rabinowitz as the Herzl of Jewish Christianity. Since 1882 he saw in Jesus the Jews' brother and Messiah. Others trace their origins back to Jesus of Nazareth (Kjær-Hansen 1995: ix, Saperstein 1992: 21). In 1998, leaders of the movement estimated it to comprise three-thousand to five-thousand adherents from all layers of the Israeli society, in fifty to eighty smaller and larger local groups throughout the country.
Messianic Jews can be found in many other countries. Still, focussing on those in Israel appears reasonable, as „Israel is the arena in which Jewish messianism is most forcefully active today” (Saperstein 1992: 23). Initially I asked how the movement in Israel dwelled and internally structured itself. As for „contextual interpretation”, I wanted to understand the movement's internal social structure and its relationship to the Israeli society (Van den Eeden 1994).
Predominant Christian and Jewish Culture of the Messianic Jewish Movement?
How does the movement, which defines itself as Christian and Jewish, relate to the Israeli society? In initial conversations already I sensed a very particular internal structure of the movement that reflected also considerably different relations to different parts of the Israeli society. This internal structure can be depicted as an „emic” typology of the movement, to which I will turn next.