[joshdata]

The unfortunate part is where Christians try to pass themselves off as Jews by adding "Jewish" to the name of their denomination. I wish my great aunts and uncles could have added "Christian" to their denomination to escape being murdered in the Holocaust, that would have been nice.

[noworriesnate]

What denominations do that? I'm familiar with Hebrew Roots, but doesn't seem to be what you're describing.

[markovs_gun]

There are essentially two completely different movements claiming the name of "Messianic Judaism." The first are people who are Jewish- culturally, ethnically, and even religiously, who have converted to Christianity and believe that all other Jews should do the same. There is a small pocket of Messianic Jews of this definition in my hometown, so this is the version I was most familiar with.

It wasn't until later that I learned that there is a second, much more popular movement under the name of Messianic Judaism which are people who are not ethnically or culturally Jewish who have determined that Christianity should return to its Jewish roots. These people have no historical connections to Judaism and usually grew up within a Christian cultural context. There is a lot of overlap with the "Hebrew Roots" movement that you mentioned, and in my opinion there isn't a real distinction between the two.

Myself I feel kind of biased but I view the first kind as more "legitimate" since Judaism, isn't merely a religion, it's a living, breathing culture and it is super weird for someone to just roll up and claim it without having any connection to anyone who was doing it before. It's like if I decided I was going to be Indian and started wearing stereotypical Indian traditional dress and eating only curry because I think that's what Indians eat, without having any actual Indians in my movement.

[joshdata]

I agree that ethnic Jews with Christian religious beliefs is a legitimate concept. But I would rather call them Messianic Jews (or just Christian Jews) rather than adherents of "Messianic Judaism." To say that "Judaism" can include Jesus erases the Jewish religion by leaving it without a name, conveniently benefiting the dominant Christian religion. (And Messianic Jews who are not Jews should be called something else entirely.)

[vitus]

Presumably that's a reference to the GP describing "Messianic Jewish". (or rather, Messianic Judaism)

> It considers itself to be a form of Judaism but is generally considered to be a sect of Christianity,[2][3] including by all major groups within mainstream Judaism, since Jews consider belief in Jesus as the Messiah and divine in the form of God the Son (and the doctrine of the Trinity in general) to be among the most defining distinctions between Judaism and Christianity. It is also generally considered a Christian sect by scholars and other Christian groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messianic_Judaism

[noworriesnate]

So are they claiming that Messianic Jews are not actually Jews? Because they implied that people were falsely taking the title Jew if I understood them correctly. That would be the first time I've ever heard that particular assertion.

[joshdata]

Yes and that was what I was saying (sorry it wasn't clear).

What it means to be a Jew is complicated. Jews form an ethnicity of interconnected people with a range of beliefs and practices (it is, definitionally, not whether one is religiously adherent to Judaism). To me, one could in principle be religiously Christian and also ethnically Jewish (that's an unusual view among Jews), but to do that requires having an actual connection to the Jewish ethnicity (e.g. if one was raised ethnically Jewish and maintains a Jewish identity). My impression is that "Messianic Jews" are religiously and ethnically Christian who are importing Jewish practices into their otherwise non-Jewish identity. If OP's wife was born Jewish or converted prior becoming a "Messianic Jew," I would stand corrected.

If I, a very white person, start singing songs from Back churches, that doesn't make me Black. I wouldn't face the real-world struggles against racism of Black people, for example, and I think that's a useful hint when thinking about who is and isn't a member of a minority group like Jews. Likewise, acting out Jewish practices doesn't necessarily make one a Jew, and as one example it doesn't subject one to the sorts of anti-Semitism faced by Jews. I'm not saying facing anti-Semitism a necessary or sufficient condition for being a Jew, but if not that, then there must be something else that connects one to the Jewish ethnicity --- the interconnected people who believe they are Jews --- other than just by saying so.

[throaway2501]

Israel doesn’t allow Messianic Jews to be citizens for this reason.

[noworriesnate]

So I'm confused--are you saying that Israel thinks Messianic Jews are not Jews because they abandoned their faith or something like that, OR are you saying that Israel doesn't let Messianic Jews to be citizens because sometimes non-Jews convert to become Messianic Jews?

[lazide]

It sounds like a variation of a - not so much that they abandoned their faith, per-se, but that the faith they espouse as being Jewish is not acceptably ‘in the same room’ as other Jewish faith.

It would be somewhat like saying you were a Messianic Christian because you believed that Mohammed was a later prophet. There is a word for that kind of religion, and it isn’t Christianity.

[throaway2501]

Israel basically sees them as evangelizing Christians in disguise. They don’t consider them Jewish because they both proselytize and worship Christ as the Messiah. Both of those things are offensive to the traditional tenets of Judaism.