Referenced Messianic Jewish Review Blog

The official blog of the Referenced Messianic Jewish Review. The Referenced Messianic Jewish Review studies the history, composition and theology of the Messianic Jewish movement.

Monday, May 25, 2009

Aliyah

One issue that has been in the Jewish news lately is Messianic "Jews" lying about their identities to make aliyah. Aliyah is the process to become a citizen of Israel. As a quick review, Israel offers all Jews the "Law of Return." The Law of Return is essentially a fast-track to citizenship. Non-Jews have a longer period of time to wait to become citizens. There have been numerous verified cases of Messianic claiming to be Jewish, deliberately leaving out that they are Messianics because they know that they do not have the right of return under Israeli law. In fact, this issue has been ruled on repeatedly by the Israeli court system. Specifically, if you convert away from Judaism including becoming a Messianic, you are not covered by the Law of Return. Messianics have lost this battle multiple times so they have now fallen back on an old Messianic technique; namely, to be dishonest about who they are.

This is analogous to what the Messianic movement has done to convert Jews. The entire nature of the movement is to dishonestly portray themselves as Jewish, when in reality the Messianic "Jewish" movement is an 1860's creation of Christianity in England. The movement was designed to have Jews be more likely to convert and feel more comfortable in church. In the case of Aliyah, Messianics are advising each other not to disclose that their true religious identities so they can disingenously use Israeli law to quickly get Israeli citizenship. This behavior is completely in violation of Israeli law. Unfortunately, this is one more example of the dishonesty of the Messianic movement in their interactions with the Jewish people.